A leaders perspective...Lady E

When Lady E. contacted me to sign up for a group, she couldn’t stop crying. I could feel her sorrow through the phone. Her emotion and pain were raw because she had her abortion in the spring. Lady E. had decided to take the abortion pills.

As with many young women who take these pills the veil of deceit is ripped away as they sit in the bathroom until their bodies finish expelling their babies. They are forever traumatized by what they see in the toilet. Their bathroom becomes a continual reminder of their abortion and many struggle to enter that room again. Once the process is complete, they are alone and faced with the decision of how to dispose of the body of their baby. Asking…

Do I flush it?

Do I bury it?

I cannot even image the nightmare of this scene or the wrestling of thoughts in her head. There are some things, once seen, that can never be unseen.

Lady E. was living in the aftermath of her decision. She desperately wanted relief from her sorrow and grief. She often said she was overwhelmed and couldn’t see when this sorrow would end.

Lady E. is one of those women who would not have sought out abortion had it been illegal. Her state made it illegal one month after her abortion with the overturning of Roe.

She was angry!

She was angry at the state legislation, and she was angry at herself for not walking out of the abortion center that day. She was angry with the father of the baby for pressuring her to have the abortion, as he had pressured other girls before her.

Oh, how hindsight is 20/20.

We talked many times before her group started and many times between sessions. The first half of her group experience was difficult as she struggled with her emotions. Midway through the group she contacted me for prayer because she was having a particularly difficult time getting herself under control. I sent out an urgent prayer request to our 53-member prayer team. Several responded with a typed-out prayer. In our next meeting I noticed a remarkable change in her countenance. She was smiling. She had joy written all over her face.

The night the prayer team was praying, she decided she needed to go to church again. Apparently, she stopped going to church several years prior. During the service the Lord met her, comforted her, and brought light into her heart. God wooed her back through those prayers. Her tears flowed as she learned about the prayer team covering her that night. She expressed how comforting it was that others cared for her during that time. I sent her the typed-out prayers. She printed them and reads them often.

I’m struck by the magnitude of God, the power of prayer, and how the two work together. God can move and work without us, yet it pleases Him to invite us into the work He is doing. By Lady E.’s testimony and the specific requests on those typed-out prayers, we saw God respond to our hearts as we prayed the desires of His heart, and we heard how it was displayed to Lady E. while she sat in church service.

Cast your burden on the Lord for He cares for you.