My Story – The Post Abortive Study, Part III

One of the chapters in the Forgiven and Set Free study book focuses on discovering more about the character of God.

The first section in the chapter discusses how God is the great Provider—Jehovah Jireh (Genesis 22:1-14).  One of the questions asked me to explain in what ways God had provided for me regarding my abortion experience.  I answered in the following way:

September 3, 2009

God has provided in so many ways.  He has “seen to it” (Jehovah Jireh) in so many ways.  He provided and gave me [my husband], a man who stood by me and loved me so very much and has taken care of me over the last 24 years.  God provided care that my womb would not be damaged and that it could bear more children.  He’s provided freedom from fear of man, that I may be free from that fear ruling my decisions and my life.  He gave me three more beautiful children.  He knew all I could be past who I was back then.  He knew all He would provide and do with me and who He would grow me up to be in the future past who I was back then.  I know He will comfort me, grow me, teach me, and mold me as I walk this valley of regret and sorrow over Grace Noel’s loss.  I trust in this journey we take now because He is doing something.  I know He is!  And He will be glorified.

In the second section, the chapter focuses on God being the great Healer—Jehovah Rapha (Exodus 15:22-26). 

One of the greatest things that touch me in the Bible and about Christ Jesus is the fact that “by His wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).  The “chastening for our peace fell upon Him”.  I am so grateful to Christ for His sacrifice and for the grace and peace from God He has brought upon me and upon us all.

The following is what I wrote on the same day regarding God being my healer:

Oh my God YHWH and my Lord Jesus, you know exactly what I need.  You know exactly what I need to be healed of this pain and anguished sorrow I feel over Grace Noel’s death.  You know how I long to change what I did, to have Grace Noel here now.  My heart aches and longs to change the past, to make it right.  My heart aches and longs for the child I do not have, for the child I forsook to save my own skin.  I know we are here today because you are working on doing this healing and I’m so grateful and so thankful to you for how you are “seeing to it” all.  You are the God who sees to it all.  You take care of it all and I am so thankful.  Have your perfect way and timing with my heart, each moment, each group meeting, each relationship there, with talking to our kids or the telling of anyone else in our family or circle of friends.  Oh God, I’m hanging tightly to you!  That is my most important job I feel.  I must hang on to you tightly and fully trust you every step and allow You to guide me and lead me wherever you will.  You have got this all under your control!  I’m your little girl.  I am your clay, a humble and simple earthen vessel that You only can shape and mold into anything of beauty or anything worthy or glorious.  You are my potter.  You are my Perfect Potter.

With regards to the next section on God being Jehovah Tsidkenu—Righteous, I cry out the following prayer:

Oh my God, my YHWH—You know all too well my remorse and my regret and my sorrow over the past.  I have asked for forgiveness, but I say it again.  Oh my YHWH, please forgive me for such a trespass against You and against Grace Noel…Forgive my many sins committed.  I gave my body away carelessly in my youth.  I was ever so foolish in my thinking and my actions.  You are such a MIGHTY REDEEMER in it all!!!  I am Your work!  Oh, my Grace Noel, once again, please forgive me, will you please forgive your mommy?!  God, You know my heart completely.  You know all the anguish I feel and am struggling with.  I did an awful thing taking Grace Noel’s life away.  Oh God, cover me with your forgiveness, love, and grace.

The anguish I have stuffed down for so many years has finally been given complete permission to come to the surface.  What a deep anguish it is.

Due to all the great sorrow surfacing, I became edgy, grumpy, and extremely sensitive to little things here and there that touched my life and reminded me of my loss and the decision I had made in my youth.  Circumstances which at another time wouldn’t have meant much at all suddenly became painful stabs to my heart.  They pressed on my open wound and hurt deeply.  I found it quite difficult to spend my alone time in the mornings working on my post-abortive study to follow that time with trying to do “normal”, “demanding” daily life, pretending that all was “as usual” with me.  I felt like such a fake and pretender to my children and my friends.  No one could imagine the immensity of the turmoil that was taking place within my soul.  I felt so alone except when I would attend the post abortive group meetings once a week.

One evening, my daughter kept asking me why I was so grumpy.  I explained I had a lot on my mind, and she pushed for more information.  When I wasn’t providing hard facts, she suddenly blurted out, “Are you pregnant?!” with such excited hopefulness in her voice.  If she could have only known how painful that was for me to think about.  She even went as far as to ask if I was having a girl, so she could have the sister she’s always dreamed about.  She pushed the topic, and I explained it would take a miracle for God to make me pregnant now.  She then asked me to play a game with her on her dad and tell him that I was pregnant to see how he would react.  She had no idea how hard it was for me to try to play this game and look at my husband and say, “I’m pregnant” with all the thoughts and emotions that were going on within me about my first pregnancy, the loss I was feeling, and the crazy thoughts that if only I could be pregnant with my first child.

Another time, my husband and I were at a restaurant, and we were served by a very talkative and friendly waitress.  She hung out at our table and talked and talked to us like we had been friends for a long time.  She mentioned how much she liked her parents and that they were so cool, and she spoke about how her mom had given birth to her when she had only been 17—another jab at my wounds.  There I sat, looking at that young woman, full of life and friendliness, with her dark long hair and features that easily could have resembled my own daughter.  Her mother had given birth to her at the same age I could have been giving birth to my own daughter.  She was alive and my Grace was not.  Ouch!

My husband and I did not have any other significant heart to heart conversations after our initial one just before the study began.  I didn’t want to hound him with my intense struggles and pain.  I desperately hoped for and wished for him to ask me to tell him what was happening and for him to want me to share it intimately with him.  I wanted to see that he did want to know more.  But he did not show that to me.  It hurt my feelings, but I reasoned he wasn’t ready to deal with the pain that I was dealing with, so I remained silent.  Once or twice he asked how things were going, but the conversation did not turn into anything much.

September 2, 2009

“Right now I’m driven crazy in my mind by the exasperation of what I did and being unable to change it or do anything different.  I am overwhelmed, I think for the first time in my life by the fact that we cannot go back and change our past.  What’s done is done and we can only live in the present and go forward into the future.”

Over the days, the three songs God gave to me kept playing over and over again on my IPOD and in my mind.  Each of the songs would take turns being more meaningful on any given day, and each one made me weep every time I listened.

Amazing grace

How sweet the sound

Amazing love

Now flowing down

From hands and feet

That were nailed to the tree

His grace flows down and covers me

It covers me…

It covers me…

It covers me…

I came face to face with the fact that God’s grace is abounding!  His grace is supernatural.  It covers me and all my sin.  It covers all of us and all our sins.  My lips were filled with praises from the words of Psalm 103:

Bless the LORD, O my soul,
         And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
    Bless the LORD, O my soul,
         And forget none of His benefits;
    Who pardons all your iniquities,
         Who heals all your diseases;
    Who redeems your life from the pit,
         Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
    Who satisfies your years with good things,
         So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.
    The LORD performs righteous deeds
         And judgments for all who are oppressed.
    He made known His ways to Moses,
         His acts to the sons of Israel.
    The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
         Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.
    He will not always strive with us,
         Nor will He keep His anger forever.
    He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
         Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
    For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
         So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
    As far as the east is from the west,
         So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
    Just as a father has compassion on his children,
         So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.
    For He Himself knows our frame;
    He is mindful that we are but dust.

I became anxious about the need to tell our kids the truth and the fear in the thought of telling them.  I wanted to tell them, but I was worried if it was the right thing to do or the right time to do it.  I kept calling out to God for guidance in the matter.  I have a dear friend in another state that I did email a long letter to and shared with her the saga of what was going on in my life.  She knew I was going through a difficult time, and I felt complete freedom in telling her the truth. 

September 4, 2009

I need to start with something important before I forget.  It’s about my viewpoint of all my pre and post abortion scenes in my mind…

I noticed something after the group meeting yesterday.  When I see the scenes of before, during, and after the abortion there are more scenes that I see first person.  I’m inside my body and looking out.  Then, there are scenes I see from third person where I see myself from an outside point of view.  However, there is something different about the scene when I’m in the bathroom right after the abortion.  That one I see in both viewpoints.  But I also see it in this third person viewpoint from further up above.  It’s God.  I see the bathroom without any ceiling on it, and I see myself sitting there on the floor by the toilet.  I’m so wretched and miserable.  And that’s where grace flows down.  That’s when I now hear in my head the song “Grace Flows Down”.  That’s the scene He gives me of His looking down at me and His grace flowing down over me.  At probably my most wretched moment in my life, when I had just had my baby’s life terminated, and I sat there so sick and miserable and unable to open my eyes in the muck of that bathroom, His grace flowed down.

And I continue in that entry crying out for wanting my baby back and crying over the terrible anguish that grieves me in a most desperating way.  The sorrow and regret are absolutely agonizing.

I have a child missing in my life and there is nothing I can do about it!  NOTHING!  Except grieve the loss of that child and let God heal the gaping hole in my heart, life, and soul. 

I wish for a second chance, and I long desperately to make up for what I did.  But I face the reality that there is no bringing my Grace back into my womb.  My raw and intense emotions wear me out each day as I deal with all of the memories and the pain.  I find it unreal how the sadness over Grace Noel creeps in and over me so suddenly at any moment.  I would be fine one minute and then suddenly not fine the next.  I was affected by seeing pregnant women, I longed to be pregnant myself, and I longed for Grace.

September 5, 2009

I’m so sad.  So very sad.

Depression is knocking loudly at my door, and I’m trying not to let it in, while at the same time I want to fall into its arms.

Next:  My Story – The Post Abortive Study, Part IV