The ugly side of my abortion- for Wendy Davis.

**Disclaimer- before you read this, there is some background knowledge about me on the left regarding my grace-filled abortion story.  Click here to read**

There are a whole heckuva lot of things going through my mind right now.  I promise nothing in regards to quality of writing currently, because quite frankly, I'm shakingly upset.  That being said "riddle me this Texas- how does a meaningless Texas congresswoman go from abortion filibuster to governor possibiltiy".  Where exactly do you see credentials in that?  One speech does not qualify you to run a state.  That does not catapult you from middle school athletic team to NCAA division 1 team.  Sorry.  I don't really care what other 'social programs' she in theory supports.  I don't care that she supports more insurance for Texas children (I do too).  I don't care that she cares about Texas jobs (I do too).  One speech does not prove you know how to lead a state.  A state, which by the way, has managed to escape severe repercussions from the economy despite the fact that the National government is selling us to China one trillion dollars at a time.  We shouldn't elect people because they give good speeches.... Oh wait ::cough. Obama. cough::  End of rant.

In all seriousness, I just wanted to come at this from a personal perspective.  There are a whole, whole lot of people who vote and are strongly pro choice or pro life.  However, there are also a whole lot of people who vote who feel other issues are more pertinent that abortion.  I can understand that in a lot of instances.  I don't think that argument applies though when the only reason we know the person exists is because of their abortion stance.

Most people are not technically qualified to share a personal opinion on the validity of abortion.  Most of the people haven't had one.  But I have.  So I feel like I get the special right to share.  For me this isn't just a 'my faith says this' issue.  This is a 'from my personal experience' issue.

I had an abortion at Planned Parenthood Dallas.  Just a basic looking office building somewhere around Greenville-ish.  I had to show my ID at the door.  Did you know they don't let you into the clinics unless you can prove you have a right to be there?  That means that unless you are having an abortion personally or accompanying someone you have no idea what is going on behind that door.  If you are accompanying someone do you know how far you are allowed in?  Not past the waiting room!!!!!  Do you know what this means?  When you have your consultation in which you basically say you are willing to have this abortion you are ALONE.  You and the 'nurse'.  No one has any idea what's going on behind that door.  Do you know who goes in with you for the sonogram?  you are ALONE and no one has any idea what goes on behind that door.  Do you know who goes with your into the actual clinic where the abortion takes place?  YOURSELF.  No one has any idea what goes on behind that door.  Do you know who goes with you to the 'observation' area?  You go by yourself.  Fun fact- unless Wendy Davis has had an abortion she doesn't actually even know what's going on behind those doors.

Want to know what it's like?  You have a sonogram first.  But you aren't allowed to see anything.  Because if you saw anything you'd see it actually looks like a baby.  Then you have a consultation in which you say you are doing this of your own free will.  They also warn you of the common repercussion of abortion- which is incidentally depression.  Then you go to the tiny 'operating room' which is incidentally just a basic check up room.  You are propped up.  You legs are spread.  A device is used and literally the baby is drained into a bucket.  In my case a yellow mop bucket.  Wendy Davis is famous and running for governor for defending my right to do that.  There is nothing ok about draining 7 week old fetuses from a mom to a mop bucket.  A nasty mop bucket.  This is my story y'all.  Not the news.  This is my personal experience.

After that I went into the observation room where I sat with 5-7 other girls crying.  We were all crying. Because what we just chose to do was not ok.  And there's no way you can actually have the abortion and not realize that.  I actually don't remember much of that part.  Except that I threw up everywhere.  Probably because I was so disgusted with myself.

You know what I most clearly remember?  The nights I'd claw at my own skin because my entire body was wracked with guilt.  The nights I hated to go to sleep because I couldn't deal with the pain of knowing what I'd done.  I experienced depression all right.  Guilt induced depression.  I spent the next 2 years wrestling with the thought of grace and could God's grace cover what I'd done.  Maybe it was even more than 2 years.  I will never forget, though, the way I would scream into my pillow at night trying to muffle the sound of gut wrenching tears I cried.  I had two roommates at the time- and couldn't bear the thought of them knowing my shame.  I cried that way for months.  I mean this- the only thing that kept me from taking my own life was God's grace.  From the bottom of my soul, I could not take the pain.  And again, I don't go a week even now I don't think about how old that baby should be.  He/she would be starting kindergarten this year by the way.

That's what Wendy Davis really fought for.  And that is what catapulted her to run for governor.

Praise God that He took the pain and carried my shame... that He is the God of the sinner like me.

http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/06/29/an-open-letter-to-wendy-davis/

Me, raw and unfiltered



I am human.  I am imperfect.  I fail.  I want to convey reality on my blog as much as possible, but if I'm honest there are plenty of things that in the text of the story, don't get accurately relayed.  I suppose that isn't terrible.  My blog doesn't need to be a list of everything I did wrong that day.  But my prayer for my blog-my life- my mission is that people would never doubt that I am a sinner saved by grace.  That I am the least of these.  That were in not for God's grace I would be *fill in the blank for that sinner*. 

A couple months ago I wrote a post on having had an abortion.  It has been read 1000 times on my blog.  If you look at my blog stats- my piddly little blog that it is- it's pretty insane.  It was featured on The Identify Shift a couple weeks ago, where by the afternoon it had been read 600 times.  And counting.  It's probably been read nearly 2000 times in 2 months.  Insane.  And it's being featured today on Lily Among Thorns. 

It's still scary to know I'm out there, raw and unfiltered, for so many new people.  Beautifully, the majority of people respond with grace and love.  I have truly seen how the truth has set me free in this way.  I opened my soul up.  And the Love of the Body of Christ has filled that pain 1000x over. 

Not everyone responds like that.  Recently,  I was reminded again how people can get so caught up in their causes they forget the people behind them.  No matter how awful a person seems, they still bear Christ's image.  Somehow we've got to reach them.

Here's the thing- my passion, my motivation behind my story is that Jesus is the Friend of Sinners.  Christians seem to think we are called to be "God the Father", who is the judge.  But we aren't.  We are called to be "God the Son".  Christ was an intercessor, a redeemer, the one who goes into the filthy stinky dirty grimy pit of our lives and puts his hand down in the midst of it and pulls someone out.  Christ didn't spend much time judging and holding banners.  He saw needs and He met them himself.  Not through picket lines, but through food lines, and healing lines.  To be Christ like is to put down the cause for the sake of pulling someone out and straight to God.  Pulling out is loving.  Not condemning.  Allow the Holy Spirit to convict.  Our job is to reach out, being willing to touch the least of these, and try to pull them into the light.  

There is a song by Casting Crowns called Jesus Friend of Sinners.  That is the song of the heart of my mission.  I don't know where Christ is leading me.  But that is where I want to pour out my life.  With the sinners.  Because I too, am one of them.  And but for the grace of God, I still would be.
 

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven ~ Matthew 5:3

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ~1 Corinthians 13:2

For all you new readers

Throwback: Jude at 4 mos.  He is my atonement child.

About a month ago, I wrote a post on having had an abortion.  It was one of the single most defining moments of my life, and definitely one of the darkest.  However, through that moment about 6 years ago, I learned more about the reality of grace and forgiveness.  The blog is being featured at The Identify Shift.  If you want to get to know more about me, that post will take you straight to my soul.  And whatever opinions you have on abortion, I promise that it will change your thinking- not in a way to judge the situation from any side, but as a way to understand the hurting and the broken of this world.  I hope you read it.

Also, don't forget to enter that GAP giveaway here!

My personal dirty secret- Remembering Roe v Wade

If I actually hit send on this one, just know I've completely put myself out there, and please have grace. I suppose everyone has their deep secrets.  This is mine.  In fact I'm so adverse to talk about it, I don't think I've ever shared my testimony (to a group) and included this part.  It's a huge part, but I can't go there.  And even now I am hiding behind my computer screen trying not to imagine the faces of people reading this.

Today is the 40th anniversary of Roe v Wade.  40 years and its still a pretty charged topic.  Christians rarely let up on the pursuit of right to life, and that's good.  But to be honest with you, I often cringe when Christians shout 'murderer murderer' in reference to any girl that's sat in a Planned Parenthood room.  6 years later and those words still sting- and it doesn't take much time in a church to hear them with regularity.

No one ever thinks of the face of the girls there.  Maybe because no one knows their faces.  You have to actually be getting one to even get in.  And so in that sense, I get it.  But the thing is, that waiting room is not full of haughty eyes and rebellious women.  It's full of lonely and scared women who don't realize that Jesus is the one in whom they find their self worth.  I'm sure some women are the 'cold blooded murderers' portrayed by pro life stances.  But it really isn't the majority.

There are a lot of reasons I say this.  For one thing, 80% of college women will experience date rape.  80%  Please wrap your head around that statistic.  Out of 10 girls, 8 of them will experience date rape.  And based on my own personal life experience and people I've talked to, that is an absolutely correct statistic.  Most of these women will never come forward.  In fact I've known between 10-20 personal friends experience this and I know of one who pressed charges.  (the legal system failed her, btw)  Rape is one of the singularly most traumatic things a girl can experience.  There is nothing that will more shatter her self worth than that.  And often, when you find out a girl was raped, the story follows the same pattern. The girl proceeds to allow herself to be used by anyone.  Now if 80% of women in college have experienced this, it stands to reason that a LARGE percentage of college age abortion getting women are there because they were raped.  Does that excuse their action, no.  But do you really have the heart to look at a heart that broken and call her murderer?

Or what about the high schoolers.  The high schoolers I saw were brought there by their parents.  Do they even have a choice?  I can't imagine the fear of going against my parents at 16 to raise a baby they don't want to raise.  And these girls are just kids.  They are just kids.

Or how about the fact that 1 in 4 American girls are victims of sexual abuse.  How do you know how many of those millions of girls getting an abortion aren't suffering the anguish of such a trauma.  If rape shatters a girl in one act, I cannot imagine what a girl who has been repeatedly raped by an adult thinks of herself.  Does that give her the right to have an abortion, again no.  But you have to understand that the women who have entered these clinics are hurting.  They are hurting, yall.

There is a saying which goes "guys use a relationship to get sex.  girls use sex to get a relationship."  And here is my guess where you find the majority of women.  I know that is where I found myself.  It was never like I set out to get there.  But I wasn't a very strong Christian, and certainly not a strong person, and I had on 2 occasions almost been part of the 80% and I just didn't think I was worth much.  I honestly would think things like there was some invisible brand that suggested to all men that I was worthless and he could push me as far as he wanted.  Literally thought that exact thing.  And I didn't want to break up with said guy, because I thought if I just stayed with him it would sort of make up for it.  And maybe one day we would get married (which we did-nightmare) and then it would alleviate my own sin and I would actually be ok.  But in between my giving in and marriage, I did end up in that clinic.  And I hated every second of it.  I never once thought it was ok.  But I had so much pressure from him to go through with it.  And I knew that if I didn't that would be the end.  And I couldn't wrap my mind around it ending, because then I would really just be a sinner.  I so desperately wanted to make our relationship work because I was so fixated with fixing my sexual worthlessness.  And I did it.

And for the next several years it tore me up.  There were very few years where anniversaries and due dates didn't flash across my mind.  To this day, I don't think a week that goes by I don't think of it.  I don't think a month goes by where I don't wonder what will it be like to see that child when I go to heaven?  Will they hate me?  I call Jude my atonement child because from the day I entered that clinic I never felt I deserved motherhood.  What kind of mom does that?  I actually struggled a lot when I first started teaching because what kind of teacher does that?

When I found out about Jude, I was both relieved and afraid.  I was terrified of a miscarriage as God's way of punishing me.  Throughout my pregnancy, God began the process of showing me he really did love me.  And he didn't save me and expect perfection.  And that there was grace grace grace.  I picked the name Jude because I love the Beatles song.  And the idea of taking a sad song and making it better is really the story of my life.  But I also loved that it means 'praised'.  My heart has praised God everyday for my atonement child.  The one who showed me that God's grace was inexhaustible.  Unfathomable.  Covered it all.  He has used Jude to save me from a sense of worthlessness, from a bad marriage, from giving in to the depression and anxiety from my marriage failing, and 1000 other ways.

I share this from the darkest corner of my soul.  And I don't want to even think about what this will mean in relationships with people.  I guess I can't imagine grace from others very well.  But it occurred to me that this isn't my story.  It's God's story.  He's sovereign over it all.  And far be it from me to hold back.

If you remember anything from this story, remember that the girls who walk into those clinics are hurting.  At least most of them.  They were hurting before they ever got pregnant probably.  And before you cast the first stone, try to understand that there's a pain in their souls and an emptiness that only Love can fill.  Yes, support your politicians and make your voice heard.  But don't forget that there are faces behind policies.  Speak up for the babies, by all means.  But remember that there are plenty of girls reading your posts that have an ache in their heart that they will live with forever.  Speak love to those girls.  Take time to ask them what brought them to that place.  It will probably break your heart, but it's the broken hearts that are the easiest to lead back home, back to the God who loves them.

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death ~ Romans 8:1

I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields!  They are ripe for harvest ~ John 4:35