We’re doing something a little different today – we are having our first Q&A blog post! I posted in the Facebook group and on my Instagram stories asking for questions to be submitted for this post and we got some great ones. I thought it would be fun to be able to answer some of the questions you may have been a little afraid to ask.
Want to submit a question for the next one? I’m considering doing these quarterly! If so, make sure to join our private Facebook community or follow me on Instagram so you can access the anonymous Q&A form! Without further ado, let’s dig in!
We’re going to start with 8 questions for this round of Q&A. Let’s go ahead and just get right to it!
Question 1: How did you and your husband meet and is/was he a believer?
Answer: My husband and I met in college. We both went to Mayville State University. Mayville State is located in a small town about 60 miles or so north of where we live right now. The town’s population is roughly 1200 people, so you can imagine the college is quite small! Mayville State still has dorms and buildings, but definitely on a smaller scale. Because of this, we kind of just knew everybody after a few days.
John and I knew each other for a few years before we started dating. In my second to last year of college, he and I both worked at the library and were assigned to work the same evening. One night while we were working, I was downstairs in the serials department and he came downstairs and said, “Hey, I was wondering if you would be interested in going on a date with me sometime?”
He was so sweet about it, that I couldn’t say no, but I was hesitant to say yes because I had just ended an engagement a month before this. But, like I said, I couldn’t say no. About a week later, we went out for drinks and have been together ever since!
As far as if he is/was a believer, yes. At the time we met, he had been raised Catholic. If you had asked him at that time if he was a believer, he would have said yes, but neither of us was really walking with God at the time. He and I both are walking with Jesus now and have made faith the foundation of our marriage and family. We have almost identical beliefs on pretty much everything, and are quite literally the best of friends!
Question 2: How do you follow Jesus every day?
Answer: Do you want the short answer? Imperfectly! I fall short every single day. I have found though that having a routine and making sure to spend time with him each day helps me to be a better Christ-follower. Lately, I have realized that my practices have become a bit legalistic to my detriment, so I have been giving myself grace and reminding myself that Jesus extends so much grace. Prayer has been a huge foundation of my relationship with him, too and I make time for prayer every day.
Question 3: How did you know Jesus forgave your abortion?
Answer: If I were to give a simple answer to this, I would say, “The word says so.” However, it definitely wasn’t that simple because it took a ton of time for me to finally believe this. I spent a lot of time truly studying His word and studying with other believers. Going through those studies in a community of other women that understood what I had gone through and were going through the same thing was a huge help and encouragement as well.
Question 4: I had my abortion at a young age with a boyfriend I am no longer with. How did your boyfriend at the time support (or not) support you at that time in your life? Although I am healed, forgiven, and married now, I sometimes still wonder what my old boyfriend thought about everything at the time. Do you still get these thoughts and how have you looked past it?
Answer: I have definitely had some guilt that he didn’t get much of a say. He really didn’t want me to have the abortion but was powerless to stop me. Because he knew that he couldn’t talk me out of it, he chose to support me by taking me there and by helping to pay for it. While he couldn’t be with me during the procedure, he did wait in the waiting room the entire time until everything was over.
Because he didn’t want me to do it, I do believe it changed how he thought of me. I had gone against how God had designed women, and I think it caused him to have negative feelings for me. He didn’t want to talk about it much, even though that is how I wanted to process things.
I do not reach out to him because I haven’t felt like God has asked me to do that. Right now, I just pray for him. I pray that he finds Jesus if he hasn’t yet and that he finds peace in his grief. I know that it’s not my responsibility to make sure he is moving through that grieving process and I lean on God to prompt me to know what to do and when. Right now, I feel it’s important to pray for him but also not to reach out.
Question 5: Was it difficult for you to become a parent to your living babies after having had an abortion? How has it affected your parenting?
Answer: Yes. I felt guilty when found out I was pregnant with both of my living children. I felt undeserving of them and it amplified the guilt and shame that I had never healed from.
I remember that I was afraid to tell my mom about my daughter, my oldest, because I got pregnant so soon after John and I got married. I was worried she would be upset which is so absurd. She was thrilled. She couldn’t wait to become a grandma and was so excited to start shopping for baby clothes and all of the things. She went to some appointments with me, too. I think the reason I was so afraid to tell her was because of the guilt.
I remember when I told her that I was pregnant with my son, my second/youngest, I was upset and I cried and said “I just wish I could have one that was planned and not unplanned.” I love my son, I always have, but at that moment I did not feel deserving and felt so guilty, and I honestly felt like God was playing a cruel joke on me that I was having a third unplanned pregnancy. I had just made this deal with God that my punishment for my abortion would be having no more children, so the fact that I was pregnant again was difficult for me. I was diligent about tracking my cycle and didn’t understand how I could have failed. It was an emotional time for me because of the shame.
As far as parenting, it has definitely affected my parenting. I would say it’s been both negatively but also positively affected. Negatively, I have many intrusive thoughts and worry about something happening to my children. When my daughter was a baby, I would picture myself accidentally falling down the stairs while holding her, or getting in a car accident. I am also short on patience at times and get overwhelmed easily.
I don’t like it when people who aren’t my mom babysit my kids and rarely allow that. It’s something I’m working on, because I know that I am just overly afraid.
Positively though, I do want to take an approach with them about sharing my story and helping them understand the love of Christ and the importance of abstinence. They are pretty little yet for that though, so they don’t know about my abortion yet. They just know that mommy goes and shares Jesus with people.
Question 6: How and when do I share my story with my children?
Answer: This is going to vary depending on your own children, their ages, their developmental abilities, and what you feel God wants you to do. I would definitely make sure they’re old and mature enough to understand what abortion is. As far as how, I would just sit them down and say something like “Before I knew Jesus, I was going to have a baby and decided not to, so I had an abortion. It was wrong and I wanted you to know I’m sorry.” I can’t promise how your kids will react, but I can tell you that you are most likely more worried than you really need to be.
Just a disclaimer that I’m not a parenting expert! My children are still quite little at 5 and under, so I know I have much to learn as a mom. I have not told my own children yet, so my answer does not come from experience but from what I have learned in helping other women heal and in talking with my spiritual mentors who have gone through this.
Question 7: This question may not have an answer and it’s just part of the list of “whys and mysteries about God and why things are the way they are, but, if God knew I would choose abortion, why would He proceed with creating me? I’ve often wondered about this and have attempted to drum up explanations for why I believe He would, but always come up short. Curious to know if you’ve ever pondered this or come across anything scriptural that points to this conundrum.
Answer: This is a great question and it’s so cool how God works because after this question came through I was reading for Bible study and our chapter for the week was literally an answer to this question. The book is called Coffee Shop Theology by Frank Moore and this is in Chapter 14. The quote at the top of the chapter is “God created the world out of nothing. As long as you are not yet nothing, God can make something out of you.” -Martin Luther
So, what is the reason God created us? He created us for fellowship with Himself. He created us so He could love us and so we could love Him in return. He also gave us free will, so He doesn’t force us to love Him. Which means, we are going to do things that are not a part of His plan. We are going to do things that don’t please Him. The important thing to remember is that He truly loves us and wants us to come back to that fellowship with Himself.
I think though, that’s not totally what you’re asking. I think that partially answers your question, but there’s still the big question of, “Why didn’t he intervene then?
Think with me back to the Garden of Eden when Eve was tempted to eat the forbidden fruit. God knew the moment she took that bite what had happened. Yet, as we read, we see that He calls to Adam and asks, “Where are you?” God knows where Adam is. He isn’t asking Adam because He doesn’t know where He is. He is inviting Adam into the conversation. He proceeds to ask, “Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat from?” God knows who told them this. God knows they ate the fruit. Again, God is inviting Adam to have the conversation.
I believe God doesn’t intervene for a couple of reasons. 1. He has given us free will, and to take that away would take away from the relationship that we could have with Him of total surrender. Think about it like this: in stories where someone obtains a love potion to make someone love them, things end up falling apart even after the initial period of them getting what they want. It isn’t genuine. God wants our love for Him to be genuine. 2. He doesn’t want us to sin, and He doesn’t plan for us to commit specific sins. He doesn’t create us and say “I’m creating you so you can have an abortion,” but He is going to use us and our sin and our healing for a purpose. Think about the people in the bible who committed awful sins, yet God still used them. He has a purpose for you and He wasn’t going to choose not to create you just because of one sin you were going to commit someday.
Question 8: With politics at their feverish peak this fall, I’ve heard lots of talk from pro-death penalty folks and it really knots my stomach. We, as post-abortive mothers and fathers deserve the death penalty, so does that make us any different than a killer/murder of any other innocent victim? Really struggling with this right now and would love to hear your thoughts. There certainly are many examples of the death penalty in the Bible and I know before finding Christ that I was walking every day “dead.” I just wonder how I’m different from a murderer who is on death row who ultimately loses his life via the death penalty by our justice system. Wondering if you’ve ever tried to reconcile this with your own past. Thanks for your input!
Answer: This is a great question and a hard one for me! Let me just say I can relate to your heart here. For so many years I was very pro-death penalty, and now I am on the fence because I just think about how much grace I have been given and feel convicted about not extending grace to others. In a way, it worries me that it could be taking a chance of redemption away from a person. So, I can’t really say I’m pro-death pentalty but I also can’t say I’m anti-death penalty because there are some crimes, like predatory crimes against children, that emotionally charge me and tend to make me want to say “yes, death penalty.”
I know you’re not really asking my opinion on that though, so I will answer your question, but just wanted to share that because it is a really difficult thing to think about for sure, especially in the context of what you’re saying. For anyone curious about that, I would encourage listening to the podcast Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey. She has some episodes about the topic of the death penalty from a Christian perspective.
To answer your question, I think we have to remind ourselves that the kingdom of heaven is far different than where we are right now, here on earth. A great place to look at this would be in Romans 3:21-26, “But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood, to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” We know that God measures all sin the same. Every single one of us falls short of the glory of God. None of us is deserving of our salvation but it isn’t about whether we deserve it or not. WE know that if we live by faith and surrender to Jesus, we have it. WE don’t earn it and don’t deserve it but it does not matter because God has given it to us.
Our government is going to work differently. Our government is going to have rules that we may or may not agree with. Right now, abortion is not illegal and there is no punishment from the government for it. While we know that we have taken a life, the government doesn’t see it that way. So, we aren’t given that punishment. Instead of focusing on that unmet justice, we need to remind ourselves of what we just talked about from Romans. All of us fall short but God gives us righteousness through faith.
There’s also 1 Peter 2:13-17, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.” This is how we can look at government separately. Obviously, if our government was telling us not to read our bible or to do something that is against God, then we know that we need to honor God and not do it. We also must recognize that we may be punished then by our government for not cooperating. In the same respect, our government may not have rules about things that disappoint God, like abortion. We don’t receive punishment from the government for having an abortion. We do, however, need to repent to God for our sin of abortion before we can be forgiven. Once we have done that, we know that God cleanses us of that unrighteousness. We can rest in knowing that God is the ultimate authority and we are not of this world. I’m going to link a really great article here that explains this a bit better, but I hope that helps answer your question!
I hope you enjoyed this Q&A session! Again, I would love to do this quarterly so if you want to submit a question for the next one, please join our private FB community or follow me on Instagram so you can access the anonymous form!
Just a reminder that my answers aren’t Bible, if you don’t agree with what I said it’s ok! Make sure to filter anything I’ve said through the word, and I would encourage you to bring some of these questions to your pastor too!
XO, Brittany
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