Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the guest author.
When I was 13 years old, just days before my 14th birthday, my life drastically changed. I believe that this is where my story begins. I experienced a sexual assault that altered my outlook on life.
As a young child who was already struggling with depression and regularly engaging in harmful behaviour such as self harm, smoking, and drug use, this only exacerbated my immature understanding regarding the danger and fear associated with simply being alive. I went home after the incident and I floated on top of the water in the outdoor pool trying to let it cleanse me, staring up at the night sky. I then waited in my sister’s bed, silent and still, until she came home. I explained to her what had happened and she held me and informed my father. The days afterwards blur together, though I remember my birthday celebration which took place on the back deck with only my immediate family present.
The emptiness I felt was consuming. Night after night I would lay in my bed contemplating suicide and begging God to help me. I felt abandoned, broken, and isolated. I rejected Him, disgusted by the thought that He could exist and still leave me in this state. It was easier to believe that He just didn’t exist at all.
READ: She made four abortion appointments, but God intervened and saved her son
I continued to spiral, making attempts on my life, using harder and harder drugs, dating adult men, and trying to numb myself in a variety of destructive ways – anything that I could get a hold of to try and deaden the pain, to try and cope with the immense burden of life. As the years passed my parents did everything that they could to try and seek help for me but their attempts were futile. Eventually, as a final Hail Mary, they moved our family to beautiful British Columbia. Unfortunately, due to my own sin and inability to receive help, this only sent me further down the rabbit hole. I found a new group of friends who were in a similar place as myself and together we tossed away any desire for true healing and drowned ourselves in hard drugs until everything else had fallen away.
At the age of 19, I had found myself so entrenched in this lifestyle of depravity and escapism that I was in the throes of a meth and crack addiction, living on a drug dealer’s couch, trying (and failing) repeatedly in my effort to get clean. I had endured so much abuse and trauma throughout these years that I was never quite present, enslaved to the dangerous coping mechanisms that I had embraced as familiar friends.
The author during her struggle with addiction. (Photo: Deborah Barnes)
It should be known that I was in no way a respectable member of society myself and inflicted my fair share of pain and trauma on others – particularly those who loved me most. They deserve recognition for the pain that I caused them.
For a short time I had been casually seeing a man who, one day, asserted that he thought I was pregnant. I laughed it off but as the days went on my cycle did not return. While on a day-trip with my parents, I walked into a dollar store and left having stolen two pregnancy tests. I went to the washroom and took one. Lo and behold, two faint pink lines showed up.
I had always wanted to be a mother, despite my life choices, and in my ignorance of my own state I grew excited at the prospect of a child. I returned home and told the father. He reacted neutrally but weeks passed on and he distanced himself. I told a few close friends and those around me were astonished that I would even consider keeping the child. I mean, I myself was a loud feminist and pro-choice advocate. At around 8 or 9 weeks pregnant, after realizing that my beau was not interested in a relationship or being present in this baby’s life, I researched online the time limit for taking the abortion pill. My research told me that the limit was 10 weeks so I proceeded to call the nearest abortion clinic to book an appointment.
To my dismay, the lady on the other line said that they would not prescribe the drugs past the point of 7 weeks. I remember hanging up that phone and crying profusely. Here were my options: I could go through with an invasive surgical abortion which I knew would be immensely traumatic for me due to my sexual abuse history or I could keep the baby and face the future as a single mother.
The fear of the abortion won and I decided to keep my son.
By the grace of God, I managed to get myself clean (relapsing once) and moved back in with my parents. During this time I experienced immense grief and my identity was called into question. Who was I outside of the lifestyle that I had been living for so long? My friends slipped away one by one and, again, I felt what I perceived to be the brutality of life and apathy of others. I researched ways to induce an abortion naturally throughout my pregnancy, clinging to any hope that my life didn’t have to change like this, that I didn’t have to face this crushing unknown.
On July 16th I went into labour. I was terrified and in an immense amount of pain. Hours later my son was born. To me, this is the most emotional part of my story. They handed me my little baby and in an instant everything changed.
So THIS was who was kicking me, whose little heartbeat I heard on the doppler, who I saw pushing himself around my womb using his little feet at only 11 weeks. This was my beautiful boy, my beautiful son. I cried and felt emotions that I had never felt before. To feel what my parents felt, to love someone so unconditionally after simply laying eyes on them, to understand what was called into question when I considered abortion. I could have killed him; I was going to kill him. It did not take long for me to renounce my position as a pro-choice advocate.
The author’s son (Photo: Deborah Barnes)
Within a year I found God. Here I was, staring at my life, realizing that if it wasn’t for the sexual assault that I would have murdered my son. I could see God’s answer in what I had felt was his absence. I could see him working out the greater good through the evil decisions of man. I could see the love, the genius, and the overflowing grace and mercy.
Every day I looked at my son and I saw His love looking back at me. My heart expanded and I fell deeply in love with Our Lord, my husband, and my now 3 children. I cannot describe the grace that I see in my own life. I had friends lose their lives to addiction and the truth is there was nothing that I can attribute to myself that stopped me from finding myself slumped over one day with a needle in my arm, my soul detaching from my body. The only thing I can attribute this grace to is the prayers of my family. My whole life I had generations of people praying for me and because of this I now make the effort to pray for those who have no one to pray for them. My husband and I are firm and adamant advocates for life and we live this out regularly in a variety of ways.
I could have been one of those women holding a sign at a pro-abortion rally that said read “abortion saved my life” but how could I say that without knowing what would have been waiting for me on the other side? Without knowing what I had lost — who I had killed?
Getting an abortion would have not only ended my son’s life but mine too. My son was who he is now from the very beginning, from the moment his unique DNA came into existence, at the moment of his conception. He is the most beautiful boy and I am so proud of him and so grateful that God stayed my own hand using the means of one the most traumatic events of my life in order to guide me towards the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.
My son was the catalyst towards a truly fulfilling life of stability, love, and faith. I will never again question the intrinsic value of human life, or support the genocide of the millions of babies who could have saved the world as my son saved mine.
