Would you still love me if I murdered your child?
That question isn’t something you ever wanted to be asked or ever want to think about, really. It slaps you in the face and makes you take a step back and say, “Excuse me?” But I want you to answer honestly;
would you still love me if I murdered your child?
I know a man who did.
My whole life I’ve found my worth in men. I would mold myself to whatever they wanted me to be, giving away pieces of my heart, and giving away my purity in order to fulfill this thirst for love that could never be quenched. I thought my actions would have no consequences because I was so focused on my selfish desires that I lost sight of everything around me, including myself. And then, my junior year in college, reality smacked me in the face when I found out that I was pregnant.
As my mind tried to wrap itself around this news, excuses started to flood my brain. I’m too young to have a baby. How will I finish college? What will my family think? I’m not even married. How would I support this child and myself? Excuse after excuse came like tidal waves and pushed me more and more towards the “easy way out”: abortion. It seemed logical-I would spare myself and the child the trials of a hard life and still have the chance of living out my dream of finding my prince charming, getting married, and THEN having children. I only wanted what was best for the child, right?
Abortion seemed like the only option, yet it just didn’t feel completely right. But, instead of diving deeper into that small feeling of uneasiness, I filled my mind with more excuses. I could tell myself over and over again that this was best not only for me, but for the child, but I knew that I was feeding myself lies, but it was a lie that sounded good, and it gave me permission. In the spring of 2011 I murdered God’s child.
I murdered a child that the Lord had handcrafted. A child that He had chosen for me. A child that so many women and families yearn for and pray for their whole lives but never receive. I murdered my Savior’s child, He still loves me, not only does He still love me but he has forgiven me. He took a sin that I had deemed unforgivable and He forgot it the instant I asked for forgiveness.
“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions
for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins”.
–Isaiah 43:25
Who do you know that would not only forgive the murder of their child, but forget it ever happened? Jesus forgives me every day of things I constantly run from. He forgives the people that take His good gifts, distort them into something ugly and then have the nerve to ask for more?
Jesus does each and every one of those things. And He doesn’t even stop at forgiveness…He continues to love us. He loves us through each act of rejection and betrayal we make and simply asks for us to love Him in return.
God is so good!
I cannot express how much love I have for Jesus and the fact that he forgives even my darkest shame.
I know that when I see his face and he says “Welcome home, my beloved.” I will have another face there as well, waiting to greet me, saying; “Welcome home, mommy.”
