Testimony I am sharing at the AK Right to Life Fundraiser tonight!

I just want to say Thank you to Karen for giving me the privilege of getting to share my story tonight.

At 14 years old I found myself at Planned Parenthood. One thing that Planned Parenthood did not tell me when I was there was that what I was about to do would scar my heart for a lifetime. They also never told me that every anniversary of the death of my baby my heart would ache for that child or that I would never forget that moment. What they did say was that the baby I was carrying in my womb was really just a mass of tissue.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I was Five Months Pregnant!

In the year 1973 I was taken to Planned Parenthood by my mother and forced to have a Saline Solution Abortion. What that means is they took all the amniotic fluid out of my womb, replaced it with a Saline Solution, and this solution literally burned the baby to death. 24 hours later I was brought to the hospital, labor was induced and I gave birth to my dead baby. I asked the nurse if she could at least tell me what the baby was, a boy or a girl. She had just placed my baby in a bucket at the end of my bed, and once again I was told that it was really just a mass of tissue.

After that I spent most of my teenage years on drugs and drinking. I got married at the age of 17 because I was pregnant again and my mom insisted that I get married this time. I gave birth to a beautiful daughter named Vanessa, two days after I graduated from High School.

I then proceeded to drink and drug my way through life, divorcing my first husband at the age of 19, marrying another man, and leaving him by the time I was 21. I was drinking and drugging and I finally reached the bottom of my pit at the age of 21. I admitted myself into a drug and alcohol rehab center.

I was clean and sober for a little over a year when I got pregnant once more at the age of 22. This time I called my Dad and asked him if he would help me kill his grandchild. While he was poo pooing me on the phone, he asked me how much money would I need to get the abortion.

Three days before the abortion one of my coworkers invited me to go church. I went that night, March 14^th, 1982, and God began to draw my heart to His.

On March 17^th, I aborted my third child. This time I knew exactly what I had done and as I laid there on the table, when it was all over, shaking uncontrollably and sobbing, the nurse asked me if there was anyone I wanted to talk to.

The lady that had taken me to the clinic came into the room, wrapped her arms around me, and asked me what was wrong. I sobbed out that God could never love me now, how could He, I had just killed my baby.

I like to say that at that moment God came into my life with such grace and mercy that it changed my life forever. He grabbed a hold of me that day and has never let me go.

I was 22 at that time and I am 49 today. I have been married to a wonderful man for 21 years, and I have 4 awesome children, a son-in-law, and two grandkids. There has been a lot of living in those years in between then and now.

In 2005 a couple of things began to happen in my walk with the Lord. I began to Believe God, because of a Bible Study I was facilitating in my home by Beth Moore. I began to understand that God really is who He says He is, and that I am who He says I am!

I also went to Wellsprings School of Ministry in November of that year. At Wellsprings the teachers will teach on a subject then they will give you a chance to share if it has touched off something in your heart and they take the time to stop and pray through the situation.

Well, this one particular day, Art was talking about ministering to people who have a blank area in their lives~something that had happened that was either so tragic or traumatic that they had totally blocked it out. I raised my hand and said I had one of those areas. We were in the middle of the teaching, so Art said “we are giving you the tools that you need to deal with it and you know what to do.” I listened a little bit longer and raised my hand again and said “I need to tell you what it was.” I told him about the abortion at age 14. He asked if he could pray with me and we began to pray. I was following along with him but got to the point where I could not talk because I was sobbing so hard.

He then asked two of the ladies who counsel there to take me to another room and continue to pray through this with me. I went with them down a hall and into another room.

One thing that I had always longed for my mother to do with me was when I was having a hard time, I wanted to be able to sit at her feet, put my head in her lap and have her pat my back and tell me everything would be okay. My mom never did that. But God knew my hearts desire.

As I walked into this room, Nancy sat down in a chair and I dropped to my knees and put my head in her lap, as she began to pat my back and pray me through these things. We went to places that had been locked up in my heart and that I had never wanted to go back to. There were things that I had forgotten that needed to be released. We prayed through the hatred I felt for my Mother, for the doctors and nurses who preformed the abortions and for Planned Parenthood. I chose to forgive them all, and in doing so it released my heart so that I could truly forgive myself. I gave it all to God.

In the end, after sobbing my heart out I went as limp as a dishrag. Nancy gently laid me on the floor, covered me up with a jacket, and told me to rest in the Lord. She said I needed to just let the Holy Spirit come and speak the Fathers truth to me now. She said she would come back and check on me but to just let the Father speak to my heart.

So the Father and I began to have a conversation. I said to Him “Lord, all I ever wanted to know was if it was a boy or a girl.”

He said to me “The first one was a boy, the second one was a girl”

I said “But God, I always wanted to name them, so I could call them by name”

He whispered “My daughter, I have named them”

With anticipation I asked “What Lord? What are their names?”

“Their names are Redeemed and Loved ~ and you my daughter are Redeemed and Loved also. I want you to walk in this, for this is who you are.”

Now my babies have a name! And I am forgiven! Even more so, I have truly forgiven myself!

I now Believe God…that I am a Daughter of the King and I am Redeemed and Loved. God has completely healed my heart.

Redemption is when the pain is treated and turned around so thoroughly that it not only loses it’s power to do you harm, but it also gains the power to do some good.

Beth Moore said that.

It is my heart to share this message of God’s redeeming love with every woman who has experienced an abortion.

If He will do it for me, He will do it for you too! Thank you.