Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Living in the northeast, the past two weeks has been almost surreal. First we went through hurricane Sandy, and, while still a long way from recovery, we got hit with a nor’easter bringing high winds, snow and more power outages to add to the already over 40,000 in Westchester who had not regained power from last week.

The devastation in the aftermath seems almost surreal, as we see the loss of homes and hear the heartbreaking stories of the loss of life. Add to that the frustrations of the lack of supplies, help, and the absence of gas. After almost two weeks, we find ourselves saying, “Enough Lord. Have mercy on us,”, especially those who have been hit the hardest.

Not only is it exhausting physically, but emotionally as well, when you feel like life is saying “take this, take that”, beaten up day after day after day.

I think most of those who are post abortive know what it feels like to “take this, take that”. We found ourselves weathering a different kind of storm, the aftermath of our abortions. We are not only familiar with beatings, but the one being the beater and the beaten are one and the same, ourselves!
We get stuck on, “How could I have done this.”; “I am unforgivable”, “I hate myself”, etc etc, unrelentlessly adding punch to punch day after day after day to the point of being paralyzing at times.
We find a multitude of reasons not to be forgiven…: “I had four she only had one”, “I freely chose she was coerced”, “She was only 6 weeks I was four months”, “I cannot give up this relationship” need I go on?

We get totally stuck on self, blinded from any hope of healing because we cannot see past our own misery. We even at times get comfortable in the misery because we have lived with it for so long and it appears less scary than the road to healing.
The truth is however, the key to weathering through all of these storms whether it is Sandy or our abortions, is faith and trust in God.

Sure, we have to be active and seek out and use the tools we are given to recover, a shovel or a bible. We may get tired and feel like giving up, tempted to despair, but that is ok, as long as we do not give in to that feeling and continue to trust in the mercy of God which will never fail us.

Despair Prayer

Lord, I am in this world to show Your mercy to others.

Other people will glorify You
by making visible the power of Your grace

by their fidelity and constancy to You.

For my part I will glorify You
by making known how good You are to sinners,

that Your mercy is boundless
and that no sinner no matter how great his offences

should have reason to despair of pardon.

If I have grievously offended You, My Redeemer,

let me not offend You even more
by thinking

that You are not kind enough to pardon Me.

Amen.

Prayer of Saint Claude de la Colombiere