The Chosen People entered the Promised Land as a small community, but one rich in the experience of the desert. They experienced God amid threatening situations like violent storms, with thunder and lightening, while at the same time, they experienced their own weakness and their own failure. They experienced with unusual clarity their own wretchedness and that is why they experienced God’s mercy so greatly. (GOF: Pg130)
When I give my testimony I share about my experience of healing. That moment when I knew without a doubt that He had healed me. An experience that lasted a second, but I believe will sustain me through a lifetime. A defining moment which has given me the strength to step out of my comfort zone, turned me from a person totally filled with fear and anxiety to one with newfound courage(not the absence of fear but to move forward in spite of fear) to do certain things and which allowed me to do this work for so long. It took years to get to that moment but when it happened there was no doubt that He had touched and healed me and the changes came because I knew what He had done for me and my confidence was now in Him, because if He could free me from that hell He could do anything!
For those of you who do not know my story..I had suffered for over 15 years. Here I something I wrote about that experience:
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.
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I do not know about any of you but I so totally know the reading in the beginning of this talk is true. I experienced my total sinfulness in the light of Gods total love, the crucified Christ, which allowed me to experience His total mercy. Seems so crazy, we truly have to be emptied of self before we can allow him in, otherwise we are always getting in His way.
We who are post abortive, and all of us really, are like the chosen people called out of our misery. It is hard to face our sin of abortion. I do not think anyone can truly know the pain or the depths of emptiness in knowing you took the life of you r own child unless you have experienced it. In the light of His love however, we are able to look…to see what brought us to that place to begin with. That place that would reject the very life God had given to us, but we can reclaim our children.
Our healing journey brings us full circle, to embrace the gift of life God gave us.
I know some people say I have no right to claim my son having aborted him, and, they are right. I am a sinner deserving of nothing but eternal damnation. But, thank God, it is not their choice, and His ways are not our ways.
God longs for those of us who are post abortive to reclaim our children. I know that because it is in doing so, I have found His peace. In the order of things, He gave my son to me. I may have rejected this wonderful gift of life, but it is STILL His desire that I claim my son. He is the God of second chances, and third chances, and on, and on, and on.
How do I know this? Because He has used this very son whose life I participated in taking through abortion to bring me to Himself. He has used this unborn baby to show me the depths of His love and compassion for me, a sinner, and to teach me true love. He has shown me His desire to forgive me and have me united to Him in heaven.
I don’t know why, but I named my son Joshua. It just seemed fitting, that even though I participated in his death, I should name him. Probably because I saw him lying on the bed next to me, and there was no denying he was a baby. People think that was awful, but I see it as a grace because it did not allow me to deny what I had done.
My relationship with Joshua, however, was anything but peaceful. Just the thought of him caused me to become overwhelmed with terror. Every reminder condemned me to hell, and I would have visions of him accusing me before God, pointing his finger at me as he pointed out who was responsible for his death. Having done post abortion work for over 20 years now, I know that is the experience of countless women and men. There is a terror that exists at the thought of forming a relationship with their unborn children.
I am not sure when this changed for me; although I know it was once I knew the love of God. It made sense that if my child was “living in the Lord” (The Gospel of Life; John Paul II), he would desire my salvation, and instead of condemning me would be praying for my conversion.
Little by little I forged a relationship with him through prayer. It took time to develop and overcome the guilt and shame, but I knew inside I needed to repair the relationship. I needed to allow myself to love my son and for him to love me in spite of my human feelings of being unforgivable. Most importantly, I knew that was God's desire.
In time, I learned to meet Joshua in the Blessed Sacrament where Jesus united us through His body and blood. In time, Joshua became as alive as my sons here on earth.
Years later, God confirmed His name in this work. That day I mentioned on Friday night when I prayed before the Blessed sacrament and He gave me the name Entering Canaan and I went home and read the story of the Israelites journey into Canaan, The Promised Land, I recognized the parallels to healing from abortion, but most striking to me was that they reached the Promised Land in the book of Joshua.
I know God is using the life of Joshua, who never lived on this earth, to lead many into Canaan these days. I know he has an army of aborted babies, your sons and daughters, up in heaven interceding for their parents healing. We are united in our work and each day and I still share my heart with him through Jesus in my daily communion praying for those who come to us.
I know your children want that as well.
The promised land will never be totally fulfilled until heaven where we will be with God and meet our children face to face, but they are still here with us and so is Mary.
Mary who knows and shares our sorrows, who embraces us and leads us to her son. Who in spite o f the fact that we are the ones who nailed him to the cross, suffers for our salvation and holds back Gods wrath because their main desire is our salvation and life with them in eternity.
Once you truly have it, no one can take your healing from you..not pro abortion or pro lifer. Not those who judge us or those who try to claim our children from us…NO ONE...in the end healing is about us and God and our children alone.
Pope Benedicts quote: "... But it is in starting from the experience of this desert, from this
void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance
for us, men and women. In the desert we rediscover the value of what is
essential for living; thus in today’s world there are innumerable signs,
often expressed implicitly or negatively, of the thirst for God, for the
ultimate meaning of life. And in the desert people of faith are needed who,
with their own lives, point out the way to the Promised Land and keep hope
alive." Pope Benedict homily -The Year of Faith.****
May each of us be those people of faith in the desert, who with our own lives keep hope alive.
