Abortion causes grief. Without healing, this can cause a reality that negatively affects our future relationships and dictates fearful choices in the future. Incomplete grief can create hyper-vigilant self-protection from further emotional pain. This excess of caution limits the ability to be open, loving and trusting. Many areas of our life can become limited. So, why would someone decide to permanently live like this?
Fear of Judgment
There are several reasons that can make someone seriously hesitate, or even make the decision to never seek healing such as the fear of judgment by others, the change that might take place in a person’s life once they experience true healing, or being so ashamed of their decision that they feel undeserving of any relief from their pain.
Fear of judgment is the most common and will impact women afraid to tell husbands, men afraid to tell wives, and sons and daughters who no longer trust parents enough to reveal their broken hearts. Men and women who have suffered the loss of a child through abortion may also be in positions of leadership — in the church, in post-abortion ministry or in crisis pregnancy outreach.
Such a person can feel uncomfortable on a daily basis, perhaps abusing themselves with the thought, “I'm supposed to minister to others but I've never let anyone minister to me. I have my own bleeding wound. Do I even really know how to apply bandages to others?” Just as there is fear of exposure within a family and to our loved ones, there can be fear of exposure within ministry circles. One might fear the loss of credibility, or perhaps you once heard someone say that post-abortive women are too fragile and too troubled to be in positions of ministry leadership. Naturally, therefore, these people would fear making themselves vulnerable or letting anyone know their secret.
We are both familiar with church and ministry leaders who have revealed that because of the feared judgments of others within their church, they could never open up about their own abortion losses. It would not feel safe, even on a completely confidential retreat weekend such as Rachel's Vineyard, a retreat centered on healing for post-abortion sufferers. These men and women strive every day in their ministry to create an environment of complete safety for those they help, yet they are working in an unsafe environment filled with ignorant attitudes about “what post-abortive people are like”. Lack of safety in their ministry environment can corrode their soul and cause lingering resentments.
A post-abortion sufferer might also be a political activist in the abortion debate. Political activism may be the only way they have known to stay connected to the memory of their child. This memory, one that they have scratched into their heart with pain, guilt, and self-hatred, may drive their activism. They may fear that if they accept the touch of Jesus on their wound that they will lose their drive, their edge and most of all lose their connection to their child.
Trust the Master Artist
Or, consider the person who says to herself, “That retreat sounds pretty good. It sounds like it really helps people. If I go to that retreat, it would probably help me, too. I'd probably feel much better. So, I better not go. I don't deserve to feel better.”
Some of us have a block against recovery and healing. Our early environment might have made us all too familiar and comfortable with failure, depression, chaos, relational discord, broken dreams, panic and fear. Sometimes, we are afraid of genuine healing because it will mean change and charting a new path into the unknown. It may sound unusual, but those of us who were victimized in childhood or as young adults grow used to being victims. It is all we know.
A person like this may find the prospect of not being a victim very frightening. They can come to believe that this is the only reality there is. If they were to suddenly wake up one day and be freed from self-punishing, shame-laden mindsets, what would happen to their marriage, which has grown comfortable in re-enforcing the familiar feelings of denigration and disrespect? What will the others think who have viewed them as weak, pathetic, disturbed and dependent, with an investment in keeping them down so they can feel superior?
This personal dynamic is ancient. Jesus himself encountered it when he healed people of blindness and physical deformities. The hypocrites attacked him as well as those who had been healed, spreading mistrust, focusing on the laws he had broken rather than being able to rejoice with the healer and the individual whose dignity had been restored and whose ailment had been removed. Their contempt covered their own trepidation about losing their power.
There are also those who criticize the concept of healing because of their own need to be “above it all.” In order to move into the place of blessing that God has for them, they need to recognize that they may have some strongholds where they want to control. This holds true not only for those who have experienced the loss of a child through an abortion, but for all of us who have been broken by sin.
Control is a defense where we try to protect ourselves from further harm. Controlling people are prevented from feeling fulfillment, happiness, success and peace. They are always comparing themselves and competing with others, projecting the anger and bitterness they have about their own self-perceived inadequacies onto others. A critical and perfectionistic worldview takes hold as resentment encircles the heart like barbed wire. Everyone around that person can feel the sharp, thorny pricks. Control and condemnation allow us to feel superior, to cover our own weaknesses, failures and humiliations.
As long as we can be pointing out what's wrong with everything around us, we never break through to humility, a place where God's blessing takes root because we surrender our control and allow the master painter to work on the canvas of our lives. The more we trust this master artist, the more He creates a picture that is magnificent and priceless. In addition, God actually transforms the negative images and colors into things of great beauty.
Our self-important assurances, professional airs, authority and pomp cuts off the possibilities promised to the humble heart which opens the door to unimaginable blessings, miracles and beauty. Christ states it clearly, unless you are like a child, you cannot inherit the kingdom. Sinners discover this reality by embracing their own inner poverty and grief. What a paradox!
Heart of Faith
This is what God truly desires to do in our lives, when we let go of our control and take the great risk to trust him — to make ourselves vulnerable, to share the secret, dark and ominous portraits that were painted on the canvas of our lives after destructive experiences, like abortion, sexual abuse and other deep personal violations.
Rachel's Vineyard is a unique process through which the very Glory of God moves into our pain and sin, transforming us in spirit and truth. The exercises involve our whole being, body, soul, and intellect. Rachel's Vineyard is a place where pain is emptied, and God's Holy Spirit is released as our souls are filled with grace and a fresh, unmistakable breath of new life. His presence brings peace, joy, abundance, healing, wisdom, guidance, and the opening for a path of freedom and peace in the ongoing challenges of life.
Maximum and abundant life is not found by hiding ourselves from the presence of God, but by inviting him into the buried feelings of guilt, grief, pain, anger, isolation and fear — by taking a risk to imagine what eye has not seen, and what ears have not heard.
Rachel's Vineyard has been called a hidden treasure, a taste of heaven, a banquet of love, because in this place we face God and confront our fears and grief directly with the support of a loving Christian Community. Rachel's Vineyard is a place where His glory descends, breaking the self imposed prison walls where hell seeks to confine and shame our spirit…. setting the captives free!
As Jesus stood before the cave of Lazarus, he called Lazarus forth and commanded: “Come out!”
The Lord invites each of us to that same powerful resurrection. The Lord came that we might have life, and have it to the full. He desires our wholeness and healing. He beckons us with gentleness and loving affection. There is nothing — not infidelity, not abortion, not addiction, not cowardice — nothing can separate us from the love of God except our own pride and fears, and placing our limited expectations on his ability to touch our hearts and heal our deepest wounds.
God has given us the power to take on new modes of thinking through the word of God, prayer, grieving, thanksgiving, in the midst of own paschal mystery as it is opened to the power of the Holy Spirit. God's Living word begins to regenerate and recreate our inner being so that old things pass away, and all things become new. It's not magic; it's mystery! The critical mind will miss the very essence of what lies beyond our own imaginations and intellectual power. As Ron Rolheier wrote, “the heart knows things that the mind cannot picture and our experience is full of a richness for which we cannot find adequate words. That's the heart of faith!”
Theresa Burke, Ph.D is co-director of Rachel’s Vineyard and Leslie Graves is their Media Relations Director. Rachel's Vineyard weekends for healing after abortion are offered throughout the year in locations across the United States and Canada. To contact them, please go the Rachel’s Vineyard website.
