Category Archives: Abortion

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 3)

Babies? I had steeled myself not to think of them that way. Planned Parenthood had said they were blobs of tissue. I knew better, of course—at least on some level. But that’s the only way I could live with myself, to think of them as “problem pregnancies,” the flotsam and jetsam of an untimely conception, not as babies.

Heaven? Until that moment, I had vaguely thought of them as formless blobs out there in the universe somewhere. Were they really babies, really in heaven, as Melissa had just said? Continue reading →

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 2)

The broadcast that day by Focus on the Family was called “Tilly.” The skillful blend of voices and music and sound effects captivated me, and I was quickly lost in the story.

I identified with the character named Kathy, a depressed woman who has a dream populated with lots of children. She discovers something different about these children: they have no names and no parents, and they don’t know where they came from. The ethereal background music clued the listener that these children were actually in heaven. I gripped the steering wheel tightly as I tried to keep my emotions in check. Continue reading →

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 1)

Jim and I are almost ready to begin a ministry that is a part of my destiny in serving the Lord Jesus.  “Lori’s House” is being built to help save babies who might otherwise be aborted if young women could not see a way to navigate through the circumstances of life dealing with an untimely pregnancy.  We are also focusing on ministry to post-abortive women.

I was just 17 years old when I had my first abortion, and just 21 when the last of 5 consecutive abortions left me unable to ever have a child. Continue reading →

Joy Came in the Morning (pt 3)

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. Continue reading →

A Little Boy’s Voice (Conclusion)

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)

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.

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 6)

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.

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 5)

When I could bear my thoughts no longer, I felt the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit wrap around me like a soft cashmere shawl. I watched the waves racing each other to the shore, and suddenly I saw before me an ocean of women— millions of women, stretching all the way to the horizon— and I was speaking to them about abortion. The “still, small voice” of God’s Spirit spoke to my mind in that moment: One day I will place you on a platform where you will speak to these women.

“But I murdered my children,” I whispered. “I gave them up for a man who ruined my life.” I choked back a wail.

Tell the women that. I will give you the platform.

I stared at the ocean. The multitudes of women were gone. I could no longer see their faces.

“Mommy, we love you.” The lilting voice drifted over the waves. My heart skipped a beat.

“We’re with Jesus. And you’ll be with us one day, Mommy. But now you must go and do what the Master says.”

I knew that voice was telling me that I had to fulfill my calling— whatever it was that God had put me on this earth to do. I also knew that the child’s voice was not a figment of my imagination, even though I had listened to a little girl’s voice saying something similar on the radio just moments before. This was a little boy’s voice . . . and it was not the first time I had heard it.

That voice was familiar because I had heard it about a year earlier, before I had ever walked the aisle at church and committed my life to Christ. It was during that “beginning of the end” time when I was living in Flagstaff, not long after I had that final “interlude” with my ex-husband, Jesse.

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 4)

Sunglasses could not hide the tears streaming down my face, and I was glad the beach was not crowded that day. I walked toward the water, oblivious to the warm ocean breeze or the strident call of the seagulls. My shoulders slumped under the weight of the reality that now settled on me. Dear God, what have I done? My feet were leaden, my legs would no longer hold me. I sank to my knees in the hot sand, completely devastated. I murdered my children! Continue reading →

A Little Boy’s Voice (Pt. 3)

Babies? I had steeled myself not to think of them that way. Planned Parenthood had said they were blobs of tissue. I knew better, of course—at least on some level. But that’s the only way I could live with myself, to think of them as “problem pregnancies,” the flotsam and jetsam of an untimely conception, not as babies.

Heaven? Until that moment, I had vaguely thought of them as formless blobs out there in the universe somewhere. Were they really babies, really in heaven, as Melissa had just said? Continue reading →