"Being the Divine Physician, our Redeemer alone can heal us from our sins. If, full of hope, we continue to persevere in bringing to Him all the different aspects of our misery, then one day the moment will arrive when He will bend over us in response to our trustful begging for healing, finally uniting with us completely." GOD Alone Suffices, p. 71
It is hard to forget the beginnings of my healing. I did not have a personal relationship with God at all. I felt as though I was walking blindly, desperately wanting to believe that God’s desire was to heal me.
As hard as it was for me to internalize it, I went on the word of a priest I had grown to trust, and found myself daily in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, challenging Jesus to live up to His promises and to bring me healing from my abortion. I like to say I “haunted” Him.
Here is one of the many poems I wrote in that time almost 30 years ago:
3/86
I’m searching the dark to find you Lord,
Where are you?
I know you’re there.
The Church tells me…
Friends tell me…
You must be there.
I’m searching in the dark to find you Lord.
Where are you?
You must be there.
I felt you Lord.
One time for days.
It was wonderful. They were right.
I’m searching in the dark to find you Lord.
Where are you?
I know you’re there.
I can’t find you Lord.
My heart is hard.
Please help me to find you Lord…I’m lost.
I’m praying in the dark to find your Lord.
Where are you?
I know you’re there.
Ah, my heart has opened.
There you are, right beside me.
I couldn’t feel you without your love.
I’m praying in the light to stay with you Lord.
Here you are.
With me,
In me.
Please help me to stay with you
So other can find you in me, and them,
As I found you in them, and myself…
I love the above passage from “God Alone Suffices”, a book by one of my favorite spiritual authors, SC Beila. I know what he said is true because I experienced what he is speaking of. Alone in the bathroom one night, begging for His mercy, healing came. It is this healing that allows me to do this work. A healing that trusts totally in Him and not myself. A healing which gives me confidence and strength because it is grounded in the One who touched me. A healing that not only showed me what a sinner I was, am, and always will be, but what a Redeemer Jesus is and how He desires to bestow His mercy on us.
Here is something I wrote after my healing:
Where Mercy Meets Faithfulness
It is the point of healing. The joining of ultimate pain with ultimate love. An act of complete trust and surrender, a climbing on the cross with Christ there to join mercy with faithfulness.
I can remember the struggles of faithfulness, the searching in the dark to find God, the holding on to His Word because I had tried everything else and I longed to be healed. The movement in spite of the pain, the darkness, the fear, because there was nothing to loose…there could be no greater hell than the one I had made for myself.
I begged and pleaded with God reminding Him of His promises, in spite of me. I worked at chipping my remains away, fighting myself so I could reach a complete surrender.
There were many times when I needed encouragement to continue, my temptations and bouts with despair. Times when I felt I couldn’t go on, but God provided the people necessary to give me the push that I needed, the words I had to hear, the strength to hang on.
I continually pleaded for the saint’s intercession and especially entrusted myself to Mary and Joseph.
And finally, one day alone with Jesus, because He is the only one who can heal, I trusted enough to climb on the cross, to be one with the pain and love that exists there and to allow that love to fill the deep wounds that I had.
There, His mercy met my faithfulness and I finally felt healed of my abortion. I suddenly understood so much of scripture. So much of it was then fulfilled in me, such a gift given. I felt like Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross. Immense love had taken on immense sin and had washed away its stains.
To be sure, the process of healing from abortion is painful and delicate, but with the right help and trust in God even if not “felt”, it is possible. Jesus in His mercy longs to heal us…we in our faithfulness need to persevere.
TB
As we continue to reach out to those suffering I know that this mercy is there for each one of us no matter what our sins. May His merciful heart touch each of you this day!
