My mother always and openly preferred my sister to me. I never resented my sister, though. I loved her, and as an adult, eventually saved her life. As for my dad, I knew he loved me, but he was seldom home, and his work-related absence walled off the warmth of his affection.
I didn’t resent my mother for her favoritism and rejection either, though I did grieve her love. Somewhere in my young heart, I agreed with what I imagined she felt—I was insignificant, unattractive, and unacceptable. I didn’t belong in the circle of her love.
I learned to put on a mask, hoping to win favor. I became quite the little performer. I sang my first solo of “Silent Night” in Spanish at my kindergarten graduation without an ounce of stage fright. The attention and applause fueled my desire to be seen and accepted—to be loved.
Gaining esteem outside the home gave me some standing with my mom, and I could see she was proud of me as I advanced in theater and public speaking. I was accepted at a top university in theater.
People said I was gifted, but on the day of my first college audition, I froze. Negative thoughts assaulted my mind. You don’t belong here. You’ll never be accepted. They don’t need you. You don’t know anything.
I listened to those voices and left the auditorium without trying out for a single play. Defeated, I began smoking weed and going through the motions in my classes. I became promiscuous, too. I was so eager for attention that I gave away my body for nothing.
I quit college two years later when a guy asked me to move in with him. Imagine my father’s hurt when he learned how I’d squandered my inheritance, myself, and the opportunities afforded to me. But just like the father of another foolish young soul in God’s Word (Luke 15:11–32), my dad had only love for me.
At 20, I finally left that guy. I got a waitressing job and moved to a studio apartment downtown. Dad was relieved. One day, he suggested, “Why don’t you try radio? There’s a vocational program here in town that I did at your age. I even got on the air in Paducah, Kentucky. You’ve got such a great voice—you’ll be fantastic!”
I was working toward this goal when I met a young man at the restaurant where I worked. He lavished me with poetry and flowers, telling me he loved me and that we’d marry. I loved him, too.
We stayed together as I completed my studies. I landed a radio gig in a nearby town and commuted home to him on weekends for a year. And then I got a break—I was hired in the Twin Cities, a major market, and at 23, my relaunch felt complete.
Three months later, I got pregnant. I wasn’t too concerned at first; surely, we’d get married. But then my fiancé announced matter-of-factly, “The timing is off. Get an abortion, and we’ll try again later.”
Others affirmed that his decision would be best. I never even asked myself what I wanted. Just like at that audition, I froze, imagining the shame of being unmarried and pregnant. But by now, I knew how to play the part and go along with the script.
I checked out mentally and emotionally on that tragic day, moving through the drama as if it were happening to someone else. I was doing fine until an attendant took my hand as the procedure was about to begin, and asked if I was all right. Her small gesture woke me up, and I knew that what was about to happen was wrong.
Picturing my fiancé in the waiting room, I felt nothing but hatred. But then I imagined keeping this child and being a single working mother. Impossible.
Feeling utterly alone and abandoned to this undesired fate, I nodded at the lady and said, “I’m fine.”
Taking the life of my child took only a moment, but I have lived with that moment ever since. Later that night, I held my own hand, desperately trying to recall the only kindness I’d felt that day. I found no comfort.
Desperate for approval and purpose, I turned to radio as an escape and a source of redemption. I threw myself into the job, which I loved, and proceeded up the ranks, all the while unchaste in my lifestyle.
At 28, I experienced an urgent desire to become a mother. I met a man and married him nine months later. We were nominal Christians who didn’t understand Jesus’s love or the cross. We didn’t understand each other either, nor did we have the faith to work through our marital problems.
Despite our shortcomings, God granted us two beautiful children, but after eight long and challenging years, we divorced. His issues and my codependency left us both without hope.
The weight of that failure drove me to a support group, where I met a friend who told me about God’s unconditional love and gift of forgiveness. She informed me that, even though Jesus had seen every detail of my life, He’d loved me through every minute of it and had made a way for forgiveness and healing (Romans 5:8).
She showed me 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness” (NLT). And then she said that God loved me so much that He would’ve sent Jesus to die for me…even if I were the only one who needed saving (Luke 15:4).
I was captivated by the idea of a love like that. Could it be true? What must this Jesus be like?
I pondered those questions for weeks until one day, I finally let go and believed what my friend insisted: Jesus loves me because that is who He is—He is love.
In faith, I received His gift of love and forgiveness. I found comfort in knowing that God was mine, and I was His. I belonged to Him (John 1:12; 1 John 3:1).
Soon after that, I met my husband Bruce, who was also recently divorced. (You can read his story on page 26). We attended his church, where I was discipled in my newfound faith. There, I discovered the truth and beauty of God’s Word, and it became alive in me (Hebrews 4:12).
But for the first 10 years after my faith became real and more than 20 years after the abortion, I kept that dark secret to myself. I couldn’t imagine that my new friends, who seemed so godly and upright, would accept me if they knew my past.
I was trapped in worldly sorrow—a dead end of regret and grief. What I needed was godly sorrow that would bring me to repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10). I discovered this sorrow at a discipleship retreat in 2001, where I was challenged to imagine myself at Jesus’s crucifixion and ask myself, who there best represented the state of my heart? Was it the weeping women? The angry mob? Pilate? Pilate’s wife? (See Matthew 26–27; Mark 15; Luke 23; and John 18–19.) I decided I was most like the guards gambling for Jesus’s cloak.
I coveted His cloak for my purposes—to increase my worth and value in the eyes of others. The full weight of my selfish heart drove me to my knees, crying, “I have crucified You, Jesus, and I am so sorry. I don’t want You to suffer for my wrongs.”
My heart broke as I thought about Jesus’s bravery to give His life for us. It gave me the courage to step across a line and plead guilty to it all. I waited a long moment, expecting judgment, but instead, I heard the Lord whisper in my innermost being, “Now tell others that I love them.”
“But Lord,” I argued. “After all that I’ve done?” I was unworthy to tell others about Him!
“Yes,” He affirmed. “You understand the depth of my love. Go. Tell them I love them.”
For the first time, I realized my worth in God’s eyes. All my life, I’d felt unloved. But now I saw it: I was worthy to tell others about the love of Jesus Christ, a love of such great worth, because I’d experienced it.
The next day, a woman shared with me that she’d lost a child to abortion. No longer ashamed, I told her that I’d had an abortion too. We wept together as the miracle of grace washed over us, assuring us that Jesus was holding our children in heaven.
Since then, God has allowed me to share His love in many places and with many people, including at weekend prison retreats through Kairos Prison Ministry.
Over the years, the Lord has continued to heal the wounds of my past, including my relationship with my mother. God gave me the gift of being her caregiver at the end of her life, during which time she disclosed how she’d been forced to abort when she was only 17. The trauma of burying her son, alone and afraid, was still fresh and deep 60 years later.
Much later, God revealed how her rejection of me may have reflected her deep disappointment that she’d not been given a son to replace the one she’d lost as a frightened and desperate teenager. Flooded with compassion, I forgave her completely. Today, I look forward to our blessed reunion in heaven.
Not long after Mom died, I became a living kidney donor to my sister. Through that act, my story changed from being a person who took a life to one who gave a life-saving gift.
Many women and men have confessed their part in abortions, especially in jails and prisons. They long for God’s grace, forgiveness, and healing, yet they struggle to receive it because they cling to their pain and shame as a way of holding on to the little life gone too soon. It’s all they have. Others think holding on to shame honors the child they’ve harmed.
But this is not God’s will. Doing these things causes us to reject God’s grace and mercy and keeps us in a constant cycle of self-punishment. Self-punishment is not God’s plan for any of us. He took the punishment for all our sins—even abortion—on the cross (Romans 3:21–31). He also made a way for us to see our children again in heaven. If we are believers in Jesus Christ, we have the gift of eternity with our little ones. We can grieve with hope.
If you’ve been carrying the weight of shame, regret, and grief for an abortion—or any action—I encourage you to release it, once and for all, to God’s care. Receive His gift of mercy and grace.
You are loved and forgiven. No matter what!
Kim Ketola, a chaplain and pro-life advocate, is an award-winning writer and broadcaster whose life experience ministers to those hurt by abortion. The second edition of her book, Cradle My Heart, Finding God’s Love After Abortion, is available on Amazon. Learn more at cradlemyheart.org.
