Reverend Katharine Marple blogs at Keep Life Legal. She is one of Public Catholic’s most stalwart supporters and a dear sister in Christ. I am going to reproduce her testimony, There is Beauty for Ashes below the YouTube video. The video is her speech at the Stand Up For Religious Freedom rally in her state.
Reverend Katharine Marple: My Story, There is Beauty for Ashes
I was on my way to the abortion clinic with my mom. It’s been so long ago that I don’t remember the day of the week or what month it was; but I do remember that is was 1978.
Isaiah 61:3 says, …..‘To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.’
When I found out I was pregnant, my mother told me that under no uncertain terms was I going to have a baby and live in her house. My grandmother (who lived with us) wouldn’t look at me. You’re smarter than this, they said. So I left. There’s not a lot of places a pregnant 17 year old girl can go who doesn’t have a job or a car. I ended up at my aunt’s house. I knew she would be empathetic because she loved children and had many of them. She might be able to talk my mother out of the abortion. Actually, she stayed strangely neutral. I didn’t know I needed a savior, not a way out.
I felt like I was in a bunker waiting out the enemy. But my back was against the wall and it was only a matter of time that I would cave and go home to tell the enemy that I would go to the clinic.
‘And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me….’*
Two years prior, my mother confessed to me that she had an abortion. She had been in a relationship with a married man that was her high school sweetheart. I never liked the guy for the way he used my mother up without waiting around long enough to see the results. She would come home from one of their weekends and I could see the dried tears on her face when he would once again tell her he can’t leave his wife yet. Yet another man that talked a woman out of motherhood – she aborted their child just like he aborted her from his real life.
Maybe that’s why Mom wanted me to get rid of my baby – because she was cheated out of hers? I’ll never know the answer. I can’t make myself ask her.
‘The LORD works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.’**
You know, I have thanked God for many, MANY things but I am especially thankful that I really don’t remember much about the procedure. I was a basket case and scared out of my mind. I mean, how does a doctor suck a baby out of the womb? I knew nothing about what was going to happen. Abortion wasn’t talked about much so I didn’t understand what was really going on. I had no idea that there was a viable life inside of me. Everyone said it wasn’t a baby YET.
When my mom made the appointment, I remember the woman at the clinic told her that we needed to go into a back door so we wouldn’t be ‘assaulted’ by the pro-life protesters. There wasn’t very many of them as I recall. And honestly, I don’t remember anything after that. THANK YOU GOD.
‘….and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.’***
I wish I could say I learned something from that experience and I lived a chaste life with the knowledge of the world that I desired no more, but the truth is that I was too drunk for too long to care. Abortion kills everyone – it killed me. While most other women I knew had at least one abortion apiece, I was the one that took it hardest. They said I was too young to get so maudlin about such a small thing. But what they didn’t realize is that their drug and alcohol abuse was why their abortion(s) didn’t matter.
How do I end this story? It really doesn’t end. Every Post Abortive Woman remembers that day every day of her life. I spent the next 23 years after the abortion in on and off drinking binges and two lousy marriages. But one December day in 2001 I met Jesus and in 2005 I married the man God set aside just for me. Now I have beauty for ashes and joy unspeakable! The missing piece of the puzzle had finally been put in place; now I am complete. Do I still think about the abortion every day? YES – because God has a plan for me and my ministry to help women that have gone through the horror of abortion.
‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.’ (Matthew 28:19-20, KJV)
*Psalm 27:6 (KJV); **Psalm 103:6 (ESV); ***Hebrews 8:12 (KJV)
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