Being promiscuous as a young girl started when I was about thirteen. I let boys do things to me which led to a lot of self-hatred, condemnation, finding my worth, finding value, having a dignity (which then led me to have an abortion). Then that took it to, out of control with those things. It just kind of intensified them. I acted out more immorally, (with more bad behavior). I was a very angry girl. I was hostile. I’m amazed that I even had a friend. I was angry, bitter, very judgmental. All that was just masked by hurt. I was deeply hurt. I made bad decisions and bad choices (out of that hurt). I blamed it on a lot of things. I blamed it on the fact that my parents were heavy drinkers and the lifestyle that I grew up in. They were very liberal. We had a very liberal home. I blamed a lot of it on that. I didn’t have structure really. I had a learning disability in school. I struggled with school. There were just lots of things, other things I pointed my finger to. I think essentially I didn’t want to deal with that. I just didn’t want to deal with that. It took some time to really go there because I felt that was unforgivable. That was an unforgivable thing. You can forgive me God for all of these other things but you can’t forgive me for that. You can forgive me of being very promiscuous as a teenager. You can forgive me of the drinking and the drugs. You can forgive me of the sexual sins that ran deep but you can’t forgive me for that. That was unforgivable to me, (the abortion that I had, had).
I remember my Buddhist friend saying, “chant about it. You’ll be alright. Just, you know, you made a decision. It’s done with.” I couldn’t get past it. I knew what I had done was so wrong. I struggled for twenty years with condemnation, self-hatred, and self-loathing. You would have thought that somebody would have recognized any of that. It didn’t happen. Nobody came to my rescue. Nobody asked questions, (until I was here in Tennessee). Some wonderful girls I went to college with, (one specifically), that walked the walk and talked the talk would ask me things. We would have great conversations about Christ. It intrigued me that she had been through horrible things too but she wasn’t angry. She wasn’t making bad choices. I mean, I was still making bad choices up until literally I got saved. I was still acting out of that hurt. It was amazing to me that I wanted what she had.
Last summer a girlfriend of mine, (at church) introduced me to another friend who does post-abortive Bible studies, (at the pregnancy center). God made it very clear. He’s kind of bossy sometimes. He made it very clear that I had to do this. I felt Him so close. It was almost as if: sometimes I felt like there was a person there. It just felt so strong, a lot like when I first got saved. Anything I asked for happened. I asked for dew on the page and it was there. I spoke scriptures that I didn’t even know. He walked through that with me. I learned that no matter what it is He’s there to redeem your life. At the end of that Bible study,(at the end of that season) my husband presented me with a bracelet that I always wear that says, “Redeemed”. It’s Leviticus 3:13. I believe, it says, “He took up my case and redeemed my life”. I wear it every day. There’s so much that He’s had to clean up. You know like a dad. He had to put me up on the counter and clean me up. Because I was covered with so much sin (variations of sin). That one specifically was the one that I realized: Oh, He’s not only a loving God but He’s a God that redeems.
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