ROOTED RENEGADE

I can still remember like it was yesterday…isn’t that how most memories go and what we say when we recall them to mind, sitting around the dinner table at holidays or birthdays or some type of family gathering? At least for most of us that is. For many of us, there are memories that are tucked away in the deep recesses of our mind, body, and soul.  Those memories we either have kept a secret by choice, force, coercion, or by any means really – typically so it either protects us or our families. Some memories are dark and either our families wanted the secret kept in a vain attempt to protect their image or their status quo, and some, it just seemed easy for them that way to tuck away and never speak of it again.  Never considering how it made the person who experienced the traumatic event feel. Isn’t that how it really goes? Most families have deep, dark, ugly secrets that they hold onto for dear life because they are afraid that if it ever got out it would destroy the legacy they have built financially, in the media, or in the confines of their own minds to protect themselves and their reputations, especially in the church. 

Every family secret spans generations until one person decides that they no longer want to carry on the “family legacy” of secret keeping. They decide that they are not going to be the generational bondage carrier, but the generational bondage breaker. They decide that enough is enough and Satan no longer gets the glory for destroying the confines of their family unit. What the enemy meant for evil, they know God will work it out for good! That also means giving testimony to the ways that the Lord God of Hosts, El Roi, Elohim, Yahweh, Jehovah Rapha, El Shaddai has saved and provided a way out of the darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). 

While I have been through many instances in my life that God has called me out of darkness, this is one I have been prompted by the Holy Spirit to share publicly. There is no precursor conversation to have with the issue of abortion as most people tend to fall to one side or the other. Pro-life or Pro-abortion. Talk to many and you are met with a lot of fierce disdain if you are Pro-Life seeing abortion as murdering a baby with no choice in the matter, even from people who have children themselves. Talk to those who are Pro-Abortion, and you are met with fierce disdain for those on the other side who have wild ideology about babies not being innocent life. Which leads me to this testimony that I was asked to share. Not many people know this about me. It was a secret that part of me wanted to keep hidden for a long time, yet after healing and repenting and seeking forgiveness I knew God would use this as nothing about my life is wasted and you will find the same is true for you. You see, our stories and our lives, our not our own. When we release them back to the one who Created it. I am praying that through this you will see that too.

Twenty-two years ago, I was pregnant with my first child, and I was first introduced to the term abortion. His father was not ready to be a dad and his dad’s mom wasn’t ready for us to have children. I was told many, many times up until my fifth month of pregnancy, that I needed to give up our child through an abortion because we were not ready to have kids and it was not “fair” to be the one to make the decision by myself. Well, I was making it, all alone to keep my child. I went to doctor appointments alone, etc. It was not until that part of my son’s paternal family found out I was having a boy that they accepted my being pregnant and at the baby shower when things started to change. The first five months was the entry point of the enemy developing the idea of abortion into my life. Why? Because the enemy comes through doors that have already been opened for you within your family line through generation sin (iniquity is passed down through the third and fourth generations through the generational migration of sin – meaning sin that is repeated). Once my son’s paternal family accepted my pregnancy, thereby accepting him, I then had to fight with my doctor who was telling me that I would not carry to full term and that I needed to terminate my pregnancy for my own health. By this point I was getting closer to 32 weeks pregnant, and I had lost part of my placenta and my son was on the small side. Now my body was rejecting my child.  I could go on and preach here but let me just say that when you have people telling you to reject your baby, that your body also responds to that rejection, whether you realize that or not.  Even if you are fighting to keep your baby, you must fight mind, body, and soul.  I didn’t know that then like I know it now because honestly no one was teaching me.  Not only did rejection and betrayal enter my life, it entered my son’s through the womb.  I had no idea.  I was blinded to what the enemy was doing in my life and my son’s.  But I kept fighting for us both.

I refused to terminate and switched doctors. Most doctors won’t take a woman this late in her pregnancy as a new patient, however the Lord was also fighting for us, even though I didn’t understand that at this point. What I understood, was that my son and I were going to live, and we were both fighting hard. The new doctor accepted us and although he came two weeks early, he was full term and so beautiful.  By the time my son was born, he was tiny and while I had complications, he was 4lbs 14.5oz and he was healthy. The birth was a little traumatic for us both, but my son lived and so did I.

The next pregnancy did not go so well. By the time my son was close to six months old I was pregnant again and this time I was as single mom because his father still wasn’t ready to be a dad. He would come and see us from time to time and during those visits, I got pregnant. Once again, abortion came into the picture. Being a single mom, not knowing God’s word, being persuaded, and knowing that I was going to have to raise another child alone, I didn’t know what else to do. I struggled making the decision. I struggled knowing that the choice I was about to make was more than about me, but I didn’t think I could raise another child. I will say here that I was weighing options based on lack of information. I was weighing options based on feeling and what I could see in negative, adverse circumstances and based on what had already been set up in my head from my first experience being pregnant. I was making a decision based on what my child’s dad was telling me, that we didn’t need another child and in reality, it was because I was going to be alone raising another one. I also sat there with the weight of my life hanging on my shoulders and all the rejection, anger, and betrayal was still there.  How could I have let this happen to me?  How could I have been so stupid?  How could I not be good enough for him again?  So many questions that plagued me and so much spiritual opposition weighed heavily on me.  I was told that it would be okay.  I knew little about what happened at an abortion except what a girl in the apartment complex told me who had recently went through one herself. Mind you, had I of known prior, I would never have gone.  Again, the enemy comes works in cycles and knocks on doors that are still open in our lives and our generations.  I didn’t know how to combat him and close the door.  I took the time off work, and I went with my son’s father in tow because someone had to take me to the clinic.

I went to the front desk and checked in and paid the $400 because insurance didn’t cover the cost back then. They took me to the back room and put me on an operating table and hooked me up like a routine medical exam like when you are pregnant. I remember the same monitor on my belly like they did with my son that allowed them, and me to hear the baby’s heartbeat and they hooked me up to the equipment that would cause me to go to sleep.  I was laying there, and I heard the baby’s heartbeat. That was when I changed my mind. I wanted to keep my baby. I told them I wanted to keep my baby. But the doctor told me to count backwards from 10. I remember saying 9 and then I woke up. Just like that, I was no longer a pregnant mother.I was wheeled out to my son’s father, and he took me back to my apartment.

I had to walk up the stairs to my apartment because he wouldn’t carry me. From that moment forward I buried deep inside of me guilt and shame for what I had just experienced, and I was angry. I heard my 6-week-old baby’s heartbeat and was not allowed to get off that operating table to make any other decision. I was angry because while I made the choice to go, I was not given the choice to leave pregnant. I was angry because once again, abortion was set before me and without options, without rational, healthy choices, I went and left not being a pregnant mom. Regardless of what my circumstances were at home, I had been worn down and my fight had dwindled in me. I had left my apartment feeling like I was making a choice that was swayed and somewhat mine, to coming back home angry and confused. I wanted my child back and I couldn’t have my child back. I honestly can’t tell you the conversations or anything I had about it after that because I didn’t want to keep thinking about it.  I had a little boy at home to take care of, I was angry, I felt betrayed, I couldn’t wrap my mind or heart around everything that happened, and I was devastated.  It was one family secret that was going to be buried and it ate at me for 20 years.

I lived for years with grief and anger. Even when I got pregnant a third time, I thought about my second pregnancy and the child I should have had. The one thing my now ex-husband and I was told when we got married was that we better not be having any more babies. It would be two weeks later, and I would find out I was pregnant with our third child. I say all this because I am not the only one. I am not the only woman who in her early 20’s fought to keep a child, made a horrible choice that she tried to take back and wasn’t allowed too, and by the third child wasn’t going to let another person even attempt to try that again. I am not the only woman who has faced heartache and trauma around pregnancy, being told not to have a baby and having to fight family and doctors, and then living with regret, shame, and guilt for almost 20 years. 

What people don’t tell you about abortion is that a baby has a heartbeat that can be heard by 3-4 weeks. Most women don’t even know they are pregnant until they are anywhere between 3-6 weeks sometimes much later. A baby, a human being, has a heartbeat by the time a woman finds out they are pregnant, even a teen. You can frame it anyway you want to. Argue it anyway you want to. The fact still remains that there is a heartbeat of human life. Put your hand on your chest and feel your heartbeat. Your heartbeat means your mom didn’t abort you. It means that at some point in her pregnancy she heard your heartbeat and fell in love with you and couldn’t give you up. The same I felt when I heard all three of my children’s heartbeats. I fell in love. When I heard my second child’s heartbeat, I wanted to run. Instead, I had to count backwards from 10 and I wasn’t able to get up until I wasn’t woken up after it was all over. Most women won’t tell you that they are angry that they made the decision. Most teenagers won’t tell you that they didn’t want to make the decision, but they had to because of their parents. Most mothers, those who were carrying a child in their womb will tell you that when they felt the life (because when you know you are pregnant, you know there is life in your womb) something in them changed deep down inside. The problem is that many who have had an abortion are so overwhelmed with shame and guilt, anger and disappointment, confusion and despondency, that they disassociate their emotions with the event that happened and they don’t deal with the actual act of the abortion. They hear the heartbeat during the operation and know that there was a baby in their womb. Those performing the operations know that human life exists just as the pregnant mother. I truly believe that many don’t think of the baby as human life until they hear the heartbeat. Once they do, all things shift but having to admit that once the decision to have the abortion is made is hard. It is like admitting to murder and people know that. I knew that. I knew deep down inside of me that it was wrong. I carried for years that God must be mad at me for what I had participated in, regardless of me changing my mind. Can I tell you that my decision on the operating table was a pivotal moment in my life? It was the decision to protect my child and it was stripped away from me thereby making it no longer my decision to have an abortion. I was choosing life over death, and they chose death for my child. 

How many other mothers has this happened to and who carry the guilt and shame? How many of you are still walking around with a hole in your chest and a wound in your womb that needs healing? I want you to know that it can be healed. Jesus can heal these wounds. I know they are tough and painful. I know that it is confusing when you hear so much messaging around you in the world and even from friends. But you don’t have to keep these secrets so deeply buried deep within anymore. The world may be yelling and screaming the very opposite of what you feel deep inside and know to be true in your heart. Deep within the recesses of your heart, is the truth about you and your experiences. It took me a long time to come to the knowledge myself of how much God loves me and how much I needed to speak truth into such a difficult time of my life, knowing that by doing so there was a deeper level of freedom.

Know that you are not alone. However, it happened for you, there is forgiveness and freedom. You do not have to continue to carry the burden. If you don’t know Jesus and you want to know Him, it’s simple to start a relationship with Him. Jesus died for your sins just like He did mine. To start on a personal journey with Jesus, start by confessing with your mouth that Jesus is the Messiah who died on the cross for your sins and rose on the third day. Confess that you are a sinner in need of Jesus as your Lord and Savior and that by His shed blood you can be made a brand-new creation and pray for baptism of the Holy Spirt from a repentant heart and ask Him to show you where it is that you need to start on your healing journey.

We don’t do this walk alone. If you are not in a local church, I encourage you to find one that is Holy Spirit filled. Know that you are not alone and all the stuff you see going on in the world – be careful and pay attention to the wolves in sheep’s clothing. We are to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves as we walk out our journeys with the Lord God. No longer carry the shame and guilt of your past but leave it at the feet of Jesus and help others through your testimony.  Your testimony can help so many others know they are not alone in what they have experienced.  It is how we connect to each other and carry the message of grace, mercy, and forgiveness and God’s love.

God Bless you,

Faythe