"A Special Letter on Abortion" by Sydna Masse

The following is a piece by Sydna Masse that was added to the end of the celebration edition of And the Bride Wore White by Dannah Gresh.

Hello, Friend,
I want to invite you into one of the most private moments of my life. It wa the moment my life was sliced in two, if you will. I say it was sliced into two because the person I was before this moment was drastically different from the person I quickly became for many years to come.

I was 19. I was the daughter of a pastor. I was attending a Christian college and dating the son of a pastor. I was having fun, enjoying both the newfound freedom of college and a really neat dating relationship with a Christian guy.

Sounds picture-perfect so far, right? Suddenly the unthinkable happened. I got pregnant. My boyfriend was less than supportive and seemed to threaten to turn the whole world upside down if I carried the pregnancy to term. He taunted me with stories of getting me kicked out of college. (The college expelled pregnant, unwed students.) He even relayed my own assessment - that my mother would probably have a mental breakdown. He convinced me that I didn't have much choice.

I aborted my baby. He would have graduated in 2000, and there isn't a day that goes by when I don't think about him.

I could have been engulfed in the most horrible grief imaginable, but I didn't have anyone to face it with me, and I wasn't willing to do it alone. I chose to numb myself. I drowned my feelings with drugs and promiscuity for many years. I just wanted to escape the overwhelming pain. And in many ways, I did. The only thing I believed during that time was that I made the right decision for that period of my life.

But one day, I found that there was no escaping it. I had to face it. While it was the most painful time in my life, grieving my child brought healing. Finding forgiveness from Christ furthered the journey that brought me to peace that passes all understanding. Then God gave me the inspiration that He could work even abortion to His good.

The world can debate abortion all it wants, but the fact remains there is pain. I am so much happier now than I was when I was in denial and had convinced myself that I had only aborted a "blob of tissue." I am very loved by a wonderful husband, and I find tremendous fulfillment in a productive and successful career helping other women heal from abortion. The Lord has allowed me to rescue a few children who would have been aborted had their mothers not heard my testimony.

What do I tell these women? What do I see working as they seek to heal? First, I tell them that they are not alone. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood, the world's largest abortion provider) recently stated that, "At the current rate, 43% of women will have at least one abortion by the time they are 45 years old." And you might find this surprising, but women in the church are not immune. Imagine that 43 percent of all women are postabortive - they sit in your congregations, work in your schools, climb corporate ladders to success, and exist in every part of our society. Despite those statistics, abortion is rarely discussed by those who have chosen it.

Second, I would have to say that a good step toward healing can start with confession. Oh, I had confessed it before God, but confessing it to a loving, godly adult through sharing my testimony was a major step in my journey to healing. James 5:16 says, "Confess your sins to each other... so that you may be healed." God gave us each other to encourage and provide help in the process of healing. Telling this truth was one of the most frightening things I've ever done, but it was very worth it. I tell people to just make sure this person is one that they can trust.

I hope that you can't really identify with my story. I hope that you aren't hiding from the pain of abortion. I hope you can't feel the overwhelming grief. But if you can, let me encourage you to tell an older, wiser, and very godly woman. If you don't fee you can talk to your mom about it right now, find a local crisis pregnancy center to talk to one of their counselors - they can be found in the "Abortion Alternative" section of your Yellow Pages. I know that sounds tough, but it will be very worth it.

Speaking as someone who knows what premarital sex cost me, I can say that the best way to avoid pain is to remain abstinent until marriage. Your heart is very precious and should be saved for the perfect man. One of my greatest regrets is that I couldn't share my innocence with my husband. Regardless of the fact that the "sky doesn't fall" when you go a little bit further with your boyfriend than you would have liked, there are major consequences to your future. The boy who truly loves you will wait for marriage.

My prayer for you, if you have experienced abortion, is that you would join me in my journey. Never encourage or support a friend in making the choice to abort - regardless of their circumstances. Abortion is never the solution. Lead them to a crisis pregnancy center where they can find the truth about abortion and help to continue their pregnancy.

In God's Great Healing Love,

Sydna

Sydna Masse is the former director of Focus on the Family's Crisis Pregnancy outreach. She is now president and founder of Ramah International, Inc., a postabortion ministry. She is the author of Her Choice to Heal: Finding Spiritual and Emotional Peace After Abortion (Chariot Victor). Her book tells her story in-depth and provides the opportunity for the reader to reflect on her own abortion situation and to begin the process of finding emotional and spiritual healing.

A Little Encouragement Goes a Long Way

I've been really busy with missions and other things these past few weeks, which is a really good thing because it generally means I'm surrounded by people I love, but it can also be a way that Satan distracts me from the important issue of abortion. I've received several remarks from a few different people (who are not pro-choice, mind you), all along the lines of me being a "crazy pro-lifer." Whatever. That stuff doesn't usually bother me, but it does get a bit irksome after a while.

The other day, after an amazing week at Camp Electric, my friends and I were road tripping back home and stopped to grab some lunch. In the restaurant I saw a lady who had a pro-life t-shirt on, and me, being the outgoing gal that I am, complimented her on it. She then proceeded to go out to her car (well adorned with pro-life bumper stickers) and gifted me with four white bracelets. What a blessing! Not only do I have a symbol to wear every day of my stand against abortion, but I also finally came across somebody else who is just as passionate about the cause as I am, which is such an encouragement. Thank you Pro-Life Lady, I'll remember whenever I look at my bracelet!

"Abortion -- it is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

Even if you were raped. Even if your pro-choice doctor claims you will die if you give birth to this child (which is bull, by the way -- I worked in labor and delivery for nine months doing clerical stuff and I learned enough to know that delivery is a fabulous cure for pre-eclampsia, and putting the child in the NICU gives him/her a much better chance of survival than abortion ever will). Even if you are 15 years old -- meaning you cannot lawfully drop out of high school yet -- and it is physically impossible to parent a child at this time in your life and still maintain your sanity (helloooo, adoption!).

You might take a guess that this quote may have been said by someone like Michelle Duggar, a woman who loves children very much -- so much, in fact, that she has nineteen of her own -- and easily finds a way to keep her entire family afloat with the help of her husband, Jim Bob. Or maybe it's by Sarah Palin, a die-hard conservative pro-lifer who is swimming in cash so that she may live as she wishes. If not one of those two, it must be somebody who said this a hundred years ago, before abortion was such a fundamental component of women's rights, before it was so necessary as it is today, with all the rapists and pregnant teenagers in this country.

Nope. Mother Teresa.

Wait a second, you've got to be kidding. You mean Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the Catholic nun who took the vow of poverty; the woman of God who dedicated her life to serve the "poorest of the poor;" who for more than half of her life wore nothing other than a white, blue-bordered sari and a flimsy pair of sandals? You're talking about Mother Teresa, the missionary in Calcutta who visited families, washed the sores of children, and cared for the sick and dying on the sides of the roads? The one who accepted all awards presented to her not with pride, but "for the glory of God and in the name of the poor"? Yep, that's the one.

I've never met the woman, but I'm gonna take a wild guess and say she knew a thing or two about poverty. She chose to live in the deepest poverty, and took great joy in doing so. In my book, she's the second most selfless person ever to have lived (Jesus being the first), and her deepest desire throughout her years was always, "more of You, less of me." She didn't play around with poverty -- going on short term mission trips here and there yet residing in places with far more amenities than the people she was serving, glad to go home after two weeks because, "it was amazing, but I just can't stand being there that long" -- No. She made her home among the poorest of the poor, pouring out love to those who had none, to those who had no money, no food, no care, no protection. And she was blessed by it.

The average cost of an abortion is $550 dollars. $362.3 million dollars of our tax money in America goes to fund it each year. Yet the mother to the poor called it poverty, and categorized women affording an retrieving an abortion in the same group as her children.

I think there's definitely something to be said about that, and not just, "Oh, that's a nice quote. Mother Teresa was a really cool lady." The saint certainly had a way with words, and when discussing abortion she had the opportunity to describe the crime with other words such as "evil," "murder," "wrong," or "inhumane." But she chose "poverty." Merriam-Webster's definition of the word includes "scarcity, dearth; debility due to malnutrition; lack of fertility." (Pretty ironic for the last one, huh?) So the question is, what are these women lacking? What is it that the wise nun decided they were malnourished of, infertile of?

Well, maybe -- and this is just a thought -- they have not conceived love. Maybe they are haven't been nourished with a  true understanding of the value of life and the value of intimacy, which could be fed to them by -- you guessed it -- love. Maybe, just maybe, they are lacking Jesus. (And by the way, He IS love.)

So right now as I lay in this bed, on my laptop, with the AC and two fans keeping me cool, with my good health and expensive yoga pants, with loads of diet coke downstairs (side distraction: today when I was saying grace before dinner, I literally thanked God for diet coke... my mom laughed at me), as I look back on Mother Teresa of Calcutta's life and words of wisdom, I am humbled by the incredible truth of God's message to us... that it all comes down to love.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing." ~1 Corinthians 13:1-3

If I declare and protest life outside every Planned Parenthood in the country, but have not love, I am only another annoying conservative. If I educate young women about sex and reproduction, and if I write powerful pro-life articles, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all my money to pro-life organizations and die for the cause, but have not love, I gain nothing.