The Strangest Thing…

When I started through abortion recovery around twelve years ago it seemed like a fairly sparse group of folks. But the more I read and talked and shared and listened, the more I realized that it was really just an incredibly scattered group. 

So I wrote a novel based on my experiences with abortion loss as well as the experiences of other men that had shared with me. It was and is a story. The idea behind writing it was to, as I’ve mentioned numerous times, give men a voice and help them see that, regardless of the pain, peace and restored relationship with God was possible. 

That simple act of writing a story and publishing it connected me with groups I never would have imagined. That wasn’t expected, but it’s still cool. And that isn’t the point of today’s entry. Not in the least…

See, knowing the subject of the book had something to do with abortion, I knew I’d get some blow-back. I knew the fringes on both sides of the aboriton discussion would be out and against it. But here are some interesting ways in which folks have come at me in the past year and a half.

In the novel, Ben drinks and makes bad sexual decisions. This really tossed some Christians. But to truly bring Ben out of the pit, he had to go into the pit in the first place. I grow so tired of white-washed Christian fiction. Most of it doesn’t show the reality of life separated from God and mired in shame and self-loathing behavior. How can I show the power of God without first showing the pain of separation from God? 

In 2 Corinthians 12 we read that God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. Pretty simple. 

Then on the other side the attacks on social media platforms has been fairly constant. I state that my book isn’t political and that it’s about one man’s journey and about healing. How can anyone be against healing? Well, turns out they can. 

I’ve been told that men have no right to have pain about lost fatherhood to abortion. Some have gone as far as to say a man has to right to feel pain after a miscarriage. I’ve been told that man don’t get an opinion. When I retort that it’s not for one to judge the mental health needs of another, I’m told that men have no mental health needs. 

That’s just the beginning. 

I’ve had death threats for a couple of ads I ran on social media.
I’ve offered to give, for free, copies of the book to about a dozen pro choice folks. No one has taken me up on it. In fact, when I made the offer, I was told that they would wipe with it, use it as fire started, etc. Yet, they argue against it…vehemently argue against it. How? 

Then there’s the groups that reduce every discussion of pregnancy to the mere physical aspects and make it transactional. This, I assume, is to try and shock because I am a Christian and, therefore, never heard such things. It’s kinda funny. It’s also kinda sad. 

And then we drift way out to the folks that say all men are rapists and I am defending rapists. Sound crazy? It is. But it’s also true. And it’s a bit unsettling. 

Now that we’ve traveled down that rabbit hole, let’s get back to the pro-life groups. This next thing I’ve addressed before in other posts but it still amazes me, and so I will go into it again. That is the groups who constantly call abortion murder and people that have abortions murderers. They say people that “kill their babies” are evil. They assure us they are destined for hell. They show images of aborted and dismembered fetuses and claim the truth must be told. Then, when they are confronted with the Gospel they state that they are on the righteous side of this thing and that the evil must repent. It’s all very legalistic. And it’s not affective. 

They make wild claims about the battle ahead and what we all, as pro-life folks, must do with Roe is overturned. 

The thing I don’t see a lot of is messages about healing. I don’t see many posts about helping men and women who made that awful choice…under whatever circumstances they were in, find recovery and peace and restored relationship with God. 

There are a few groups out there that are entirely about that message of truth. That number is growing but not fast enough. The message of healing and hope and that God can and will forgive should be the largest and loudest voice in the pro-life world. Sadly, as I write this, it isn’t.
But there is hope. 

The voices of hope and healing are getting louder…and the number of us is getting louder as well. We meet men and women where they are. We help them find healing and a path to “God as they understand him.” We help them find forgiveness and forgive themselves. We remind them all is not lost and peace is possible. 

The volume of non-productive, hate-filled voices on both sides truly has been the strangest thing to uncover. But it has also been a great reminder of the importance of the message of healing. God wants relationship with each and every one of us. He said so himself in 1 Timothy. You can look it up.