“Laura’s Story”

continued…

Do you feel like you have been sentenced to a lifetime of torture…forever suffering the pain of abortion? I once felt the same, thinking I could never be free of the pain. I thought I deserved to suffer. This is what Satan wants us to believe. But he is the father of lies!
Jesus came to set us free!

Let me share with you my friend Laura’s story of her release from prison. Her story is one of freedom and victory that I hope will strengthen and encourage you to seek help if you haven’t already done so. It has always given me courage when I hear another’s story of healing and I pray she will be a blessing to you as she has been to me.

Laura’s story: Several years ago, I was released from prison. If you’ve ever known anyone who has been confined by walls, bound by chains, and silenced by guilt and shame, you would know that for them, life on the other side is a distant dream. I longed to feel again like the girl I was before… before my prison sentence began. My prison was not made up of barbed wire, guard shacks, and visitors on Saturdays. No, mine was of a different kind. My prison was my past and my past was my enemy because between freedom and me stood one rash decision made out of a desperate crisis in my life, an unwanted pregnancy.

At the age of fifteen my life was forever altered as I willfully chose to have an abortion due to an unplanned pregnancy. I would live a life shackled by guilt, shame, remorse, and many fears for the next sixteen years. I developed masks very quickly to deceive so many into believing I was who they thought I was, an innocent, squeaky clean, all American girl, when actually I was a very sad, scared, and terribly guilt ridden young woman.

From the moment I stepped down off the abortion table, a serious emotional landslide had begun, and it was to only get worse as I grew into adulthood.

I was convinced there was no help for me and no way out of this cycle of depression that seemed to consume me ever so often, the deep feelings of loss and sadness that seemed to have no origin, the uncomfortable and strange emotions I felt when around babies, the problems I was experiencing in my marriage and the inability to move forward in my relationship with God. I was stuck on a spin cycle and I was losing control.

Abortion is like having an open sore on the bottom of your foot, no one else can see it, no one else knows it’s there, but you know it because you live with it every day and with every step you are reminded of it.

Some of you know and understand the frustration that comes when you have suffered for weeks, months, or maybe even years with a debilitating physical condition that has invaded your life. You also know the relief that comes when a qualified physician gives you a correct diagnosis, a highly effective prescription, and the calm assurance that you are on your way to good health once again. Through a small act of faith on my part, and a huge act of mercy on God’s part, the Lord revealed to me at a specific time and place the diagnosis and the prescription needed for the emotional and spiritual condition I was in.

In the spiritual realm, it’s simply called bondage. In the natural realm of clinical psychology, it is called Post Abortion Syndrome.

The trauma of abortion had taken its toll on me and I had finally come to God broken and hurting and desperately needing His help.

Through several God-ordained events, I was led to AAA Women’s Services and a Bible study called PACE that is specifically written and designed for those individuals like myself who had come to the end of their emotional and spiritual ropes due to abortion. This is where my healing began. For the first time in my life I met other women who walked where I had walked, felt as I felt, and were now trying sperately as well, to squeeze through the same prison bars that held them captive also.

The God that knew me in the womb, the God that called me to salvation as a young girl, the God that tearfully watched as I walked away from him as a teenager, drew me back and threw me a lifeline of dramatic rescue from my prison by way of just one of the very special ministries offered through AAA Women’s Services. Through this Bible study God presented the truth of my situation based solely on His word. He healed my heart and turned my heart of stone to a heart of flesh, which enabled me to begin actually “feeling” life again, not just existing. The Holy Spirit began to penetrate my heart past the intellectual knowledge of what forgiveness and cleansing really meant for me. Forgiveness from God and forgiveness from myself launched me into a world of complete emotional and spiritual freedom I had never known.

For a few years now I have been busy telling others what God has done in my life. I consider it no less than a miracle. He has blessed me now with a ministry to hurting people, just like myself… I now lead the PACE Bible study and volunteer as a lay counselor at AAA. The truth from Scripture that says what Satan meant for evil, God meant for good echoes in my mind quite often as I have sat across from a scared, young girl debating the worth of the life she carries in her womb, or when I have had the privileged to travel the journey of spiritual and emotional healing with very brave women, young and old, as God begins the healing process due to abortion in their lives. I can’t think of a better way to turn the horrors of the past into something useful for God’s glory. God has and continues to work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

There are those of you who have already heard God’s call to freedom for you, His Child. God is not asking you to die or to suffer great torture. God is asking you to take certain steps regarding your abortion experience so you can get on with your life the way he intended and purposed it to be. If you’re afraid of facing what seems to be a monster, so was I. You will only grow more fearful as you focus on your fears. Fear is a powerful emotion, which finds its foothold when we focus on self rather than on God. Fear can be the stumbling block between you and freedom. We serve a great big God who is bigger than any sin you have ever committed and bigger than any fear you have ever had. I promise he can handle both.

Are you someone confined by the prison walls of your past, or are you the person ready to minister in Jesus’ name to those who need you? Either way, there is a place for you. You can become a special part of the daily fight to end the tragedy of abortion, one precious life at a time.

Read Part 24