I was just really down, really sad and alone. So, I had a one-night stand with somebody. Then after that sexual activity this time I found myself pregnant.
Being raised in the church and coming from such a faith-based home I couldn’t see myself going to my parents or anybody at church and saying anything with that kind of guilt and shame and thinking how shameful it would be for them to then have to tell people “Our daughter’s pregnant or she doesn’t know who the father is.”
I went to someone that I worked with. She said, “I could take you to Atlanta. I had two abortions and everything is okay.”
I got really involved in church even to the point that I wanted to be really involved in children’s ministry. I think I was looking at that as a way of, if I can get back involved in church then maybe I can see God loving me again or other people wanting to be around me if they were to ever find out about what I had done.
A couple of years passed and the guy that had been my boyfriend through those years and I could see myself with had come back. We ended up getting married. I had a son that was born and that’s really when it hit me. Through a Bible study at the time, a faith-based study with other women that had also experienced abortion I found God again. I found myself again.
I had gone to my husband. I had to be completely honest with him. He had known about the abortion. I had finally told him about that afterward but I had never told him that there was a question behind if he was the father or not.
In this healing journey after we were married, I did need to be honest about that.
I went to my parents and was honest with them that there was a grandchild that they don’t have.
I’m a daddy’s girl. My dad has passed now. I miss him dearly but I did go to my dad first. I felt like this is a conversation I can have with daddy. He’s going to talk to me about it and not be so tremendously heartbroken and hurt in a different way as I imagined my mom. That was really going to be difficult. He was just very loving and wanting to be there for me in that moment. I told him that I knew I needed to talk to my mom but I was concerned about that because I was so afraid it was going to be so hard for her.
We were out on the front porch, he was out there and I was standing. He had mom come out there and she sat down on the stairs. I in tears told her about it. If you ever imagined the eyes of Christ looking at you, if you’ve gone and tried to be completely honest about something and take your mask off and be just completely, this is me and this is real. I saw the eyes of Christ that day in my mom’s eyes. The love that they were able to give me even after me taking their grandchild away from them just truly showed the love that they had through God and offering that forgiveness to me as forgiveness is offered to all of us.
God called me to go before my church with all of these people that had raised me and loved me and to be honest about my past and my abortion choice. The love from them was great and tremendous also.
The more honest I have been the more I allowed my mask to be removed, not only has it healed me greater over the years but every time you lead someone through a study. Every time I speak to someone like this about my story, it’s truth and truth is amazing.
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