My Story - The Post Abortive Study, Part V

The longer I walked on this healing journey with the post abortive study, the more I needed to talk and share with someone each day.  I wanted that someone to be my husband, but he seemed so distant with regards to this area.  I wanted him to ask me about it and be really interested in what was happening every step of the way, but he did not ask.  I didn’t want to bother him with all my pain, so I remained silent and did not approach him on the subject.   Much later on, I would find out he thought I would have brought it up to him if I wanted to talk about it, and if I wasn’t bringing it up to him, he thought I must not have wanted to talk about it.  I felt the same way with him remaining silent.  So during the remainder of the study weeks, we did not discuss anything in depth about the abortion or the study, and my feelings were deeply hurt about it and I did begin to feel resentful.  Occasionally, I would mention a little something about the study or my feelings to see if it would get a good conversation going, but it did not.  I felt like he had “checked out” on me.  [After the study ended, we openly discussed these things and cleared up all the miscommunication confusion.]

The silence between my husband and I was a bit of a stumbling block.  It sustained the feelings of shame and of hiding something that the abortion had begun 25 years before.

September 14, 2009

I feel like I’m almost still to remain where I was—hiding this sorrow and pain all to myself.  It’s still “taboo” in my life.  Sometimes I become so frustrated by [my husband] ignoring certain things and pretending they don’t exist.

Over the weekend I was saying to him how going through what I’m going through right now has made me really see and immensely understand and appreciate how people all around us are going through really tough times and we are clueless to what’s happening with them.  He agreed with what I said but didn’t say anything else.

Going through this, my eyes were opened wide to the reality that people all around us are experiencing and living through some very difficult circumstances to which others around them are absolutely clueless.  We all put on our “happy face” mask and go about each day pretending.  While on the inside, so many are screaming and needing help and compassion.

I’m hurting, I really am.  There is no acceptable place in our society to grieve the loss of our aborted babies.  Even though the truth is that God does not condemn me—the truth is that society does.  I wear the scarlet letter “A” of abortion.  An awful, terrible act for which society believes I shouldn’t have a right to grieve or to be free from judgment.  Oh no, I’m supposed to keep it to myself and hide it, tucked away.  I did it to myself anyway, right?  Ugh!!  I detest human fear and judgment and rejection that keep us all so tied up in pain and bondage to countless heartaches and keep us from being real with each other.  In the “Depression” chapter, the post abortive study book quotes the TL Bible’s translation of Proverbs 14:13 so well:  “Laughter cannot mask a heavy heart.  When laughter ends, the grief remains.”

Linda Cochrane states it so perfectly on page 73 of the study guide where the chapter on “Depression” begins:

“Depression may also result from their feelings of sorrow and grief that go unrelieved because there is no place in our society to mourn the loss of an aborted child.”

September 15, 2009

The two above (the verse and quote) strike a strong chord deep within me!  The verse I went to is Jeremiah 8:18:

“My sorrow is beyond healing, my heart is faint within me” (NASB)

“Incurable affliction is on me, my heart is sick within me” (CLNT)

“My sorrow is beyond healing, my heart is sick within me” (combined versions)

I know the truth—that my sorrow is not beyond healing.  But there are moments that it sure feels like that.  There are moments that I’m not sure my heart will or can find healing over what I’ve done to Grace.  But I have a MIGHTY and POWERFUL HEALER!  And I trust in Him!  And I am His!  And so is my heart.

My personal version of Lamentations 3:48-51 goes like this:

“My eyes run down with streams of water because of the destruction of my Grace Noel, my eyes pour down unceasingly, without stopping until the LORD looks down and sees from heaven.  My eyes bring pain to my soul because my daughter is gone.”

In Lamentations 3:21-26, how does Jeremiah say he finds relief?

“Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me.  This I recall to my mind, therefore, I have hope.  The LORD’s (YHWH) lovingkindnesses indeed never cease (have not come to an end), for His compassions never fail (are not finished).  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.  The LORD YHWH is my portion, says my soul.  Therefore, I have hope in Him.  The LORD is good to those who wait (are expectant) for Him.  It is good that one should wait in stillness for the salvation of YHWH.”  (NASB and CLNT versions combined)

How have I found relief from my heartache?  In the past, that has come from tucking it away in a very secret place and keeping it there.  Not thinking about it too much or too long so the heart doesn’t ache.  Putting it behind me and not facing it or looking at it.  That is why now, as I am made to face it and look at it in depth and length, it hurts so much!  It has been agonizing at times.  Any relief comes from my focusing on God and what He’s done in my life, His grace and love, and Him using this for good now.  When I look at Him and focus on Him, the ache lessens.

I do want anyone who reads this to know, that although this journey was a painfully difficult one, at the same time, I knew that it was exactly what I needed to do and where I needed to be at that time in my life.  I knew very well that it was exactly what the Great Healer had ordered for me at the perfect, ordained time, and that while it was a painful journey, it was one leading to healing and wholeness.  Quite bitter-sweet, but I was SO glad that I was walking it!

Looking up the following verses in the Bible for the study time, led me to a prayer…

Psalm 30:11-12:  You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, that my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent.  O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

Cross references:

1. Psalm 30:11 : Eccl 3:4; Jer 31:4, 13
2. Psalm 30:11 : Is 20:2
3. Psalm 30:11 : Ps 4:7
4. Psalm 30:12 : Ps 16:9; 57:8; 108:1
5. Psalm 30:12 : Ps 44:8

Isaiah 61:1-3:  The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted;  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners; To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD and the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting so they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.

Oh my Jesus and YHWH—I know You are binding my broken heart over Grace Noel and what I did 24 years ago.  My grief, sorrow are great, but You are greater!  It’s just that I had to get to this point of facing it all head on before You could do Your proper binding.  I had to put a band-aid on myself.  Now, as I’ve had to rip that band-aid off after so long, it’s very painful and bleeding comes forth.  But You will now bind that gash in my heart and soul in the way that only You can!  In a lasting way.  You are comforting me as I mourn over my actions and that Grace Noel is dead, and I cannot do any thing to go back and change that.  I look to You to take me through all this pain, moment by moment.  And my great hope is in You using this for good now and in the future and in the day when I will be face to face with my Grace.  Oh!  What will that day be like?  What will that moment be like?

In answering the question in the study, “Are there any particular thoughts or questions in regard to your abortion that repeatedly plague your mind?”  I answered:

--What baby’s shape and form looked like at time of abortion?

--The whole scene at abortion clinic

--If baby was a boy or a girl?

--What if I had carried him/her to term?

--What would have occurred with my relationship with [my boyfriend] if I had?

--What Grace Noel would have looked like?  More like me or her dad?

--How would that have changed my life?  So many possibilities!

--Having a 24 year old child today

--What if I had faced my parents?

--What if I had left the clinic and not gone through with it?

--Why did I go through with it?

--Why did I let fear rule me?

--Why did Grace Noel have to be my sacrifice?  Why did I make her my sacrifice?  (I knew so little about real love.)

--Why didn’t God stop me?

--Why did He let me live the way I did; so selfishly?

Although, this was all part of who I am today…and I do not despise who I am today.  I’m grateful for this place where God has brought me.

The study book asked, “From what bondages does God promise to set you free?” (pg. 79)

I answered, All.  

God will set us free from ALL shame, ALL fears, and EVERYthing that holds us in bondage.


Next post:  A Song - Held Safe in His Arms
Related post:  My Story - The Post Abortive Study, Part VI