How does GRACE WORK when... ABORTION happens? [S3.E12, final episode]
In our FINAL EPISODE of Season 3 we’re rolling up our sleeves and getting into some serious stuff today! We’re talking about grace—yup, that slippery little concept that seems to vanish when life gets messy. We share stories and experiences that reveal just how challenging it can be to find grace after making tough decisions, especially around topics like abortion. Our conversation isn’t just theoretical; we’re sharing real-life struggles and how they impact our identities. We also discuss how the church often handles these sensitive topics and how we can do better. It’s a mix of humor, honesty, and heartfelt moments that will make you think, laugh, and hopefully feel a little lighter. So kick back, listen in, and let’s navigate this winding road together, because finding grace is a journey worth taking!
Takeaways:
- Finding grace is a journey, and sometimes it feels like a wild rollercoaster ride through life's ups and downs.
- We often carry heavy burdens of guilt and shame, but remembering that God forgets our sins is a game-changer.
- Grace is available, even when the church doesn’t always make it feel that way – just ask God!
- Talking about tough topics like abortion shouldn’t be taboo; let’s break the silence with love and understanding.
- The church can sometimes be a scary place for those with past regrets, but it should be a safe haven instead.
- Life is messy, and everyone has a story – let’s embrace our messy stories with grace and compassion.
Transcript
You're listening to the Misfit preachers, talian Chavigian, Jean LaRue and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing Jesus one podcast at a time.
Speaker A:Now here are the misfits.
Speaker B:Welcome to Misfit Preachers.
Speaker B:I'm here, as always, with Tully and Chavigian.
Speaker C:Good morning, Tully.
Speaker C:Good morning.
Speaker B:And Jean Larue.
Speaker C:Good morning.
Speaker D:Brown.
Speaker B:Good morning, John.
Speaker D:Nice to see you.
Speaker B:Welcome to Misfit Preachers.
Speaker B:What's our topic?
Speaker D:Hard to believe.
Speaker D:Finding Grace.
Speaker D:When.
Speaker B:So it's on grace.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Shocker.
Speaker B:Are we never.
Speaker D:I'm not.
Speaker B:Are we never.
Speaker B:Moving on.
Speaker D:Spoiler alert.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:What do you want.
Speaker D:What do you want to talk about, Maya?
Speaker B:I want to talk about finding grace.
Speaker B:When.
Speaker D:In this.
Speaker B:Fill in the blank.
Speaker B:It's the season for you.
Speaker B:And we're trying to apply it to very specific scenarios in people's lives.
Speaker B:Because people are sitting out there in circumstances and asking the question.
Speaker B:I hear what you're saying, but how.
Speaker B:How do I find grace's connection to me?
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:And I think sometimes they're ethical conversations or other things that are, quote, hot topics that people don't want.
Speaker D:Like, we, we don't.
Speaker D:We find grace for that by not talking about it.
Speaker D:And so we're trying to break that mold.
Speaker B:All right, so let's.
Speaker B:What we're going to do is we're gonna.
Speaker B:We're gonna ask some questions and we're gonna go around the table and we're gonna answer these questions and address them.
Speaker B:These are pretty heavy subjects and topics that are real and kind of on the ground realities.
Speaker B:Finding grace.
Speaker B:When I got an abortion, how does someone who went through that experience find grace with all the turmoil that might be in their head immediately after down the road?
Speaker B:Obviously, that's a soul shaping sort of experience.
Speaker B:But how does somebody who's been through that and had to make that decision or made that decision find grace?
Speaker C:I heard the most powerful story on this exact subject 12 years ago from a friend of mine named Rod Rosenblatt, who we were together at a conference in Chicago.
Speaker C:We had just finished dinner.
Speaker C:We were getting ready to go downstairs, and he stopped me at the top of an escalator and said, I want to share a story with you.
Speaker C:True story.
Speaker C:A friend of his told him that this woman came to her pastor and said, pastor, you know, many years ago, I had an abortion.
Speaker C:And the pastor said, yes, I know that.
Speaker C:And she said, months ago, I met this man, and I didn't know if it was gonna get serious or not.
Speaker C:But it started to get serious and I thought to myself, I gotta tell him about the abortion.
Speaker C:And she said, I just couldn't.
Speaker C:And a few months went by and I thought to myself, as the relationship became more serious, I have to tell this man about my abortion.
Speaker C:And I just couldn't.
Speaker C:And then a couple more months went by and I kept thinking to myself, I have to tell him about my abortion.
Speaker C:But I just can't.
Speaker C:I couldn't.
Speaker C:And now we're engaged to be married and I know I have to tell him about the abortion, but I just can't.
Speaker C:She was afraid if she told him, maybe he would walk away, he'd be scandalized, whatever.
Speaker C:She was afraid.
Speaker C:So the pastor said to her, you know, we have a service for this, a service of confession and absolution, which is a fancy way of saying, I'll pray with you and you talk to God in front of me about this and then I'll remind you that your sins are forgiven.
Speaker C:So they went through that, A sweet time of prayer, confession, a reminder to her that her sins are forgiven.
Speaker C:And when they finished, she looked at him and said, thank you so much, pastor.
Speaker C:Now I feel like I can tell him about the abortion.
Speaker C:And he looked at her and said, what abortion?
Speaker C:And I remember hearing that story, and it was beautiful and scandalous at the same time.
Speaker C:The fact that God does not remember our sins, that he forgets our sins, that our sins are cast into the sea of God's forgotten memory, is a mind blowing truth.
Speaker C:We don't forget our sins, other people don't forget our sins, but God does.
Speaker C:And so whether or not we experience grace from other people in this particular situation, we know that there is always grace for God.
Speaker C:I mean, from God to us in situations like this.
Speaker C:So I just think the whole idea of looking at our past, at things we regret, things we're ashamed of, things that weigh us down, and then realizing that God has no record of that stuff for me, is life giving.
Speaker C:Life giving, yeah.
Speaker D:And I remember the first time you told that story to me and being so startled by that.
Speaker D:Because the what abortion question is the real fill in the blank for all of our past mistakes, failures, the things that we're so ashamed of, something like this being so intensely personal, so intensely stigmatized, so intensely filled with the women that I have met with, who have been just carrying the weight of this for their entire lives, to get that four word sentence out of their mouth.
Speaker D:I had an abortion.
Speaker D:Is probably in my pastoral experience, the hardest four words for people to utter.
Speaker D:There's no take backs and there is almost this immediate impulse to describe everything around it as if like, and therefore.
Speaker D:And to be able to go, listen, what, abortion?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:I mean, for the church to have that response to people, to plagiarize Jesus in that way.
Speaker D:So when someone sits there and I don't believe it's wrong to sit there with the pain, the regret, the hurt, and to literally marinate someone in the gospel in those moments, but at the end of it, that statement is right.
Speaker C:Well, and we were talking a little bit about this earlier off camera, but in my experience, anytime the church has addressed the subject of abortion, it's always militant in a sense.
Speaker C:I mean, it's always speaking about the evil of abortion, the fact that babies are being killed, there is picketing at abortion clinics and, and all of that stuff.
Speaker C:And it drives me insane because in most cases the people sitting in those churches agree theologically and ethically that it's wrong.
Speaker C:So it's more a rallying of the troops to be militant about their stance on pro life.
Speaker C:And I'm always thinking about the person in the pew, the woman in the pew who has been living with this secret, who's been living with guilt, who's been living with shame and regret.
Speaker C:They're, they're very rarely addressed, very rarely addressed.
Speaker C:It's always the, it's wrong.
Speaker C:We need to do something about it.
Speaker C:We need to fix this problem culturally, culturally and ethically.
Speaker C:But from a pastoral standpoint, I'm always, always thinking about the woman who has had one and who lives with the guilt and shame of it.
Speaker C:When my first wife and I were dating, this is back in the early 90s, she got pregnant and we were 19 at the time.
Speaker C:We had no intention of getting married anytime soon.
Speaker C:We were living very wild lives and she got pregnant and we got an abortion.
Speaker C:So I have a fourth child waiting for me on the other side.
Speaker C:This is an intensely personal thing to me.
Speaker C:I mean, I don't speak about this stuff as someone who doesn't understand.
Speaker C:I had to deal with this myself.
Speaker C:Oftentimes, at least in my case.
Speaker C:It's not just the woman who grieves the loss of a child, but in my case too, I thought about that child all the time for years and years.
Speaker C:I don't think about it as much now.
Speaker C:And I have all of the hope and expectation in the world that whether I have a son or a daughter waiting for me on the other side, waiting to meet his mother, waiting to meet me, waiting to Meet his two brothers or her two brothers and sister is exciting to me.
Speaker C:I get excited about that.
Speaker C:It's one of the reasons I'm looking to, I'm looking forward to getting to the other side.
Speaker C:But this is, I've dealt with this, the guilt, the shame, the regret of it.
Speaker C:I know that my first wife has dealt with this, the guilt, the shame and regret of it.
Speaker C:And it's, it's a very painful topic.
Speaker C:And where there is non grace applied specifically by religious people in this situation, it's a scandal to me.
Speaker B:You know, I think anytime there's an event in our life, a failure, a decision that we make with consequences such as this, it is such an identity, binding reality, it binds itself to our identity.
Speaker B:We become bound to that one act, it's like a phrase within a sentence, within a paragraph, within a chapter of a thousand chapter book of our lives becomes the central point.
Speaker B:And I know that's the case as it concerns those who've had abortions because I as a pastor, I watched it, I counseled people through it and it becomes who they are.
Speaker B:This one act, this one moment, one phrase in their entire story becomes who they are.
Speaker B:And the message of grace that you describe and you describe coming at them is so completely foreign to them personally, it's hard for them to grasp that God doesn't see this.
Speaker B:He loves them regardless, period.
Speaker B:And as it's reinforced, the animosity is reinforced by the church and by the religious community, what we would call one topic voting mentalities.
Speaker B:It becomes harder and harder for that reality to really, really set in, for them to really own it.
Speaker B:And my observation was the people whose failure are most bound to their identity, their self awareness, their self perception, are those who need so dramatically this message of grace constantly delivered to them by the church and those around them.
Speaker B:In a strange way, in my own life I can sympathize because my ex wife and I were pregnant with twins, Zachary Edward and Madeline Grace.
Speaker B:It was a boy and a girl and the pregnancy became very difficult.
Speaker B:It required bed rest for a long period of time.
Speaker B:And then my wife went into labor at the time and it was rushing to the hospital, rushing home and then finally she went into labor.
Speaker B:So we knew we were in the moment.
Speaker B:And the first one was born and didn't live, which obviously was heartbreaking.
Speaker B:And the doctor came to me and to my wife in the midst of labor and said, you have a decision to make.
Speaker B:Save the child or save your wife.
Speaker C:Second one.
Speaker B:And it was a surreal experience.
Speaker B:Kind of dropped into my world.
Speaker B:And we made the decision that we thought was necessary, but we were faced with a circumstance where it was kind of an either or.
Speaker B:It was not a both end moment.
Speaker B:My wife at the time survived that.
Speaker B:The child did not survive that.
Speaker B:But I remember living and I still do, and I know that she does as well with that decision, the decision that we had to make in that circumstance, and it made.
Speaker B:It made me far more sympathetic, although under different circumstances, as to people who have made that decision for other reasons as well.
Speaker B:And I think it goes back to something that we said on other episodes of this.
Speaker B:There's always a story that you don't expect.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker B:In these circumstances.
Speaker B:And additionally, there are people out there in our churches, in our community, in our circle of friends, who never mention these sorts of things, but carry these stories all the time.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And the reason that you don't hear about them and the reason they don't get healing from your expression of grace to them or from other people is that they're just absolutely terrified to ever let anyone know.
Speaker B:Because they know that they'll be judged.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker B:And then they know they'll be shamed.
Speaker B:Whereas in that identity binding reality, what separates them from the thing that they did that they regret is the grace and love coming towards people who understand.
Speaker C:And when we know it doesn't matter what the situation is, when we know that there is grace and forgiveness rather than judgment on the horizon, we are much more likely to be honest about what's really going on, the burdens that we're really bearing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:The perception of judgment actually scares people away from telling the truth about themselves.
Speaker C:And I think in this particular case, in many ways with good intention, the church at large has really blown it.
Speaker C:I mean, they think primarily in terms of ethics, which I understand that there is an ethical conversation to have around this subject.
Speaker C:I get that.
Speaker C:But they fail to think pastorally.
Speaker C:They're thinking about the baby that was aborted, and they're not thinking about the emotional and psychological mental strain and turmoil and trauma that the person who gets the abortion will live with in many cases, for the rest of their lives, to one degree or another.
Speaker C:And so what they do in their expression of their ethical stance and the judgment that comes with it is it scares people into the shadows.
Speaker C:They're not honest.
Speaker C:They don't feel like the church is a safe place.
Speaker C:For me, to be honest, it isn't.
Speaker B:It isn't a safe place to be honest.
Speaker B:In fact, the church talks a big deal in general about A place for transparency, honesty, and vulnerability.
Speaker B:But when you hit the ground on this subject matter, it doesn't really.
Speaker B:It doesn't exist.
Speaker B:No, it doesn't really exist because no one is going to put themselves at risk of being honest about themselves with the judgment that's going to come this way.
Speaker B:And this, this, this issue is a dividing line issue on that.
Speaker B:If, if you are in a church, in a congregation that can show compassion to these people without judgment, then you are in a context that truly gets grace and knows that we're all criminals in prison and the rest of life is just comparing crimes.
Speaker B:If you're in that place, you're in a very rare place.
Speaker B:And the majority of places just aren't like that.
Speaker D:I think churches in that sense, this is one of the places where we.
Speaker D:I've been part of that conflated the reality of this cheap grace mentality or easy believism because we equate compassion with permission.
Speaker D:And there's a fear like, if I love this person, if I'm willing to say, I love you no matter what, no strings attached, I get it.
Speaker D:I understand.
Speaker D:I empathize.
Speaker D:People are like, is this.
Speaker D:Are we about to pull, you know, Democratic National Convention and park an RV out in front of the church and give free abortions?
Speaker D:I mean, is that what's ha.
Speaker D:Is that the slippery slope argument?
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:I remember there was a woman in the first church I ever worked who took the risk of.
Speaker D: I mean, and this is: Speaker D:She then began to volunteer and work with the Save A Life in the area.
Speaker D:I mean, incredible things.
Speaker D:And shared her story at the banquet at the Save A Life.
Speaker D:I mean, it was unbelievable.
Speaker D:And then, then came the elders because she was also a volunteer with the youth group.
Speaker D:We don't know if it's wise to have.
Speaker D:We're not sure if it sends the wrong message.
Speaker D:We're not sure if these things.
Speaker D:And I said, what message?
Speaker D:Yeah, that the church is for broken people who've broken their lives.
Speaker D:Is that, Is that not our message?
Speaker D:And as a new guy, fresh out of seminary, I, I was like, wait, that.
Speaker D:Actually, they're like, yeah, that's not my thinking.
Speaker D:It's, it's, it's bad press.
Speaker B:My thinking was so different.
Speaker B:If I found a man in my church who had committed fraud, been convicted of it, lived through it, repented of it, was restored, I made that person the Deacon over the finances.
Speaker B:I'm the church.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Just went a direction.
Speaker C:No, absolutely I was.
Speaker C:And back to what both of you guys are saying about the church not being a safe place.
Speaker C:I was speaking in California, this is probably five or six years ago.
Speaker C:And the pastor of the church where I was speaking asked me to come out a day early and meet with all of his staff.
Speaker C:And they had various campuses, and so they had all the staff from all the campuses come, and they asked me to speak and to share my story and then to answer some questions.
Speaker C:And so I was talking about these kinds of things.
Speaker C:How the church tends to be the scariest place rather than the safest place for fallen people to fall down and broken people to break things.
Speaker C:And how sad that is.
Speaker C:And when I open it up for questions, there was a young, probably late 20s, right out of seminary kid who raised his hand.
Speaker C:His wife was sitting next to him.
Speaker B:I know the time.
Speaker C:And he said, I hear what you're saying, but you seem to be speaking negatively of the church.
Speaker C:And the church is the body of Christ.
Speaker C:And he gave all this lofty, flowery language about the church, the way the Bible describes it.
Speaker C:And I listened to him and I said, listen, all, all of.
Speaker C:All of what you said about the church being the body of Christ, all true.
Speaker C:Here's my test for you.
Speaker C:Go cheat on your wife, the woman sitting right next to you, and see how the church responds.
Speaker C:Go do something.
Speaker C:Go do something.
Speaker C:In this case, you know, if you're.
Speaker C:If your wife had an abortion or if you got caught doing something you know is taboo and bad, see how the church responds.
Speaker C:We can all speak glowingly and positively about church culture and how we accept sinners, and there are no perfect people allowed.
Speaker C:And we're a place of forgiveness.
Speaker C:We're a sanctuary of grace, that sort of thing, until you screw up and then you discover what people really think about grace, what people really think about forgiveness, what we really believe about grace is proven, exposed when it comes to dealing with people who have royally screwed up.
Speaker B:Yeah, I was working in the Midwest, contracting with a very large construction company up there.
Speaker B:And I met the owner of this company and worked directly with him.
Speaker B:He was just an immaculate leader, just.
Speaker B:Just an incredible man.
Speaker B:He was in his 70s, great culture in the business, a very employee, sort of forward guy.
Speaker B:And we had had lots of conversations and I.
Speaker B:I was like, enamored with this guy.
Speaker B:He was just one of those people that.
Speaker B:I'm so glad I got to know him.
Speaker B:He impacted me in a lot of ways.
Speaker B:And I thought so highly of him.
Speaker B:And at one point in a conversation, and this relates as it concerns life and death, but he said, well, you know, one of these days I'll tell you my story.
Speaker B:And I said, I can't wait.
Speaker B:So I was up there, he and I went out to dinner and I said, you promised you'd tell me your story.
Speaker B:I'll tell you, I'll show you mine if you show me yours sort of thing.
Speaker B:And he starts telling me his story.
Speaker B:And seven years prior to the moment we were having dinner, he was drunk, got behind the wheel of a car, was driving home.
Speaker B:Uber successful guy in his region, killed a family of three.
Speaker B:And he said to me at dinner, he said, what you haven't known, which has allowed you to like me and befriend me, is that you don't realize a murderer, wow.
Speaker B:But that experience in my life has completely transformed and reshaped who I am.
Speaker B:And he goes, and I don't hide it from people.
Speaker B:I hug that cactus.
Speaker B:I've, as we've said in other episodes, I've come to love the thing that I most regret in my life.
Speaker B:And it just proves the principle.
Speaker B:There's always a story, always an explanation, always behind something, behind something that we see in a person.
Speaker B:And in this case, in, in my experience, oftentimes the most tender, gentle, compassionate, loving people are the ones that are guilty of the thing that, that they most regret but have come to love.
Speaker B:They, they demonstrate this, this compassion.
Speaker C:There's no other way in my experience, for things, wisdom, depth of insight and feeling to develop.
Speaker C:You know it from failure, you know.
Speaker B:It when you see it.
Speaker B:In.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:You know, when you can sense it, you know it.
Speaker C:There's a, there's a depth, there's a presence about them.
Speaker C:So, yeah, I mean, I, you know, in, in for the woman out there or for the man who's.
Speaker C:Yeah, this woman.
Speaker B:Great place to finish.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:For the, for the woman out there or the man out there who is connected to the woman who had an abortion, the level of guilt is real.
Speaker C:The level of regret and sorrow is real, the wonder is real.
Speaker C:What would have been.
Speaker C:I've discovered that women, probably women who have had an abortion, think about it more than the men connected to them.
Speaker C:And there's a reason for that.
Speaker C:I mean, this child was growing inside the woman.
Speaker C:There is a deep connection there from the get go, from conception.
Speaker C:But for the one dealing with the guilt, shame, the regret, the sorrow, there is grace for you.
Speaker C:And you may not get it from religious people.
Speaker C:You may not get it from your Christian friends or your religious friends, but you always get it from God.
Speaker C:Always get it from God.
Speaker C:And I know it is really difficult to wrap our minds around the fact that something I can't forget God doesn't remember.
Speaker C:But it is true.
Speaker C:It is said over and over again in the Bible.
Speaker C:We're not just making this stuff up.
Speaker C:When God says of the Israelites, I will forgive their sins and I will remember their trespasses no more.
Speaker C:Corey ten Boom used to say that God takes our sins and drops them in the deepest parts of the ocean and puts up a sign that says no fishing allowed.
Speaker C:Which is remarkably true.
Speaker C:The sad thing about that is that the church loves its scuba gear.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Dead Water Expedition.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker D:We are experts.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker C:And it was Luther who said it is not the work of God but the work of the devil to remind us of forgiven sins.
Speaker C:So any time you feel judgment from the Christian or religious community about sins you have done, that is not God speaking to you.
Speaker C:That is the enemy trying to weigh you down with guilt and shame and all of those things.
Speaker C:God's God's posture towards sinners is simply I love you, I forgive you.
Speaker C:Period.
Speaker D:Can I add one thing to this?
Speaker D:Number one.
Speaker D:Amen.
Speaker D:Everything you just said, I couldn't have said as articulately and agree with violently.
Speaker D:And there's probably no faster path for the post abortive woman to forget grace than remembering the abortion.
Speaker D:Because it is a one way street to karma for her.
Speaker D:Well now I can't have children.
Speaker D:Now this child of mine is sick.
Speaker D:What if I needed a kidney transplant for this child?
Speaker D:We would have had every single event, every T ball game, everything.
Speaker D:Do I need this car seat?
Speaker D:Oh, can you hand me down clothes?
Speaker D:Every.
Speaker D:Every everything bad that happens is somehow tied to my previous decision condition.
Speaker D:All those things.
Speaker D:And what I want to say to that woman is that Jesus not only paid it all but did it all everything you need to earn the father's favor.
Speaker D:Wasn't the do over family you're trying to rebuild right now?
Speaker D:That is not how you make God happy with you.
Speaker D:It is Jesus and Jesus alone who's done that.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Not give me a do over.
Speaker B:Great place to finish.
Speaker B:Thanks guys.
Speaker A:You've been listening to the misfit preachers like subscribe and share more grace centered resources@prodigalpodcasts.com that's Prodigal P R O D I G A L podcasts with an s dot com.
