[steve] If you can read this and it not have an impact on you, then I feel sorry for you.
This tale of unmarried sex and the results should be mandatory reading
for any young couple wanting to "live together" or have sex outside the marriage.  
To those of you living this lifestyle, read this tale of sin, consequences, repentance, redemption.[steve]

April 19, 1994, marked a very special day for my
husband, Kurt, and me. Amidst tremendous love and joy, I gave birth to our
son, Christian Mel Jeremiah Birky. As we saw our son for the first time and
held him in our arms, we were overwhelmed with emotion -- elated happiness
and heart-wrenching pain. 

Feelings of deep-seated guilt and sadness swept over me as I thought of the
impact of the decision we'd made eight years earlier. Kurt and I had just
finished our freshman year of college. We had just begun to date. Yet we
made a mistake and I became pregnant.

My mind filled with panic. How could we tell our parents I was pregnant?
How could I tell my parents I'd had sex? How would we finish college? How
can we support ourselves and a baby? It's not time -- we just met.

At a local pregnancy center, I tearfully told the counselor I honestly didn't
see how we could have this baby. The counselor asked about adoption, but I
said we couldn't live with ourselves, knowing that a baby we had created from
our love was out there somewhere, never knowing where or with whom. She
nodded and explained that an abortion could be arranged.

She told us nothing about the "tissue" the doctor would be "removing" -- that
it already had eyes, toes, a nose, fingers and even fingerprints. With very
little discussion and no prayer, we scheduled the appointment.

Abortions cannot be performed before the eighth week -- the fetus must have
time to develop so it can be pieced back together after it has been ripped
apart and removed to make certain no part of the "tissue" is left inside the
uterus to cause infection. So, for five agonizing weeks, I desperately hoped
my parents wouldn't notice how tired and sick I was. I shrank from any baby
brought within 20 feet of me.

We had been informed there might be protesters at the clinic when we arrived.
My heart raced! Someone would see us go inside? Someone might try to stop
us? Why would those people try to torment me for doing something that's
completely legal? Relief washed over me that day in August when there was no
one on the steps of the abortion clinic when Kurt and I walked up.

During the following years of my darkness, I have wondered a million times
whether we would have turned away had someone only made us aware of the
consequences. Because Kurt and I had both been raised in Christian homes, we
had a small inkling of the power of Jesus Christ. However, we -- and others
-- completely left him out of this experience.

The abortion was painful physically as well as emotionally. I remember every
detail of the room I was in and the nurse who held my hand. I can even
remember the color of the calico-patterned fabric stitched over the jars
where the parts of my baby were collected.

Afterward, I kept expecting the medical staff to sit Kurt and me down and
tell us that we shouldn't be having sex. Instead, they sent us on our way
with a little brown bag filled with a three-month supply of birth control
pills.

The immediate sense of relief the abortion provided faded quickly, only to be
replaced by lingering feelings of guilt, depression, rage and worthlessness.
Like many women who have had abortions, I experienced a physical pain in my
arms so intense that sometimes I could barely lift them. They ached and felt
so empty.

Kurt and I tried to gloss over what happened. But when Kurt met Andy
Wineman, a leader for Campus Crusade for Christ, the Lord began to work in
our hearts. Andy literally beamed with the love of Christ. "It was through
Andy's gentle diligence in sharing the difference between having a religion
and having a relationship with Jesus that I began to be convicted of the past.
I made a life-changing decision to give my life completely over to Jesus,"
Kurt says.

Not long after that, Kurt shared with me he could no longer ask for
forgiveness from God for something he knew we would do again. With that one
sentence, Kurt went from being my "boyfriend" to being the man I was going to
honor the rest of my life. With God's help, we made the decision to remain
abstinent for the next three years, until our wedding night.

However, we were not fully convicted of what we had done until we settled in
Los Angeles following our graduation and wedding. Our pastor, Tom Ciznar,
frequently spoke about abortion, often to a hostile crowd at church. It was
agonizing to sit in the pew and listen to him. Every cell in my body wanted
to run away as far and as fast as I could. But I had to sit there and
pretend that just hearing the dreaded word didn't make me panic. It is
incredibly difficult to admit you paid someone to kill your child, so I tried
rationalizing arguments for the pro-choice movement.

At one point, pastor Ciznar shared his testimony with us. While counseling a
young pregnant girl who had no one to support her or her baby, he had done as
he had been taught -- he advised her to have an abortion. Bravely, the young
woman looked him in the eye and said, "Pastor, I already made one mistake.
I'm not going to make another."

Later that year she came back to visit him with her baby. Seeing the very
child he had advised her to abort changed his life forever. Tom Ciznar has
since become a leader in the pro-life movement in southern California.

One Sunday a woman from a local pregnancy assistance clinic came to church to
make an announcement about a fund-raiser. Before the congregation she sang a
song she had written to her aborted child. For those five minutes I writhed
inside my skin in sheer agony and bitterness. But those five minutes also
marked the beginning of my healing.

That day I cried for hours. Kurt held me tenderly and rocked me. But when I
asked him why people like that had to be so mean, he took a deep breath and
responded, "I think they're right."

My pulse raced. What??

Kurt proceeded to tell me he had been reading the Bible on the subject. He
explained that even though we'd asked God to forgive us for this sin, we
weren't really repenting. Ours became an empty gesture to God.

That day, for the first time, I felt the full weight of what Kurt and I had
done. Like a brick wall on my shoulders, it had been crushing me. Yet by
our taking that first step to condemn our sin, a few of the bricks fell away.

We began to attend pro-life groups. More bricks fell. I applied for a
position at the Right to Life League and, for the first time in seven years,
shared the truth of my past with the woman who interviewed me. Still more
bricks came tumbling down. In the midst of my PACE (post-abortion counseling
and education) Bible study, God led Kurt and me to tell our families the
truth. So we wrote a letter.

As each call came in from our immediate family members, grieving yet sharing
their love and support for our repentance, I was finally able to stand up
straight in the eyes of people.

However, I still had to take the last and most important step. I had to
accept the clean slate Jesus Christ offered me -- and believe it. In my mind
I knew about forgiveness, but I had trouble feeling it in my heart. Kurt
often soothed me with the knowledge that Jesus can and does forgive any sin.
Today, God has given us his total peace and wholeness through the mercy of
Jesus Christ and his ultimate sacrifice.

Confessing and repenting of this sin before our Holy God is not an easy road,
but I know now it is the only path that leads to peace and wholeness.

Through PACE and through sharing God's promise of restoration with others, my
wound has become a scar. I now use that scar and my knowledge of the
deception and lies surrounding abortion to try to save others from the pain
and darkness that follows abortion. My scar offers proof of the powerful
healing hand of Christ to other post-abortion women.

As Kurt and I revel in the development of our beautiful son, Christian, we
can't help but feel we should have already experienced this wonder of birth,
instead of the nightmare of death. For us, our son represents the goodness
of God's unfathomable grace.

The Jeremiah in Christian's name is a reminder to us -- and Christian -- of
our first child, whom we never want to forget. The Bible testifies to the
importance of all children in the eyes of God: "Before I formed you in the
womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart" (Jer. 1:5).


==================
Birky is director of education for the Right to Life League of Southern
California in Pasadena. This article first appeared in the January 1996
issue of Experiencing God magazine, published by the Baptist Sunday School
Board.

Copyright (c) 1996 Baptist Press RNbp6112mrjB6112f6116