Mi historia de aborto

DANA’S STORY
I really don’t have an excuse for the decision I made. I made one bad choice after another. I wasn’t raised in a Christian home. I had wonderful parents, but they didn’t take us to church. I went to church every other Sunday with my grandparents until I was a teenager. I didn’t have a relationship with God though. I was married and had a young baby. My husband and I separated. My son and I went to live with my parents.

While my husband and I were separated, I met a guy. I knew in my heart that he wasn’t good for me, but he showed me attention. I got pregnant. My husband and I decided to reconcile. I talked with a coworker about my situation and told her that I was thinking about having an abortion. She told me that she had had an abortion. She acted like it was not a big deal. I felt like I didn’t have a choice. I told my husband that I was pregnant and that I was going to have an abortion. He was okay with it. He didn’t offer an alternative. We never spoke of it again.

After I had the abortion, I was so full of guilt and shame that I couldn’t stand myself. A couple of years later a coworker told me how much God loved me. Eventually I understood that God did love me and He wanted to forgive me for all the bad choices I had made. I asked Jesus to come into my heart and be my Savior. Immediately I felt His forgiveness. He took the burden I had been feeling of guilt and shame from me. I am so thankful to Him for giving me a new life—a life with Him—a life I do not deserve. I am a murderer and an adulterer.

Through the years, the Lord taught me that His love is unconditional. Because I trust in Him, He continues to do that for me although I don’t deserve it. The devil wanted to use my past against me. But with God’s help, I realized I didn’t have to wrestle with the devil about it. Jesus had already won that victory for me on the cross. My identity is not in what I have done but what He has done for me. I am His daughter—the one described in John 1:3 “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” I praise God for loving me and forgiving me!

LINDA’S STORY
I am the oldest of six children born to an Italian, Catholic mom from the Bronx who never admitted that she got pregnant with the German boy who was a womanizer and a funny yet abusive man. En el momento, her seven older brothers convinced him the need to marry her. Mom was committed to secrets and lies to hide her mistakes which she never shared with anyone.

I was given Catholic instruction, which embedded in my mind that there was a judgmental God who was watching continuously to point out my mistakes and failures. It was reinforced by my agnostic father who only gave approval when he thought I looked good physically or when I demonstrated athletic ability. There was never a close relationship with either, so I grew up feeling rejected, emotionally abandoned, and terribly alone.

God seemed distant and absent. And by 14, I abandoned religion. Mom struggled deeply with Dad’s explosive, controlling, abusive, narcissistic personality and isolated from him. In high school, I was made to step in as a substitute companion to all weddings and social events. Mom saw me only as a babysitter for sisters that were 10 y 12 years younger. I became the good girl causing no conflict and the peacemaker to help my siblings survive a house of chaos and no boundaries.

When it came time to graduate high school and move forward with my own life, I was depressed and attempted suicide. My father shut me down permanently, and if I embarrassed him, he would get me committed.

I left Long Island and attended a college in Upstate New York against my parents’ will with the help of my guidance counselor. Sophomore year, my two friends and I went dancing and ran into three of the most admired men in high school. It was great fun, and my partner convinced us to go back to his childhood home to talk awhile. He pushed a glass of wine on us, and I apparently was drugged unconscious and awakened in my childhood bed the next morning. I did not get pregnant, but my hope of finding a good man to marry was shattered now that I was damaged goods. When my boyfriend returned from Vietnam a few months later, I decided to stay in the motel with him that weekend, and we got pregnant. We mutually decided we were not ready and believed it was not a baby. He arranged the abortion on Park Ave in NYC to get rid of the problem.

The procedure was a nightmare, and as soon as it was done, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. The doctor said there is no way to contact them in an emergency, so I was on my own to survive. This was when I buried the secret. This was when I numbed the pain. My life was ruined, and I would have to learn to live with the knowledge and pay the price.

There were times I tried to share with the church, but it was met with more shame, guilt, and fear. During the Jesus movement in the mid 70’s, I received salvation and desperately wanted to make him my Lord through discipleship. There were many ups and downs and a period where I drifted in isolation.

Sin embargo, in October of last year, I had the amazing experience of hearing Lisa from Lovelife.org. Her organization led me to Toni Weisz, and I held on to a glimmer of hope that perhaps I could receive more healing.

Jesus is gentle, merciful, and loves us more than we can imagine. Through the Holy Spirit, I was able to unlock the deep trauma that impacted my life. It was the holy exchange of surrendering my life so the lies my father and the enemy told me could be replaced with the Truth of who I am in Christ and a deeper revelation of my Savior. Yes, the resurrected life of Jesus, who paid the price at the cross, has resurrected me. I am now free in Him to serve him and be the woman he intended me to be.

SHARRONE’S STORY
I am the daughter of a teen pregnancy. I was raised by my mother and my maternal grandparents. Raised in the Pentecostal Church as a young girl with Grandma consistently taking me and my younger sister to church, I grew up knowing how important it was to have a relationship with Christ and was saved by the age of 11. Finding myself young, pregnant, and unmarried was one of the most frightening realities I have ever faced. Not knowing what to do was even more frightening. Do I tell my mother who had done the best she could to keep me from experiencing the things that I saw her have to go through? Do I confide in my grandmother who was my very best friend, but how could I disappoint her? How did I find myself here, 16 and pregnant? I felt I had I let down God. I began to think that God did not love me and that He didn’t really care what I thought about life! For years, I believed it wasn’t going to really matter that I was aborting my baby because the life that I was carrying was “just” a fetus. I believed “it was okay and that God would understand.” All lies!

I would go on and have two more abortions when I was 18 y 21 years old and a miscarriage at 23 before marrying my children’s father at 25 years of age and the fourth (last) abortion at the age of 33.

I remember walking out of the abortion clinic in 2001 thinking, “This is it, I NEVER wanted to go down this road again and ever do this again!” God heard the cry of my heart that day. I didn’t realize that in that small prayer God was holding me to my vow to Him. I didn’t realize how much my sin was hurting God, hurting me, and most of all had hurt my innocent baby. I was blinded by the lies and deception, walking in darkness about the truth of abortion. Afterward, I was in denial, miedo, shame, and guilt. All alone. I totally wanted to bury it!

The enemy used fear and shame to convince me that I could not have my baby. You see all too often women, young and old, have listened to the lies and believe that we can’t possibly go through with birthing the life that was created within us because of our personal circumstances. God wants every woman to know that He loves and cares about every single situation in our lives. We are His precious daughters, and our beautiful babies are precious to Him and have purpose!

Sin has consequences that we do not always want to face, but GOD!!! There is so much grace in God’s love for us! For me, that grace came through a healing abortion recovery Bible study. Through that small group study, God freed me and has restored my soul! No longer does the enemy bully me into the fears and shame that once tried to plague me. La Biblia dice, “Whom the Son sets free is free, INDEED!” Yes, abortion is a sin, but it is not an unforgivable sin!!! I am a living witness that God can free anyone!