Mikie’s Story

I was raised Catholic, and although I believed in God, I viewed Him as an old bearded man “sitting” far off in the distant corner of the heavens, judging me.

My mother was a very devout Catholic, as well as controlling, overprotective, and critical. I felt I could never please her. My father was kind but emotionally distant and a functioning alcoholic.

After high school graduation, I could not wait to leave and get out from under my mom’s suffocating reign. Therefore, when I went away to college, I rebelled big-time. I stopped going to Catholic Mass. I drank alcohol and smoked pot.

I fell in love, or so I thought, with a young man who turned out to be an alcoholic, verbally abusive, and, on one occasion, threw me against a wall in a rage. In my last semester of college, I became pregnant by him, and I was scared to death. I could not imagine telling my mother. I feared her ultimate disappointment and displeasure with me.

In February 1976, my college roommate accompanied me to a “free beach clinic,” a converted bungalow, for a pregnancy test. The counselor took me into the “counseling room”—a tiny coat closet—turned on a solitary bare bulb overhead, and closed the door. In those cramped quarters, she and I sat cross-legged on the floor facing each other.

Briefly, she presented my options: to carry to term and parent, to “give up” the baby for adoption, or to abort. But the counselor told me, “Whatever you choose will stay with you for the rest of your life.” With those prophetic words, she handed me a piece of paper and said, “It’s your choice, but here are the names of three doctors who perform abortions in this area.” She didn’t give me the contact information for a woman who chose parenting or any adoption information. That was the extent of my “counseling.”

After two days of tearfully agonizing over my options, I called the first name on the list, an OB/GYN, made an appointment, and underwent a first-trimester abortion.

Soon afterward, I slipped into a depression, not realizing that was what I was experiencing. I sank into despair and broke up with my boyfriend, the father of my baby. For the next few years, I was in a couple of unhealthy relationships with men and tried to escape my guilt by numbing myself with drinking and drugs.

Meanwhile, my former roommate—the one who accompanied me to the clinic and had two past abortions—invited me to visit her and her husband. I accepted and immediately noticed a significant change in her. My wild “partying” cohort was replaced by a woman of profound peace. She told me she had “accepted the Lord” and gently witnessed to me about her faith. I was open to what she had to say and left reflecting on what she said was the reason for her transformation—her “born again” conversion.

Not long after my visit, my mother died from cancer. My grief sent me on a journey and a search for what I believed happened after a person died. Where was my mother?

Just before dying, my mother read Catherine Marshall’s Something More: In Search of a Deeper Faith. I read the book, a charismatic approach to developing a richer relationship with God through the power of the Holy Spirit. A personal relationship with Jesus was referenced as well. The author spoke of allowing “Jesus to invade us and lead us out into the light.” I felt encouraged that my mom was reading that book not long before she died, and I believe she is in heaven.

Ultimately, my quest for answers took me to what the Bible said about the afterlife. I wanted the serenity my roommate had, and I desired assurance of my salvation. I recalled her quoting John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

In August 1980, two months after my mom died, I got down on my knees and asked Jesus into my heart. One of my favorite verses during that time was, and still is, 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

Years passed, and although I knew in my head that God had forgiven me, I stuffed down feelings of grief and shame as I busied myself with life as a wife and mother.

In 1991, at a fundraising banquet for a crisis pregnancy center, the keynote speaker told us to turn to the person next to us as she explained that one out of every two people have either had an abortion, knew someone who had, or is the father of an aborted baby.

The woman next to me was a friend and a very pious Christian woman, and I knew enough about her past to know that SHE was not the one between the two of us who had abortion in her history. It was ME the speaker was talking about.

At the dinner, someone sang “What Was I Supposed to Be?”, a lament an aborted baby would sing to his or her parents. I struggled, fighting back tears. When I arrived home, my babysitter was the pastor’s 14-year-old son. After he left, I sat down on the couch and cried. It struck me hard that my child, who I believe was a son, would have been 14—the same age as the babysitter.

The Lord was shining His light in that dark place and exposing my need for healing.

I sought that healing at a post-abortion Bible study and finally, once and for all, forgave myself and accepted and embraced—in my heart—the Lord’s forgiveness. The tremendous shame I felt is gone, and I claim Romans 8:1: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

I am set free by His forgiveness and, as He promises in His Word: “For I will forgive their wickedness, and I will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12).

Because of the inadequate counseling I received at the beach clinic, and the fact that there were no crisis pregnancy centers in my college city at the time, the Lord led me to serve and become involved with a local pregnancy resource center, first as a board member and newsletter writer/editor, then on staff as a Client Services Director, and more recently as a Client Advocate, a peer counselor position.

Now God is no longer inaccessible and far away in the corner of the universe. He is my God, “my refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

Now I can walk with confidence in His Light as a child of the King, assured that I’ve been saved by His grace, and I desire only to live each and every day for Him. If any of this is familiar, here is what happens at a Wild Heart weekend retreat. You can also meet the other women who lead it.