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Maggie Sweet
Pennsylvania,
United States
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My name is Maggie Sweet and I come from Quakertown, PA.
Twenty-eight years ago I made the biggest mistake in my life, I had an Abortion. I already had two sons from the abusive relationship with a man twice my age and, during my last pregnancy, he had an affair with another woman. We had hoped for a new start and moved in with his mother in Puerto Rico. She was very old school and experienced difficulty on how to discipline my children.
I had prayed for a little girl in hopes for the relationship to subside, and, shortly after, I became pregnant. My mother in law was none too happy and my own feelings of resentment and what was to become of my own future overcame that decision.
I was 12 weeks along on Friday the 13th day of December 1985. When I walked into the abortion mill, it felt like cattle. During the abortion, it felt like my body was being ripped apart. After the abortion, depression didn’t allow me to focus on my two sons. For years I struggled “silently”.
My healing came during my Mother’s near death experience. My mother, a pious woman of eighty who devotedly prayed her daily rosary and had never taken any shortcuts in life, had an adverse reaction to a diabetic medication. For months her health was deteriorating and in the final two weeks before her hospitalization her weight had gone from 153 to 113 pounds. It wasn’t until her near death experience that the doctors discovered the reaction to the medication had caused her to have liver failure. Although she has a third grade education, she certainly has a PHD in love and with that love she was able to endure intense suffering like none I had ever seen. As she laid in the ER the doctors requested we say our final goodbye. I was too choked up and unable to speak but as I walked to her bedside she was able to whisper the greatest wisdom I have ever heard … She whispered, “Don’t cry for me, I think of the pain of Jesus Christ.” At that moment, it hit me like a ton of bricks and that moment that was the day I discovered my purpose in life, for it forever changed my heart mind and soul in that instant. During her life she had contemplated on the life of Christ by praying her rosary and attending mass and at the moment of her near death experience this enabled her to unite her sufferings with Christ. I looked up and pleaded with God to spare her life, and I promised to dedicate my life to bringing kids back to the basics. Not only didn’t she die, but shortly after a visit to Fatima and Lourdes she was off the liver transplant list within a year. I kept my promise, and I felt a passion to save the world. So I learned my faith in order to passionately echo it back to all with the authentic teaching of Christ and also continue to pray my daily rosary.
My healing continued as I went through Rachel Vineyard, my daughter joined me for the weekend retreat as she spoke about how my abortion effected her life and how dearly she missed her sister. She also found healing during Rachel’s vineyard.
The consequences of abortion had not only devastated my children’s lives… but soon I discovered how destructive the consequences of Abortion also had affected my other sibling’s lives.
My brother’s girlfriend aborted their child when they were teens. Today my brother is forty-four and childless. I cannot begin to tell you the effects this has had on him every day of his life.
Also, before I had my abortion I recall reflecting on my sister who had two previous abortions, and how it didn’t seem to affect her. What I didn’t know was how devastated she will forever be. I am also responsible for both of her abortions as I drove her to the mill. Words can never express how sorry I am.
After twenty years of silence one day while I was working at our Parish Gift Shop, a young pregnant girl entered and confided in me on how she was contemplating an abortion. I shared with her not only the devastating consequences of my abortion, but also of both my brother and sister. As she left the gift shop she thanked me for my testimony but was still unsure of her decision. I wondered and prayed for her. One day about a year later I heard a knock at the Gift shop door and to my surprise I recognized the young lady who stood in front of me with a smile unlike no other, as her hands gripped a stroller. She said she wanted her son to meet the woman who saved his life. As she lifted the canopy off her stroller…there was the most beautiful baby boy smiling and kicking his feet as though he knew exactly what was going on…I had a lump in my throat and teary eyed and I asked if I can perhaps hold the baby…she said of course he’s all yours. I picked him up kissed him, lifted him up in the air and exclaimed, “God this one’s for you”. That was greatest moment of my life. Before that miracle I had hoped the Abortion problem would someday go away, but then discovered I was part of the problem because I wasn’t part of the solution. In a society that seems to have forgotten the generations of children that are to be born from each child. The effects of one abortion are immeasurable. I thank God for my healing and therefore I will be “Silent No More” in life and not even long after my death for my final resting place will have engraved I Regret My Abortion.
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Silent No More Awareness Campaign: Reach Out - Educate - Share
www.silentnomoreawareness.org |
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