Mark 5:34, “He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
Long before the sun peeked through the morning sky, I was awake, on my knees, praying the same words I’ve prayed for years. Like a broken record, playing over and over in my mind, I petitioned the Lord, pleading for relief. Familiar tears flowed and stung the same cheeks, the lump in my throat rose yet again, as the words spilled from my lips, “Could you, God? Could you help me?”
Darkness surrounded me inside and out, as I buried my head in the make-shift altar of my den’s overstuffed chair. “Could you take the pain away? Could you make me whole again?”
Pain is never easy. Scars burrow down and fill crevices in our soul. We pretend they’re gone, removed, distant. We assume they are hidden, never to resurface again…and then they do.
For me it was a nineteen-year-old girl who didn’t know what to do. Could I help her? Could I tell her what to do? A semi-stranger seeking answers from someone she respected from a distance; someone she felt led to speak with.
And there I was. Back where I’d been before. Back in a place I didn’t want to be, making a decision I didn’t want to make. Funny how 32 years of life can disappear and we can find ourselves right back in the place we were, with all the emotion, with all the confusion, with all the shame. And I was there…at nineteen…in a situation I never dreamed I’d be in…wondering what I should do, too.
My first approach to her was from my years of working in adoption – the infertility of beautiful couples who longed for a child – the unbelievable joy of having two children in my own life through adoption – and the love and respect I felt for the women who brought my children into the world. But there was more that needed to be said to her, and my heart knew it.
Oh how we keep our secrets. The vulnerability of truth is humbling. And I uttered the word, I’d only whispered to God in the darkness of my room ever since I was nineteen-years-old.
It is a word probably 55 million women have experienced since its legalization. It is a word 55 million women have had to endure and live with. It is a word that doesn’t go away, even when hidden in the crevices of our soul. And it is the word that found me on my knees, begging yet again for God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness.
As a seasoned Christian, I know God has forgiven me. He loves me with a depth I cannot understand. As far as the east is from the west, my sin has been thrown to no longer revisit with Him; and yet, I do, humbly on my knees, like a little girl seeking favor and comfort from her Father, beg yet again for forgiveness.
The haunting memories of sin are the enemy’s best weapon against us. For he has the ability to convince us that although God says we are forgiven, are we really forgiven? God can forgive all the other sins, but my sin? Your sin? Can He really forgive us or is He just waiting to zap us?
And so I shared my story with her. The regret I’ve carried for 32 years. The unresolved, unsettled dismay of knowing what it is like to have an abortion.; the beauty of adoption; the beauty of being a mom; and the honor and glory given to God when we choose to do what we know is the right decision.
My heart shudders at the word; and yet, I know that scared nineteen-year-old girl in 1983 who made the decision I made and all the reasons behind it.
The words fill my heart reassuringly, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” Even when God forgives us, we have to find a way to forgive ourselves.
We walk through life carrying burdens we weren’t meant to bear. One of the toughest avenues of life is forgiving ourselves. There is peace in our past. The door is not revolving. We can’t go back and redo what has been done, we can only learn and move forward. We don’t have to live in what we’ve done, but we have a responsibility to use it to help others and believe in a God Who holds true to His promises.
The word that grieves my heart may not be the very word that grieves yours…but I bet it is something else. Whatever you are holding against yourself today, release it to God. Use it to help others see truth in your mistake and not take the same path. Rejoice in knowing ALL our sins died with Jesus on the Cross…and He arose, fresh and new, to give us the life God intended for us to have as Christians in the faith.
Romans 8:1, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
