August 31, 2009
…This breaks my heart in the loss that I feel. The emptiness I have that is being revealed about a child I can never have or bring back while I’m on this earth. I believe a day will come when I will know my child face to face…but for now I’m left with aching loss and emptiness. It’s like the Matthew 2:18 verse:
“Screams of anguish come from Ramah,
weeping unrestrained;
Rachel weeping for her children, uncomforted,
for they are dead.” (TLB)
My own version goes like this:
“Screams of anguish and great sorrow
are buried deep within my heart,
weeping unrestrained.
[…] is weeping for her child, Grace Noel,
and comfort is hard to find
because Grace Noel is dead.”
On that particular day I was working on the chapter called “Relief and Denial”. Part of the assignments was reading Scriptures about various people in the Bible who made grave mistakes and pondering how I could relate with some of their experiences.
“With Eve [Genesis 3] and King David [2 Samuel 11, 12] I relate in the way that I desired something that was physically pleasing to me—sexual intercourse with my boyfriend. And although I knew deep down that it was not something good for me at the time, I convinced myself otherwise and took and had of it anyway. Somehow I justified my actions and thought I wouldn’t really have the serious consequences to face for those actions! Ha! Unlike Eve, I did not really point my finger and blame others. I was in this situation because I put myself in it. As with David, I experienced an initial relief that has been followed by gut-wrenching remorse and regret!! And I’ve had to endure the pain and sorrow of my baby being dead. With Peter [Luke 22:54-62] I see the root of my greatest problem with choosing to go through the abortion: FEAR of MAN! Oh, that has been such an evil in my life. Such a breaking down. Such a bondage that has held me tight in firm chains and dictated way too many certain actions. **No more!** Fear of man will no longer rule my life! Or rule my actions or decisions.”
Only the God of all heaven and earth and the Lord Jesus Christ, can daily keep me from any chains that try to hold me in bondage to fear.
After 24 years of living with my experience, this is how I feel about abortion:
“Abortion is wrong. Abortion is the taking of a human life. It is the killing of an innocent unborn child. Abortion is promoted as a solution to a mistake, but it is actually a greater mistake. Abortion lies to women. Abortion is like the Adversary (Satan) convincing you it is for the best and then leaving you all broken up in the end. It is like the Adversary as it robs women of their children and binds them in post-abortion distress, regret, sorrow, etc. It is like the Adversary as it steals, kills, and destroys in women’s lives. Abortion is a lie!! Abortion is breaking my heart in the great, devastating loss I feel over my first child; my little Grace Noel.”
Does a human life begin at conception? If it doesn’t, then when is a human life a human life? How can one say that yesterday a baby at 20 days was not a life but suddenly today, at day 21, it is? Life is life. Once a male sperm and a female egg unite, life is taking place! Incredible processes are taking place and shaping a child. If you have any doubts about that, get a book or a video on fetal development and observe the amazing processes of life that take place. As I was asked to do a similar activity in the post-abortive study book, I was impressed by:
“--how fast the baby is changing and developing those first few weeks of life
-- the baby’s innocence and helplessness
--the way it is holding its little arms
--how it’s forming and developing in the similar position it will be in even at full term”
There are various verses in the Bible that speak of life in the womb such as Jeremiah 1:4-5 and Luke 1:41-44. But the best words from God regarding the life that God gives all of us are spoken in Psalm 139. David says of God:
“For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me…”
I have no doubt that Grace Noel’s life began the moment I conceived her the second week of March 1985. In fact, I’m pretty certain I know the exact date of her conception to be March 8th, 1985.
It is sometimes easy to convince ourselves that we have not taken the life of a child in abortion. We do that to help us cope and live with what we have done and to try to assure ourselves it was all fine and what must be done under the circumstances. We may think and believe that we are perfectly fine about the matter and that it is not affecting us in any way, but that is all a lie. It is affecting us; whether we consciously know it or not.
“I had an abortion…
…to relieve the pressure of taking responsibility for my actions and having to face my family and [my boyfriend’s] family with the truth…
…because I felt anxious about facing our parents and also being a teen mom and finishing high school…
…because I was afraid others around me would think badly of me; would be so angry with me.”
The moment I went through with the procedure I knew that I had killed my first baby. To deny and deal with my loss, I convinced myself that I had no other choice. Now, it is so clear to see that I did have other choices. And I can’t fully express with any words how much I wish that I had made a different choice.
In looking at the story told in the Bible in 1 Kings 3:16-28 about the two women approaching King Solomon with the dilemma of their babies, I express:
“…how I wish I would have been selfless enough then to be the woman willing to give up my child to another rather than to have it killed…It is such anguish to face this being who I am today. The gravity and seriousness of what I did to my baby breaks my heart and tortures my mind!!...But for me, it wasn’t whether I wanted the child or to give it up for adoption. It was that paralyzing manic fear that wouldn’t face my parents with the truth. I want to face them with the truth! Now I do! If it would only change what I’ve done!”
But the reality and finality, once again, is that we cannot change our past. I can’t go back to change the fact that I did not make wiser decisions in my youth. One of the wisest decisions I could have made 24 years ago was to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. We cannot change our past, but we can certainly live more wisely and abundantly in the present and into our future. Jesus Christ makes that possible.
When asked the question in the study “What is needed to make a good decision?” my thoughts were:
“Wisdom is needed to make a good decision. Something I greatly lacked! If [my boyfriend] had stood firm and more supportive of having the baby together and not just going along with me whatever I decided, would I have changed my mind? Would I have felt the strength to face my parents? Would his resolve and strength been what I needed to overcome the fears? Maybe. But it is hard to say now, since we are both very different people today. Different things are needed by different people in making a better decision. Maybe, if we learn from others on what drove them to abort, we can also learn the different things needed by any number of persons to make a wise decision. But bottom line, an incredible SUPPORT to choose life not death. Unconditional support that will overcome any thought of abortion. That only life and then adoption or keeping the child will be the options to decide upon.
[My boyfriend] could have been a key for me. I had the lady at the clinic, but she didn’t have a relationship with me on a day to day basis. It was hard to bring her into my fear and pain and seemed ridiculous to bring her to tell my parents. And my friend, whom I told, she was my age and a teen herself. How was she ever going to help me raise a baby?
***After further thought…True wisdom comes only from God! I desperately needed an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. While I had said “the prayer” accepting him at least a couple of years before finding myself pregnant, I had no real relationship with Him. With Him as the Lord of my life, I am almost certain that I would have had the strength and the courage to make a better and wiser decision and to face my parents with the truth.”
A living, breathing, and active relationship with Christ give us a strength that we would not otherwise have. It is absolutely supernatural and the kind of strength needed to face and overcome crisis in our lives; even when it comes from our own foolish choices.
The final questions in chapter 3 of the study book asked me “How did you change emotionally, physically, and spiritually following your abortion?” and “What do you think is the major way abortion has affected your life?”
“I know that the abortion changed me in many ways. Some of those ways I won’t ever really understand or know because I only know my life from what actually happened, not what could have happened. For a few years, I still believed abortion was okay in the first trimester. Did I continue to believe this to make myself feel better? I don’t know—but I think so. However, when I would try to make a stand for it, deep down I knew better. I knew that it would only bring great sorrow and loss sooner or later to anyone going through with it. I had my own sorrow and loss to deal with that I had stuffed and hidden way deep down inside. God only knows the full extent of the effect that this has had on my life. One thing I know for certain, as with all the other difficult and painful emotional episodes in my life, it has made me much more compassionate and less judgmental towards my fellow man. I am much more willing to love unconditionally, be more understanding, and extend greater grace to others in their failings. I have been forgiven much and therefore can love much (Luke 7:47). One more thing I know it did. It caused me to want children in the future more so than I had ever wanted. Probably, I wanted to make up for what I had done, somehow. And so, even though in my youth, I hadn’t particularly been that interested in children, after getting married, I looked forward to the time when we would have our own children and hoped that I would be able to.”
“To list THE major way that abortion has affected my life is difficult. However, there is an inescapable and devastating sense of loss. It is a desperate loss, because it is a loss that you can’t fix or fill. And the fact that it was my decision and my doing that my baby is dead makes it all the worse. I am only now beginning to fully see the huge impact that this has had upon me. Even though, I know very well that God has forgiven me and His grace has covered it all, it is still difficult and painful. I keep thinking that if God is really my all in all as I say He is, He would be enough to fill this aching emptiness and loss that I feel in my heart. But maybe He doesn’t want to fill it completely. This is part of who I am now and of the character that I have now. I can rest assured that I am forgiven and walk in forgiveness and in His overwhelming grace. But if I am to really be able to be empathetic and helpful to others in a similar situation, then I am not to be numb to this loss and emptiness. No, as a mother, I will always feel this terrible loss of my first child, my little Grace Noel. How I DESPERATELY long to go back and change what happened. How I DESPERATELY long to go back and give life to little Grace Noel, to watch her grow up, to be her Mommy and love her like I have loved my other three children. But I cannot. It is too late. I can only look forward to the day when, in the presence of God, Grace Noel and I and her daddy and her brothers and sister will greet each other and we’ll be able to speak our words of love.”
Next post: A Song - Footprints in the Sand
Related post: My Story - The Post Abortive Study, Part III
Related post: My Story - The Post Abortive Study, Part III
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