Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

 

If any of us have had those words spoken to
us as a child; most likely we would have recoiled in horror. Our eyes downcast
in a jester of hiding, we were certain that the entire world could see the act
we did to bring on such a statement and that shame had found its permanent
dwelling in neon lights above our head. It would be a while before we would
venture out before our accuser, hoping the lights had burnt out, or at least
dimmed so as not to draw attention to ourselves. We would watch the reactions
to see, if in fact the shame was lifted and we could go on with our lives, or
if we needed to continue, half-alive for a while longer.

Many who are post abortive live every day of
their lives with this shame. They can never get away from the accuser and the
light never dims, because the accuser and accused are one and the same,
themselves. Hidden shame is projected on all of their relationships, causing
them to live in the fear that they will be found out. That everyone will see
the light shinning down on them. Where most people would shrug off an event,
they are certain all reactions have something to do with this light.

One woman I know expressed this in a recent
trip to a cemetery that has a tomb for the unborn. "I wanted to pray
before the tomb but it is right near the cemetery office. I just could not
bring myself to let anyone see me there." When I asked her if she thought
everyone who prayed before that tomb was post abortive, that in fact many
people who are not probably stopped to say a prayer, she expressed that she had
never thought of that. For her, it was a sure admittance of the death of her
child, a neon sign pointing to her shame.

Until the post abortive person opens up and
shares their feelings with an appropriate person, whether a mental health
professional, ministry or trained lay person, there is little chance of freedom
for the bondage they are living with. They need to “face it honestly” as Pope John Paul II reminds us in “The Gospel of Life”, and understand what has happened to them and
the impact it has had on their thinking and actions. They need to learn that
most often, it is they who are shinning the light on themselves.

The solution to this shame is humility. An
admittance of what we have heard over and over in the scriptures. A deep
acknowledgment that without God, we are all capable of any sin, and that it is
Him and His love and mercy alone that brings us out of the darkness. That of
ourselves, we are nothing, but through Him all good things come. If we truly
believe this, there is no place for shame for we would know that each and every
one of us, no matter what the sin, is saved only through the grace of God. Our
sinfulness would not surprise us, but instead, humble us, knowing our need for
dependence on Him, and as Pope John
Paul II reminds us in “The Gospel of Life”,
giving Him all the glory for any good we do. Once we come to know this, the
brilliance of the light of His glory will surely outshine our shame leaving us
gazing at the goodness of the Lord instead of ourselves.