Editor’s note: This is the story of abortion and freedom written by someone I know and love who wishes to remain anonymous. I wanted her story shared to help other women find freedom in Jesus.
I have never felt the weight of a newborn baby in my arms.
I’ve never looked upon a little face, eyes, nose, lips, cheeks overcome with the truth that this little beauty is mine, grown in me, forever my body outside of itself.
At no time did I experience the warmth and tickle of my child nuzzling her face into my neck.
The sweet scent only babies have has never hung in the air of my home.
I’ve never heard a sweet little voice whispering, “Mommy.”
Not in any way did I feel little hands and fingers grasping mine as if they will never let go.
I didn’t cry at her first step. My ears never heard her first word. I was never graced with the melody of her tiny laughter.
I have never experienced the most intimate precious splendor of her smile.
However,
I became a mother at 17.
I have awoken to live my 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd birthday.
My sweet little girl never saw her first.
Because…
She’s dead. At my hands.
As I move through daily life, mindlessly completing mundane tasks, such as; walking to the supermarket, washing the dishes, hanging laundry. There seems to be another reality simultaneously playing out in my mind.
I’m standing on a cliff. The sea of memories below me. Each wave is one of lament washing over me. Foggy scenes flicker in and out of my mind, taking me back. Tendrils of emotions weaving their way into my consciousness until my heart finds itself five years in the past while my physical body is still en route to get the groceries.
October has a certain impression to it that no other month of the year possesses. There is a vibrancy and tension in the atmosphere, almost like everything—The grass, trees, water, even the air is stubbornly holding its last breath of life. Just on the verge of exhaling before the winter brings death. I find myself there once again. That October of the past.
2008. 11:00 A.M
The skin on my back makes contact with the surface of sterilized white paper spread over the long chair-like beds you find in doctors offices. That crinkling sound the paper makes doesn’t cease underneath my trembling. Fear pulsing through my body, so riveting, so demanding of my mind. The blinding light above causes me to blink back tears and attempt to shield my eyes, but I realize I can’t because a woman is tying rubber around my arm and sticking a needle into my flesh. Now the room is blurry, and the voices are hazy…but I know the lies being breathed.
“It’s okay, It won’t hurt. You’re not going to feel anything.”
“You need to do this.”
“This baby is not really a “baby,” it’s just a glob of tissue.”
“It’s not alive, Kayla.” (They don’t even know my name.)
“Hush now. Don’t cry. Don’t scream. Don’t move.”
“Stop crying. Kayla. Stop.”
And then they stop speaking, maybe they knew I simply didn’t care what they had to say. The crushing, suffocating, paralyzing weight of what I was doing was upon me and no thing, no lie, no justification this world could produce would console me.
I stayed still like a doll and allowed them to do what they’ve done hundreds maybe thousands of times.
I pulled oxygen into my quivering lungs and that doctor, well, he pulled a child from its mother’s womb.
In just one moment that stands still for what feels like all eternity, a life is ripped from this world. And then that moment flees.
I think the moment itself is ashamed to forever carry a piece of time in which something so awful occurred.
Mr. “Dr” stands up, whispers an unheard thing to the aid, gives me a second glance and vanishes. My eyes locked with the blinding light above me, Im not aware of the time passing but all I can give of what’s left of the shell I now am, I give to the God I did not believe in. It was him, I was aware of right after the most dreadful moment of my life. It was that Jesus. The knowledge of him encompassed me, outside of time, it was him. He was there.
And then I crumbled and all of who I was shattered into hysterics.
In the months following my abortion I lost myself completely. I created a world of torment around me. There was no peace, no solace, no refuge. I abhorred the time passing that carried me farther and farther from the last moment my child possessed life.
And I did everything to stay in that place of self hatred and depravity that I deserved. But the Man Jesus had one of my hands and refused to let go. He gently walked me out of that prison. He loosened my grip from the bars made up of lies and condemnation. He breathed life into me and the darkness of my cell disappeared altogether.
As days turned into months and those months became years. God in all his divinity “manipulated” every situation in my life to draw me into himself. The ungodly, unchurched, murderer that I was. I was crippled in my shame and he lifted my head. I was ugly and deformed and he called me beautiful. I had no voice and he made me sing. God in his absolute majesty lifted me out of the most vile desolate pit and set me upon the most glorious mountain. He promised himself to me. The most Magnificent, Pure, Lovely being in the entire universe, The Uncreated Son, who was before all things and in him all things are held together, The one who is infinite and holds all honor, chose to look at me and call me; Worthy, Desired, a Saint.
He chose to die
beaten and bloodied hanging from a tree
for me.
So that thousands of years later when I also made a choice that involved death, I could be forgiven.
Because of Jesus when I leave this world, I will enter heaven and hold my precious baby girl in my arms for the first time.
I will kiss her cheeks and whisper her name.
I will finally know the color of her eyes and the sound of her voice.
His love, His sacrifice, His life has granted me access to a certain knowledge that there is infinite joy set before me.
I am Healed. I am Forgiven. I am Free.
‘Im 22, and I stand with the other 1.3 million American woman who had an abortion in the year of 2008. Although every single story is different all 1.3 million of us made a choice. However different the circumstances, mindsets, lifestyles, lies believed, we all walked through the door of an abortion clinic filled inside with a life, and walked out the same door emptied of that life. All of our stories are different, but the outcome can be the same.
“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God DID: sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according the Spirit.” Romans 8: 1-4 (author emphasis)
What a powerful and true story. Maybe yours is similar. God wants freedom and healing for all women including you. Please pray for the women considering abortion or who have had an abortion and live in guilt. If you feel led, write a prayer in the comments below.
