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Journeys To Mother Love

~ Encouragement and healing in mother/child relationships

Journeys To Mother Love

Tag Archives: Post-Abortion Healing

Grace to Mothers (and Fathers) Grieving Aborted Babies

08 Friday May 2015

Posted by Catherine Lawton in emotional needs, forgiving yourself, Free to Love, God's healing love, grief and loss, healing after abortion, Mother's Day, Regret transformed, the healing journey, The power of honest sharing

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Tags

Courage to be honest, Emotional and spiritual healing, Forgiving yourself, future hope, Healing love, life and death, Mother's Day, Post-Abortion Healing, unresolved hurt, Women's Issues

Sunset sky

Mother’s Day is painful for many people, for the bereaved, the childless, and those who suffer from post-abortion grief.

A few years ago I found my mother’s birth family, including three cousins, living not far from me. Recently I visited one male cousin the same age as me (he’s a Baby Boomer and Vietnam Vet, if that gives you an idea of our age).

Though he’s been married more than once, he has no children. Speaking of that fact, he got a little misty-eyed. Then he pointed to a memento sitting atop his TV: a ceramic baby booty. He said it represents a baby he fathered that the mother didn’t allow to come to birth. I know there’s always more to the story, and it’s true I don’t really know much about this “new” cousin’s past. I don’t know what that young woman years ago was going through, either.

I saw the tear in my cousin’s eye, though. And I heard the wistfulness in his voice when he told me he believed there was a child of his that he would meet in Heaven.

I was touched by the emotions of this man, over something that happened several decades ago.

A huge number of abortions have occurred in the years since abortion was legalized in America. If you believe as most Christians do, that babies and young children who die before the age of accountability go to Heaven; and if you believe that unborn babies are persons with eternal souls; then you believe as I do that all those aborted babies will be in Heaven. Perhaps they’ve been growing and developing in the nurture of Jesus and loving saints. Then, what a host of beloved children are waiting there.

My cousin obviously believes and hopes to meet his one child someday in the heavenly realms.

One of our Journeys to Mother Love contributors, Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton, has written movingly about her post-abortion experiences and healing. To my cousin and to Kyleen and to the many women and men who chose abortion when they felt trapped, hopeless, and helpless … the Lord of mercy and grace has healing, hope, and restoration for you. And He is taking care of your child. May that thought give you comfort this Mother’s Day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This video and the book it is based on, express the emotions that lead to and result from the choice of an abortion:

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The Power of Sharing Your Deepest Secrets 

01 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by kyleen228 in confessing our need, family gatherings, forgiving yourself, Free to Love, healing after abortion, the healing journey, The power of honest sharing

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Tags

authentic relationship, Courage to be honest, Healthy relationships, mother and daughter, Post-Abortion Healing, risking the truth

Sad and lonely woman's face

Secret shame keeps us isolated

My parents and I were in Las Vegas the first time I shared my abortion story with them. We were there for some fun and cheering up. I had just returned from South Korea, having traveled there with my husband to teach English as a second language after we graduated from college. But now I was home from that year, my husband was still in Pusan, and we were getting a divorce. I was feeling like a failure and hurting because I suspected my husband of infidelity. I felt abandoned—just like I had felt when my unborn child’s father had told me he wanted to break off our relationship six months after we had chosen abortion for our baby.

My parents and I sat in our hotel room, talking about my failed marriage and how I felt about it. The conversation trailed off and my mom filled the silence. “Honey, I just don’t understand what happened to you. You left our home with all kinds of self confidence, but somewhere between then and now, you seem to have lost it all.”

I looked down, not really knowing what to say. I knew what had happened to me, but I had never shared it with my parents. Abortion had happened to me. I had gotten pregnant, chosen abortion, and decided I was damaged goods. The baby’s father and I had broken off our relationship, and I had met and married a man who didn’t always exhibit the highest moral character. Now, a year later, I was getting a divorce.

“I never told you guys this, but….” my voiced cracked as the flood of emotion swelled. “I got pregnant when I was a freshman in college and I had an abortion.” My silent tears began to fall. Never once meeting their eyes, I continued, “I thought I didn’t deserve anyone better, so I married Sam.”

My parents both sat in stunned silence. When I finally mustered the courage to look up again, my mom said, “You know we don’t think any less of you for making that choice, right? I probably would have suggested the same solution. But you should have told us. You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.”

“I was so scared to disappoint you.” I said. “You were so proud of me for going to college. I didn’t want to ruin all my chances at a bright future.”

“We are proud of you,” my dad said, “and this doesn’t change that.”

My tears fell freely now. All I could manage to say was, “Thank you.” I got up from where I was sitting and hugged them both. I had imagined this conversation in my mind so many times, and this was the best scenario I could imagine. There was no judgement, only concern and love.

We talked more about what had happened. Sharing details with them was uncomfortable, but it was freeing to no longer carry such a big secret. At least they could understand now why I had seemed to lose myself.

Since then, for the past 15 years, I’ve been finding myself again. One thing I’ve discovered is telling those you love your secrets has an amazing power to free you. We keep secrets because we are afraid of rejection and judgement. But the truth is our secrets imprison us more than someone’s rejection ever could. At the end of the day, if a loved one can’t overlook a bad decision we’ve made, that is their choice,  but we don’t have to allow that to control how we feel about ourselves. Their choice does not define who I am.

Keeping a secret could, however, prevent me from being honest with the ones I love, thereby limiting the intimacy in the relationship. If you never share your whole self, both good and bad, how can you ever fully open your heart? You might not be able to count on a loved one not judging you for your past mistakes, such as an abortion. Free yourself from the secret-keeping anyway.

~ Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

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Honesty about Our Struggles is the Best Way to Help Each Other

01 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by kyleen228 in challenges of motherhood, confessing our need, encouraging each other, forgiving yourself, healing after abortion, Parenting, the healing journey

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Tags

Courage to be honest, Forgiving yourself, Parenting, Post-Abortion Healing, Post-abortion stress, Trying to be a perfect mother

KATIE cover photo

It has been too long since I posted a blog, but I was encouraged recently by an anonymous reader. She thanked me for helping her understand how her past abortion was still impacting her life. Like me, she’d spent years thinking something was wrong with her, never connecting her emotional struggles to her abortion. It saddens me how often that is the case. In the name of women’s rights, we have tried to convince women that there are no negative consequences to abortion. For some, this is true. But for others, it is not.

Strength to you, my friend, and thank God you can finally start putting the pieces together! For true healing to take place, we must first understand what needs to be healed. In post-abortion stress the pain gets camouflaged in so many other things. It’s easy to miss the connections.

For instance, I struggled with insecurities about my motherhood for years. It took a crisis in the life of one of my children for me to finally realize that no matter how hard I tried to be a great mother, I couldn’t protect my children from every pain, accident, or evil person out there. The process nearly sank me because I had been trying so hard to prove to myself that I was a good mother. Admitting that I couldn’t protect my children from evil meant admitting, in my mind, to another failure as a mother.

I know it sounds trite and naive, but I really believed I needed to do everything right. It finally occurred to me that my struggle wasn’t about the crisis in my child’s life. My struggle was about how it made me perceive myself as a mother and how my past abortion affected that. When I finally put all this together, I was able to work through my feelings much more effectively. Looking back now, I can see how irrational trying to be perfect was; but at the time, I didn’t understand the underlying motivations for my behavior.

I continue to share my story because of women like this. And, here’s to more women being honest about their struggles after abortion. It’s the best help we can give each other.

~Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

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The Law of Love

09 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by Catherine Lawton in Adopted children, forgiving yourself, God's healing love, healing after abortion, losing mom too soon, stepmom relationship, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Abortion, Forgiving yourself, future hope, God the Father, Great Commandment, Healing love, Miracle Baby, Post-Abortion Healing

"Death Was Cheated" - newspaper clipping

Ellen Cardwell, a “miracle” baby “born” after her mother died

Is the pre-born baby a “person” created by God with a soul that will live forever? Two of the stories in Journeys to Mother Love touch on this subject.

Ellen Cardwell shares the story of how her mother died suddenly while taking a Sunday afternoon stroll when she was pregnant full-term with Ellen. A popular attitude of the times was that the unborn baby should be left to die with the mother. A caring doctor, though, performed an emergency operation on the deceased mother and took the baby out, resuscitating her to life. The story appeared on the front page of the Oakland Tribune (see photo above).

For Ellen, the mother/child relational healing she experienced later, had to do with relating to and forgiving her stepmother, who had led Ellen to believe she was her birth mother.

In another memoir included in Journeys to Mother Love, Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton tells how, as a frightened, pregnant college student, she chose abortion—and then the resulting emotional pain, cancer, and barrenness she experienced when, in a loving marriage, she longed for children.

The mother/child healing aspect of Kyleen’s story had to do with her “relationship” with the unborn, aborted child who she came to think of as a person with a name; with her relationship with her stepchild; and with her own need to forgive herself.

These are both powerful stories. They show how important to God is every person he creates. And though we are called “mortal beings” because our bodies will die, there is a part of us that will not die. These stories also show that we are each individuals but tied together with bonds stronger than death.

When it comes to personhood and abortion, I believe we should vote and work for just and biblical laws. But I also believe that man’s law and God’s law are not the same. It is a worthy goal to want man’s laws to be based on God’s laws. But it is not the main goal. Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law. And he said that the greatest commandment was to love (see Matthew 22:37-39). When we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, we also love what he has created.

I’m thankful the doctor in Oakland, California honored God and the life he created when he allowed Ellen to be “born”; and I’m thankful for the love and forgiveness the Lord has given Ellen for her mother and stepmother, and for the hope she has of fellowship with them in Heaven.

I’m also thankful that God the Father welcomes into his presence the babies aborted and robbed of a life on earth. And he has shown his love for Kyleen by giving to her children to adopt and love as well as peace concerning the child conceived in her own body, whom she anticipates meeting face to face in Heaven.

The second part of Jesus’ great commandment is that we “love our neighbors as ourselves.” When we live by that law of love — and see our mothers and our children as our “neighbors” — our stories are transformed.

~Catherine Lawton

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Mourning Their Loss

12 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by kyleen228 in encouraging each other, God's healing love, healing after abortion, reach out and touch, the healing journey

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Forgiveness, Forgiving yourself, future hope, Healing love, Post-Abortion Healing

Alpine mountains and meadow

(Photo: C. Lawton)

I attended a fund raising event last night for our local pregnancy care clinic which has the mission of erasing the perceived need for abortion, through education and support in an unplanned pregnancy. Of the many moving testimonies, one that resonated with me was an essay entitled “6 Students Absent.” In it, a teacher recounts sitting at her desk and observing her class. She goes through each student, telling his or her strengths—this one is a talented artist, this one is a friend to everyone, that one is a beautiful singer. Then she comes to the six who are absent—the students that never were, because of abortion. She mourns their loss and the fact that the world will never know them or their talents. How sad and how true.

From a mother’s perspective, I can relate to the void she was alluding to. I have felt that void every day for my lost daughter. Because God has redeemed my choice to abort so many years ago, I no longer feel condemned, but the void has never left me. There is a missing piece of my heart just as there was a missing seat in that classroom. This void is what fuels me to share my story. My heart’s desire is that a mother will be spared a broken heart, and a child who might never have been known, will be known.

Thank goodness I serve a God who is big enough to forgive any sin and to heal every hurt. I look forward to the day when I can meet my precious Holly in heaven and that void in my mother heart is finally filled.

If you would like more on this topic, please visit my blog: http://singobarrenwoman.wordpress.com/

~ Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

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Emotional Captivity

26 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by kyleen228 in confessing our need, emotional needs, healing after abortion, the healing journey

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Tags

Emotional and spiritual captivity, Emotional and spiritual healing, Forgiving yourself, Post-Abortion Healing, Women's Issues

Red-tail hawks soaring

(Photo: C. Lawton)

Is anything holding you captive? Do you long to be emotionally and spiritually free?

Red-tail hawk soaring

(Photo: C. Lawton)

After 10 years of avoiding the truth about my abortion, even hiding it from myself, I finally faced my own emotional captivity. At some level, I knew that my journey must begin with God, by seeking his forgiveness. Little did I know that my greatest challenge would be forgiving myself. Yet Isaiah 54 has been true in my own life. I have seen God move me from captivity to freedom. He healed my mother heart and freed me from the chains of guilt and shame. What should have kept me down forever, God has turned and now uses to help set others free.

Captivity, both physical and emotional, is a recurring theme in the Bible. One of the best examples of is Isaiah 54. This chapter, written to the Israelites, predicts their return to favor and release from captivity in Babylon. But because of the rich, multi-layered nature of God’s Word, this chapter also applies to anyone finding herself in a prison of emotional and spiritual captivity.

During times of barrenness of spirit, Isaiah 54 addresses the “destitute” with the promise that even when God seems distant, he vows to “return in mercy.” And though we face seasons of life that seem blanketed by sorrow, God’s promise is to move us forward into seasons of peace and restoration, should we choose to walk with him out of captivity and into freedom. The chapter ends with the triumphant promise that Satan, the one who seeks to steal, kill and destroy all that God has established, will be “baffled” and we will emerge victorious.

These verses from Isaiah 54 (NIV) are especially meaningful to me:

‘Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,’ says the Lord.

‘Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.

‘Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband—the Lord Almighty is his name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.

”The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—a wife who married young, only to be rejected,’ says your God. ‘For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,’ says the Lord your Redeemer….

‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you….

Have you experienced this love and freedom?

~ Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

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If I Can Just Touch One

23 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by kyleen228 in encouraging each other, reach out and touch, the healing journey

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Tags

Courage to be honest, Ministry, Post-Abortion Healing, Women's Issues

 

 

Mother Love
Mother Love (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A dear friend read my story in Journeys to Mother Love and texted me that she was still wiping away tears as her fingers wrote the text. She shared that we had much in common, both of us knowing what she meant although she never mentioned the word “abortion.” She went on to share that she was unsure about her faith but felt inspired by my story and knew God had brought us together for a reason. I was able to remind her that God was working in her life simply and wonderfully because of his LOVE for her.

 

When I shared the text with my husband, he said, “Well there you go. If nothing else happens, you have impacted the life of another human being in a positive way.”

 

She found the courage to be honest with me about her journey because I was honest about mine. My husband’s comment resonated with me. While my hope is that my story might touch thousands, that it touched one is no less significant. If we believe that we are all connected, the seven degrees of separation idea, then by touching one, I have impacted many more. If one person is encouraged to trust God more, to seek healing, or to finally be honest with herself, then imagine the impact of that decision on those in her life – her husband, children, family, co-workers, etc. We are wise to remember that changing even one life for the better is nothing short of a miracle. That God allows us this privilege is truly a blessing.

 

~ Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

 

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To Share Is God’s Gift

04 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by kyleen228 in confessing our need, encouraging each other, healing after abortion, the healing journey

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Christian spirituality, Courage to be honest, Post-Abortion Healing, unresolved hurt

Note: Many of the contributors in “Journeys to Mother Love” share about forgiving their mothers and receiving healing from childhood experiences, which has helped them in mothering their own children. Kyleen is one who felt the need to forgive herself before she could find freedom to be the mother her children needed.

Part of my personal story was first published in Deliver Me, by Diane E. Butts. When that book came out, I received an email from a fellow contributor. She commented that she and another pregnancy center volunteer had cried when they read my story. She told me, “To share your story so openly is God’s gift to you.” She then went on to talk about how most women are afraid to tell their stories. They fear judgment, both of themselves and their families.

The most unexpected thing I have discovered is that sharing my story has provoked kindness from others. Whenever I speak, there is always at least one woman who comes up and tells me she understands my pain because she has been there too. One blogger posted that he or she found me “naive.” But truly, in almost seven years of sharing my story at churches and conferences, and in print, that is the most “negative” comment I have received.

I cannot change the past. All I can do is take what I have experienced and try to use it to help others. While the message out there says abortion doesn’t hurt women, my experience says exactly the opposite. I realize that not every woman regrets an abortion, but for those who do, the pain can be almost unbearable and the consequences very real. My hope is that through reading or hearing my story, a woman might recognize herself in my struggles and realize there is hope.The first step is admitting to yourself that you have been hurt by a past abortion and there is a need for healing to occur. Once you invite God into that most tender place of failure, you will be amazed at how he can turn even the thing you fear the most into your greatest testimony.

If you want more on this topic, visit my blog at http://singobarrenwoman.wordpress.com/.

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