I Was Once Ashamed but I Am Now Forgiven

This story is written about the choices I made, the things I went through, and the secrets I kept for so many years—from being sexually molested and abused as a child, to getting married as a teenager and what led me to having an abortion. You will read how God has brought me through those times and showed me how to deal with them and how to heal. Now I feel led to share my story in hopes of helping others.

To this day, I don’t remember making the appointment.  I’m sure I must have but I guess my mind has blocked it out. I do remember being in the waiting room; I remember wanting to run out of there.  I also remember the doctor talking to the two of us and asking Mike if this is what he wanted also.  After all they just assumed it was his child I was carrying. I remember the doctor’s office and the room where the procedure was done. Mike mentioned to me again, while we were in the waiting room, that the father didn’t want anything to do with the child or any responsibility.  He felt we were making the right decision.  It seemed that the doctors, nurses, and personnel at the clinic regarded it as just another medical procedure that happened every day.  And to them, I guess it was.

Then a nurse came in the waiting room and called my name. My heart sank.  Mike and I looked at each other and stood up. She brought us down the hall and into a room. As we entered the room I saw the equipment that was to be used. I got undressed and put the gown on and sat on the table.  I remember feeling so cold. I was so nervous; I decided that I couldn’t go through with it after all.  I looked at the door.  I was shaking.  Then I heard a knock on the door and then someone say “Can we come in?” I just froze.  The doctor and nurse came into the room.  Mike held my hand.  I’m sure he could see the scared and indecisive look on my face.  He kept quietly saying “It will be all right, we talked about this, and this is something we need to do.   It’s for the best.”  The nurse and doctor looked at me and said “It’s not that bad.  It will only take a few minutes; you might feel a couple of cramps. It doesn’t take long and you’ll be on your way, it will all be over with soon”.     

While I laid there on the table, I kept thinking to myself, I can still leave, if I leave right now.  I kept closing and opening my eyes, looking around the room, thinking what am I doing here?  The nurse started preparing the instruments on the tray by where I was laying. I remember staring at those instruments not knowing what was going to happen next.  Then they brought in a big piece of equipment, a machine I would call a vacuum.  My heart felt numb. My throat felt like a hard lump was in it.  I couldn’t speak.  I closed my eyes and cried within.  I could hear the metal table being wheeled around me, the instruments vibrating on the table with every wheel that turned.  I could hear the doctor and nurse talking and passing things back and forth.  I don’t even remember what they said.  My mind was only on the procedure and what was being done.  As the instrument entered my body, it felt like very strong and painful menstrual cramps without easing up.  This pain was nothing compared to the pain I felt inside knowing what I was doing.  I could hear a noise that sounded like a vacuum.  It was… it was an awful sound.  I could almost feel the scrapping. I felt part of me was gone.  

I was so ashamed.  I felt… well, I couldn’t even begin to explain my feelings at that very moment.  I felt sorry and regretful for what I had just done.  I wished I could turn back the clock of time.  I felt worthless.  I wasn’t sure if I could ever face the world, my family or friends again.  Even if they didn’t know what I had just done, I knew.  I knew!

I laid there thinking to myself:  I had just aborted my child!  Lord, what did I do?  I just aborted my child!

I had a lot of mixed emotions of anger, bitterness, tears, pain and shame. 

At one time in my life, I was too ashamed to go to God and ask for His forgiveness or even show my face.  I was too ashamed to go to church.  I even strayed further away from Him. The devil, the enemy of my soul, kept telling me over and over what a bad person I was and that I’m already going backwards, I might as well just keep on slipping further and further away.  But one day I really searched my heart and my life and where I was going in life. I looked to God and really sought His face and asked Him for forgiveness and He forgave me not just some of my sins but all of my sins.  What a peace I received. 

So many men and women are hurting from making that decision to abort their child’s life, some believing it was wrong and others who were uncertain. It is a very painful memory with lots of questions, pain, bitterness and tears.  I want to assure you that there is forgiveness and hope through Jesus Christ.

I thank God that He is who He claims to be and that we can go to Him with any of our problems. He loves us with no conditions attached. No matter what we’ve done or where we’ve been he’s still there with an unconditional love that surpasses any of our understanding.