I was 16 when I had my abortion, and in that moment, it felt like my identity was permanently altered. Convinced no one could truly know me if they didn’t know my shameful past, I became a reckless oversharer. New friends, first dates, youth pastors, and college-ministry staff heard my story in all its gory details.
At best, I needed them to know who I really was in order to believe they loved me; at worst, I was giving them a chance to reject me before I got in too deep. This oversharing did nothing to heal the wounds; it only caused me to relive them, over and over again, as I reinforced what I thought was true: I am a tainted woman.
It wasn’t until I re-entered the church at 25 and began to grasp my identity in Christ that I realized I didn’t have to live defined by my sexual past and post-abortive status. “Such were some of you,” Paul writes, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).
In Christ, we’re given a new birth certificate as adopted children of God. We don’t have to add annotations about our past to qualify our new status. Read More»
Kendra Dahl | “Should I Tell People I Had An Abortion” | November 16, 2020
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