I have been convicted repeatedly to tell my story. This is my attempt to push you to tell your story. Lives may depend upon it.
In January of 1985 I began to suspect I was pregnant. In my heart I knew, somehow, but in my ignorant state of mind I kept believing it would just go away.
My birthday is February the 1st and I had a friend that always did my hair as a gift. That day, while getting my hair done, I finally did a pregnancy test. It was positive. Back then you didn’t pee on a stick. You had a little vial that you put a specimen in, then shook it. The color change was the end result. Though there was no doubt that the test proved positive, I kept the little vial in my purse and continued to shake it for a few days, expecting it to change color to the negative. Of course, it didn’t.
I told very few people. All of the friends I shared my news with advised strongly for an abortion. I was not what you’d call responsible. My only hobby and favorite pastime was drinking and drugging. I moved around a lot and changed jobs often, although I always had a job. Their advice seemed logical. I was an irresponsible addict. I was no longer seeing the father, another irresponsible addict. Besides, most all of my friends had all done it and said, “It was no big deal”.
Another friend worked at a crisis pregnancy center that was pro choice or, as I see it now, pro death. We weren’t that close and I didn’t share my predicament or plan with her until the night before my scheduled abortion. I was so distraught about my decision that she advised that I wait. But the pregnancy had been confirmed in a previous appointment and I was to report at 9:00 a.m. to “relieve myself” of the problem.
The next morning, I arrived at the clinic and was quickly charged a final payment and ushered into the back for vitals and paperwork. The entire time I sat traumatized by what I was about to do. As other options flew through my head, the devil himself kept telling me, “It’s too late. You’re here. You’ve already paid.”
My dear friend, the hairdresser, was waiting for me there. I asked her to come to the bathroom with me and she followed. As the bathroom door closed behind us I finally said it, “I can’t do this.” Her answer was a surprise. She yelled, “I knew that! I was just waiting for you to say it.” Shocked I argued that I had fully intended to go through with this plan, while she shook her head in disagreement.
Suddenly, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. It stopped me in my tracks. “Oh my God!”, I shouted. “What am I going to do?!”
Before leaving the clinic, we went to talk to a nurse. After asking about the father’s involvement, which was none, her only suggestion was that I come back and pay the extra money to be put to sleep. My friend, realizing that this was never going to happen, got me half my money back.
Leaving out eight months of details, I delivered a baby girl that fall. She was, and is, beautiful. When I was about seven months pregnant, I ran into Jody and her husband. She was happy and surprised at my condition. She laughed because I was riding a bicycle, while very pregnant, when I ran into her. I couldn’t mention then how her experience, and sharing it with me, had affected my decision. We parted that day and I thought of her often as my baby grew from toddler to child. I didn’t see or hear from her for several years, but any time the thought of what I almost did crossed my mind, so did Jody.
As time went by I became a Christian. I got married to a different man and my little girl started first grade at a Christian school. Soon after school began I dropped her off and came home to a ringing phone. When I answered there was a surprising screech on the other end, “What were you doing at the Christian school?”
“Who is this?” I asked.
“Jody!” she squealed. “I thought I saw you leaving the parking lot and had to ask someone who you were. I was shocked!” she laughed.
We talked for a long time. Both of us had found the Lord and were sending our unplanned babies to the same school. She had since had two more boys and had lost a little girl soon after birth. She told me how it was all in the Lord’s plan for her. I disagreed, but moved on in the conversation. I told her how her courage in leaving that abortion clinic, had truly changed my life and saved my daughter’s.
Over the next few years we ran into each other occasionally and got together once or twice. I was always upset by the fact that she repeatedly told the story of how “God” had taken her little girl, and she was alright with His plan. I had never heard her tell how God stopped her from a drastic mistake. I reminded her a few times that sharing that story with me was pivotal in me keeping my baby.
Time went on. Jody had two more boys and all of our children grew up. I moved away, but we kept in contact through Facebook. One day she messaged me privately. She told me that her oldest son, the one who almost wasn’t, had just had their first grandchild. She shared that at the christening she was overcome with emotion, realizing that this day might never have happened. As far as I knew, she was still not sharing that story.
Not long after I asked her to share her story in a documentary that was being produced. She said she would have to discuss it with her husband. After some contemplating, they refused. She said that they had never told their children and were concerned, “how they would look at them,” if they knew.
About a year later I wrote something on Facebook about God wanting you healed and shared some Scriptures. Jody attacked me with comments. She demanded that “sometimes” God takes someone you love for your own benefit, (i.e., her daughter). That’s when I broke. I suggested that we take the conversation off Facebook and continue it privately.
I wrote Jody a long letter, my best form of communication has always been writing. I explained again how her story had impacted our lives. I reminded her that sharing her story with me had saved two lives. Becoming pregnant got me off alcohol and drugs. Having my daughter completely altered my future. I asked her how she broadcasted that God got glory from the death of her child, while hiding the fact that He convicted her enough, before she truly knew Him, to make a decision for life. Yet she refused to share that testimony or give God the glory for that.
She never did answer the question. The conversation didn’t end well and we rarely communicated after it.
Not long ago I found out that Jody was very ill. She ran to man to fight the horrible sickness. Also a quandary to me is why people who accept sickness as God’s will then run to man for any help he can give to combat “God’s will.” I prayed she would realize that this was not God’s plan for her. I still refuse to believe that she was meant to suffer and die in her early 50s. That does not line up with Scripture. Not yet a senior citizen, Jody closed her eyes and died. She left behind a growing, extended family of grandchildren.
Although it broke my heart, I saw the irony in the end. Jody died on my daughter’s birthday, 30 years later. How many more lives could have been affected by her story? How many lives could have been saved?
Take what you can from this story and please, share your own. If you’ve lived on this earth, you have a story to tell. However insignificant what you’ve been through may seem, you have no way of knowing who needs to hear it. One life may be altered for the good, or possibly one saved. Tell your story.