Due to
client advocates’ vacations at The Community Pregnancy Center, the counseling rooms were supposed to be closed this Thursday. Only two staff members were even in the office.
We were supposed to be open for scheduling alone, yet a distinct voice
inside refused to quiet. I had to counsel on Thursday.
Literal stacks of papers scattered atop my desk, but somehow, that was
irrelevant. It was as if someone needed Thursday. Maybe God was setting aside
that specific, closed time for a specific, closed person.
He
was.
Thursday
morning, she sat in our waiting room alone. Her "General Information" seemed to
reveal a positive environment for a baby. The client marked that she was
twenty-five years old. She was a Christian. She was married and absolutely against abortion. She must have come to the
pregnancy center, because she only needed a Proof of Pregnancy for her Medicaid
Application. This wasn’t an unplanned pregnancy. This didn’t seem to be a
crisis. And yes, this pregnancy wasn’t a crisis.
“I’ve had 4 abortions.”
The first when she
was 16.
The second when she
was 19.
The third when she
was 22.
The fourth when she
was 24.
When
she was just 16 years old, she discovered her first positive pregnancy test.
Surely not. Surely it was a mistake. Surely this wasn’t right. She denied the
reality for weeks, dreading the response. Not only did this pollute her
own plans for her life, but this also affected her family. This affected her
mom. The very thought sent her into a panic. Finally, she gained the courage to
confess the fact. Her mother immediately drove her to an abortion-operating
clinic and bought an abortion for her 16 year old daughter, who by this time
was ten weeks pregnant.
The
others followed a similar pattern. Her mom bought the second abortion for her when
she was 19, beginning her college career. She paid for the third and the fourth
herself, barely able to pay the $600 base fee for each one. Each abortion
scarred her body, and each abortion shattered her heart. She knew she was far
along. She knew that baby already had a heartbeat, already had arms and legs.
Just before her fourth abortion,
she wanted to back out. The weight of her past abortions fell unbearably onto
every part of soul. She couldn’t do this one more time. She couldn’t do that to
another baby. She couldn’t endure the physical pain or the tormenting guilt for
yet another abortion. She told the doctor that she changed her mind, but it was
too late. The second a client signs her name onto that last waiver at these
clinics, she is bound to an abortion. The doctor already administered the
first dose into her body, killing the developing baby.
Walking out of the abortion clinic
that fourth time, she decided to never walk into their doors again. Last year,
her and her husband welcomed a son. Thursday, she sat before me desperately
hoping for another positive test.
When she finished her story, I took
a deep breath and reminded this haunted Christian whose she is. I shared the only Hope
able to withstand such fortified, unmoved guilt, the only One able to wholly
forgive. That’s why she’s been searching. That’s what she was so desperately
hoping for. It was never about a test. It was never about another baby.
God
opened the counseling room Thursday to assure His daughter that she is forgiven.
Nothing-no
thought, no word, no action-on this fallen earth could ever reach beyond the
righteous blood of the Son of God. Nothing-not one, two, three, four, or
fifteen abortions-could ever be unredeemable. This ashamed woman is loved,
wanted, pursued every day of her life, and even more—she is forgiven by the
King of Kings. Her entire countenance changed. The Lord God filled the room, and seemed to relax this pleading woman into His peace. We prayed together, accepting every wave of grace.
She left
joyful. She left free.
She left finally forgiven.
“Therefore,
there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the
Spirit who gives life has set you
free from the law of sin and death.”
