No matter what we’ve done, Jesus reaches out to receive us back. by Rhonda de la Moriniere
Sometimes we have no idea how Jesus uses all the seemingly insignificant details in our lives to come together at just the right moment, in just the right way, to create a hole in us that only He can patch. As with the simple stones laying at David’s feet when he faced Goliath, Jesus knows how to use things of earth and dust to sling at the Goliath in us and make him fall — even a Goliath we didn’t know was there.
That is what Jesus did to eventually reconcile my heart to my three babies I aborted.
Benjamin
It all began with Benjamin. He was the perfect baby boy to be born to one of my best friends with whom I taught a women’s Bible study.
My heart became especially knit to this little one in her womb. I loved watching him grow inside his mommy’s belly. I eagerly anticipated her upcoming ultrasound so I could see with my eyes this little one already taking up room in my heart.
Unexpected loss
The next day, I happened to be in one of church offices when I heard a couple of ladies softly talking and praying. I heard my friend’s name and just knew Benjamin was gone.
My heart broke.
Open hole
How ironic to be so devasted by the loss of this little one. Years before, I willingly went into a clinic and took the life of what would have been my firstborn. She was about the same age in my womb as Benjamin.
I tried to suppress the thought, but it wouldn’t go away. Benjamin’s loss had ripped open the hole that only God could close. Where were these thoughts coming from? I had perfected shoving them down and even placed the bandage of “Jesus forgave me for that” over it all.
But that bandage seemed useless now. Grief, shame, and loss all tumbled out, like the giant body of Goliath that I didn’t have the strength to move.
Bodies
At the time, I was teaching a Bible study on the story of Nehemiah. As I read the words from Nehemiah 4:2, I could not stop thinking about my babies I aborted: “Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned up ones at that?”
I had never once thought about what happened to their bodies. My heart wrenched thinking that they had probably been discarded like common trash, or perhaps burned. Their bodies, just as their lives, had become as weightless as an ember blowing through the wind. At least that’s what I thought at that point in my journey. Jesus would later prove me wrong.
Forgiveness vs. redemption
How can ashes be so heavy?
God offered me the chance to bring beauty from the ashes of my three abortions. Within two weeks, I found myself front and center at a pro-life dinner, an event I would not have attended before saying yes to Jesus.
Even though I knew I was forgiven, I still did not feel the freedom to open my heart fully to such programs, due to my past. There is a difference between being forgiven and being redeemed. I had not yet been redeemed.
Real children
During this event, a video was shown about a woman trying to decide whether to have an abortion or not. It showed what her life might be like if she had her baby and if she hadn’t.
Before that moment, I had never let myself think of my babies as real. I had encapsulated them into a box labeled Rhonda’s forgiven sins that we don’t talk about. I saw the ultrasounds; I knew their bodies were real, but I never realized they were my children.
New depth
That night I began feeling the magnitude of what I had missed in their lives. I realized that I was a mom, not only to my three children here on earth but to my three that I forfeited the right to know and love.
That night I wept as I had never wept before. I kept saying, “I’m so sorry. I was blind, but now I see.” My journey with Jesus took on a new depth after this as His path toward my redemption continued.
Safe place
One day I saw a notice at the bottom of our church bulletin announcing an abortion recovery class. At the time, I was still too afraid to tell many church people about that part of my story, yet I really needed to process all that was happening in my heart.
Four of us met weekly; two were leaders. That class offered me a safe place to tell my story for the first time, to grieve the loss of my little ones and all the losses that came with covering up my story for so many years.
The walls of that little church room became the courts of heaven. I could see the truth, that my babies will see me one day. Like Jesus, they were waiting for me to become fully uncovered from the shame I was bound in.
Seeing truth
Through this experience, the cross of Jesus became a million times bigger than I ever imagined it to be, and I could see the truth of what had happened when I decided to trust myself instead of God.
Jesus was with me in those decisions. He extended His life to me, hoping I might respond to Him instead of to what I saw as just a set of circumstances. As He says in Deuteronomy 30:19, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.”
Jesus was bearing witness of Himself, yet I chose to not see Him and instead respond to my flesh. And as I allowed the lives of my babies to be taken from my fleshly covering, Jesus immediately made room for them under His.
I didn’t realize that on those dark days, I was aborting myself. My babies never died, but I did.
Under the Father’s robe
Just after God pronounces His witness over His children, He extends it in Deuteronomy 30:20 by saying, “[Love] the Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days.”
My heart had been seared as I nailed down my choice of death over life, of curse over blessing. My heart became harder the day I took the life of my firstborn, so much so that I could easily offer up what would have been my third child and fourth as well. I chose to remove myself from God’s covering, but here He now stood, robe outstretched, waiting for me still to come in and become unaborted.
And as I came under my Father’s robe, three little faces were there waiting to meet me. It’s miraculous what God has waiting for us in His light once we are willing to trade our darkness in for it.
Names
About halfway through my abortion recovery, I began longing to know my children’s names and prayed to know them and whatever God wanted to show me about them.
On one day when I struggled to hear God, I prayed. The only word I heard was “olive.” I was an emotional wreck and so determined to do nothing but pray and listen until I knew the names of my babies.
My phone buzzed several times, but it was just my friend, a neighbor who lived around the corner. I would call her back later. Right now I needed to listen to God.
Freeing message
Then came a knock on my door. I knew it was my neighbor who had been trying to reach me.
With a resigned sigh, I opened the door. She came in and immediately began sharing with me about a message she had heard on the radio that morning. She knew I would have loved it.
“It was all about this olive farmer in Israel!” my neighbor said.
My ears hung on her every word. “There are three presses that happen to the olives.” My eyes filled with tears. “The first press is to make the most sacred oil that goes into the temples.” She went on to say that the next press presses the baskets the olives are left in. This oil is used for lighting lamps.
My legs grew weak as I continued to listen. “The third press is for making medicine and oil for foods. Then the guy talked about how the word for Gethsemane means olive press.”
My heart broke as I heard this, and I suddenly knew the names of my babies: Olivia, my daughter, the sacred oil of my firstborn. Luke, my son, who dwells in perfect light and lights the lamp of my heart. And Aisha, my middle daughter, means “she lives” — just as medicine and food bring life.
Restoration
Jesus had named my babies and used them to press my heart into His. They are the children I chose to crush out of me, of my life, of my circumstances, and of my memory.
But in God’s grace, He never let me blot these children out completely. In His time and way, He allowed the stone to be rolled away from the tomb. My children came walking out, holding all the pieces of my own heart that I had tried to bury for so long.
Jesus let that stone roll upon Himself. Nothing could separate me from receiving His grace toward me except my own willingness to accept it. He died to reconcile me to Himself and restore to me all that was lost, including my children.
Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version.
Rhonda de la Moriniere is author of Becoming Ewe: A Woman’s Journey from You to Ewe, as well as the book and Bible study, Beloved Bride. An avid writer, teacher, and counselor, she can often be found leading a local Bible study, writing church materials, or enjoying God’s Word with others at the local coffee shop. Rhonda lives in Huffman, TX, and can be reached through her website www.perfectmess.org.