<p class="style1">During my teenage years, I lived a lifestyle of promiscuity, alcohol, and drug use.  I felt lonely and unloved.  Needing attention, I naturally looked to my parents.  But because our home was filled with strife, I began to look for the love I needed in the arms of many men.  The result-I ended up pregnant at 20 years old.  When I told the father, he didn’t want anything to do with me or the baby.  I felt I couldn’t tell my parents or anyone else.  I felt that I had only one alternative and that was to abort the baby.</p>
<p class="style1">In the clinic they explained to me the process of abortion and told me that there would be no harm to my body.  They said I could have the abortion and go on with the rest of my life.  Following the abortion I was led to a recovery area.  While I was lying down on some type of table, I began to cry as overwhelming emotions came over me.  My roommate picked me up and I cried all the way home.  Later when I was alone, I began to think, “What have I done?”  The little voice inside of me was saying, “You killed your child and that is a sin.”  It was then that I got down on my knees and cried out to God to please forgive me for murdering my child.</p>
<p class="style1">Immediately following the abortion, I moved from Florida to Minnesota where my family was living at the time.  I thought that a fresh start is what I needed and that no one needed to know what I had done.  However, I became sick with PID (Pelvic Inflammatory Disease), a condition that happens more frequently to women who have had an abortion.  The doctor said that as a result of the PID I was sterile.</p>
<p class="style1">Besides my physical health, the rest of my life was deteriorating as a result of the abortion.  I dropped out of college, broke all ties with my college friends, and moved out on my own.  Eventually, I fell back into promiscuity again, this time with the men at my work.  I was lonely and miserable, and hated myself for falling back into old habits in my new life in Minnesota.  One night when I was sick to my stomach and totally disgusted with myself, I helped myself throw up.  That night was the first experience of what would become several years of serious bulimia.</p>

<p class="style1">When I met my future husband Jeff, we started out as friends only.  As time went on, we developed a deeper relationship and began thinking about marriage and children.  I told him about my past and that I didn’t think I could have children.  I went to see my doctor and he suggested a test that checks the condition of the fallopian tubes.  Before I had the test, Jeff and I prayed together for a healing.  As I watched the dye going up my fallopian tubes on the monitor, the right one seemed to be blocked.  So I silently prayed and as I watched the dye began to slowly go up the tube.  I was amazed and thankful that God honored our prayers.  We were married within two years and we have two beautiful healthy children.
As life went on my emotions became pretty frazzled.  I wrestled a lot with anger, sadness, depression, shame, quilt, joylessness, and isolation.  My marriage and family life began to suffer.  I would get regular flashbacks of having the abortion.  All this time I didn’t think I needed help in the area of abortion.
<p class="style1">At the new church we were attending we met another couple.  The wife happened to be the director of PATH (Post-Abortive Trauma Healing).  The next thing I knew, I had somehow committed to go through the next PATH class being held.  As the class went on, flashbacks of the day I aborted my child and memories of how I lived my life kept racing through my mind.  I pieced it together and came to the realization that 20 years ago when I aborted my baby I began to run and had been running every since.</p>
<p class="style1">Through faith in Jesus Christ, God has  replaced my horrible memories with new healthy ones of HIS doing.</p>
<p class="style1">Julie Weber</p>

<p class="style1">(You can read more  of Julie’s story in her book, “Lady Liberty-A Post-Abortive Story of Healing”)
Call Love Lines Crisis Ministry at 612-379-1199 and go to <a href="http://www.liberateministries@gmail.com">www.liberateministries@gmail.com</a>