I am a 66-year-old woman that has carried a heavy secret for 50 years. 

When I was 16, I found myself pregnant with my on-and-off again boyfriend.

I loved him but I knew (or I thought I knew) that my father would kick me out. Because he said that many times through my life.  I didn't want to be the girl that "made" her boyfriend marry her and see that become the ruin of us.  So, we chose abortion. 

I was from a small Indiana town, and in the 1960's you never heard that word.  Somehow my boyfriend and I got an appointment for an abortion in New York City.  He scraped together enough money for me to fly there alone and return.   On that plane, God placed a St. Mary's college student going home on break right beside me. She did not know what I was doing going to New York but was concerned.  She helped me find my way to the address and went on her way.  At the office the doctor went to check me and said I was too far along.  I was terrified and crying.  The nurse there took me aside and said she knew someone who would do the abortion.  She took me home with her and in the morning took me somewhere and left me.   There, I was taken into a room and was sedated. I remember pain and a suction noise.  I remember somehow getting back to the airport and having terrible cramping.  

By the grace of God, I made it home and tried to go on as if nothing happened.  It was the beginning of my heavy shame cloud that hovered over my life.   I had been raised in a religion that preached that there was an unforgivable sin and that this was the one.  So now I knew that there was no hope for my eternity.

Three years later that same on and off again boyfriend and I married.  I have always felt I would have been a more intimate wife and loving mother if there just wasn't that shame cloud I kept trying to ignore and hide from. I was lonely, missing my God, and very depressed for many years.

Forty years later my daughter invited me to a Great Banquet weekend at her church.  That weekend was the beginning of my journey out that huge shame cloud and back to God and His sweet grace.  And now through healing programs, I am starting to be able to face the world with my 50-year-old secret. 

AND THAT IS WHY I AM SILENT NO MORE.