My name is Kathy.  Thirty years ago I was at a point in my life when life was filled with nothing but difficult choices.  When I discovered I was pregnant with my third child, unmarried and with two smaller children at home, I didn’t really stop to consider any alternative choices.  I simply looked at abortion as the most effective and immediate solution.  I convinced myself it was not a baby; I was not carrying life.  I refused to look too deeply at the situation, looking only at the solution so that I could continue my life and provide for my children.

I remember feeling totally alone in that office and trying to see all that was happening as a "simple procedure."  It was actually quite painless, until I felt this tearing of my soul, a pain so deep I remember thinking, “What have I done?”  I walked away convincing myself I had no other choices; determined to get back to providing for my family.

I went to church and confessed to the Priest.  He asked me if I understood what I had done.  I answered yes.  He asked me if I was sorry, and I said yes.  I was sorry and I really felt God was punishing me for a selfish moment of pleasure.  What was my punishment?  It was the choice to eliminate the pregnancy in order to care for the children who depended on me to provide for them.  My sin was forgiven and I thought that I was okay.

But it wasn’t…I could cut this child out of my body, but not out of my heart, not out of my soul.  Twenty-five years later, when I knew something was desperately missing in my life, in my relationship with God, after prayer and total humility, it was revealed to me that missing part of myself was my aborted child.  I hadn’t understood the depth of what had happened to me because of the abortion.  I hadn’t really let myself look to closely at the decision to abort because the reality of my choice was so very horrendous.  I would walk through the fires of hell for my children, yet I did nothing for this child.  Instead, I sacrificed her for my own selfish needs--reasoning that I was doing it for the good of my family.  I didn’t want to look at her as a person because then, it would be too real, murdering my own child….What Mother does that?  Certainly, not a Mother who loves her children.

It wasn’t until my retreat with Rachel’s Hope that I began to understand three important things. One was the depth of what I had actually done by destroying my child, not a pregnancy, not a medical procedure, not a fetus but a Soul, a person, a child of God.  My second important realization was that Jesus had forgiven me, but I had never forgiven myself.  Jesus said He came to call all sinners, not just some, not just certain sins, not just little sins, but all sins that are brought to Him for forgiveness.  The third thing was that I would be with her again and that she, Catherine Rose, my daughter, would always be a part of me, a part of our entire family.  Nothing I had done would ever change that and the grief I felt over the loss of her life, she very much deserved.

If I say I have lost a child and understand the pain of that loss, most people who know the child was lost through abortion will say, “You don’t deserve my sympathy because you killed your own child,” but Jesus will say, “This Child’s life had value and by my cross you have been healed.  She deserves your grief.”

I am not sure what Catherine Rose might have done in her lifetime, but I know for me that she is my bridge to Jesus, to the cross.  I know we will be together again and my heart will be whole for she waits for me with the Lord.  God takes our worst sin and turns it into our choice of salvation. Don’t walk away.  Be healed, be whole, be joyous and feel God’s love and peace, receive the salvation Jesus died for.  It’s really your choice.