Resources for Help After Abortion
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Enter your zip code in the box below to find Abortion After-Care Programs in your area.
The results feature screens with information from: Rachel’s Vineyard retreat sites, Abortion Recovery InterNational CARE Directory (ARIN), National Helpline for Abortion Recovery – Provider Directory.
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Additional Educational and Healing Resources for Men can be Reaching Out for the Help You Need If you have participated in an abortion decision, this can be a very difficult area of your life to open up and deal with. As men, sometimes it can seem easier to just bury the event in the past, since we can’t change what happened. But a loss like abortion is impossible to completely repress. You are hurting from this loss, and likely paying a high price in your health, relationships and professional life. The memories and feelings associated with the abortion(s) deserve attention. If the trauma of your abortion is causing suicidal thoughts please contact You’re not alone in your pain and we want to help you. As the co-founders of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, our hope is that by reaching out for help you will make peace with yourself, your child(ren), God and others. Our prayer is that as you begin an abortion recovery program, you will come to a deeper understanding of the love and mercy of our Heavenly Father. Blessings from, |
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abortionforgiveness.com
QUESTION: God and abortion and forgiveness – Is forgiveness possible?
ANSWER:
For many years, I thought, “God will never forgive me for the abortions.”
When I was younger, I had three pregnancies terminated. Even though I wasn’t very familiar with God at the time, I remember lying on the table, looking up, and asking God to forgive me. I didn’t understand what I was doing. For some reason, I felt that abortion was wrong, but I also felt like I had no choice. For a number of years afterwards, I went through many emotional problems and had overwhelming thoughts of suicide. My days were dark, even though I thought that I had put the abortions behind me.
I was supposed to be free, but I wasn’t!
I was stuck in my lonely world and no one knew of what I had done except one ex-boyfriend and my mother, who only knew of one of the abortions.
How could I tell anyone about this?
I felt like God couldn’t forgive me, let alone love me.
There came a point in my life where I realized I was a sinner. I had displeased God. I learned that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sins. God knew everything I had done and He still stood right by my side – wanting to forgive me, make me His child, and give me hope for living.
It took me a long time to understand that I was forgiven for these abortions. One day, I sat at home alone crying to God to forgive me for having the abortions, and in my heart I heard the Lord say to me, “I forgave you the day you asked.” I felt the forgiveness of God in my heart at that moment.
It wasn’t that God needed to forgive me over and over again. I needed to forgive myself. I had been holding on to my own unforgiveness. It has taken some time to learn to forgive myself, but I know the Lord has forgiven me and He forgives all those who ask. He forgave me before I even truly believed in Him because He made me and He loves me. He is the God of the broken and the weary, not the perfect and the pure.
I know now that there is nothing that can separate me from the love of Christ. Sins, including abortion, can be forgiven.
So now I can tell others about the abortions in my past because they aren’t about how horrible I am, but about how great God’s love is and how His mercy, grace, and forgiveness are unending.
Psalm 103:11-13 says, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
– We have all
sinned
and deserve God’s judgment.
God
, the Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him.
Jesus
, the creator and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He
died
for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was
buried
, and
rose from the dead
according to the
Bible
. If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your
Savior
, declaring, “
Jesus is Lord
,” you will be saved from
judgment
and spend eternity with God in heaven.
What is your response?
Yes, today I am deciding to follow JesusYes, I am already a follower of JesusI still have questions
www.allaboutfollowingjesus.org
The challenge is not only to forgive and love others but to allow ourselves to be forgiven and loved. When we act as if we are perfect, we demand perfection from others.
Pope Francis captured media’s attention with his visit to Cuba and the United States this week. So, a young woman currently working as a journalist in New York City, who is part of Columbia University’s M.S. program, interviewed me over the phone on Monday about Pope Francis’ announcement regarding abortion forgiveness for women.
My positive reaction to the pope’s decision shocked this journalist at first.
It seems almost everyone she has interviewed so far were, to use her words, “judgmental” and against Pope Francis’s decision. Thus, it was my turn to be shocked. In my opinion, what could be more fitting than to open the Jubilee Year of Mercy 2016 by welcoming women who have suffered an abortion back into full communion with the Church?
Who were these practicing Catholics she interviewed who refuse to extend forgiveness to women who are burdened with guilt after having an abortion? Have they never sinned? Are they so perfect they fall into the trap of demanding only the pure be part of their Church club? How can a Christian not be willing to forgive an act of abortion, especially when the sinner is contrite, coming to confession seeking reconciliation?
When we begin the inner spiritual journey to encounter Christ in a deeper way, we discover our own sinfulness. On the other hand, if we live on the surface, we can be blind to the reality or our own inner, sinful nature. We can easily slip into pride, intolerant of others who are weak. Conversely, the pope is acting and speaking as a compassionate pastor and confessor who understands the terrible circumstances which drive young women to seek an abortion as well as the awful guilt which burdens them afterward.
In the New Testament, Pharisees acted as if they were perfect because they thought they followed the letter of the law. New Testament Christians realized they could not purify themselves. It then followed that circumscribed Jews, who had been given the law, were no better than uncircumscribed Gentiles because all were sinners, all needed to be saved. St. Paul’s letters stressed over and over again, mankind needed Jesus to die on the cross for their sins and rise again in new life so all men and women might rise with Christ to live a new life in God. Today, just like St. Paul, Pope Francis reminds us this powerful forgiveness is for all, not just the good Catholics.
Only the humble can accept forgiveness and the Love of God, then love and forgive others.
In his new book, “Walking with Jesus: A Way Forward for the Church”, published by Loyola Press, Pope Francis sees faith as a journey which emphasizes the mercy and love of God for all, especially the poor, the marginalized and the sinner. The pope quite rightly states: No one is excluded from life’s hope, from God’s love.
The challenge is not only to forgive and love others but to allow ourselves to be forgiven and loved. When we act like a Pharisee, as if we are perfect, we demand perfection from others. When we act like Christ, we allow His mercy to flow through us. This is why Pope Francis has offered forgiveness to women who have had an abortion through any priest when they come with contrite hearts, desperately desiring full communion with the Church.
My only conclusion here is those who refuse to forgive women who have had an abortion do not know their own desperate need for mercy. May God have mercy on us all.
www.broowaha.com
