NOTHING IS WASTED

I became sexually active in 1969, the year of the famous Woodstock music festival. I never made it to Woodstock though I had tried my best to find a way to go. I had also missed the “Summer of Love” two years earlier in San Francisco, so I turned the summer of ‘69 into my own summer of love. You see that was the summer I lost 40 pounds or so and joined the counterculture as a sort of libertine apostle of the free love gospel. I had abandoned any moral reservations about premarital sex before I was 12 years old, but I lacked the confidence to properly engage the lifestyle I wanted. This changed in my “summer of love.”

By the time I turned 16, I was living a predatory lifestyle that lasted for the next twenty-five years. Of course, I didn’t see it that way! My “mission” was to help girls find sexual freedom. I even had a doctor providing me with open prescriptions for birth control pills to make sure there were no “mistakes.”

I was married by age 19, but that didn’t slow me down much. Monogamy was not my thing. I even rewrote my wedding vows to make them less restrictive. Of course, I was single again by age 26 and back in the game. However, this time I was a young professional with more resources! Oh, I was hurt by the breakup but not convicted of my own failures. I managed to hide my own emptiness behind a party lifestyle powered by sex, drugs and alcohol. I barely noticed the downward spiral of my life. If I fathered any children during that time, I didn’t know about them; that was the furthest thing from my mind. I made it clear to women I dated that any such consequences were their responsibility, not mine. (What a guy!)

By the age of 31, I had mellowed a little. When my girlfriend got pregnant, I nobly accompanied her to the abortion clinic and paid for her abortion. At that time, I had no moral reservations whatsoever. I thoroughly bought into the pro-choice position, and my only concern was that my girlfriend might feel guilty. It struck me as odd that she voiced no reservations, but I was mostly relieved that I didn’t have another problem to deal with. But God planted a seed of conviction in my heart.

Ten years later, I was married again and raising two daughters. I had lived most of my life denying and rejecting God’s plan for fatherhood. Yet, He had allowed me to experience that joy. I hesitantly put them in a Christian preschool (I didn’t think much of my own twelve years of Catholic education) and began to observe Christian fellowship close-up as I attended school events.

My daughters soon made friends with neighborhood children from a Christian family—and their father led me to the Lord. I joined a local church and was soon in fellowship with Christian men who taught me about God’s plan for marriage and family. It was at a men’s event in Washington that God dealt with me about my sin of abortion. He led me to truly repent of that sin and to find His forgiveness and restoration. Through Healing a Father’s Heart by Linda Cochran and Kathy Jones, He allowed me to fully face the gravity of what I had done and to fully experience the power of His grace.

I am now in full-time, pro-life ministry where I can share that gift with other men who have fallen into the same sins that entrapped me for so long. I am also able to reach out to abortion-minded men and women in a variety of settings presenting the truth about abortion and its aftermath. God has saved many lives through my witness. Nothing is wasted in God’s plan. He has used my worst decisions to bless others.

Tom Walker

Tom Walker is program director for Broward Right to Life and responsible for 40 Days for Life, Sidewalk Advocates for Life, Making Life Disciples (CareNet) and Luncheons4Life. He is an elder of The Church at Deerfield Beach and a director at South Florida Bible College.