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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