Reclaiming Our Children

Another Abortion Fear Tactic - Custody of Kids

I was surprised this morning to find an article, Have an Abortion Lose Custody of Your Children, by Robin Marty, in my inbox. My immediate reaction was, here we go...I have no doubt this is another manipulation to put fear into women.

The premise of the article is a divorcing couple, the Mehos. The husband is seeking custody of the children stating a past abortion has left the mother incapable to care for the kids.Marty is obviously so ignorant of post abortion issues, that it is hard to agree with anything she says.

First of all, we do not know the people involved and what has happened in their lives. Is there a reason the husband believes the abortion has impacted her parenting capabilities? There certainly are cases where women have had psychological issues after abortion that would make them incapable of parenting. Is she severely depressed? Suicidal? Unable to function? Filled with the fear something would happen to her kids? Smothering her children? Totally detached emotionally?  Abusive? We do not know.

Of course, Ms Marty, like most of those whose agenda is the legality of abortion, also denies the existence of post abortion stress, but in my work with post abortive women for the past twenty years, and being post abortive myself, I know plenty of women who have had major issues because of their abortions. Issues that very well could make them unable to care for their children.

Ms. Marty states, "According to Guttmacher, over 60 percent of those who have abortions already have children. The idea that every one of them is somehow a bad mother, or should feel as if she were one, is laughable." However, no one is saying every one of them is a bad mother, or even "bad" at all, but that one mother may be unable to care for her children.

Throughout the article Ms. Marty continues to use the term "bad mother," and yet, from what I read, the husband's lawyer only speaks about stress. She tries to give the impression that this is going to happen to everyone, and that a picture is being painted for all women who have had an abortion that will cause them to lose their children. It is ironic that she is using the fear of losing children, something many post abortion women feel because of the loss of their aborted babies, as the instrument to promote her agenda, not unlike like the deceit and lies we were told with Roe vs. Wade itself.

Marty then she goes on to quote late term abortionist Dr. Susan Robinson as an expert. Really?

As Marty tells us that "no legitimate health group" supports the existence of post abortion stress in spite of numerous studies by various researchers that have proven otherwise, yet, she refers to a "Berkley" study as the grounds for her facts. You heard me, "Berkley," land of the liberal pro abortion. Talk about laughable.

Personally, I am tired of people telling those of us who have suffered because of abortion that our feelings do not exist, and that our suffering is not real. While I agree, most women who have had abortions are perfectly capable of raising their children, there is no doubt in my mind that some may not be.

I do not know the Mehos or their circumstances, but it seems to me they would be better served if they were not used to promote someone's pro-abortion agenda. If in fact the mom really is suffering from post abortion stress, she should find the help she needs to heal so that she can be there for her children whom I am sure she loves.

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Are you living in darkness and depression after an abortion?
Unable to get past the pain of your loss?
There is Hope.  There is Healing.  There is a way out of the darkness.
Email us at lumina@postabortionhelp.org
Call us at 1-877-586-4621 or 1-718-881-8008

The Saints and Post Abortion Healing

 
This is my favorite “saint” time if year. This week is loaded with people that have been instrumental in my journey to healing.

So what do Saint Feast Days have to do with post abortion healing you may ask? Well, they too had struggles and their examples of faith have gotten me through some tough times and given me courage in the midst of despair.

So, I hope to post something about each one this week, beginning tomorrow with St. Terese. My grandfather actually had a huge devotion to her and that is why I have the name I do. My aunt told me that she prayed to her all the time when I was away from the church.  I guess St. Terese heard her prayers and interceded! My aunt, after my converson, would often joke that she prayed too much!

We often forget how powerful their intercession is or that they too struggled just like us even though they may never have had abortions, so, I would like to share with you, on each one's feast day, how they helped me in my healing from my abortion.

Here is the run down:

October 1st - St. Terese

October 2nd - Holy Guardian Angels

October 4th - St. Francis

October 5th - St. Faustina

Blessed John Paul II to be Canonized on Divine Mercy Sunday!

Catholic News Agency reports today that the Vatican has announced that former Popes John Paul II and John XXIII are slated to be canonized this coming spring on Divine Mercy Sunday! 

"Blessed John Paul II is perhaps one of the most well-known pontiffs in recent history, and is most remembered for his charismatic nature, his love of youth and his world travels, along with his role in the fall of communism in Europe during his 27-year papacy.

The cherished Polish Pope died in 2005, marking his 2011 beatification as one of the quickest in recent Church history, and is the first Pope to be beatified by his immediate successor."

Many postabortive women are familiar with the loving and kind words that Bl. Pope John Paul II spoke to women who have had an abortion in his encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae (EV), the Gospel of Life. The words he spoke are a soothing mantra for those who have suffered from abortion.

"You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord." (EV, 99)

Divine Mercy Sunday 2014 is sure to be a blessed and grace filled day for all of those who have suffered from abortion. 

Blessed Pope John Paul II, pray for us!

Where is Our Lady of Czestochowa Today?

The Ocean to Ocean Pilgrimage of Our Lady of Czestochowa continues!  Along with Her faithful custodian, Father Peter West, Our Lady is visiting the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters in Philadelphia today.  Also known as the "Pink Sisters," these cloistered missionary sisters are entirely dedicated to the contemplative life in the service of perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

"Our way of life points to the basic truth that God alone is the true center of being and the goal of all creation, that he alone can satisfy the human heart, and that every good and every success on this earth are his free gifts."

At 3:00 PM today, Our Lady will be present outside the former clinic site of Kermit Gosnell as a continuing witness to the defense of life. 

Our Lady is the Patroness of Lumina and the postabortive work that we do.  Lumina offers Our Lady of Czestochowa prayer cards to order.

Stay tuned to our blog to follow Our Lady's travels.  Save the date for Our Lady's arrival in New York at St. Peter's Church October 5, 2013. 

Our Lady of Czestochowa, Pray for Us!

God is Forgiveness & Love

The following is an excerpt of what I wrote days before my abortion when I was 19 and struggling with my boyfriend to make a decision.

"I go to college. We are happy. I really do love my family. My father picks up garbage for a living. His is an executive for a major corporation. I don’t know how we came together. We are so different. I didn’t even know him. All I knew was that I liked him. I liked him well enough to let him stay in my room to sleep with me. And after a time, I liked him enough to become the father of a child that was conceived within me. What had we done?

 When I found out the truth about being pregnant I did not know where to turn. I couldn’t even cry. He was shocked and found it hard to believe it could happen to him. Who could we turn to? I couldn’t hurt my parents. But would it hurt them more not to know? And what about his parents? Their position in his community would be ruined.

 I ask myself what is love? Is the love between us, if there is any, only lasting enough to raise the money for an abortion? Can we make it if we get married? We don’t want to get married. I want my degree.

 I don’t even think of it as a child. It is a group of cells within me. We do not believe in abortion. I am scared. Do I pray? Does God still love me? How can I have an abortion? How can I hurt my family? He is frightened. He is not yet a man, but he is a father. The sound of the word seems harsh.

 My father is a proud man who never received a ticket to mar his name. How can I, his daughter, not yet 20, say, “Daddy, I’m pregnant. Do you still love me? I’m sorry.” I can’t even conjure up the look on my mother’s face. I cannot bring the shame of my mistake upon them.

 And what about him? He is very afraid. He lets me decide and counts on me making the right decision. He doesn’t want an abortion, but what are the other alternatives? Marriage? Shame? Adoption? How can we ruin a third person, created by us, two people not yet ready? I am frightened. I am a mixed up young women of 19 in a bad situation. He is an irresponsible young man of 19. He is frightened. Do these descriptions warrant us the title of Mother and Father?

Is abortion the only answer? Sometimes my mother would tell me life isn’t as we always want it to be and we have to do things we don’t want to do. I am thinking of it now and wonder if God will still love me after I actually go through with the procedure. Am I being selfish? It is my mistake on my conscious and it isn’t necessary to hurt more people than I have to. I don’t believe the alternative I chose is the right one. It goes against everything I believe in. But I also know I can never imagine telling my parents of my deed. I have to live with it every time I see a baby. When I marry, whether to the father or not, I will always remember and for me that is punishment enough."

The letter above was written 30 years ago. I did not marry the father and what happened after the initial abortion was even worse. I had the abortion, then went back to the clinic six weeks later for a check up and found out I was still pregnant. The doctor told me I had to have another abortion for fear of the health of the remaining child. Twins! I was 19 and I believed the doctor, so I had a second abortion. 

Two days later I began t o hemorrhage. On the second night of bleeding, while my 17-year-old sister was with me, I bled unt il I miscarried the parts of my baby still inside of me. I saw an arm. I saw the fetus. I flushed the bowl, relieved that the bleeding had stopped. I don’t remember what I did the next day, but now 30 years later I know I went into an emotional wasteland. I went on to marry happily. I have four children and genuinely believed my life was good. However, I was afraid to go to church. After my first child was born and he was six weeks old I threw up one day when the realization of what I had actually done hit me. I pushed it further and further away, until my father died. That was when I couldn’t control things anymore. Within six months of his death I began to slip into hell and didn’t quite know why. I blamed it on his passing, but inside me I knew that wasn’t it. It was almost a year after my father’s death when I realized I suffered from Post Abortion Trauma.

There is help, there is recovery, and there is hope. It isn’t an easy journey. In fact, it is the hardest thing I ever had to do, but a journey I had to go on to finally accept my twins, accept responsibility and move forward. The most wonderful lesson I learned is that God is forgiveness and love.  He is there for everyone.   ~CB

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Are you living in darkness and depression after an abortion?
Unable to get past the pain of your loss?
There is Hope.  There is Healing.  There is a way out of the darkness.
Email us at lumina@postabortionhelp.org
Call us at 1-877-586-4621 or 1-718-881-8008

 

Update On Pilgrim Image

 

Allow God to Bestow Forgiveness

"God always loves us. However, it is necessary for us to allow Him to love us. If love means bestowals, then let us allow God to bestow forgiveness upon us. Let us do so just like the prostitute from the Gospel who desired to encounter Jesus' love so strongly that she overcame all obstacles and literally invaded the Pharisee Simon's home, where the Lord was a guest."

(The Two Pillars, pg.114-115 )

Upcoming Resources in New York for Post Abortion Healing

Entering Canaan Day of Prayer & Healing
October 5 2013, Yonkers, New York
9:30 - 5:00
A  woman will give her testimony of healing,
there is a film on healing and a chance to share if you would like to.  For  more information, please contact Lumina at 718-881-8008 or email lumina@postabortionhelp.org, or the Sisters of Life at 866-575-0075.  

Rachels Vineyard Retreat Weekend
October 11-13, 2013
The Seminary of the Immaculate Conception
Huntington, New York
Call Deacon Joe at (516) 445-3927 or email rvr@lifecenterli.org

If you, or a friend, are hurting, please call today.

"Forgiven & Set Free”
10 week Bible Study for women in Queens, NY beginning September 23, 2013
For more infomation, call 718-969-0150

10 week Bible Study for Men beginning September 26, 2013
For more information, call 718-296-7969

The Spiritual Wound of My Life

Healing the wound of abortion has been, in many ways, the central spiritual task of my life.  The conviction that my youngest sibling was a living, beloved human being would not let me go – even in my adolescent and college years, when I subsumed my grief and fear in affirming my parents’ pro-choice beliefs and attempting to secure their approval, love, and protection, which had been denied to my sibling.

The abortion happened when I was in second grade.  I was already the eldest of four siblings.  My parents were sunk in the turmoil of a young couple facing strained finances, crushing responsibilities, and limited family support.  I wasn’t supposed to know about the abortion, but I overheard family conversations that piqued my suspicions.

When I was 11-years-old, I asked my mom if she had ever thought about having an abortion.  She very gently and honestly said, “Yes.” We were in the kitchen.  I remember I had to leave the room.  When I was away from my mom, my feet fell out from under me.  I began sobbing silently and uncontrollably.  I loved my three living siblings with my whole life; in many ways, my identity centered on them.  I could not understand why my mom would assume that I might not love my aborted sibling just as much.

In the pre-internet days of my late childhood and early adolescence, I scoured the library for books about abortion: pro and con; clinical studies; confessions of women who lauded or regretted their own choices to abort their children.  I remember searching urgently through these books for some hint that my grief and anguish for my lost sibling were not strange or unfounded.  I can see in my mind the two brief paragraphs in one book that described siblings’ “survivor guilt” – but the commentary was limited and gave no indication that this was a common reaction, or that there was anything to be done about it.  I assumed my pain was an anomaly.  It was not until my I read Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved that I encountered a very personal story of a girl haunted by a baby sibling who died at their own mother’s desperate, grieving hands.

Years later, a good friend told me she had heard about “sibling survivor” retreats, and I was viscerally relieved to know that there was a name to describe people like me, and that these people had the courage to grieve and receive God’s healing for the loss of their aborted siblings.  But I wasn’t brave enough to seek out the retreat.  Doing so would have required me to face the fact that my grief was powerful enough to estrange me from my family members, who, when my sadness rose to the surface, continually said to me: “Why does the abortion matter so much to you? You weren’t the one who had the abortion.  It wasn’t your choice.”

Facing my grief’s power meant facing the fact that I, like my aborted sibling, was vulnerable to my parents and family—not vulnerable to the point of physical death, but vulnerable to the point of rejection on the grounds of my obstinate obsession.

The Lumina Sibling Survivor Retreat was a turning point in my life.  The day’s gentle, intent pace; Eucharistic focus, and intimate setting allowed time to stop and expand, encompassing both the pain of the past and hope for the future.  Father Conrad and Theresa stewarded us with very gentle paternal and maternal care: a beautiful counterpoint to the gender enmity that spurred the abortions in our families.  It was so strange and deeply comforting to be in a place where the central spiritual wound of my life was acknowledged and soothed, not idolized but transformed through a call to acceptance, forgiveness, healing, and celebration of my youngest sibling’s brief life on earth and eternal life in Heaven, where she or he now intercedes before the face of God for the healing of my whole family.

Now I know that this wound I bear is becoming like Christ’s wounds: welling up with God’s love so that everyone – my mother, father, all my siblings, and the generations before and after us – may be drawn to Him.  ~A

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Are you the sibling of an aborted baby?
There is Hope.  There is Healing.  There is a way out of the darkness.

The next Sibling Retreat is March 8, 2014

Email us at lumina@postabortionhelp.org
Call us at 1-877-586-4621 or 1-718-881-8008

 

Mercy is "the true force that can save man and the world from the 'cancer' of sin

A beautiful reflection by the Pope on God's mercy. I pray every post abortive person reads it, those who judge, and actually EVERYONE because we are all so in need of this beautiful gift of God. Just reading this made me find joy in contemplating the total love and mercy of our God. A MUST read... Enjoy!

Pope Francis: "Mercy is the true force that can save man and the world
from the 'cancer' of sin The Evil One is smart. He dupes us into thinking
that human justice can save us and save the world. In fact, only God's
justice can save us! And God's justice revealed itself on the Cross." 

"If, in our hearts, there is no mercy, no joy of forgiveness, we are not in communion with God, even if we observe all his precepts because it is love that saves, not only the practice of his precepts," said Pope Francis in his reflection, in which he focused on the "parables of mercy" taken from today's liturgy, before 70,000 people who had gathered in St Peter's Square for the Angelus, braving the heavy rain, as the pope himself noted.

Mercy, in the pope's words, is "the true force that can save man and the world from the 'cancer' of sin, of moral and spiritual evil." Hence, it marks the journey of Christians through life, because "if we live according to the law of 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth', we cannot come out of the spiral of evil. The Evil One is smart. He dupes us into thinking that human justice can save us and save the world. In fact, only God's justice can save us! And God's justice revealed itself on the Cross."

The three parables that spurred Francis's reflection come from Chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke. They concern "the lost sheep, the lost coin, and then the longest of all the parables, which is typical of Luke, the father and his two sons, the ' prodigal ' son and the self-righteous son who thinks he is holy."

"All three parables speak of God's joy. God is joyful! That is something interesting. What is God's joy? Forgiveness. God's joy is forgiveness! It is the joy of the shepherd who finds his sheep; the joy of the woman who finds her coin; it is the joy of the father who welcomes home a son who was lost, who was as good as dead, but is alive again, back home. This is the whole Gospel. This is the whole of Christianity!"

"Yet, there is nothing sentimental about it, nor a sense of 'doing good'! On the contrary, mercy is the true force that can save man and the world from the 'cancer' of sin, of moral and spiritual evil. Only love fills the emptiness, the negative chasms that evil opens in hearts and history. Only love can do this and this is God's joy."

Read the rest here.

(thanks K)