Many years ago I got pregnant (I was seventeen at the time) and had a daughter, whom I love very much. Four years later, I got pregnant again with another man, but that time I had an abortion.... Not a day goes by that I don’t remember and cry... and repent of having made that decision.

Now I am seven-months pregnant and, thank God, my baby is healthy and growing normally. Every day I ask God for my baby to be born healthy.... However, I can’t stop seeing myself as a monster, a criminal, an animal with no feelings, for what I did to my son. I feel bad and guilty... and I can’t forgive myself. I don’t deserve forgiveness, and the only thing I can hope is that my story might persuade another woman not to have an abortion, because it is something that follows you all of your life and that you can never, never forget. Don’t become an assassin of your own child!

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your passionate warning to other women. We can only hope that your first-hand advice will reach the hearts and minds of desperate girls and women who feel alone and abandoned. Perhaps your words will motivate them to look for a pregnancy help center. If they are not yet ready for motherhood or if they don’t want to raise a child by themselves, maybe they will begin to consider adoption as the loving option. Your experience may save the lives of many babies!

You say that not a day of your life goes by without tears and repentance for what happened many years ago. Since you can’t forgive yourself, you keep beating yourself up day after day.

Asking God to forgive you for what you did is the right way to move forward with your life. However, when you ask Him the same thing over and over, day after day, what you are doing is refusing to believe that God is merciful and forgiving. The Apostle John wrote, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”1 When you confess what you have done and ask God to forgive you, He forgives you! His Son Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sin when He died on the cross.

So you don’t have to continue to ask for forgiveness for the same thing over and over. If you commit another sin, of course you can ask for forgiveness. But you never again have to ask God to forgive you for having aborted your son.

Since God has forgiven you, it is time to make peace with yourself for what you did. If you insist on punishing yourself every day, then you are acting like the punishment that Christ took for you wasn’t enough. He suffered, bled, and died so that you would not have to. Wasn’t that enough? When you pray each day, instead of repenting over and over, spend your time thanking Him for all that He has done.

I wish you well,

Linda
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1 1Jn 1:9

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