Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Loving is no easy thing, especially when we have been deeply hurt by those who are suppose to love us, as is often the case with abortion. The thought of forgiving someone who may have coerced us into an abortion, or abandoned us can seem unattainable.

 How can anyone, we may ask, expect such a thing from us?  After all, what can be worse than having someone who is suppose to love you push you into aborting your child, or threaten to leave, or manipulate you with promises never to come true so that you will give in to abortion or perhaps it is ourselves we need to forgive and love. Yet, that is exactly what God is asking us to do.

 Choosing to continue to love is difficult. Choosing to forgive is a decision we make in order to let go of resentment, pride, anger, self hatred and many other things that lock us into the negative and keep us from growing in love and getting closer to Christ.

 But how can God not understand our feelings we may ask? He does. But He also knows clinging to those emotions, and refusing to move past them brings harm to us and blocks us from living His life.

 Forgiving does not mean that we need to continue a relationship, in fact, the relationship may be very unhealthy and the best thing may be to end it depending on the circumstances, but it does mean not allowing myself to linger in the anger and be held captive by the person through my thoughts and behaviors.

 Difficult? Yes, but not impossible. Through the grace of God we can learn to see what happened through the eyes of Christ. We can recognize the weaknesses of others as failures of love, and the need for that person to learn and to grow in love, but we are also called to  look at ourselves honestly.

 How were we living? Where did we fail to love others? How can our following Christ help us to love and forgive more deeply, not only others but ourselves.

 As we make the decision to choose to love. Let us ask God for the grace to let go, perhaps even to give us the desire to let go, knowing our dependence on Him. Let us allow Him to work in our lives so that we may come to His peace growing in His love each day.

 
I Choose To Believe 

  To keep making the choice to love

Is a scary one, it’s true

But when that fear takes over me

I will try to think of you

And the way you must have felt that day

They nailed you to the cross

And the terror you must have felt inside

For the life soon to be lost.

But through it all you still managed to show

The love you felt for men

By forgiving them all and showing your love

Until the very end.

This love you showed now gives me strength

To learn to love once more

Knowing my love is stronger now than it ever was before.

And if I fail at love again

That thought of you will arise

And pick me up and dust me off

For many other tries.

For loving like you love dear Lord

Is what our lives are for

For loving is belief in you,

The one I now adore.