This seven-day Bible plan is designed to help those recovering from abortion process their emotions and find renewed hope in God’s love and forgiveness. This plan is adapted by Suzy Silk from a nine-week support group curriculum offered online and in-person by Avail – a non-profit organization that exists to empower women and men facing an unexpected pregnancy or with a past abortion.
Avail
Day 1
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:1-11
A Journey Toward Hope
God teaches in Ecclesiastes 3 that there is a season for everything, including seasons to weep, mourn, laugh, and dance. The fact that God tells us that life is full of seasons can lead us to cultivate hope and endurance.
Why? Because a season only lasts for so long, and it promises change and the inbreaking of something new if we will only wait and endure. At the same time, seasons imply that there are appropriate emotions for different moments in our life. There are times when it is good to mourn and times when mourning fades and joy grows.
After an unexpected pregnancy or abortion, we may find ourselves experiencing waves of emotions we have never faced before. Since we are beings made in the image of God, we have a wide range of emotions, just as God does. At first, this can feel overwhelming. We may wonder if we will always feel this way or if we are even allowed to feel this way. However, these verses remind us that God is not unaware of our emotions. In fact, He expects us to experience specific emotions and to engage in particular actions in each season because these are the right things to feel and do.
Whenever we choose to face our trauma and begin the journey toward healing, we are partnering with God to start a new season of identifying and processing our emotions before the Lord.
Emotions are not the truth, but they can be helpful signposts marking where we have deep pain. For example, anger that erupts when you see a pregnant woman may express your pain because you are no longer pregnant. Likewise, the grief you experience during your menstrual cycle may occur because this physical experience reminds you of the abortion.
Once we identify our emotions, we can begin to ask “why” questions that lead to the root of our pain, and then we can bring our emotions, pain, and questions to the Lord in prayer. At times, God may encourage us to mourn more; at other times, He may lead us to a place of confession or an invitation to trust Him more.
Today, let’s come to the Lord with our present emotions – whether weeping or laughing – and ask Him to guide us through this season as we process our abortion and seek to know Him more intimately.
Day 2
Scripture: Psalms 6
Emotions: Grief
Yesterday, our reading in Ecclesiastes 3 led us to take stock of our emotions as a whole and bring them to the Lord. Today we turn specifically to the emotion of grief.
Psalm 6 is full of the language of grief – confusion, exhaustion, anguish, weariness, weeping, anger, penitence, loneliness, and a cry for this season of mourning to end. The psalmist even goes so far as to describe his bed as soaked and drenched with tears. The psalmist is not ashamed of his grief but recognizes that grief is the natural and healthy way to process his past and present losses before the Lord. Grief becomes his prayer language as the psalmist cries out to God, asking to be heard.
An important step in healing from an abortion is grieving. Grieving may look different at different times, as we experience cycles of grief or varied emotions. Even years after a loss, especially at key moments in our lives such as anniversary dates, someone else’s pregnancy or loss, or the birth of a future child, we may still experience a strong sense of grief.
And yet, as Psalm 6 indicates, although grief may last for a long time, we can grieve before the Lord and know that He will hear our cries and eventually enable us to experience less debilitating sadness and even peace. This promise that the Lord will hear us should encourage us not to hide our grief but acknowledge it.
So how do we bring our grief to the Lord in prayer? Psalm 6 encourages us to be specific with our losses, describing our grief to God and asking for both mercy and resolution. We can do the same. We can identify the significant losses in our life connected to our unexpected pregnancy or abortion. These losses might include people or relationships, emotions, a spiritual connection to God or your faith community, a sense of self, dreams for the future, and so on.
The losses we experience resulting from an abortion are very real, even when the abortion was our own choice. Stepping into our individual grief and acknowledging our losses can be painful, but it can also bring about a sense of relief, even healing.
Today, let the words of the psalmist become your way of praying these specific losses and this grief back to the Lord. May you say, “the Lord has heard my weeping, my cry for mercy, and accepts my prayer.”
Day 3
Scripture: Psalms 23:1-6
Emotions: Anger
While praying through your losses yesterday, you may have found yourself becoming angry at the things that have been lost. It is natural to feel anger toward ourselves for our choices, anger towards other people involved in our pregnancy and abortion, or anger at God because He didn’t intervene. Although loss and death are regular parts of the human experience, deep down we know that this is not how the world is meant to be so we feel anger at the brokenness of ourselves, others, and the world.
Often when we feel anger welling up in us, it can feel as if everything in our life is bleak and dark. And when our anger is triggered – whether by babies, certain movies or songs, sex, and so forth – it can often feel like a storm cloud has suddenly blocked out the sun, suffocating our peace and happiness.
In Psalm 23, the psalmist describes himself as walking through a valley of deep darkness; the once idyllic and peaceful picture has now turned dark and frightening. There are enemies and death and sadness, and probably quite a bit of anger and confusion on the psalmist’s part.
So where can he find comfort in the midst of his anger and grief? In the presence of the Lord. The Lord has not left him alone as he walks through the darkness.
Not only does God promise His presence but also His protection and guidance. The rod, used by a shepherd to protect sheep from predators and check them for injuries, is God’s promise to protect us from spiritual attack and care for our wounds when we process the traumas of life. The staff, used by a shepherd to rescue a wayward sheep who has slipped or gotten entrapped, is a symbol of the way the Lord promises to unhook us from the bitterness, hatred, or shame that can so easily ensnare us when we are angry. God’s Word and His Spirit serve to guide us through our anger and onward towards repentance and forgiveness.
In this world we will have troubles; the Bible is clear about this. But when we find ourselves angry and overcome by darkness, the Lord will walk with us. Jesus promises us His presence, and He promises to eventually lead us through this darkness and into a life of abundance and joy.
Day 4
Scriptures: Isaiah 1:18, Luke 15:11-32
Emotions: Guilt & Shame
Many of us seek out healing from our abortion experiences because of the guilt and shame we feel. We feel guilt because of the ways we have disobeyed God’s laws — whether it be the abortion itself, getting pregnant, or sleeping with the particular man who got us pregnant. Many of us feel shame because we now see ourselves as broken, sinful people because of our choices. It is as if we are wearing a “scarlet letter” – forever marked by our abortions.
The people of Israel felt a similar way, and yet God assured them, through the prophet Isaiah, that though their sins were as scarlet, the Lord would forgive their sins and make them white as snow.
God offers us the same good news: our abortions, while a part of our stories, do not need to define who we are. When we confess and repent to God, our guilt and shame are released. God invites us to come to him with our sins – even if they feel like a “scarlet letter” – so that he can respond to us with forgiveness and with the removal of these feelings.
So how do we confess and repent?
We find our answer in the story of the prodigal child:
- First, the son looks directly at his sin and guilt and determines to live differently.
- Next, he returns to his father’s house and in humility and vulnerability, admits his guilt.
- Finally, the son repents by changing his mind about how he will live and behave in the future.
Conviction. Confession. Repentance.
Too often we stop ourselves from returning to God because of the shame we feel and the condemnation it produces. When we respond to guilt by condemning ourselves, we remove the possibility of forgiveness, change, and restoration. This sense of hopelessness causes us to experience intense levels of shame and to isolate ourselves from others. On the other hand, when we respond to guilt with conviction, we look our guilt straight in the eye and then believe that change can happen.
No matter the sin we have committed, no matter how long we have stayed away from God because of our shame, the words of Isaiah 1 and Luke 15 assure us that God will always respond to our confession and repentance with forgiveness and acceptance.
Day 5
Scriptures: Psalms 103:8-18, 1 John 1:8-9
Forgiveness From God
Throughout this past week, you may have felt the desire to confess to God. In the midst of your sorrow, you may have realized that you have hurt others, yourself, and your children because of your abortion. In doing so, you have sinned against God.
In the Bible, we learn that God is good and just, merciful, and abounding in love. God created the world to be full of love, kindness, joy, wisdom, truth, beauty, and life, and yet sin has distorted the world, bringing pain and suffering into it.
All of us are guilty of sin. We have sinned by hurting others, by being unkind or selfish, and by adding to the sadness and pain in the world and in our own lives. We need to go before God (and others) and be honest about what we have done and the thoughts and emotions we have had. We need forgiveness.
The good news is that the loving and just God who created the whole world is also the God who does not treat us as our sins deserve but instead forgives us and invites us back into a relationship with Him. God can forgive us and repair the brokenness we have caused because Jesus gave his life on our behalf in the greatest gift of love. And Jesus continues to show us God’s radical goodness by loving us when we are unlovable, forgiving us when we are guilty, healing us when we are hurting or broken, and restoring us to healthy relationships with God and others.
1 John 1:9 gives us the promise that when we confess our guilt to God, God will always forgive us. We do not have to earn God’s forgiveness or “pay” for our sins because Jesus paid the penalty for our guilt. Psalm 103:12 then promises that God will remove our sins so completely that they will be as far from us as the east is from the west – infinitely far from us!
Not only does God forgive us, but He brings us into a covenantal relationship full of love and compassion. As high as the heavens are above the earth – infinitely high! – so great is His love for those who fear him.
Today, come to the Lord with your confession and receive from Him not only forgiveness but abounding, unending, infinite love.
Day 6
Scriptures: Ephesians 2:8-10, Psalms 139:1-16
How God Sees You
How we see ourselves and believe others see us often drives our emotions, behaviors, and decisions. We have a deep need to be loved and accepted by others, ourselves, and God. And yet, we often undervalue ourselves or have distorted views of how others see and value us. If our beliefs about ourselves are skewed, then our behaviors, emotions, thoughts, and decisions can also become skewed. If we were, to be honest about the circumstances that led to our unexpected pregnancy or abortion, we might discover that our actions and decisions were driven by a distorted view of ourselves or of God.
To change our underlying beliefs about our own self-worth, it’s helpful to not only self-evaluate and ask trusted friends to add their insight, but also to figure out how God sees us. Since God is the one who created us and the one who offers us love and forgiveness when we are guilty, knowing what God thinks about us is crucial. It matters immeasurably more how God views us than how other people view us. God sees everything we do and knows what is in our hearts; He has witnessed our whole lives and knows us better than we know ourselves.
The Bible tells us exactly how God sees us. In Psalm 139:13-14 and Ephesians 2:10, we learn that God sees each of us as unique individuals that He has personally made and loves.
You are His artistic masterpiece that He dreamed up and delights in! Because God created you intentionally, your life also has meaning and a God-given purpose.
In the first part of Psalm 139, the psalmist describes how well God knows him – nothing is hidden from God’s sight and every day of his life God already foreknew. Even when the psalmist attempts to hide from God, he cannot. This means that God sees the beautiful parts of us and the broken parts of us – the things we can be proud of and the things we want to hide. And yet, God responds to us with love and forgiveness. As discussed yesterday, God invites us back into a relationship with Him, like a parent welcoming back a child.
You can find security in how God sees you. Even if you struggle to see value in yourself, in God’s eyes, you are immeasurably valuable and deeply loved.
Day 7
Scriptures: Revelation 21:1-4, Isaiah 61:1-7, John 14:15-18
Moving Forward with God
Trauma often throws us into a state in which we are constantly reliving the past and barely surviving the present. However, with healing comes the ability to live in the present but also to plan and dream about the future. Even though we have undergone trauma with our pregnancy and abortion experience, God still has a future for us. He can heal us, restore us, and give us a new purpose.
God still has plans for your future — including healing, happiness, and joy. In the Bible, Jesus promises to one day comfort all who mourn, and, in the meantime, Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit to dwell in us as our companion and advocate. God not only wants to comfort and heal you but also to be with you — both now (through the indwelling Holy Spirit) and for all of eternity. This is how much He loves you and enjoys spending time with you!
Over the past week, you may have concluded that you want to know God better; you may even have decided that you want to receive God’s forgiveness for your abortion. Just like the story of the “lost child” in Luke 15, God is looking down the long road and is excited that you are walking towards home.
If you choose to continue to move towards God, then over time, you will discover that in God’s presence, there is healing, joy, and hope. Even though grief and pain may last for a long time, a new season of joy will eventually come.
In the final chapters of the Bible, Jesus promises that He will renew all things. Everything that has been broken in this world, everything that brought pain and sorrow, will come to an end; no more death, no more grief, or crying or pain. And in the place of these, Jesus will bring His kingdom. Jesus will make us into new people – removing our shame and clothing us with righteousness; He will restore the places long devastated and make our world anew so that it is full of love and peace and healing, and He will come to dwell with us forever and ever. This is the good future we are promised.