Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Entering Canaan- A Sacramental Journey to an Inheritance of Mercy

 Some
thoughts on the “Entering Canaan” ministry that I co-developed with The Sister
of Life. http://www.sistersoflife.org/ec.html

 Entering
Canaan was named to be a “journey” into the promised land…a road to the
merciful love of Christ and healing which would free those who came to us, not
only from their sin of abortion, but bring them to a relationship with Christ
the only true healer.

 As
companions on this journey, I always saw our “job” as loving them into the arms
of Jesus. We work in the heart of Jesus which is the heart of the ministry.
We dwell and act in that heart which is then, by His grace, reflected to those
we serve. We invite them to take the risk and step out in faith promising to be
with them the entire way, no matter how long it takes. We value their
individual journey and the healing they need. We pray that they could depend on
us to be there for them as they face their demons of abortion and life and
move through the pain to an understanding of the love of God. Of course, this
includes others we would send them to as we see the need, priests, professional
counselors, but we’re always there, encouraging and supporting them.

 I know
what it is like to step out on that journey. I often say, “if you want to know what hell is like, ask someone who is post
abortive”. They know what hell is like. They live in it each and every day.
There is constant pain, depression, struggles to temptations of all
kinds…despair, drugs, sex, violence…the list goes on and on. That complete
darkness, aloneness, feeling abandoned, unloved and loveable…feeling
unforgivable, no worth and even worse, feeling evil and alienated from life in
spite of what it may look like to others. Feeling like there is no way back and
being doomed to hell forever. Such is the post abortive world. Through the
invitation to this journey, we promise to step into this world with them.

 We asked
them to take a huge risk…to step out into the darkness with a promise of hope.
A promise that God is there loving them and listening to their pleas…they may
not able to hear Him but we do, and we
will keep telling them what He is saying until they are able to hear Him.. We
will hold their hand as they forge ahead into the unknown…we ask them to trust
us and promise to be there with them along the way.

 A tall
order for us…and a huge risk for those who most likely did not even have the
people who supposedly loved them there for them when they became pregnant, but
a beautiful journey whose promise was many times fulfilled when traveled the
way God intended…full of many emotions, ups and downs, often time consuming, but
eventually leading to the foot of the cross and the love and mercy that saves
us from our sins.

 Entering Canaan is a ministry and a community who travel together,
support each other, learn true love and feel love because we, by His grace,
hopefully live our promise of always being there. Of being a safe haven…they, as they move through the darkness, grow
in trust of both us who minister to them and God, because they, many for the
first time, know they were loved and so are able to begin to trust in God and
His love for them. They see us, and especially the Sisters who serve, as
a sign of God’s love for them.

 It is a
community and a ministry….a value of each soul entrusted to us…unique and
valuable.

 Many post
abortive women and men feel, as evidenced by the following written by a PA woman
I know:

 “I have not endeared myself to the “pro-life”
community per se, because I am quick to criticize them, for their failure to
reach out to women in need and the things they do that only serve to
re-traumatize women who are already suffering enough – they are as apt as the
abortionist at times to want to separate mother and child. But since I claim to
have been harmed by my abortion, it seems there is no acceptance for me on the
other “side” of the issue, either – especially since my personal belief is that
life begins at conception”

 Post
abortive people know all to well they are sinners…not only because of the
reality of their sin, but because of the treatment they still get in the world.
Perhaps it is supposed to be so…perhaps that is the reparation or the
solidarity with the child they aborted…who knows… I do trust God, and know He
is working through it all.

We are
all sinners in need of His mercy…I pray each day to do what He asks of me. I
try to be there for those in need…to keep my eyes on Him and what He asks of me
in serving those He sends. To not be there to me is a grave sin…I would rather
not do it at all …I do not want to be a poor steward
of His amazing gift of so beautiful a ministry that He has entrusted to us.