The Choice

It has been twenty years since we have been given The Choice. We were promised great freedom for women, but now we know what a great burden it has placed on us and our daughters.

I felt special being pregnant. But I was afraid and insecure. Could I be a mother? I felt like a child myself.

Other voices warned me against the life within. "Why should you face those demands and pressures now? You can be free of them".

My own lack of confidence and the opinions of others led me to the abortion clinic. They held out their hands, and for a price, ripped away the life within me. With my consent.

No-one warned me of the unanswered questions that would haunt me, the child in my mind that I would never hold.

Now, when I see my children asleep at night, I wonder what color her hair would have been. Would she have sung in my mother's clear voice? Would she have been a lover of kittens?

Freedom! There is no freedom from the memory of my loss, the love of a daughter lost to me ... and the others who would have loved her.

What talents and graces did I prevent from entering the world? Can such a torment be called freedom?

And yet, there is hope. I am thankful, through Jesus, for the cleansing of my sin and the comfort and the healing of my heart.

I await the day when I can take my daughter's hand in mine, look into her eyes, and say,

"I love you so much! I just did not understand that you were The Choice."