Walking in her shoes {writing prompt}

If by sharing the things that are hard to speak of and the things that are deeply regretted we can help even one soul to turn to God and choose the right path, it will be worth overcoming the fears and speaking up.

I know what it's like to be ignorant and not know any better, yet at the time think that you know it all.  ("Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Luke 23:34)  God has given us amazing minds that, sadly, think they are smarter than he is.  How proud we become about all the things we have thought of.

I'm thinking back to my young adult life.  Thinking back to all of my reasoning and analyzing.  When I thought that I had the answers for all of the world's problems...not even realizing how much the world had affected (infected?) my thinking.  I was so LOST without God's Word.  So utterly, hopelessly lost.  It makes me sad to think about it.  And now I cling to what he says because he is so right in a world full of wrong.  I keep a tight grip because people with all of their thoughts and ideas...well...they change.  They are proud like I was and they think they have it all figured out apart from God.

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."  They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good... Psalm 14:1

I shared yesterday on Facebook that I have been thinking a lot about abortion.  I've been thinking, not only about the millions of helpless babies that are having their lives taken from them, but also of the mothers (and fathers) who live with the pain and regret of having done this.  Yet, there is healing with God.  God forgives when we confess.  Have you experienced how freeing that is?

We may never hear another soul speak of having had an abortion.  But these women are all around us.  They need to know that God will forgive them and that his love will heal them.  

We have to be careful that we don't get proud in our thinking.  We cannot think we are somehow better because we haven't done such things.  It is only by God's grace that we have been spared from the choices, the pressures and the desperate circumstances that many women face.  They need to know God.  They need to trust him with every decision and trust that he forgives the choices they have made apart from him.

"Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, 
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, 
so are my ways higher than your ways 
and my thoughts than your thoughts."  Isaiah 55: 6-9

I have not had an abortion.  But that is only because of God's mercy in my life.  I was a woman who once believed that abortion was a quick and easy solution to a "problem".  I even live with the pain of having advised a woman to make this choice.  How much more pain women must experience who have chosen to end the life of their own child?  I thank God that woman did not listen to me.  That would be an even greater grief to bear.  Why am I telling you all of this?  Why am I sharing these things that choke me up and make the tears well up as I am typing?

Because God is real.  My beliefs about him run deep.  It's not just that I am "religious" now.  It's not just that I "go to church" now.  God has changed my heart!  Completely!  I am praying with all my heart this morning that hearts would be turned to him and that women would see that abortion is not a solution.  It creates problems that cut deep into the heart and soul of a mother who once carried her baby within her own body.  It has profound consequences that will never be forgotten.

It grieves me to think of who I once was.  To think that I thought the way I did.  But I am also encouraged.  Because I know that God is powerful.  I know that he can take a rebellious and foolish people and show them the light and beauty of his Word...of himself.

May God change the hearts of a people made in his own image.  May they turn to him in genuine repentance and receive his mercy and forgiveness.

I know I needed it.

Desperately.

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So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  Genesis 1:27

You shall not murder.  Exodus 20:13

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.  Psalm 127:3

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3:5-6


Linking up for the writing prompt here: http://www.ellenstumbo.com/walking-in-her-shoes/