Me, my Heart and our Secret | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Me, my Heart and our Secret | Previous Challenge Entry
By Dave Walker
01/22/13
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Don’t let them see, secret heart. We are walking this road together and it's lonely, but who can we tell? It has to stay between you and me. I know you are breaking, but I will smile. I'm getting better at pretending it's O.K. I’ll tell them we're fine; that it was the right thing to do. Everyone said so, even Michael (though he left me after it was done).

And they don't understand what goes on in a frightened girl's heart. Only you know we weren’t sure. Everyone else seemed so certain and what does a fifteen-year-old know about these things? That’s what they said, secret heart, I can still hear them, "You're too young to understand. You will thank us later."

But there are some things I am not too young to understand. I understand what is right and what is wrong even if I don’t know what is “sensible”. That’s what I kept hearing, “But Mary, you have your whole life ahead of you. You can’t let yourself be tied down at this stage. You must see it is the sensible thing to do.” But is ‘sensible’ always right?

And I don't thank them. All I know is four years later I do still have my whole life ahead of me but it is a life-time’s worth of secret shame -- a secret ache in you, my heart. It’s been four years of restlessness. How will I ever settle down into anything when you keep telling me what they took away was not an inconvenient piece of tissue? I don’t think I ever believed that. I know it was a little baby, my baby. I try to shut you out in my mind, but I cannot. You keep coming back when I least expect it. Yesterday in the shopping mall I heard a baby cry and I felt you in my throat pounding, pounding and a terrible uneasiness flooded my being; last week I smelt some spirits in the drugstore and suddenly I saw the white coats, the other girls, the big light, the table. Terror paralysed me as I felt you racing in my breast.

Let's see what the so-called experts say on the internet about abortion? Hmm. What’s this site? Afterabortion.org? It is saying there are others like me; others who have not kept it to themselves but shared their pain. And this one Ramahinternational.org? They seem to understand. I need to meet these people.....

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Well, not-so-secret heart - - in fact open, sharing heart, can you believe how very good God has been to us? How free and relaxed I feel? It is so good to share you with others. How good He was to lead me to those people – was it only a month ago?

At last I found others who, like me, did not believe the lies the 'sensible' people told me; who taught me to mourn little Jade (yes, I have given her a name and a memorial plaque), to ask her for forgiveness and to receive for myself, the forgiveness that Jesus offers. I know you are still broken; I would love to have Jade beside me, (she would be four now) but I know that you are healing and I am free to share our secret for the healing of others.

Above all, you are at peace. The turmoil has settled. The restlessness has gone and we are beside still waters. In the loving, forgiving arms of Jesus, who is looking after Jade for me till I get there, you and I have found rest.

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