I am a post-abortive grandmother. My precious daughter, Maria, had two abortions. I pray that her story might touch you if you have had one or more abortions.
Maria's story is, most of all, an amazing story of: God's faithfulness, the power of answered prayer, and God's amazing healing power.
I pray that you will read all of this so that you will know "the rest of the story".
Maria was raised in a Christian home and went to a Christian school for eight years. The high school system that she entered in Flint, Michigan, in 1984, was going through a tough transition to avoid forced busing. Maria's freshman year was positive and she seemed to have a close circle of friends. She was anxious to have a boyfriend, and I would tease her that we would "talk about it when she brought one home!" Well, she did bring home a young man and they dated in an environment that we, as parents, thought was closely monitored. We did not know that in Maria's sophomore year, she had an abortion and went to a soccer game after the procedure. What we did notice was the profound downward spiral that occurred in her life at that time. I knew that we were not perfect parents, and that Maria was noticeably turning away from her faith, but I questioned time and again the severity of her profound symptoms:
- A persistent depression
- The sudden on set of severe anxiety
- The loss of a close circle of friends
- A numbness and indifference I couldn't explain
- Devastation after the father of her aborted baby broke up with her
Although, often angry with us, we "held her up" during these tough times.
In spite of all this, Maria graduated from high school with honors. She entered Eastern Michigan University as an exercise physiology major. Through college, in spite of her success, there were always difficulties forming friendships and managing the persistent depression. She dated a young man that we were fond of for almost the entire four years of college. During her senior year, she excitedly "landed" an excellent job with Johnson and Johnson pharmaceuticals, and anticipated leaving for her new life in New Jersey.
Never did we anticipate that she and Neil would call us and tell us that Maria was pregnant the week before she was to leave for New Jersey. Together, at the other end of the line, they told us that Maria would have an abortion the next morning. Neil had offered to marry Maria, but she declined. We offered to adopt the baby and wept through the phone call. We failed totally in saving, what we thought, was our first grandchild. I knew the time of the procedure the next day, and I sat looking at the clock at work, knowing her child and our grandchild was being "extinguished" as I watched the seconds go by. Maria left for New Jersey five days later.
It is impossible to be happy in a career for which you have sacrificed a child. Johnson and Johnson never lived up to her expectations. She entered a long period of promiscuous relationships, more depression, complete numbness about her abortion, feelings of isolation and loneliness, some self-abusive behaviors, and many, many crises. We never bailed her out of situations she created, but we were always, always there for her at the end of each day. She knew it, and there were many long phone calls and visits. We were very close. During this time I highlighted Psalm 32: 3-4 in my bible. It says:
When I refused to confess my sin,
I was weak and miserable,
And I groaned all day long
Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.
My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.
This was truly our Maria.
Many, many parents have prayed for the return of their child to their Heavenly Father. We were among those parents. I would gently talk to Maria about grieving her baby, and she would respond in a manner that suggested she did not know what I was talking about. At the same time, her only sibling, our son, Aaron, started to pray for a Christian friend for Maria. After several years, the answer to that prayer came in the form of a wonderful young lady named Jacquelyn. As Jacquelyn says, "Maria did not like it when I talked about God," but eventually Maria started going to church with Jacquelyn.
On a quiet spring day, Maria, after being sick and alone at home for a week, surrendered all and returned to the faith of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She had carried the burden of her earthly choices long enough. She knew that Jesus Christ had paid the price for her on the cross. She did what she needed to do and asked for His forgiveness, accepting His saving grace and the promise of eternal life. God had answered our prayers!
Life was better for Maria, but another prayer remained. I had known for years that some event or person, needed to be used by God to break down the barrier that Maria had placed around her heart in regard to her abortion. I did not know what it would take. Only God knew the answer, and we continued to pray.
After returning to her faith, Maria started dating a quiet, young man named Rob. Maria had told me on several occasions that there was a nice young man at work who wanted to date her. Rob also returned to his faith after years of seperation from God. However, after dating for almost five years, it was apparent that Maria was keeping Rob "at arms length". He started to be discouraged about Maria's inability to move forward in their relationship to a deeper level. Even Maria recognized this as she watched Jacquelyn fall in love with a wonderful Christian man and move forward with marriage. In the spring of 2001, Rob told Maria that he was ending the relationship.
We traveled to New Jersey shortly after their breakup. When we entered Maria's apartment and I looked at her face, I knew that God had answered our prayers. The walls had come down; her heart had opened when Rob had ended their relationship. I saw complete transparency and vulnerability in Maria. She was grieving the loss of Rob and her aborted children. She immediately told us about the first abortion. I began to understand and see Maria's high school years in a new light. She had been suffering profound post-abortive symptoms.
Many things happened that spring. When Maria's walls came down, she fell deeply in love with Rob. Maria also now knew that she needed to grieve her babies. She had tried traditional counseling, but they did not place any importance on this subject. In what I viewed as a complete miracle, Maria found a wonderful woman named Linda at the Friendship House, a crisis pregnancy center in Flemington, New Jersey. Linda led Maria through the post-abortive bible study, Forgiven and Set Free. In the fall of 2001, Maria and Rob were back together. Maria, her father, myself, Rob and Linda attended a memorial service where Maria remembered her aborted two children. God had healed her again.
On April 27, 2002, Rob and Maria were married in New Jersey on a glorious spring day. It was a union of two people, but it was also a celebration of what God had done in their lives. Linda, our "angel", sat in her place of honor, beside me and my husband in the front row of the church. God had worked through Linda, making this very special day possible. Maria's brother Aaron, a Moody Bible Institute graduate, preached her wedding sermon. It was truly a day to rejoice.
In the summer of 2003, Rob and Maria attended a marriage retreat in Maryland. After the retreat, they planned to travel home to Michigan for the 4th of July. They had been married 14 months. On July 2, Maria and Rob stayed with college friends in the Detroit area. She took him to see her college campus. They stopped in Flint, Michigan so that Maria could show Rob her childhood home. At approximately 1 p.m. on that day they called us from their car. They were laughing and said, "We love you and we'll see you in a few hours". This would be their first time "home" as a married couple. At approximately 4 p.m. they left the expressway and were traveling north through the small village of Omer, MI. A drunk driver entered the road from their left and drove into their lane hitting them almost head on. Maria died in the helicopter on the way to a large metropolitan hospital. Rob's only injury was a broken foot.
I don't have to talk about the devastation that losing Maria brought to our lives. What I do want to talk about is what God did in our lives during our darkest moments. From the time we reached the emergency room in Standish, Michigan, God showed us how prepared Maria was to be reunited with her Heavenly Father. During her first year of marriage Maria had chosen to use the Depo Provera birth control shot. She was having some serious side effects for the shot, including minor seizure activity and significant flu symptoms two weeks out of each month. This was not how she had planned to spend her first year of marriage. One day she and I were chatting on the phone, and she said, "Mom, I don't want to die, but sometimes I so long for heaven!" When I leaned over Rob in the emergency room, telling him there was little hope for Maria, he said, "Mom, she was praying for a new body!" When Rob's mother, Felicia, arrived for the funeral, she said, "Mary, Maria has been reassuring me that she and I are going to have new bodies!" (Felicia had been having heart problems). The woman who held her in her arms at the scene of the accident, asked to come to our house the evening of the funeral. She wanted to understand the source of Maria's peace.
When my husband and I removed her things from the wrecked car the morning after the accident, we saw that Maria's side of the car was totally intact. Maria died of massive internal injuries from her seat belt. Her air bag had deployed. Rob's side of the car was gone after the windshield, and he sustained minor injuries. It wasn't too many months, before I knew without a doubt that this, again was no accident. Psalm 139 says, "You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed." Maria was reunited with her children. God had healed her again.
At Maria and Rob's wedding, they chose a song that was not actually a wedding song. Eternally Grateful, by Denise Davis was sung as a "thank you" to the friends and family who had cared enough about them to live "out their faith" to them in the months and years of their lives and courtship. The song goes like this:
Today, Maria lives these words in Eternity! We serve an awesome God who heals, and heals and heals!
 |
|
