Healing (Shame 7)

I stayed on a merry-go-round of sin and confusion and rebelliousness for many years afterward. I tried to control my life and get all the things I wanted, but without God's guidance I kept choosing the wrong things. I was empty all the time, but was too blind to see it. I came slowly around to God, but it took great patience and grace on His part.

He eventually sent me and my husband to a Biblical counselor, and my abortion was one of the first things God wanted to confront with me. "MM" (our counselor) loaned me a book entitled "Post-Abortion Trauma: Nine Steps to Recovery" by Jeanette Vought. As God spoke to me through this counseling and the book, I faced myself. I saw Michelle in God's eyes and recognized what my abortion had done to my son, myself, the father, and our families. I went through the steps, answered the hard questions about my actions and choice, and relived all the pain in order to heal. God carried me through all of it, because I asked Him to and I trusted Him. I acknowledged what I had done, confessed and repented and laid my sin at the foot of His Cross, and He forgave me. It was a healing process that took several weeks, and the enemy kept trying to drag me back into a pit of condemnation. I continued praying and talking to God about it, and trusting Him to heal me, but it was hard.

One night I had a vivid dream. It began as a beautiful extraordinary blue…like no other color I have ever seen. It was as though I was suspended inside of the blue as it swam before and around me like water. I felt peace, pleasure; happiness there in the blue as it moved and sparkled. Then I was pulled slowly away as a camera pulls back from a close up. The blue became smaller and I recognized it as an eye, then two. Then in slow motion the nose and mouth and face came into view. I saw a baby boy with the whitest blond hair that fell at his shoulders in little curls that lifted up. He had porcelain skin, and he was seated with his body turned away from me. The seat that held him was the enormous hand of my Heavenly Father. Joshua looked at me and smiled the most beautiful smile I have ever seen, then turned back to face God and play giggle games with Him. Joshua's right hand was raised and fisted playfully as he moved it and tried to catch something. I could feel delight between the two of them. The bubbling sound of his laughter finally erased the noise of the machine from my ears. I laughed with him and at him and I kept moving farther away but I didn't want to. I woke up, and my heart was full.

I will always thank God for that dream; the vision of my son in His hand. I know that in spite of me my son is thriving in Heaven. I thank God for His love and forgiveness and mercy and grace. He has given me a measure of joy that I cannot describe. I have been told that my joy is visible to people, but I don't know if they understand or even believe it is true. How can I not celebrate and worship and smile and laugh? I have been redeemed, saved, and forgiven for breaking every one of His Commandments, and He still loves me. His own Son willingly died for me, because He knew that if He did not I would spend eternity in torment. I am wretched and stained with sin and He has covered me in His Righteousness. I am not more special than anyone else; He just makes me feel that way with the gift of His love. I have hope and He has told me that I will worship Him forever, and He never lies to anyone. I cling to the truth of God as if my life depends on it, because it does.

Shame 6 (Wounding my Soul)

We arrived at the clinic and I was surprised by its appearance. It was just an ordinary building, but there was an oppression that I felt there. I was not spiritually awake enough then to understand it. He signed me in and we sat for maybe 5 minutes. They asked PK if he wanted to pay extra to have me knocked out but it was too much money. He told me call him when I was done and he would pick me up, then left. I tried to keep my tears to myself, but they were too deep…I seemed to have no ability to control them. Undoubtedly I was making everyone uncomfortable, so they moved me to a room in the back where I was left alone to watch a video. The video was a pretty young lady who had a "condition". She checked into the clinic as though it was a hotel, laid on a table, then happily skipped away…free from the consequences of her choices. 

As in the pregnancy clinic in Galveston, I moved from one room to another…lab, ultrasound, exam room, social worker. I was terrified, selfish, alone, desperate, and in despair. I wanted the fear to be gone, and I thought this was my only choice. Finally I was moved into the room where the procedure would be performed. As my soul mourned and I could not stop the tears, a counselor was brought in to calm me down. She held my hand and whispered soothing words to me so that I could not hear the other sounds in the room. But I heard everything anyway. The doctor assumed I was crying because I was afraid of the procedure, so he attempted to help me by explaining each step as he went. Comprehension came with every word from him…too late to stop it as my child was murdered in my womb, then removed. Above me on the ceiling was a picture of a kitten hanging from a limb by one paw…urging me to hang on. I focused on that picture and on the counselor's voice, and after an eternity it was finished and I was moved into a recovery area. I was relieved it was over, but something was different. I was finally able to stop the tears but my heart was sore, and I felt disgust for myself. I cannot pinpoint the moment, but it dawned on me that I had carried a son. I didn't know how I knew that, but it was a truth that resounded in me.


PK picked me up and began to make conversation with me as he drove, but I began to vomit. I could not get the hatred out of me. When I finally arrived at Cheri's, I was able to tell her enough. She and her family treated me like their own…I never felt more loved by them. I put on my mask and tried to pretend I was the girl on the video, not just that day but for many years afterward. I wanted to bury it and pretend it had never happened, but at the same time I wanted to justify my choice to myself.


What is clear to me now is that all of the things I hoped to prevent by having an abortion came to pass anyway. My family and close friends found out and were ashamed of me, and my future was forever changed. I did go on to college, but the wounds to my soul from that day stopped me from walking the path that I thought was ahead of me. The enemy of my soul tempted me to abortion with happiness, prosperity, and peace, and I accepted what he offered, but it was all a LIE. I didn't get anything he offered me.