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Lauren
Pennsylvania,
United States
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Due to weather or travel problems, many of the people who planned on sharing their testimony at the March for Life in Washington DC in January 2016 were unable to attend. The testimony below is what they had planned on sharing at the event.
For many years I had a secret, going back to when I was a teenager. Like most teenagers, I did not consider the ramifications of my decisions and how they would impact me for the rest of my life.
At 18, I had my first steady boyfriend. After 8 months, I found out I was pregnant, and a worker at the clinic told me that an abortion would be quick, easy, no one would find out or get hurt, and that we should schedule one as soon as possible. I thought she was the only one in the world who understood my dilemma, and that was the only choice she offered--so I chose.
A week later on Feb 6, 1975 my boyfriend drove me went back to that clinic to abort our baby. I remember feeling nothing emotionally. We never spoke about it, and, as is usual in these situations, we broke up soon after.
Like all my friends, I lived a lifestyle of partying and one-night stands, along with another pregnancy and abortion. We all believed the lie that abortion was a normal part of being a woman. We unknowingly buried the grief, because the world convinced us there was no need to grieve over a bunch of cells.
Several years later, I married my husband. He knew about the abortions, but we both believed they were no big deal, so we never talked about it. Soon after, we both became followers of Jesus Christ. For 35 years I thought I was okay and believed the lie that the abortions were behind me in a past life.
The truth is that women and men who have lost children to abortion often suffer from post- abortive stress (PAS) which is very much like post-traumatic stress. I was suffering the symptoms but the cause was hidden, until one day all that changed.
In 2012, I heard that my old boyfriend had died suddenly. I was very depressed, and thought I was going crazy, because in all the years leading up to this, I never had any thought or desire to reconnect with him. This depression went on for months until I finally opened up to my husband. I told him that even though my old boyfriend and I had not spoken since we broke up, we always had a bond--our baby. I was shocked to hear myself finally speak the truth.
From that moment on, I became a mom grieving for her babies along with the shame over what I had done. For months I suffered in silence because I thought that I was the only one in the church who had made the choice of abortion.
This suffering not only affects the parents who carry the shame, along with the grief that is buried deep in their core. It also hurts their families and friends who feel the loss in their lives. The pain is felt by grandparents grieving over grandchildren they will never get to hug and spoil.
I thank God for leading me to Rachel’s Vineyard, a ministry of post-abortion healing. If it were not for the Rachel's Vineyard retreat I attended in early 2013, I would not be able to stand up here today.
It was there that I finally learned that the blood of Jesus is powerful enough to forgive us for the most grievous of sins. There is nothing outside His healing reach.
It's for the women like myself, who are sitting in churches every week needing the healing forgiveness that only Christ can bring, that I am silent no more.
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Silent No More Awareness Campaign: Reach Out - Educate - Share
www.silentnomoreawareness.org |
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