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. I did not have a personal relationship with Him.

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.

I attended a Catholic girl’s high school in the late sixties when society was going through a major upheaval, with the hippie drug culture and the sexual revolution. I obeyed my parents while I lived at home, but 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 displeasure in 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, walk-in 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 name and contact for a women who chose parenting, or any adoption information. The message I got was: “You should get an abortion and here are three physicians who will do it.” That was the extent of my “counseling.”

During the next two days, I tearfully agonized over my options. I talked to the baby’s father, discussed the matter with my roommate - the one who went with me to the clinic (herself a veteran of two abortions), and cried over the phone to my best friend who offered to loan me the money for the procedure. All of them told me, in effect, “it’s your body, it’s your choice.”

On a Friday, I called the first name on the list, an OB/GYN, and on the following Monday, underwent a first trimester abortion.

Soon afterwards, I slipped into a depression, not even know that was what I was experiencing. I stopped going to most of my classes and didn’t keep up with the homework. 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 she 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, but was put off by her husband, a former Catholic, who preached to me about all that was wrong with the teachings of the Catholic church. I left that visit reflecting on what my friend said was the reason for her transformation, but confused by her spouse’s criticism of my childhood religion. My former roommate showed me grace, while her husband spoke legalism.

Not long after my visit, in 1980, 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? I was staying at my parent’s home for about a month after she passed away. Just before dying, my mother read: Catherine Marshalls “Something More: In Search of a Deeper Fatih.” 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.)

The biblical passages it pointed to and its spiritual bent seemed to mesh my Catholic heritage with what my roommate friend had shared with me about becoming “born again.” Ultimately my quest for answers took me to what the Bible said about the after life. 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, in my bedroom in my parent’s home, I got down on my knees and asked Jesus into my heart.

One of my favorite verses during that time is 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

Now God is no longer inaccessible, and far away. 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.