Michelle's Testimony

Shortly after college, I moved from Ada, Oklahoma to Wichita, KS for management training at a clothing store for whom I worked throughout my college years. It was my first time living on my own away from home. I was excited but also a little scared. Over time I adjusted, and it seemed things were falling into place for me. However, my brief time of growing comfort was quickly wrecked.

Shortly after ending a relationship, I discovered that I was pregnant. I was terrified, embarrassed, unsure, and alone. With little thought of the consequences, I made a hasty, terrible decision that would impact the rest of my life. I never thought I would consider such a decision until I was the one pregnant and alone. But just one week after discovering I was pregnant, I had an abortion in February of 1999. The gravity of what I had done did not immediately sink in. I actually felt a little relief, because I told myself that nobody would ever have to know that I was pregnant or that I chose to have an abortion. I could hide my secret and never discuss it with anyone. 

My life in Wichita continued downhill from there. I’ve only recently understood that brief period of relief I had experienced following the abortion was probably shock and denial. I decided I wanted out of Wichita to try and escape what had happened there. I moved back to Oklahoma for a brief period of time before moving on to Texas. However, I discovered that changes in scenery did not change my hurt. Guilt, shame, regret, sadness, depression, and anger would control me at different times. But I didn’t connect those emotions with my abortion. I was living a life looking for happiness but any happiness I found was temporary. I know now that I was searching for something to fill the void I had created.

I had made a decision in high school to choose Jesus as my Lord, but I hadn’t followed through on that commitment. For 13 years, I fought against the tug of the Holy Spirit who was trying to lead me in the right direction. In 2003, after years of chasing what the world had to offer, I came to the conclusion that nothing in the world was going to make me happy. Soon after, a friend of mine invited me to Fellowship Church. After visiting Fellowship’s church services, I gave up my fight with the Holy Spirit. I decided I wanted to follow the Lord wholeheartedly and become obedient to Him. In 2004, I was baptized, joined the church, and started volunteering. I have been committed to Christ and to His church ever since.

In the meantime, Jon and I started dating and married in August 2005. To our surprise in January of 2006, we discovered that I was six weeks pregnant. I began experiencing a tidal wave of emotions. I had just begun to learn how to be a wife and stepmom, and now I was suddenly facing pregnancy and the birth of my own child. The emotional consequences of my abortion were about to make war with me.

I began seeing a Christian therapist to help me deal with my anxiety. Although I had revealed my secret to a handful of people, including Jon, I still did not understand the profound impact of my decision seven years earlier. When I told my therapist my secret, I asked if she thought I needed healing from my abortion. She said that we absolutely needed to address that pivotal point in my past. She advised me to give the baby a gender neutral name and write a letter asking for forgiveness and then seal it. I did that and felt temporary relief, but the core of my pain never went away. I knew that I still needed help, but I just dealt with it internally for another five years.

 

It was last spring that I decided to be proactive in seeking real healing and to see if there was a way to help others in my situation. I researched post abortive healing online and discovered that post traumatic stress disorder could happen after an abortion and that there was something called Post Abortion Syndrome. During this same time I began to get very busy with my new business, Baby Meshach, and I was preparing to speak at a break out session about my business at a women’s conference in Oklahoma. While setting up my booth, there was a lady who was also setting up her booth right across from me. I went over to introduce myself and learned that her name was Dawn. Dawn told me she was a post abortive healing leader for Surrendering the Secret in her church which happened to be in my hometown. I knew God had arranged this moment.

I asked Dawn to tell me more about Surrendering the Secret because I had been desperately searching for something like it. After the women’s conference, I went home and searched on the internet for Surrendering the Secret leaders in my area. I contacted Surrendering the Secret and asked if I could lead a bible study in my home. They said that I could but encouraged me to go through the study first to find my own complete healing. So I found a local leader named Lee on their website. I contacted Lee and we met for breakfast. Lee is a sweet woman of deep faith who lovingly led me through the healing study at my house over six weeks. Lee and the study material slowly dug up all the buried pain and peeled back all of my emotions layer by layer.

The study was a deep, spiritual boot camp that I could not have completed without Christ carrying me through. I knew I had buried a lot of pain but did not know the extent of how much. There are many layers to the study but one of them provides the opportunity to grieve the loss of your child. After an abortion, the mother does not fully grieve the loss of her child. The enemy tells post abortive women they don’t have the right to grieve because it was their choice not to let their baby live. So post abortive women cram down their shameful secret as deep as possible and try to move on with their lives as if nothing happened.

I credit Lee and the Surrendering the Secret study for showing me the path, but it was Jesus alone who was able to completely heal me. I finally understood that on the cross, Jesus bore all the sin I’ve sown and all the shame, guilt, sadness, and depression that I reaped. And I chose to release all of it to Him forever. And He has taken that horrible time in my life and replaced the memory with a beautiful promise of the day in heaven when I’ll meet my baby. I know in my heart that my baby was a daughter, and I look forward to the day I’ll join her in eternal worship of our Lord.

Since that break-though last August, I’ve led two of my friends through the study and one friend of a friend.  I have been wonderfully blessed to walk alongside them and watch them receive healing. It is clear to me now that post abortion healing is the Lord’s ministry He has chosen for me. It’s a passion that came from pain. I learned in a bible study recently that you can’t create the kind of passion that comes from pain.  It’s something that only Jesus can give you. And I know He has called me to be His light to women who suffer with the pain of abortion.

 

A few months after that “chance” meeting with Dawn in Oklahoma, I asked her why she told me about the study within five minutes of meeting me. She said the Holy Spirit nudged her to tell me. Since Dawn and I met, we knew we were being called to do something together with post abortive healing but didn’t know what. But in the last couple of months, we began setting up a Facebook page and website called FREED (Fully Redeemed Entirely Esteemed Daughters) to share our testimonies and promote post abortive healing leveraging the internet. The bible verse for FREED is Mark 5:34 - “He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.’” It was only in the last few weeks that I learned more about the woman in that verse. The woman with whom Jesus was speaking had been bleeding and had suffered with the affliction for twelve years before Jesus healed and set her free. I now realize that I bled emotionally for twelve years before finally hearing Jesus’ voice telling me that my faith had healed me, and I had been freed.

Please be in prayer for Dawn and me as we step out in faith and answer this call to help other women find healing. On April 23^rd we are traveling to Tulsa, OK to be trained as Surrendering the Secret leaders by the creator of the study and attend A Night of Hope with Shari Rigby who is an actress from the movie October Baby. Tuesday night, Jon and I are attending the first annual fundraiser banquet for a local pregnancy center where my mentor, Lee, volunteers. Pam Tebow (Tim Tebow’s mom) is the speaker and a 2-3 minute video of my personal testimony will be shown. And on May 4^th and 5^th, I’m attending volunteer training at the pregnancy center to become a client advocate for them.

Knowing what I’ve gone through, my heart aches for women who are still in captivity to their secret. The statistics are staggering -- 43% of women have had an abortion. And the average length of time before a post abortive woman begins to search for healing is 20 years. That means we are surrounded by many friends and family members suffering with this secret. If you or anyone you know suffer with this burden, please contact me or Dawn at info@freedaughters.com. Please know and assure anyone whom you refer to us that anything shared with us is 100% confidential. We would love to lead you or anyone you know out of the shame, guilt, sadness, heartbreak, and pain associated with abortion and into healing and freedom. If you are not one of the 43%, please be in prayer for the women around you suffering with this secret and pray for them to come forward for the healing God wants for them.

  

Thank you for taking the time to read my story and your time in prayer for post abortive women. So many hurting women do not know that healing is available to them, and they can’t comprehend the grace God is waiting to give them.

Love,

Michelle Matthews

***I had to miss the certified STS leader training yesterday because Luke got really sick.  I will attend at another time though!***