Abortion Where Is The Church

 It’s July 19^{th 2007} 4:50 a.m. and I just woke from a dream.  I was working at an abortion clinic!!  I was working in the waiting room and when I realized where I was I wondered how I got there, how was I working here.  Then the reality hit and people were buzzing around inside with me and outside the door some people began meeting and walking around the entrance.  My manager told me that they were the “protesters”  I realized this was the “religious” people and suddenly felt very uncomfortable, what if they saw me,  I felt a sense of guilt.

Things started getting heated and two of the employees went outside with them under the guise of having a cigarette to see what they were saying.  The manager came over to me and said “aren’t you one of those Christian people? Maybe you could go out there and settle things down.”  Before I could do anything the door bust open and in came some of the protesters. 

  The first two I encountered were men.  The first man was Hispanic, dark hair and a goatee, not that it matters but I vividly remember what he looked like.  He was wearing a leather jacket and jeans and was very angry.  He got in my face and started blaming me for killing his child.  I assumed he didn’t know his partner had an abortion and started to tell him I understood that many men don’t know when their baby’s life is being taken.  Then to my surprise he got in my face and told me NO they were both in college and she got pregnant and they had an abortion.

  I remember being confused that he was mad at me and then the second guy came behind me he was African American in his 20s’ and now I was sandwiched between the two of them.  He looked like he was going to hit me and I said wait a minute, if I worked for this man (I pointed to the man on the other side of me) and he told me to slap you and I did what I was told, which one of us would you be mad at.

  I have no idea where that analogy came from and as I write it it sounds lame but that’s what came out of my mouth.  He seemed to understand this chain of thought and stopped to think about it.  Actually they both stopped to think about it and I woke up.

 After I went over the dream in my head I realized I was more upset with the Christian people outside the clinic then I was with the people working in the clinic, was I confused?   I asked the Lord “where the heck did that come from?”  This began my memory of the Life’s Choices Pregnancy Center journey.

I started thinking about when I was on the board for Life’s Choices a Crisis Pregnancy Center.  When we first started trying to raise money and awareness in Lake County we naturally figured the “churches” would be the ones who would be the most help.  They are Christians after all so this need for healing women who have had abortions and trying to prevent more abortions from happening would surely be something they, our church family, would jump right on board with.  Well let me enlighten you dear reader they were not.  To our utter surprise we couldn’t believe how many churches would not respond to our plea to visit their church and speak to “our” family.   As a matter of fact a prayer meeting was scheduled for 7/7/07 to pray about ending abortion and 65 pastors were invited and 0 came.  It’s not just Pastors there are 365 people on the mailing list and only 12 showed up!

 We realized that abortion was a huge issue and apparently the ultimate sin but NO ONE wants to talk about it.  It was not being brought up from the pulpit in any church we found and when it was mentioned it was a condemning message and NOTHING about healing!!!  

Next we started fund raising and once again not much help from the “Christian community.”  The truth is it was the business community that was the most supportive financially, praise God for them.    I was on a fund raiser committee for an auction and I was also the only person on that committee that actually went to church.  I was also one of the few on the committee that was pro life.  Chew on that for a moment will you. The words of one of the volunteers at a committee meeting have penetrated my thoughts and are the same words that God reminded me of this morning.  She said to me “have you contacted the churches?  Isn’t this a church issue?  I would have assumed they would have helped you.”  I responded quite disappointingly that not many of the churches would even talk to us.  I went on to tell her that abortion wasn’t a church issue it was a society issue.  She seemed content with that answer but I wasn’t.

 At the auction, once again there were not a lot of “church” people there it was more the community and get this the two people that gave the most items to auction and the same two people that spent the most money were both pro choice!!!!  Even as I’m writing this I’m asking myself how can this be??  Well I’ll tell you what I think and you can do with it what you want.

 We have no idea how much abortion is affecting our walk with the Lord.  I’m not just talking about the act of abortion I’m talking about the ignoring of it.  We keep talking about healing in our land and we don’t even have healing in our churches.  Statistics say that one out of every THREE (it used to be four) women/girls, I was a girl when I had an abortion, have had an abortion.  Wake up Christians that number applies to your church too.  It is the ultimate best kept secret in the world!!!  Guess what Christians, men and women who know the Lord and go to church have had or are still having abortions.  Why?  Ill tell you my thoughts, since your this far into this you might as well keep reading.

First let me tell you a few of the goals of Life’s Choices Crisis Pregnancy Center and my personal goal. We want to give free pregnancy tests in a non combative environment to girls and women and their partners.  You see many people still think abortion is a woman’s issue but it affects men too, they also are losing a child and some of the time they don’t even know about it until it’s over.  Our goal is for the person to know that we love them and care about them no matter what the result of the pregnancy test.  If the test was positive, and they were indeed pregnant, we would give alternatives to abortion like keeping their baby, in which case we would help them evey step of the way.   If they (in most cases both parents decide) choose adoption we have attorneys that are willing to help. If they choose abortion we do not refer them to an abortion clinic because we believe Jesus tells us to choose life, however we would be there for both individuals should they decide to come back and need to talk about it, which they will! You see we think getting rid of the pregnancy will solve the problem, the truth is it only starts a much bigger problem but that is not the case I want to focus on right now.

I want to go to the healing part.  How can we as a church body help our community heal if we the church aren’t healed or even seeking the great physician on our illness. We have this imaginary list of the worst sins and abortion is close to the top.  As if God were saying if you just lied or committed adultery I can help you but if you had an abortion you’re on your own.  It carries such guilt and shame and robs you of having a life of abundance the life the Lord promises.  And the worst part is the enemy is thrilled and he NEVER even has to deal with sending his evil spirits on you because we are doing it for him.  This frees them up to rob you of something else.  Am I getting a little “freaky” on you?  It is freaky going places your not comfortable with but I pray you will continue on this journey with me.

Why is it that women won’t tell their very own church family that they need healing from an abortion.  I don’t think I have to answer that, unfortunately we all know why.  I’m not here to slam the church or the members of it please hear my heart, I’m here to wake us up together to allow women and men to start the healing process.

When we did get into a church to share our mission, and there are churches involved, we were overwhelmed by how many men and women shared with us about their abortion.  We just sobbed with them and most all of them had taken place over 20 years ago.  Sisters and brothers that’s way too long to carry such a burden.  It’s not even that most of them didn’t think God might not forgive them as much as they couldn’t forgive themselves and had NO ONE to talk about it to.  Let me ask you if there were an alter call at your church this Sunday and the pastor said if you or your partner now, or from the past, has ever had an abortion please come down the center isle to the front of the church so I can pray for you.  How many do you see running to the front?

 Well I want to tell you Jesus is calling out right now He is standing with open arms and a loving forgiving heart and He wants you to run to him so together you can be healed and set free.  Churches, Pastors, Priest, congregations let’s get on board with Jesus.  Let’s start talking about abortion from the pulpit and allow freedom to begin.   Let’s let people know that God still loves them and have healing programs in place for us to go to for counseling.  Let’s get rid of the stigma of the “Scarlet Letter” and start embracing our wounded so we can then go into the “un-churched” community and begin the society healing we so desperately need.

We cannot be effective if we are in chains and holding such heavy guilt I’m speaking from experience.  It took me years to even say the word abortion never less publicly speak about it.   It took years before I allowed the Lord into this “highly restricted” area so I could receive His forgiveness.  Receive is the key word here. People can’t receive the Lord’s precious forgiveness if we don’t let them know it’s available to them. Jesus died on the cross for ALL our sins!  Please get involved and lets get the revival started!

My role as a board member of Life’s Choices Crisis Pregnancy Center has ended but my battle for freedom has just begun.

Gena  Duran

Forgiven and set Free       

This is a personal letter and not written on behalf of Life’s Choices of Lake Co. or any other organization.