Forgiven and Delivered from the Guilt of Abortion - An Encounter with Jesus Christ

I remember when I turned 14. The world didn’t make sense to me and I felt so alone and scared, like I didn’t fit. Being a teenager, I was made to believe it was normal for the insecurities which I felt. I now look back and see that this was a point in time where God was calling me. I didn’t recognize Him. He would have saved me from going through all I was going to go through but I didn’t run to Him, I ran from Him a lot of the time- getting myself deeper into trouble and further away from Him.

I grew up in a small town. My mother and father were Italian and they raised all their children in the catholic church. They were very strict and domineering. We attended catholic schools and church every Sunday.

I got a job as a bank clerk in the local area after I left school. My troubles began when a male friend began to stalk me. There were no laws then. He would follow me to and from work. Bother me at work. Told people we had a sexual relationship and I was his girlfriend which was all lies. One day, I had enough and I told him where to go. He told me he was going to kill himself if I didn’t date him. I said I didn’t care if he did. Then he told me he was going to kill me. I believed him. I knew I couldn’t be alone so I protected myself by being around people all the time.

Co-workers & friends assisted me. I was scared all the time though. He still was bugging me. Then out at a night club, I met someone new. I liked him a lot and began spending time with him. He became my protector, my knight in shining armour, my safe place. Being bigger, stronger and older than my stalker and constantly by my side, my stalker finally disappeared from my life. My problem was solved. This new man was my hero and I loved him for it.

Of course, after a couple of months, he wanted a sexual relationship. I was shocked to learn that all my close friends had had sex. I felt like I was the only one in the world who hadn’t. I thought there was something wrong with me. I also felt like I owed it to him as he had rescued me and he would probably leave me for someone else if I didn’t and worse, my previous stalker would return. So, we had sex.

I waited for God to strike me with thunder and lightning bolts as per my religious upbringing, but He didn’t. He was silent.

My boyfriend was very happy after this. He was very good to me. Sex become something I had to do even though I felt guilty. I thought about God from time to time. I wasn’t sure if he was real or not. One day I said hey God, I am having sex tonight with my boyfriend, and I am tired of feeling guilty so I have decided I am not going to feel guilty about anything anymore and I don’t care if I get pregnant. It is all your fault anyway because you put me in this predicament.

Two months later, I fainted at my workplace. I knew. I went to the local doctor. She confirmed I was pregnant. I went into a daze. The doctor asked me about my boyfriend and religion. She also commented that Jews believed a foetus wasn’t a real person as not being born meant no soul. Therefore abortion should not be viewed as killing. This would probably be the best option considering my current age and position in life but she would give me one week to think about it.

My first thought was God really hates me. Then I told my boyfriend who responded with whatever you want to do, I’ll go along with. That’s not what I wanted to hear. He was putting the whole burden on me. I wanted help with the decision. He retreated from me and I turned to my closest sister. You know what our family is like. I know what I would do and I strongly recommend it too. Don’t ever tell anyone.

I blocked it out of my head for a few days hoping that this wasn’t really happening. Pregnancy was suppose to be a happy thing not a terrible thing. Reality check – this was happening. I had to force myself to think about my options and I had to make this decision on my own back and I had to take responsibility for it too.

Keeping it, adoption or abortion.

In the catholic tradition you have degrees of sin – mortal sin and venial sin. You could work your way out of venial sins like swearing, lying, fighting but the big sins like murder and adultery were mortal which meant you could never go to heaven.

I thought God wanted me to fail in life because of the situations I found myself in and so he didn’t care if I went to hell. So I made my decision.

I went into a surreal trance of existence. Blankness. Nothingness. My boyfriend drove me to the clinic. I was scared and told myself to be brave and don’t think about it too much because I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be able to go through with it.

My boyfriend then left the building, he didn’t want to think about it either. He left me alone and I was afraid. In the waiting room I waited. The air was cold and deadly silent and eerie. I wished someone would rescue me from this nightmare, but there was no-one to rescue me.

I reasoned with myself. Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes there are things that you don’t like but you just have to do. Sometimes you just have to do what you think is best. I then allowed myself to have a moment with the baby inside my stomach who I would never get to know. Tears filled my eyes and I spoke straight from my heart. I said “Baby, I am so sorry. None of this is your fault, but I am sending you back to heaven. You may not believe this, but I do love you. The only way I can go through with this, is knowing that you will go to heaven and be happy and safe forever. I will go to hell so I will probably never know anything about you but I do know that you will be in a far more wonderful place than earth could ever offer and that is what really matters to me. And if it turns out that there is no such thing as heaven or hell or God or devil, than I truly have done you a favour because it is such a pointless, useless existence. So goodbye.”

I refused to talk to God. I wasn’t sure if he was real or not anyway and I was angry at Him.

I remember what I went through still today, on that day and none of it was easy or nice. When it was all over, I wept and wept.

As I laid in the recovery room, I looked around. I saw many women of all different ages and races. Some were prostitutes, some were teenagers, some looked like ordinary mothers. Some looked poor, some looked rich but in this room we were all the same – baby murderers. I wondered what had brought them to this place and why. Although we did not know each other personally and probably never would, there was a sense of belonging. We had a secret bond with each other, we were in the club that knew the pain and sorrow of abortion. Then I cried some more for all these women and their babies. My heart was broken. I laid in the recovery room for four hours, continuously weeping, and then I fell asleep.

When I woke up I didn’t want to cry anymore. I went straight into denial mode. I pretended nothing happened and vowed to wipe this day from my head forever. My boyfriend picked me up. We went home. I got back into normal routine and blanked it out of my head. I was doing pretty well. I went to church every week. I worked at my job earnestly and did all the right things at the right time.

The only thing that changed was my decision making. I decided I wasn’t going to make choices about anything. I just let people tell me what to do, when to do it and I just went with it. My life to me didn’t matter anymore so I gave all my power away.

I stayed like this for about four years.

One day, while I was at work, a woman walked in with a newborn. My eyes immediately focused on the baby and like a knife in my stomach twisting and churching, my mind made the realization of the baby which I had aborted, was a real person with no defence – only at the mercy and grace of a God that I despised.

Now although I continued with the show of confidence and managed routine, I thought about nothing else but the baby I had lost. I hated myself. I hated the world. I hated God. I got drunk every weekend so I didn’t have to think. I began to listen to the voices in my head.

The voices became my friends. They told me that God hated me. They told me that God wanted nothing to do with me and I was going to hell. They came with me everywhere, even to church on Sunday. They told me about the people in this church who were also going to hell. My life was over. Every night, I would weep with sorrow for my baby and fear for the afterlife. I also began having horrific nightmares. I would also awake suddenly through the night and my bed would be shaking. I was full of fear and glued to my bed. I was running. There was fire all around me and screams like I had never heard before. Blood dripped from the cliffs and ledges I was running on. Something was after me. I had to run and keep running. It was black as black one minute, cold as ice next minute, then it was hot with fire and screaming everywhere. Things were after me. They caught me. These things were not the things I was afraid of – it was the thing following the things that I had to keep running from. It was terrifying. Was it God or lucifer? Never resting, always running, full of fear. I recognised the fact I was living some sort of hell from my guilt.

Every morning, interestingly enough, I would drive pass a billboard which troubled me. It had a picture of a smiley face with the words “God loves you”. I would tell myself, no he doesn’t, that’s a lie.

So that was it. This was my life. I was living a secret hell. Pretending to the world nothing was wrong, but on the inside I was a mess. Every night, I talked with the voices or got drunk to numb myself but I continued to have the nightmares.

I was now 23 years old. I felt I was going mad. One night as I was weeping into my pillow, talking with the voices in my head – I wondered if these were demons. By this stage, they were telling me to end my life. Kill myself. Suicide. We would discuss how and when. It made sense to me. Cutting my wrist was how I wanted to do it because I wanted to see the blood coming out of my body and feel the pain of death. Afterall, I did have blood on my hands. God had put me to the test in life and I had failed big time in so many ways and that there was no point in continuing.

I wondered if God was real. I wondered if he would talk to me face to face before I died. I wondered if he would show me my unborn child. I thought since I was talking to these voice people, if God was real I could talk to Him. I remember one of the voices saying to me – wait a minute, we have an idea. Instead of killing yourself, why don’t you help us make everyone come to hell with you. If you can’t go to heaven, why don’t you stop everyone else from going to heaven. I thought about that for a moment. But I replied with what are you talking about. I think everyone I know is going to hell. I don’t have to help people go to hell. They’re doing just fine getting there themselves. In fact, I don’t think anyone is going to heaven. So I guess my answer is I am not going to help people go to hell on purpose.

Then I took a breath, with my eyes closed and from deep down inside the depths of my soul with full on hope of a meeting with the Almighty, I cried out. “God, if you are real and everything they say about you is true, then I need to talk to you, right here, right now”. Before I had completely finished saying that sentence, a presence stood beside my bed. My demon friends scattered & disappeared. My eyes were closed but light shone as day through to them and I felt a hand, so gentle and strong and powerful rest on my forehead. From this hand flowed an unconditional forgiving love, which filled my entire soul. I felt it from the top of my head, flowing through to the bottom of my feet and out through my fingers. Electricity, life, love was touching every cell of my body. I was weeping uncontrollably because I had never known a love like this before. I cried “I’m sorry” and I meant it with every bit of my heart. I couldn’t speak in an audible voice but talking telepathically - “ You know what I have done and I am going to hell and there is nothing anyone can do about it.” Then He spoke to me “You are wrong – yes a wrong has to be righted, a price has to be paid for what you have done but I want to go to hell for you, - I want to take your place so that you can be free.” Then He said “Do you forgive your boyfriend, medical profession, family, friends, church and anyone else who has ever hurt you?” There was only one thing for me to say – I didn’t hesitate in this awesome presence. I said “yes”. It was easy to forgive all to everyone in this moment as I knew I didn’t deserve what was happening and how could I not forgive others when I was being forgiven. Then He said “Will you follow me?” I didn’t have any understanding of what this meant but I said “yes.” I wanted to be near this presence forever. The hand lifted off me and I felt the need to pray. I didn’t know what to pray, but the words of Our Father prayer slowly began to come to mind, a rough rendition of it, which I had learnt as a child. Then I fell into the most deepest and peaceful sleep of my life. No nightmare. No shaking bed.

Next morning, I was awakened by a brilliant ray of sunlight through the window. I felt strange, a good strange. I felt peace. I thought to myself, something happened last night but was it a dream. Automatically I walked outside, as creation seemed to be calling. My eyes for a second was blinded with light and I saw gold, sparkling around everything. It outlined trees, flowers, clouds, birds and even blades of grass. It was beautiful. Something had definitely happened- but was it really God or my imagination. I went through the day but my thoughts were constantly on last night’s event. I began to talk to God. I asked him if that was really Him who visited me. At lunch time, I had grabbed the local newspaper and on one of the pages an adverstisement jumped out at me. “For God loved the world so much, that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”.

My life began to change after that. I no longer wanted to die. God started giving me different pieces of scripture through various means proving He is alive and He is real. I had never read a bible for myself or understood it and never met any born again Christians until after this event in my life.

I can witness to you that God is real. I can tell you with 100% confidence God is love and He loves you. He loves me. No matter what you have done. I can also tell you Jesus did die on the cross because of sin and He died for you and He died for me.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. He truly did not want me go to hell. He does not want you to go to hell.

Remember, it is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick. I was sick not physically, but emotionally, spiritually and mentally. I was sick with grief and sorrow, guilt and shame and I was dead. I needed a doctor – Jesus.

My prayer is that you will truly know Him for yourself and together we will give thanks and praise to God forever. In Jesus Name. Amen.

Mary

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