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Visit ODU.com to book a demo. It's ODOO.com. This is Cynthia with Heart of the Matter Radio for Women Seeking the Elegant Suckas Wisdom. In January 22, 1973, in Roe v.
Wade, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the right of privacy in the 14th Amendment gave women the right to have an abortion. Since then, countless women have ended the lives of their unborn, and many of those women later experience what is called post-abortion syndrome, which is a type of post-traumatic stress. Psalm 38 says, There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation. There is no health in my bones because of my sin.
For my iniquities have gone over my head like a heavy burden. They are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness. Today we reach out to those women and offer hope and forgiveness and healing.
Today my guest is Anna, and she has a story to tell. Welcome, Anna. Thank you, Cynthia. How are you?
Can you tell your story? I was fortunate enough to be raised in a Christian home. My whole life, I went to Christian school. I became a Christian when I was seven years old, very loving family.
But like many, when I went to college, I set away from my faith for a season. And part of that, setting away from my faith, was because it became involved in relationships with men. I valued a relationship with men over my relationship with God. I found myself after a few years in my early 20s in the relationship with a man.
We were living together at the time. And I found myself pregnant at the age of 22. And the man that I was involved with at the time had no desire for children at that time. And in order to keep a relationship, I decided even though I knew it in my soul, in my heart, in every part of my being, that it was long.
I decided to have abortion in order to save the relationship with men. It was a very hard decision. It was something that I lived with for many years. It was something that I struggled with because I knew in the midst of viewing it, but it was long.
We eventually became married and eventually had another baby of our own together. It was part of when I had my daughter. I suffered from severe, postpartum depression after she was born. And I think part of the reason was that guilt, overwhelming guilt that I felt when we abortion, that I had just a couple of years earlier before I had her.
And depression was something that I felt lived off and on for several years. Eventually, about five years after my daughter was born, we got involved in a local church and started walking with a lawyer that became closer in my relationship. But there was something that I felt like was a barrier to a full relationship with Christ and that was the fact that I had willfully sinned in doing abortion. And thankfully, a Godly woman spoke to me one day in love and truth and grace and said to me, and I will never forget this, she said to me, how arrogant are you to not forgive yourself when it was done at the cross.
And that began a journey for me. To forgive myself, I went to a local pregnancy resource center and went through a post-abortion to help them and found freedom and forgiveness for what I had done and going through all of that. Can you describe the day that you had the abortion? Was there anything there that was traumatic or difficult later on?
Did you wake up in the night and think about it? I would have nightmares. It was the day that the abortion, it went to a doctor. It was just a regular doctor's office.
It wasn't like a mill or a clinic or something like that. It was like a regular doctor's office. But the sensation of having the abortion, because I was only about five weeks pregnant, but that sensation of that feeling, I will never forget that, but it happened. I remember I was crying the whole time.
Even though I was giving some sedation, I was crying the whole time and I will never forget that feeling of that suction. It's something that wakes me up with nightmares. Even to this day, I still have that sensation, brings back a night-nolish type of feeling. But you did that because you were trying to keep the man that you were living with, you were afraid that if you didn't do that, he would lose him, right?
Yes. I was totally dependent upon him financially, emotionally at that time of my life. I didn't have the security that I could take care of myself, if that makes sense. I felt like I needed that man, that security came from that man instead of my own independence and my own strength in taking care of myself.
I valued that more than anything. You felt like you had no other choice? I felt like I had no other choice, because it was one of those things. When I became pregnant the second time, he wanted me to have an abortion at that time as well.
We went to a clinic, but it was a 24-hour waiting period. We came back home and I said I could not do it. I couldn't do it. I would leave him.
I had the strength of that point to leave him. He agreed and he had the baby. You were able to communicate how much it hurt you to do it the first time? Yes.
Small-way I was able to do that, but it took many years for me to be able to fully communicate that to him. As part of my healing going through the counseling, a lot of that didn't come out until that time. The full weight of what he had done. He was pregnant.
He was walking with the lower two and he bears a lot of guilt himself because of what happened and what we did at that time. What gave you permission to actually say all that stuff that was bottled up inside? How did you finally get to the place? You just let it out.
Well, part of the healing process and the step-by-step recovery that the post-abortion counseling gave me was it really was very purposeful in going to the root causes and what led up to it and a lot of it was writing it down, writing the story down, writing my feelings down, journaling and getting it out of myself and putting it on paper that helped tremendously. Me being able to put it into words helped my husband understand what happened and what we had done. I'm the magnitude of what we had done. You kind of describe those feelings that were bottled up so that if someone else feels the same way, you can say that I understand.
I think the feelings that were bottled inside were I felt when I knew I was a murderer. I knew and I had bored that guilt and that shame because I had willfully done something and how could I have willfully done that? It was so much feelings of guilt and shame that were crushing to me. But thankfully because of the work that Christ did at the cross, I didn't have to, I realized that I didn't have to bear that, loathe because it was taken at the cross.
There are many issues and sin issues in my life that I deal with regularly but this was one that could be crushing, that shame, that how could I have done that? And people that, you know, enemy could use that as a tool to keep coming after me as your murderer and shame on you, shame on you, shame on you. But thankfully I'll be able to lay it at the cross and that's not been a crushing burden in my life anymore. So Satan is the accuser of the brethren.
He's going to keep bringing that up. Do you have any problems with that now or do you feel like he attacks you now at times and you still have to say I'm forgiven and forgiven? No, I feel very blessed. And I think about that from time to time because I don't know if it was just the way that I, the purpose of the counseling, the following, the following, the way that I dealt with that, is I think to be something that he would hold on my head, but it's not been.
Once I was free of it, I've been free of it since then. And it's not the moment that he has power for me in that area anymore, which I'm so thankful for. It was a powerful thing for me to really let go of that and cannot be held captive by that anymore. Do you keep track of how old this child would have been?
Yes. And yes, I think, and we'll talk about it from time to time. The child now would be 23. And my husband and I talked about that from time to time, but if that child was still living in, I had had had, because of other previous relationships I actually had, I missed a neck-hand by pregnancy before.
And he had the signs in the previous marriage, and he was lost to child. So we talked about it from time to time that we could between the two, we had five children between the two of us, but we only had two but a living. And that's over in thought. Let me think about that.
How different our lives would have been if they were all living. What about the day? Do you keep that in your mind of the day that you had it? Do you remember that every year or the child?
What would have been the birth day? No. I remember a month that I had it, that I actually had the procedure, that I had the abortion, it was in May, but the date of the child's birth. I remember that for the year, that time it was not the birth day of the child.
I always remember the May date. So you do kind of think about it though when that time comes around to me. Yes, it is. I've heard doctors say that there is something innate in a woman that they know that it's an unborn child and they know that taking that life, even that they've been taught it's okay.
They know innately that that's wrong. You're disagree with that statement? I would agree. I would agree with that.
Not only did I know it was wrong from that angle, but just because I know it was wrong from a simple, you know, I knew that it was a life and I knew that I was committing a sin, not a sin of omission, but a committing a sin. It was a purposeful, false rule, then I was getting it. That was a minimum, not a difficult for me for several years to deal with myself. So what then was the difference when you had your own child that you did allow to be born?
Did you start comparing and contrasting? How did that impact you? How did it impact you to have a living child and carry the pregnancy all the way through? Well, I had a hard pregnancy.
My now living child. I was actually, I ended up being in the hospital for almost two months before she was born because I had the central preview with her. And part of me at that time was, you know, I was always thinking, is this God's punishment to me that I could lose this child because of what had happened before. So I always had that fear, even though we decided that we wanted her and we really wanted her.
But the first night that I had, I don't know if you're familiar with that, but you start him reaching with that condition. And the first night that happened, I just had this overwhelming feeling of dread of this is God's punishment to me, but what had happened is I thought I was going to lose her. And with every fiber of my being, I wanted her. And that was the hardest part leading up to her birth because we were just so afraid that it wasn't going to happen.
And she was born prematurely and very tiny. And so that, leading up to her birth, that's part of what we dealt with. And when she was an infant, I struggled with, and I didn't even get, back then we didn't even give a name, you know, it was about 20 years ago. Because part of my depression wasn't really talked about really very much then.
And I was young. I was only 25, so I was very isolated. We didn't have a lot of friends who were not part of the church. And I was dealing with part of depression.
I was hung along with a baby. My husband traveled five days a week. And so that, so my reality when she was an infant was I was dealing with depression. And thankfully I made one friend who came to my house every day to make sure I was out of bed and took me outside of the park or to do other things because she was so worried about me.
And we never spoke about the depression. She just, you know, later we talked about it. And she said, I was so worried about you. You're scared you were a young mom, I'm lying with a baby.
And so you just don't, you know, I was being a bed because I was so depressed. But I didn't really know, I didn't even know I was depressed. Does that make sense? I was tired.
And because it was 24 seven for me with the baby. And so it was, the first year was very difficult for me. With her, we talked about children being a blessing on a bird. Even when she was wanted, it was very hard for me that first year.
And so I was dealing with depression. It made it deadly hard because I was, like, they were glad when they were there. It was like, oh, I shouldn't. But I didn't recognize it even yet.
I had to look back on that time. I realized that's why I was in the depression. Right. The depression came because you were probably thinking subconsciously, I should have had a baby before this.
I killed it and so on. Yeah, definitely. Well, just for those that don't know, I am a registered nurse who's retired and will send to peer via issues describing means that the placenta is either down very, very low in the uterus or else sometimes we'll cover the cervix and you will get some bleeding sometimes from that. And sometimes abortions do cause some damage that cause the babies to place in places that are less optimal.
We can't be sure in the situation that that's what happened, but it's more likely after an abortion because sometimes the walls of the universe are damaged. But the Lord, it looked like the Lord puts someone there for you to come alongside during that time because even then he was showing you grace. I think that's me. That's really precious.
Yeah. And it's a friendship that's a long thing. The longest thing in the future of my life is with this person. And I love her nearly.
It's just that's like she left me. It was God's grace reaching out to me and asking me that time of my life. Absolutely. I love John 1 16, which says that he has given us grace upon grace.
It's like he just pours out and pours and pours. And I think that's what he was doing with you at that moment. Yes. And I'm thinking of the city, you talked mention the personal previous to be a physical ever since, I mean my whole adult life since my pregnancy, I've been dealing with multiple physical issues surrounding my, my years, the politics to cancer cells to cervical issues.
I've had many, many procedures in my life since then and I always wonder if it's because of the abortion. Is that a cause, is that a cause factor in all the physical problems that I've had the last 20 years as well. Sometimes it can cause enough damage that the person can't get pregnant again. Of course, I don't know your history because I haven't seen your chart or anything, but it sometimes can cause some damage there, which is I'm thankful that in your case you were able to have another talk.
Can you just be great now to that woman who's out there and perhaps she has a secret. She doesn't want anybody to know in the church that she has done this. What would you say to her? I would say that God's grace is there for you.
I have been so blessed by every time I share my story with my Christian brothers and sisters that I am received with love and open arms and acceptance. It can be a powerful thing to share a story of God's grace in your life and how you have learned to forgive yourself because it can be a tool that can be told to others. And it's an opportunity for others in your body to love you as well and to just be open and honest and transparent is a very powerful effect. I think in our lives, I think it's very important because everything, every single time I share the story of my story, it is opened up doors that I would never have gone through before and able to be able to talk to somebody about something.
It's always been. It's always been. It's always used it. Not just in my life, but in other people's lives as well.
Zen wants to hide. It doesn't want the light. But part of healing is just getting it out there and talking about it and letting God do the forgiving process and letting you forgive yourself. And God can heal even this sin because he's bigger than we can even begin to imagine.
And I want to thank you for telling your story and being willing to be open because hopefully there will be women who are changed because you told how you hurt and how the Lord healed you. Thank you very much. I think I did any of the opportunity to share my story. Anna is off the line now, but if anybody would like to reach me to talk or to get more resources I'm available.
You can reach me at Cynthia at CL7s.com or CynthiaL7s at gmail.com. In this area of Atlanta I recommend cop pregnancy and there are other pregnancy resources out there as well, but I'd be delighted to hook you up with someone who could help you if you will contact me. Thank you and God bless.