Joy Came in the Morning (pt 3)

By Lori Bakker | | Filed in Abortion, Healing, Lori's House, Teaching | Tags: ,

Early August 1998

We had a beautiful suite with a separate bedroom and a kitchenette off the full-size living room. From the moment we walked in, I felt the presence of God, and I began to realize that something truly supernatural was in store for me that night.

Because I knew it would be an emotional time, I went to the bathroom, took my contacts out, and washed my face. While I was putting my pajamas on, Chris and Jolene prepared the living room. They placed boxes of tissues in various spots around the room, and they decorated one of the tables with a white linen tablecloth with lace trim. READ MORE →

The Trial of Your Faith (Pt. 3)

By Jim Bakker | | Filed in Uncategorized | Tags:

1989 – Rochester Prison

Soon a guard checked to see that my cellmates and I were still there, all prisoners present and accounted for.  The heavy cell door made a whoosh! Sound as the guard closed it behind him.  I hated that sound.  It was as though all the air was being sucked out of the closet-sized room. READ MORE →

Joy Came in the Morning (pt 2)

By Lori Bakker | | Filed in Teaching | Tags: ,

Early August 1998

That summer, my new friends Chris Harper and Jolene Dreisbach had been to a post-abortion healing conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I’d never even heard the term post-abortion before that time, but I knew God was dealing with me about the abortion issue, and I knew that’s why he had brought Chris and Jolene into my life. I also knew it was time to leave Master’s Commission but did not yet know what I would do after that. Pastor Barnett had asked me to go to L.A. and help start the LAIC, the outreach that eventually became the Dream Center. Jack Wallace, who had been teaching the singles’ class the Sunday in 1989 when I made a commitment to Christ, was now pasturing a church in Detroit and wanted me on staff there. It would be a paid ministry position, and that would be a first for me.

As I prayed for direction, God started putting all the puzzle pieces together, and by August, Chris, Jolene, and I had decided to start a ministry to help bring healing to women who’d been through abortions. Before we formalized our plans to start Truth Ministries, the girls had told me they wanted to hold a memorial service for me. They’d been working on the ideas they’d learned at the Milwaukee conference, which had been not just for helping women heal emotionally after abortion but also after miscarriage and SIDS. “If we incorporated the Holy Spirit into the memorial,” they told me, “incredible things could happen.”

“Lori, think of it this way,” Chris said. “You never had a baby shower or did any of the things that would commemorate having a child. That’s what this memorial will do.”

“Or think of it this way,” Jolene added. “If you’d had a still born child or even a miscarriage, friends would have consoled you, and you would have mourned. But women who’ve had abortions—women like us—actually had the same kind of loss, yet we never had the experience of grieving for our children.”

I thought the idea of holding a memorial service for me sounded kind of strange at first, but they persisted.

“This is a way to deal with the abortions once and for all and to bring closure on the past,” Chris said.

Jolene agreed. “Please let us do this for you, Lori.”

We scheduled the memorial for the last weekend in August, right before my birthday. The week prior to that, God started softening my heart. I had always been the strong one, the one people came to with their problems. That week I became mush. Pastor Barnett rarely mentioned abortion from the pulpit, but that week he mentioned it twice, Sunday morning and Wednesday night. For some reason it was on his heart; he didn’t know I was that reason. He preached that abortion was wrong, but he also expressed compassion for women who had felt they had no other alternative.

On Wednesday night after church, Chris and Jolene told their families good-bye, then we drove to neighboring Scottsdale, where they had rented a one-bedroom hotel suite. We planned on staying until Friday night, so the fact that Chris and Jolene’s husbands were taking care of their kids for two days so we could be free to do this was a big deal to me. I didn’t think I deserved it. I was always telling people that God had great things in store for them, but I didn’t believe I would ever have the great things of God because the sin I had committed—abortion—was so horrible. I felt I would have to live with the pain and the emptiness, the loss and the shame, no matter how great a Christian I became. As we drove to Scottsdale, I sensed God saying to me, “Let these people minister to you.”

…..more to come.

Joy Came in the Morning – Part 1
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 3
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 4

Joy Came in the Morning (pt 1)

By Lori Bakker | | Filed in Healing, Teaching | Tags: ,

“Jamie Charles Bakker was born December 18, 1975.” Jim was pretending to narrate a biography of his son.

The four of us— Jim and I, Jay and Amanda—were traveling from L.A. to Muskegon, Michigan, for the Bakker family reunion, and Jim was using the occasion to fill me in on some of the family history. Jim continued his story, but my mind stopped and focused on that date. December 18, 1975.

“Lori, you sure got quiet,” Jay said after a few minutes. “Are you carsick? Or just mesmerized by our life stories?” The others laughed.

“No, I…Sorry, Jay, I just had a major reality check when I heard your date of birth.” I swallowed hard. “You’re the same age my firstborn son would have been.” That realization had hit me like a ton of bricks. If I had carried my first pregnancy to term, the baby would have been born in late December ’75 or early January ’76.” I was looking at a flesh-and-blood son—soon to be my son, or at least my stepson—with his arm around his girlfriend, and he was the same age my firstborn would have been. “You guys could have been really good friends,” I said wistfully.

The moment passed awkwardly, Jay didn’t know what to say, and Jim simply looked sad. He reached over and took my hand. As much healing as I have had, the old, familiar grief can still reach out and squeeze my heart in a split second. IT doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it is very real. Every time I looked at Jay for the next few hours, I thought of the son I never had because of my own choices. Gradually those thoughts faded.

Such thoughts, while painful, no longer overwhelmed me because of a deep inner healing I had experienced in 1994. That event remains the single most precious moment of truth in my life.

…..more to come.

Joy Came in the Morning – Part 2
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 3
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 4

The Trial of Your Faith (Pt. 2)

By Jim Bakker | | Filed in Last Days, Teaching | Tags: , , , ,

Faith – it’s a word we have used and overused in our country, our churches, and our own personal lives.  People have faith in many things; faith in people, systems, governments, sociologies, economies, and the big one for our somewhat humanistic generation:  relationships.  Social relationships are taught, sought and sometimes bought in our politically charged and socially driven generation of ambition seekers…. and this includes some in the general church population. READ MORE →

The Trial of Your Faith (Pt. 1)

By Jim Bakker | | Filed in Last Days, Teaching

Our recent show guest, John Shorey, and I touched on a subject that is probably one of the most pertinent to the Times in which we are living – the trial of your faith. This is a subject worth exploring and I am going to do a series of blogs on it.

For me, the trial of my faith has taken on many different forms and spanned many decades. One would think that things would get easier as you go along in your Christian walk, but I’ve found that is not the case when you are on the front lines. READ MORE →

A Little Boy’s Voice (Conclusion)

By Lori Bakker | | Filed in Abortion, Ministry Updates

This concludes this series about my life and the abortions in my past. Whenever I share my story, I inevitably have several women report that they, too, had a similar background and after reading my testimony, they finally feel that they’re not alone.

Let me assure you, you are not alone. One in four women today have had an abortion, or multiple abortions. Abortion is an epidemic and it leaves an incredible scar on the lives of those it touches.

In the next few blogs, I will be sharing about the healing process and how it was carried out in my life. My hope is that there will be someone who can receive their healing as well from hearing about mine, though healing comes at different times and in different ways as only God can orchestrate.

If you have abortion in your background, I want to assure you that there is healing, and there is forgiveness, though the hardest thing about it is forgiving yourself. It was for me. But our Heavenly Father cannot and does not hold sin against you when you ask Him for forgiveness – even abortion.

There is freedom. Hold on to your faith and keep reading as we go on this journey together through the healing process.

Love,

 

Lori

 

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 7)

By Lori Bakker | | Filed in Abortion, Healing, Motherhood | Tags: ,

Because I’d never had an ultrasound, I didn’t know the gender of any of the children I aborted, so don’t ask me how I knew this; I can’t tell you. But somehow I knew in my heart that the voice I had just heard belonged to my son. He would have been my firstborn.

Now, on the beach, I understood why God had wanted me to hear the radio broadcast of “Tilly,” and why he had spoken to me in the voice of my unborn child for the second time. He had already forgiven me, but he wanted to begin a healing process in me. I remember hearing a preacher say once that God does things in the heavenly realm that there are no earthly words to describe. I believe that with God, all things are possible. Whatever it takes for you to be healed, that’s what he will do for you. That’s what it took for me. I needed to hear that voice. Needed that reassurance.

God knew I could never have taken all the guilt and grief at once. So he restored me bit by bit, patched my broken spirit piece by piece. I did not get up from that experience energized and with a burning zeal to speak to women about abortion. In fact, over time, I almost forgot what God had shown me that day. Yet, I always remembered hearing that voice, and I remembered it as a healing time, a moment when God, in his infinite grace and mercy, put a Band-Aid on my bleeding soul.

After my hour alone on the beach, I was able to pull myself together. I got up, brushed myself off, and walked back to where Bobbi and the kids were soaking up the sun. I had lost the exuberance with which we had started the trip, but I was functional again.

Yet, it would be another five years before I would fully grieve for the loss of my children. And that would be the third and final time I heard my son’s voice….

…I heard Adam’s voice for a final time. “We’re waiting here for you, Mommy, and one day you’ll be here too, and we’ll spend forever together.” The voice was very comforting, and I knew I wasn’t crazy. The inaudible voice was really God speaking to my spirit; I heard it as a child’s voice—my son’s voice—because that was what I needed for my healing. God had prepared me for this moment by letting me hear that voice years earlier.

Deadlines Bring Out Destiny

By Jim Bakker | | Filed in "Now" Words, Last Days | Tags: ,

Have you ever sat back and watched people when they are faced with a deadline?  Whether it’s a construction project, a production schedule, a corporate venture, or any number of other scenarios, when people face a deadline, you will see many different responses from those who are involved based on their individual level of commitment.

When faced with a deadline, some people short-circuit and can’t seem to get it together.  These often have the “deer in a headlight” look.  Then there are those who put in a half-hearted effort to meet the deadline, but you know by the way they work that they’re really not all that interested and usually have some other motivating factor, like a paycheck for example.

Then there are those who put their nose to the grindstone, work past any normal working hours, and have the “eye of the tiger” when it comes to the passion they demonstrate.  These are the people who have a destiny involved with the project.  These are the people you can count on to make sure the project comes together and everything is READY when it should be!

Impossible deadlines bring out the “fiber” of people!  The people who will do the all-night duty are the ones you know have a destiny interest in the project!

That’s what it’s going to take in the Last Days to accomplish the work the Lord has assigned to His people.  It’s going to take passion and commitment, and a mind and heart set on the things of God – not set on what’s in it for me!  Those who have a mind to work don’t watch the clock in order to quit as soon as possible – they watch the prophetic timetable laid out in the Word and it fuels their desires to work!  It fuels their every thought, motive, and desire to press through to the destiny God ordained for them!

Right now, we still have time to work.  We still have time to prepare for Times of Trouble and we still have time to reach the lost!  The Bible says the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  We’re not looking for ways to get out of work, we’re looking for ways to be strong in the work we have been given!

God is joining us together with people of like-vision and passion.  He is doing this for these Last Days so that He can bless the work! (Psalm 133:1-3)  We may be a rag-tag bunch like David’s Army – but we’ve been purified in the fires of adversity and we  have our eyes set on the goal!

We do have a prophetic deadline when all of our work will cease.  But until then, we will work with an unbridled passion and a tireless commitment to our Lord Jesus and His Soon Return!

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 6)

By Lori Bakker | | Filed in Abortion, Healing, Lori's House | Tags: ,

I had rented a beautiful little cabin in the mountains and really enjoyed the solitude it afforded. One night I couldn’t sleep. So I got up and turned on the television. I flipped through the channels until I found a Christian program. It was The 700 Club. Pat Robertson was talking about abortion. The topic made me a little uneasy, but I didn’t change the station.

That night The 700 Club aired a video called The Silent Scream. This pro-life documentary was narrated by Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a former abortionist, and included live film footage of a suction abortion. For the first time I saw pictures of exactly what I had done. I was horrified, but I could not tear my eyes away from the screen.

“We are now looking at a sector scan of a real-time ultrasound imaging of a twelve-week, unborn child,” Dr. Nathanson said in his professorial voice.2Then he pointed out the child’s head and hand, the ribs and the spine. Twelve weeks. I had been a good sixteen weeks for one of my abortions, I remembered.

“The heart is beating at the rate of approximately 140 beats a minute. And we can see the child moving rather serenely in the uterus.”3The black-and-white images were grainy, but there was no mistaking the perfectly shaped fetus. I began to feel sick to my stomach. Ultrasound was not available when I had my abortions. If I had seen pictures like this . . .

“You will note as the suction tip, which is now over here, moves towards the child, the child will rear away from it and undergo much more violent and much more agitated movements . . . The child has now moved back to the profile view and the suction tip is flashing across the screen. The child’s mouth is now open . . . but this suction tip which you can see moving violently back and forth on the bottom of the screen is the lethal instrument which will ultimately tear apart and destroy the child.”

When I saw that baby, with its mouth open in a silent scream, pushing against the walls of its mother’s womb, my world completely shattered. I fell out of my chair and onto the hardwood floor, crying hysterically. The full fury of my sin, which I had stuffed so deep inside of me, erupted in such searing pain that I didn’t know if I could live through it—wasn’t sure I wanted to live through it. I lay on the floor and sobbed until I heaved.

And that’s when I heard the voice.

“Mommy, everything’s okay. We love you.”

That’s all. Just a few words uttered in a little boy’s voice. A voice so sweet and pure that it melted my heart.