Jeff looks back on the days just before his wedding with deep regret. “It was about four or five months into the engagement when we found out we were pregnant. We didn’t want to embarrass our family at the wedding. When you’re 20-something years old, you believe the lies that it’s not a baby. But deep down you know this isn’t right.”
“We didn’t talk about it for 15 years…Our marriage was built on such a bad foundation. I came to a crossroad where I could either run to the Lord or continue down this other path. We were serving everybody else and helping them with their problems, but we never dealt with the abortion.”
“A woman wants to be protected and fought for, and abortion is everything but that. Instead, you’re saying, ‘I don’t value you. I don’t value the child,’ which makes you 180 degrees from where God created you to be. [As fathers,] we’re supposed to be the knight in shining armor. We’re supposed to protect.”
Jeff’s wife Tricia adds, “Forgiveness is like receiving salvation. You do it by faith. Does it take the hurt away? No. It’s a process and it’s about allowing God to meet you where you are.”
Jeff and Tricia’s story is not uncommon. Every day at AbortionMemorial.com, we hear from women and men who bear the scars of an abortion.
As a project of Human Coalition, a technology-driven nonprofit with a mission to rescue unborn babies and their families from abortion, AbortionMemorial.com was created to be a safe, nonjudgmental place to help families memorialize their unborn children. But it has evolved into much more than that.
With more than 200 entries, AbortionMemorial.com has caused abortion-determined women and men to rethink their decision! Most recently, a young mom named “Sarah” told Human Coalition, “Thanks to your page and all [of] the stories, I’ve decided to keep my baby and am now almost 27 weeks with my third child.”
Women, men, grandparents, siblings, even distant family members have visited AbortionMemorial.com to post tributes to the unborn children they never knew. Whether the abortion happened two decades ago or even just two months ago, this website provides the opportunity for people to properly honor the children they lost and do so in a safe and nonjudgmental environment.
For Jeff and Tricia, AbortionMemorial.com was a small step on the road to recovering from their post-abortion trauma. Two decades after choosing to abort their daughter, they are now speaking openly about their abortion, the resulting pain and the arduous search for forgiveness and healing.
Since half of all pregnancies in America are unplanned, and since four in ten pregnancies result in an induced abortion (Guttmacher Institute Fact Sheet, “Induced Abortion in the United States,” February 2014), it’s likely that we all know someone like Jeff and Tricia — someone who could benefit from sharing their story at AbortionMemorial.com.
Take a moment right now to click on one of the social media icons below to share this blog post and pass along this compassionate and anonymous site to the person in your life who’s suffering from post-abortion trauma and grief.
We appreciate your support as we help others on their path to healing.