Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

The call to Union with God always exceeds us. It is the call to live in truth and to abandon oneself to God. The appropriate response consists in recognizing one’s own sinfulness, helplessness, and weakness, but above all in trusting in the merciful love of God. We conquer the heart of the Good Shepherd only with our trustful abandonment to Him. (In the Arms of Mary-Biela)

There is that word again…abandonment. Just the thought of it has been the source of a living hell for me.

I have often thought, if I need to get this abandonment thing down before I die so I can get to heaven, I am in big trouble. And what does that even mean to “get it down”?  

I have tried to “heal” and protect myself from this deep pain of abandonment I have felt lives deep within my soul. I have spent years trying to flee from the reality of what it is for me… A place of excruciating pain, loneliness betrayal rejection, I could go on and on, you name it.

But I cannot do it.

A quote of St John of the Cross says, “Locate the wound without explanation. Stand in it. Hold it before Christ.”

Don’t flee from it, embrace it. Stand in your wound and hold it before Him.

It really is quite beautiful if you think of it. Stand in my abandonment before Him in trust. A tough feat for me.

So, how do I do that? How do I take this deep wound, this pain, this pain which I believe will probably be with me at times throughout my life and instead of fleeing it, participate in it? How do I stand in it when my emotions are raging, when I’m irrational and crazy? (and believe me I can get crazy when it is raging. There are a couple of you here who could attest to that!) How does our misery become a grace? How do we offer it? What does the grace of abandonment even mean?

The truth is I am still learning, and I am sure I will be learning until the day I die, but He continues to reveal to me little by little just how this very wound that causes me such excruciating pain, is a grace.

In the Eucharistic prayer II, of the church it says, “at the time he was betrayed and entered willing into His passion.”  We tend to forget that. We like to think those “other people” made His suffering happen, but He was God, He could have stopped it at any time, and we are those “other people”.

Christs offering was willing. It was willing out of love for us for our salvation.

I am learning I must do the thing I am most fearful of…face my abandonment but not only face it, I must stand in it. I must willingly enter my passion and abandon MYSELF to God. I must trust. I may not feel trust, but it does not matter, as long as I do it, and it is not only in this feeling but in all things, all the time, surrendering, abandoning myself to His will.

I need to accept and even embrace my weaknesses. To truly trust in Him and believe all good comes from Him. To stand in my nothingness, in my vulnerability. Do I really want that? Yes, I do but it can be very painful and hard, yet, it is the way to Christ.

 “Pick up your cross and follow me.” We cannot do it, only they can, but we need to ask them for the grace, to give them our nothingness. To tell them we want it.

In the book True Devotion, it says: ’The grace of seeing yourself in truth is the foundation of all others.” “Pray to know yourself at the feet of Mary for it is from her you hope for the light to know yourself and it is near her that you shall be able to measure the abyss of your misery without despairing”

Every day I ask Mary to keep me safely beneath her mantle. I trust that I am there, and as poorly as I do it, I know she knows I love her.

She has saved me from myself a million times and more so that I would not be lost to them. She has obtained so much for me and I have come to see, directed my life so intimately. She is part of all I do. When I rise, my communion, prayer etc. I could never even express what she is to me. If you’re not consecrated to her you should be. She made sure no matter what the hurt or pain, (and believe me I could have fled permanently from some of them,) I would never give up on His love. How can I ever thank her for that? She is my stronghold, my refuge.

She is teaching me, when I am in that pit of abandonment, to stay still. To know she and Jesus are there with me. To not be afraid to stand in the abandonment with them.

I am not going to lie, I fail a lot. I crash and burn, I need encouragement and reassurance at times, but He is patient with me. He knows I desire Him, and He desires me.  

They understand, they suffered all we have and worse, betrayal, loneliness, rejection, abandonment. It’s hard but I am learning to embrace, and dare I say I am even beginning to love my wounds because it is there, I find them most intimately right there with me.

Christ willing abandoned Himself for our salvation. He enters my wounds out of love for me and by His grace I move into His out of love for Him. Does it still hurt, yes, they are still wounds, but there is a beautiful intimacy there, a sanctification, a uniting of our sufferings out of love.

I now Thank Him for the wounds even when I cannot feel gratitude.

I believe this is the grace of abandonment.

The very thing that unites me to Christ.

 It is my road to salvation.

I believe I was brought to this road by my son Joshua who through his suffering and death brought me to God. Our children’s desire has always been our salvation and their mercy for us has led us to the mercy of God.

This world is a mess. One only has to look around to see how far we have moved from God. Who would have believed even a few years ago, what is going on now?

Those of us here are very blessed. We are here by His grace. In truth we deserve nothing and yet He is so merciful to us. Despite our sins, our terrible sin of abortion and all our other sins, He calls us to intimacy with Himself. To union.

I believe we are called to penance and reparation out of love and gratitude to Him, all the time, but, especially in these times. To unite our suffering with His for not only our own salvation but the salvation of so many lost to abortion, for our church, for our clergy, for our families…I can go on and on.

When Christ was dying on the cross in excruciating pain, he cried out, “My God My God why have you abandoned me.” Yet despite His feelings He trusted, He knew and never doubted Gods love. Then he surrendered “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”

St Therese says, “on the cross he overcame the powers of hell”.  He overcame death, our sin of abortion (which surely is hell) and every other sin. I believe He asks the same of us  

The call to Union with God always exceeds us. It is the call to live in truth and to abandon oneself to God. The appropriate response consists in recognizing one’s own sinfulness, helplessness, and weakness, but above all in trusting in the merciful love of God. We conquer the heart of the Good Shepherd only with our trustful abandonment to Him…it is in that moment His mercy triumphs over our misery.

There is a great quote by St Augustine:

 “In my deepest wound I saw your glory and it dazzled me”

May we each be dazzled by His glory!!