"JACOB’S HEART" – A FATHER SHARES ABOUT HIS ANGER AND DEPRESSION AFTER ABORTION. YEARS LATER HE FOUND FORGIVENESS & HEALING, AND WROTE A BEAUTIFUL SONG TO HONOR HIS SON.

By T.R. Glass

In 1988 when I was 23 years old, I started dating Deanna who was 20 at the time. After a few months of dating, Deanna shared that she was pregnant.  I could tell she was scared.   Deanna told me, “I can’t do this to my parents, and bring shame on myself and my family. I don’t want to be labeled one of those girls.” 

I learned later that Deanna was also fearful of my reaction if she decided to go ahead with the pregnancy; could she trust that I would I be there for her?  Or would I abandon her as a single mom?  This fear led her to see abortion as the best solution.  I bought into the cultural message that it was “a woman’s right to choose.”  So I needed to be supportive of her decision.  We chose abortion. 

I was living with my parents at the time and since my early teenage years, could always have frank and open discussions with them. I told them I was going to take Deanna to get an abortion. They were stunned. Silent. Just like my response, they perceived the decision already to have been made, so they said nothing.

A week after my son Jacob’s abortion, my father said to me, “You know, that was our grandchild” and my reply was, “Well dad, how do you think I feel? He was my child.”

His words, as well as my own, stuck with me through the 13 years of depression and anger after the abortion.

Deanna and I continued dating and married a year after the abortion. In early 2001,  Deanna participated in an abortion healing program at a crisis pregnancy center and found healing and peace. Through God’s grace and confronting and confessing her sin, she again was walking in the “newness of life” and had found peace. I wanted that peace.

I too went through counseling and found forgiveness and grace for the grave sin I had committed. The song Jacob’s Heart, was written for my son’s memorial service as a prayer for, and to him, seeking his forgiveness and reconciliation for not acting in love, but acting in fear. (You can find a music video of my song and lyrics for Jacob’s Heart at the close of this article.)

If you are struggling from a past abortion, you can find confidential and effective help here.   Find peace with God, with yourself and with your child and receive the forgiveness to live the “abundant life” that Jesus has called us to.

May God’s richest blessings be with you all.

JACOB’S HEART

Lyrics & Music by T.R. Glass

How can I remember who I’ve never known?

How can I see someone if he can’t be shown?

Oh Lord, show me Jacob’s heart

How can I hear someone that has never talked?

How can I walk with one who has never walked?

Oh Lord, show me Jacob’s heart

Let me hear the beat, that I never heard.

Let me hold his hand, hear his first word.

Don’t want to think about how I made him cry.

Don’t want him to ever ask me “why?”

How do I say I’m sorry for doing what I’ve done?

For taking the life of my first-born son

Oh Lord, show me Jacob’s heart

“Forgive them father, they know not what they do.”

I hope this was Jacob’s prayer too.

Oh Lord, show me Jacob’s heart

Let me hear the sound of laughing in my ears.

The playing of the games, the drying of the tears

I don’t want to remember, turning him away.

I don’t want to forget, what I long to hear him say.

Oh Lord, show me Jacob’s heart