Surrendering The SecretShembull

A Response of Panic, A Life of Secrets

For thousands of women every day, abortion is a response to panic. While abortion promises to be the simple solution to the problem of an unwanted or unexpected pregnancy, it doesn’t solve all our problems and it creates new problems for us. Sooner or later, we run to the wilderness of fear, shame, abandonment, anger, and self-protection only to find ourselves just surviving—not really living—in a foreign, desolate land.

Think about a time in your life, apart from your abortion, when you tried to run from a problem or tried to slide out of your situation without anyone noticing. How did it work out?

The amazing news is that God longs to come to us and rescue us. When God found Hagar feeling abandoned and hopeless in the wilderness, she embraced her pain rather than trying to cover it up or ignore it. You may feel as though you’ve been wandering in a desert since your abortion experience, ever aware of your losses. Or you may have made a futile decision long ago to try to put that desert experience behind you, to bury it and try to disconnect your heart and life from it. God hears your heart’s cry! He sees you and feels your pain.

He longs for you to look back on this time in your life and ask with Hagar, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” (verse 13).

There will be times when this journey to healing, freedom, acceptance, and hope doesn’t seem to be very healing, but often we must go down before we go up and go back before we can go forward. If you’ll trust the process, you’ll see God working. When you look back on your life, you can see God’s hand in many places where, at the time, you had no idea He was working for you. This is another one of those times. God is here, and He has brought you here. 

My heart’s desire is that this study will be your angel in the desert, walking with you back to face the secrets, shadows, and shame that have kept you from really living for too long. As difficult and scary as it might be, you must confront your pain head on. Just like Hagar, you have a promise that God will meet you personally at your place of need.