Words Have Power

When I decided to blog, I was scared. I knew that I wanted to share my heart, but doing so meant that I had to share my story. My story is messy. It is raw. It is vulnerable.

Telling my story meant that I was opening myself up to being the center of gossip. I had already rehearsed what they would say in my head…

Oh my. I can’t believe she told all of THAT.

I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe that she had an abortion. She knew better and she did it anyway.

She’s a murderer. I can’t associate with a murderer.

She deserves to rot in hell! Who could kill an innocent baby?

She doesn’t deserve children.

I have tried for years to have children and she killed one. Now she has three more.

Her parents should have had more rules.

Who is she to stand up for the unborn in her pro-life stance? She didn’t even protect her own unborn child! Hypocrite!

She’s using her aborted baby to gain attention for herself now. How horrible.

I thought she called herself a Christian. Christians don’t have abortions.

Yes, I have imagined all of that and more. I have worried what people might say.

Sadly, worrying about what people would say drove me to the worst decision I ever made.

Oh, the irony.

I found out I was pregnant during Christmas break. We were in Florida—just him and me (Yes, I know. We should’ve never been there by ourselves but we were)—on vacation. He had planned to take me to Disney World. The Magic Kingdom.

The night before we planned to visit he bought a pregnancy test. He knew what I had been denying.

It was positive.

I screamed. I cried. I wailed.

How could this be happening to me? To us?

I couldn’t speak, but being the logical problem solver that he is, he began listing the options.

Abortion?…NO! I could never do that!

We can get married. I’ll buy us a trailer and we’ll put it on that lot right beside Mom and Daddy’s…NO! I’m only a sophomore in college. You haven’t graduated college yet. You haven’t even started your career. NO! It won’t work.

Adoption? NO! How could I carry a baby for nine months and then give it away?

He went through all of the options with me. I shot them all down. I was irrational. I was in trouble.

I remember crying myself to sleep that night. It was December 30^th.

How was I going to tell my parents? How were we going to tell his parents? What would the church people say?

I could already hear Daddy, so I thought.

I’m not mad. I’m disappointed.

I could already hear Mom. She wouldn’t say a word. She would just cry. Silent tears.

In my experience, Mom’s silent tears were the worst. I hated making my momma cry. I had always been a good girl. A compliant child. A compliant teenager. Because I never wanted anyone to be disappointed in me.

There were times that my brother and I would argue and fight and she wouldn’t fuss. She would just cry silent tears.

I would’ve given anything to have her fuss at me, because making my momma cry broke my heart.

I had seen other people make her cry.

I grew up in a family of four children. A brother, two sisters and me. I was the youngest, so I had had the luxury of watching my siblings mess up. I knew what made my parents mad and I knew what made them cry. I didn’t want to do any of that, so I just obeyed the rules.

The rules. Lots of rules. But they were designed to keep me out of trouble.

I wasn’t always told the WHY of the rules, just the typical answer of my parents’ generation—“Because I said so.”

I learned to obey the rules not because they were good and right, but because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t. I knew the switch quite well, and I didn’t like it. I knew what it meant to lose privileges, and I didn’t like that either.

The rule that covered ALL rules? 1 Thessalonians 5:22. Abstain from all appearance of evil.

In my mind, that meant that if I was doing it in secret then I didn’t have to worry about the whole “appearance” thing. Hence, I was having sex with my boyfriend and no one knew it.

I know, I know. That’s a warped sense of obedience, but it was where I was as a teenager. I had been trained in the letter of the law. Sadly, I had it all in my mind, but had never applied it to my heart. Remember, I obeyed “because I said so.”

Guess what? When Momma and Daddy weren’t there to say so, my siblings and I did as we felt so. We did what we wanted when no one was looking.

Sometimes we’d get caught, though.

All of a sudden, someone was looking.

In our hometown newspaper, there’s a column that lists all of the criminal behavior. Yes. If you mess up, get caught, and are convicted, then your name and conviction will both appear in that column.

I despise it and refuse to subscribe, but some people live to see that column. They devour it with haughty eyes and then disseminate it with pleasure. They gossip.

Or, if they’re good church people, they “share” it. As a “prayer request”. Because they are well-intentioned. HA!

My family had been in that column. And I had seen my momma cry like a baby over the action when it happened. She wailed. I thought someone had died. No one was hurt other than the one who had to suffer the consequences of the judge’s sentence. No jail time, just a loss of the license for a few months.

We learned our lesson on that, but what happened after that newspaper column made much more of an impact on me than the conviction.

One of the church ladies saw that column. She called my momma that day.

Is that your child?

I can’t believe it! Aren’t you ashamed?!

I watched as my mom cried those silent tears as her friend extended not one ounce of grace and understanding, but heaped shame on my momma’s head.

I swore then that I would never put my momma in that position again.

So, when I was faced with the decision of letting my parents know about my pregnancy, I immediately determined that I could not bring that shame on them.

If they didn’t know, they wouldn’t cry.

If they didn’t know, they wouldn’t hurt.

If they didn’t know, the community wouldn’t know. And I wouldn’t have to worry about some ill-intentioned “friend” heaping shame on their heads.

So, I did the secret thing. I had an abortion.

We were even so scared that someone would see us entering the clinic that we drove 2 hours away across state lines. Only the two of us, the clinic staff, and God knew what was about to happen.

Once that horrible deed took place we swore we’d never speak of it again. As long as we kept it a secret, then no one would ever find out. No one would ever be hurt. No one would ever be shamed.

We were right. No one found out until we revealed our secret 10 years later.

But in the meantime, I harbored every cruel word that could ever be said to me inside my own heart and mind. I cursed myself. I heaped insults on my own head.

I hated myself.

My secret was about to kill me through anxious thoughts, panic attacks, and sleepless nights.

My body ached. My heart physically hurt.

As I look back now, I am amazed at how internal conflict can wreak such outward pain.

Also, as I look back, I realize that no derogatory, hate-filled word could affect me as profoundly as the hate I heaped on myself.

No ill-intentioned comment could bring shame on me that I haven’t already felt.

Others’ words will never hurt me the way I hurt myself.

Once I came to this realization, the fear of what people might say as we publicly share our story has no power over me. None.

If someone chooses to heap hate our way, we will combat it with prayers their way. Because surely their lack of grace has hurt others besides me, including themselves.

You see, people who are empty of grace have never had the opportunity to experience it.

In the story of Jesus being anointed in Bethany, Luke 7 depicts a sinful woman. As Jesus enters the house she approaches him weeping. She kneels and begins to wash his feet with her tears and dry them with her hair. She then pours expensive perfume on him.

As she pours out her love for him, the people in the house whisper about her.

The Pharisee whispered insults and shook his head in disgust, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

Jesus whispered acceptance and shook the shame from her tortured soul, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house but you did not give me water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.

Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

Then he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Friends, have we spoken peace or shame over the sinner?

Our words have power. They can rescue and restore, or they can devastate and destroy.

Words had the power to evoke such fear in me that I destroyed the life of my child.

Do I blame others for my choices? No, I made them and I own them.

However, the wagging tongues of the people who were supposed to love me the most drove me to that clinic.

The lack of grace and forgiveness that plagued one family member’s life played a huge role in my decision.

I would rather have faced a forgiving God than His unforgiving people, though they may have been few in number when I made that decision. I let their words drive me rather than the grace-filled words of the ones who loved me unconditionally.

I let the word condescending words of a few misguided church people trump the love of many more who would have encouraged me in love and understanding.

But that’s no longer the case.

No longer will worry over what people might say be what guides me. No one could possibly destroy me with their words anymore than I destroyed myself with my own for years.

I will speak light into the darkness and remember this: words have power.

Will I be Jesus, or will I be the Pharisee?

Will I be the one who gives grace to a hurting soul or the mocking one who gossips?

Will I spread the good in people or the bad?

Will I think the best of people and give them room to mess up? Or will I heap insults on them and about them when they step outside of the boundaries?

Let’s be light, y’all. Let’s be light.

We never know…it could save a life.