Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

I believe we all have different struggles after having an abortion. For
me, I never believed that God had forgiven me or that I could ever forgive
myself. Anytime I would go to confession, I would confess my sins of
abortion until one day I started going to the same priest and he said to
me, "you don't have to confess that anymore…God has forgiven you." And
even though this made me feel better, I couldn't understand how it was
possible.

One of my biggest challenges was my pride. I would hear Theresa say it
time and time again, "Do not let your pride stand in the way of your
healing." My thought process was that I wasn't proud of what I had done, I
was embarrassed and ashamed. I would say to myself over and over, "I can't
believe I could have done something like this…and not just once." You
see I didn't realize it at the time, but by telling myself things like that
is was as if I believed I was above sin, like, I was too perfect to do
something as grave a sin as abortion. And it was hard to accept that this
was in fact my pride.

One of the greatest steps I took in this healing process was taking time
each day to sit before the Blessed Sacrament. I have done this for the
past 11 years and I can't even tell you the things that have been revealed
to me about who God truly is and about myself. I remember the time I
brought this whole pride thing to Jesus to try and sort it out and as I
looked up at the cross and saw Him hanging there, I began to see it so
differently. There He was, after he had been beaten, humiliated, spit at
nailed to a cross and hung there in agony for hours, and all I could think
about is how could that not be enough for my sins? As if I needed Him to
do something "grander" than that for me.

We all have our own struggles, but I believe we all carry the same shame,
guilt and pride. But the good news is God's gifts of mercy and love are
greater and bigger than any of those things. We just need to be humble and
gracious enough to accept them. -V