Has it really been forty-two years since I killed my baby? It seems like only last week. I remember what my girlfriend wore when I drove her to the clinic, where I parked and how many dimes I dropped into the meter.
I was seventeen. My girlfriend was eighteen. Too young – I told myself – for the responsibility of raising a child.
After the abortion, my life didn’t get any better. Sexual immorality, drug abuse, blasphemy, drunkenness, deception . . . . I added a lot of weight to my sin of premeditated, callous killing of my unborn baby.
But when I was twenty-two, I stumbled upon a wonderful, glorious, nearly incomprehensible truth: God looked beyond my sins and saw my desperate need. And so He sent His only begotten Son to free me.
Quoting from the prophet Isaiah, the Lord Jesus said to those gathered in a Nazareth synagogue, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord (Luke 4:18-19).
In my utter spiritual poverty, oh, how desperately I needed the riches of God’s forgiveness! How else could I live with my memories? How could I live with such blood on my hands?
Jesus proclaimed liberty to captives. There is no prison so inescapable as that formed by guilt. But, Jesus' death shattered those bars and, though my memories still linger, He delivered me from guilt's captivity.
Jesus set the oppressed free. Oh, talk about oppression! Where else but through Christ's blood could I find the oppressive weight of my sin removed? Where else could I find such mercy – even for killing my baby?
Jesus proclaimed a year acceptable to the Lord. In Old Testament language, He proclaimed the Year of Jubilee.
For me, that year was 1972 -- the year of my redemption, pardon, forgiveness and new birth.
When was your year of Jubilee?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Not only did God forgive you, but in time you've learned to forgive yourself... or at least to begin that process. Thank God for both. My sister made the same choice you did, and that choice - and her inability to receive the Lord's forgiveness - contributed to years of menatl illness.
His forgiveness - and yours - are grace.
Grace: unmerited favor.
The year I submitted to the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding contraception was probably my jubilee year. My husband and I decided that for better or for worse we would not contracept and we would give NFP 'the old college try.' I had visions of having five or maybe, gulp, six kids! God worked on our hearts and we ended up with a more open desire for children while simultaneously we gained confidence in spacing our children. Phew, these journeys are a workout.
Yes. And sometimes they are bruising . . . or so we are learning.
Post a Comment