Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

If you are like me, you may have
a hard time not acting on your emotions. I have struggled with this forever. When
my emotions take over, it is all can do to keep my mouth shut and remain calm.
Perhaps this is because of the many years I spent suppressing the feelings
surrounding my abortion. For 15 years I hid my pain, fell into line with
everyone else pretending it never happened, and held on to the guilt, anger, depression
and anxiety all the suppressed emotions brought me.

Having finally been freed through
the grace of God, in some ways, I guess I became an emotional time bomb. I did
not like holding on to anything, especially feelings that made me
uncomfortable. I had done that for way too long already. I had to learn that it
is okay (and healthy) not to hold on, it is how you let go that matters

It took me some time to finally
internalize that while emotions are not right or wrong, (they just are) what I
did with them could definitely be right or wrong. I had always been an easy
push over and I imagine my lack of control throughout my abortion experience
made me even more unwilling to let go or allow myself to be controlled. I had
to learn to  put my trust in God instead
of myself and be confident if I was following His will in my life..

Don’t get me wrong, it is something
I still struggle with and probably will until the day I die. One of those “thorns”
St Paul speaks of. I spend a lot of time pulling myself back, letting go and
taking back, sometimes successfully sometimes not. I bargain with myself to
stay quiet for, “this much time” or, “until then” .  I try to look at what I feel and see why I am
feeling this way. Mostly I bring it to prayer and ask for help in discerning
and what, if any actions should be taken. 

Most times I calm down and decide
not to act at the present moment. Sometimes I am called to act even when I
would rather not. We can get comfortable with inaction, sometimes it takes
courage to speak out and we would rather not deal with what may come next.

Sometimes the answer is that I
need to just sit in my feelings and allow God to show me the way. To accept them
no matter how uncomfortable they may be. To wait…a sometimes hard thing to do…for
a clear understanding of where I need to move. Mostly I need to trust I am in
His care no matter what I am feeling, and know in my heart He will provide, and
all will be well.