Drugs .
. . The beginning of the end of who I was.
Getting involved in drugs was the worst mistake of my
life or so I thought. Actually, it
was what happened as a result of
taking drugs that changed me forever.
I can say it wasn't my fault, that I was
influenced by another or perhaps by the era in which I
lived. But there is no one to blame but
me.
As I think back to 1975, I
shiver with disgust. It was a time of fear
and insecurity for me but, more than that, it
was a time of self-loathing. Only a few ever
knew of it, and those that did could not begin to
understand.
As I entered the
waiting room of the women's clinic, I glanced around
at all the others sitting there. Some were
chatting happily while others talked to no one and
stared emptily at the floor. I stumbled up to
the desk and quietly whispered my name.
"Someone will be out to get you in just a
minute. Have a seat," came the reply
from a matronly woman in a worn dress. I
stepped over toward the far corner where I sulked back
into a chair hoping to become
invisible.
Feeling numb, I shook violently as I waited for my
name to be called. Then it
happened. The bright, young nurse in her
starched white uniform and little cap came through the
door and motioned for me to follow. I was
taken into a very small, rather dark office.
In it were an old gray desk and two metal
chairs. It was so impersonal, cold even, and
my head began to spin in sickening dizziness.
The doctor and nurse asked me a
few questions about my health, as though I cared at
that point, and then left the room. The nurse
turned to me as she went out and said that she would be
back in just a moment with a gown. I stared
through her and didn't say a word. She
returned with a cotton robe and smiled weakly at me,
knowing that I was afraid and wanted to run away.
When the doctor returned, he explained
that the drugs I had taken would certainly have cause
deformities or severe retardation in "the
child." He asked me if I was sure .
. . I spoke then and said, "I have no
choice." The nurse put her hand on
my shoulder. Then, I took a deep breath and
closed my eyes. A few seconds later, I
knowingly, if not completely willingly, allowed the
doctor to start the vacuum-like machine that would
literally suck my baby's life from me, taking the air
from his very lungs.
I clung to
the nurse, soaking her in my tears. She was
crying with me, quietly sobbing and urging me to lie
still. I doubt the clinic had ever before or
has ever since heard such tormented screams.
Oh, the screams were not due to physical pain, but
because I now
understood "agony."
; My soul was frightfully at war with my flesh in a
way I could never describe.
Sickened by what I had
done, the fear I felt earlier turned
to anger and hatred. But it wasn't the
doctor, his tender-hearted nurse or anyone else that I
hated. It was me. I didn't know
who I was anymore. I had loved
children. What had I done? May God
forgive me.
Today I realize that
I did have a choice, and I chose abortion because of my
own insecurity and self-ambition. I never
took a moment to consider that I was going to commit
the premediated first-degree murder of my own
child. In my drug-induced mindset, it was
what "had" to happen. But
it didn't have to happen.
It took more than a decade for me to even talk
about that day and the lessons I learned from
it. But one thing I know for sure is this:
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me
together in my mother's womb. I praise you
because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works
are wonderful. I know that full
well. My frame was not hidden from you when I
was made in the secret place. When I was
woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes
saw my unformed body. All the days ordained
for me were written in your book before one of them
came to be." Psalm 139:13-16.
And I also know that, "If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us
and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness." I John 1:9 (emphasis
added).
And so I go
on and know that the Lord holds my baby in His arms
every day.