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Testimonies
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Grace to Heal
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Kathy Gonzales, Regional Coordinator
Washington,
United States
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As a child, I was sexually abused and as a young adult raped. Those two traumas distorted the way that I viewed sex, marriage, children, and God. Chastity…. why bother? And God? Where was he? Did he even exist?
So, at nineteen, I arrived as an agnostic into the life of a man seven years older than me who probably had even more problems than me. However, he had a gentleness and the most beautiful blue eyes. He said he loved me, that he would protect me. His first way of protecting me meant getting on the birth control pill. The pill didn’t work. I still ended up pregnant and he told me, “No big deal, we’ll just get an abortion.” I didn’t give it a second thought. No great moral dilemma haunted me. After all, abortion was legal. The baby was just a blob of cells, the man I loved wanted the abortion, and I would do anything for him.
So, I found myself on the abortion table. I had never met the doctor. As he performed the abortion, he became annoyed. I wondered if the baby bigger than I thought? Reality suddenly hit. Instinctively, I knew the exact moment the baby died, and I could not stop crying. The nurse asked if anything hurt. I shook my head, “No.” I couldn’t explain to her the pain in my heart and soul. She said, “Sweetie, you did the right thing.”
The murder of my own child occurred in a matter of minutes. How can I explain to you in words how those few minutes in the span of my life-time left me more traumatized than being molested or raped? Abortion added trauma onto trauma. How had I moved from being a victim to a perpetrator? What I had longed for most of my life, love and protection, I had denied to my own child. How does a person deal with that kind of shame and guilt…that kind of despair?
Through years and years of denial…that’s how I dealt with it. I dealt with it through addictions, bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts, and through bad and destructive relationships. Somehow, though, through all the struggle, God showed up in my life. I began a journey towards Jesus, admittedly with a number of detours along the way. I now know how much Jesus loves me, protects me, forgives me, and, through His mercy, has washed away my guilt and shame. The Lord has given me the grace to heal.
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