My testimony is filled with sin. But drastically more critical, though, it is filled with God’s love, God’s son Jesus Christ, and the power of the holy spirit.
I grew up in a home with a mix of atheism and the occult. Naturally, there was plenty of emotional abuse, physical abuse, mental health issues, suicidality, narcissism, and more. I regularly heard things as a teenager from my mom such as, “I don’t know why I had you.” and “Why can’t you just be eighteen yet so you can move out.” I remember one night as a teenager; my dad became so angry with me that he pushed me up against a wall in our house and both of my feet left the floor. By the time I had begun my senior year in high school, my life was a mess, to put it lightly. I was involved with the occult, lying, stealing, lust, fighting, and much eviler.
In my senior year in high school, I began dating a twenty-eight-year-old drug dealer who later became a felon. In May of my senior year in high school, I became pregnant. I had taken Plan B after the sexual encounter (the one that I believed resulted in the pregnancy) but it did not work (once I started getting involved with anti-abortion work I found out that Plan B could cause an early abortion. Thus, it hit me years later that I had tried aborting my daughter once, but it had failed). A couple weeks later I saw the positive pregnancy tests, something inside of me changed a bit, and I felt this warmth and tenderness for the first time in a long time. Within a few days of finding out I was pregnant, I downloaded the Baby Center app on my phone, and I began to watch the daily progression of my baby growing inside of me. I also contacted an OBGYN. I set up my first prenatal appointment and started taking prenatal vitamins.
Within a couple of weeks of finding out I was pregnant; I informed my managers at my job that I was pregnant. One of my managers brought me a gift. It was a Bible and a lengthy letter she wrote. At the time, I felt flattered by her kindness but put off and uninterested in the whole ‘Jesus’ thing’.
Shortly after that, I told the father of my baby. The father of my baby said that he had no interest in ‘it’ and that keeping ‘it’ was not an option. He told me that I needed to have an abortion. I fought with him and told him there was no way I would have an abortion. He eventually said that he would support adoption in addition to abortion but raising ‘it’ was still not an option.
After that, I told my mother. My mother exploded at the news. She made it clear that keeping ‘it’ was not an option. My mother said I had to abort or give ‘it’ up for adoption. I rejected the idea of adoption because my baby was mine or no one else’s; I was selfish. My mother said that if I chose to raise my child, she would kick me out of the house and that I could no longer live there.
After that, my grandparents found out via word from my mother. My grandmother made it clear that I either aborted or she would never talk to me again. This statement was crushing as she had been one of my friends my entire life up until that point.
My best friend at the time, we can call her “S”, was pro-abortion. Thus, she had no issue with my soon-to-be plan when I shared it with her.
I went to a music festival with a more distant friend and her brother. I kept quiet about my pregnancy and the first appointment I already had scheduled for the abortion that next week. I was confident that they were both against abortion, so I didn’t mention my pregnancy or my appointment because I was fearful of what reaction I would get.
I had my first appointment at the abortion clinic. The father of the baby drove me to the facility. As we pulled into the parking lot, people on the sidewalk, maybe three to five, were looking at us from inside the car. One of the ladies tried getting our car to stop while we pulled into the driveway by holding her arm out with some pieces of paper in her hand. The father of my baby said to ignore those people, and he kept driving. I did not respond to his comment and thought about the people on the sidewalk. When I got out of the car, I looked over at the people on the sidewalk that had tried handing us information as we drove into the driveway. They were all talking with each other and did not notice me now looking at them. Thus, I walked into the facility and forgot about them.
When I entered the facility, a security guard checked my ID. He then ushered me to the front desk, where an employee was separated from me by safety glass. I checked in and handed them the check for the appointment and the abortion. I then sat in the waiting room with several other women. A worker then called me out of the waiting room for my appointment.
The worker took me into a small room and asked numerous questions regarding my details and health. She then said that I needed to watch a few videos because of the law in the state of WI at that time. She put the videos on, left the room, I watched them, and she then returned. The videos were about development in the womb and about all three of my options.
Then they took me into another room where I was given an exam. The worker giving me the exam began complaining about Scott Walker and other WI Republican politicians. She stated that if it was not for them, she could have just given me the abortion pill and sent me home that day (due to state laws, the abortion pill was illegal). I was given ‘counseling’. The worker stated that she had to provide me with documents on all three options because of WI state law. She gave me pamphlets on my three options and asked if I had questions. I told her that I thought I wanted to keep my child, but people in my life pushed me to abort it. She avoided my concerns and appeared to be uninterested.
Then they brought me into another room where I was instructed by a worker that they needed to perform a vaginal ultrasound because of WI state law. They performed the ultrasound and then asked me if I wanted to see my ultrasound; I said, “yes”. The worker pointed my child out on the screen, their heartbeat, told me that I was nine weeks and three days pregnant.
I was then escorted back to the waiting room area, where I made my second appointment for the abortion. This was needed as WI state law required a waiting period then.
I returned home. I found my great-grandmother’s rosary. I decided to take this to the clinic to help me get through the abortion procedure. I (and many in my family) held new-age beliefs, including my great-grandmother. I brought her rosary with me because I believed it was tied to my great-grandmother’s ‘presence’ and would help me stay strong. After all, I needed to ‘do this’ ‘for the family’.
Two days later, the father of my baby picked me up at my home. We drove to his home. It was on the way to the facility as he completed some household tasks. I sat in the bedroom by myself and in silence for at least fifteen minutes waiting. The entire time my mind was going back and forth. I kept having the thought, “Marie, you don’t have to do this. You can still turn back and tell him to take you home.” Ultimately, I only hardened my heart more, and we left his home for the clinic.
When we pulled into the clinic this time, I don’t believe there was anyone on the sidewalk. By this point, I was hardened in what I was about to do. I was ushered back to the surgery room. I undressed from the waist down and sat on the table. I sat alone in a sterile bleak room by myself for minutes. A thought that passed my mind a few times during those minutes was, “Marie, you can still leave. It’s not too late.”. A worker then entered the room with a document. She explained that the document stated that I consented to this abortion and that I needed to sign the document. I stared at the document for a few seconds in what felt like a trance and then signed it.
Then the abortion doctor and a couple of other workers entered the room. The workers and the doctor were friendly. They were courteous and made small talk with me. I then laid back on the table, put my feet in the stirrups, and moved my body forward. The doctor began using various metal rods to dilate my cervix. Once my cervix was dilated, the doctor inserted the vacuum and turned the vacuum on. The first few seconds, I heard the vacuum, I froze, and time froze. After a few seconds, I vaulted back to reality and wanted to scream, “Stop, I don’t want to do this,” but I didn’t because I knew it was too late. Instead, I hardened my heart even more. The vacuum was then turned off. The doctor then gave one of the workers a container (with my dead daughter’s body parts in it). The doctor informed me that the worker would be back in a few minutes and that I needed to stay in place (the worker needed to go into another room to reassemble my dead daughter’s body to ensure they got all of her out of me). The worker returned, the tools were removed, and I dressed.
I wanted to leave the clinic, but the worker informed me that I needed to sit down in the recovery area for a certain amount of time so they could make sure I was ok. They gave me a drink and a snack. They gave me information on what I should do to physically heal from the abortion and a number I could call in case something went wrong once I got home. They also ensured that I had ‘the pill’ before I left.
I walked out of the clinic and returned home with a hard heart. Even though I immediately pledged to myself after aborting my first child that no matter what, I would never have another abortion, this internal pledge did not help anything. I knew that I had murdered my first child at just ten weeks old.
A few days after the abortion, I told another friend, we can call her “C”, that I had an abortion a few days prior (she had no clue I had been pregnant up until this confession). At the time, I did not know if she was pro-abortion or anti-abortion. At the time, I couldn’t explain why I shared it with her, but looking back, I see that it was due to my mind weighing heavy. When I first told her that I had an abortion a few days prior, she thought I was joking. She was justified in thinking that I was joking, as it was common for me to tell crude jokes and pull crude pranks. After a few seconds, she realized that I was serious. She was so caught off guard that she didn’t know what to say, and our conversation moved on to another subject. The next day, I received a Facebook message from this friend’s mom. She explained to me that “C” had shared with her what I had told her. She said that if by some chance I had not gone through with the abortion, she could help me arrange an adoption for the child. She shared that she had put her first child up for adoption. But it was too late for this; I had already gone through with the abortion. Looking back, I may not have shared with “C” that I had been pregnant until after the abortion was over because deep down, I knew I may have heard something from her or her mom that may have changed my heart.
Thus, the next few years of my life were filled with more self-harm, suicidality, homicidal thoughts, promiscuity, lying, abuse, the occult, and utter chaos as I lived in willful sin. I hardened my heart because I knew the truth (God puts it in all of us), but hardening my heart was the way I could ensure I could deny it.
Roughly a year after I murdered my pre-born daughter and my first child. I was in an abusive relationship. One night my boyfriend assaulted me quite severely. I was visiting his home in a very rural area of the state late at night, and I did not have access to my cell phone because he had smashed it into pieces. I fled his house in my car and made it to the neighbor’s home a couple of miles away, where I began pounding on the front door. An older lady opened the door. She let me use her phone to call the police, but she stayed with me and comforted me as the cops came and left. In my pride, I refused to go to the hospital; thus, I had nowhere to stay for the night (as I could not drive home), and the cops suggested I sleep in my car. The older lady refused and insisted I sleep in her home for the night. As I entered the house, I sat on the sofa where I would sleep. The older woman had left the room to get me a pillow and some blankets. Sitting alone on the couch, I looked up, and the first thing I saw on the wall was a cross. I began crying uncontrollably. When the woman returned with the blankets and pillows, she sat with me and asked if she could pray for me. I agreed hesitantly, she prayed, and then we went to bed. We woke up the following day, I thanked her, left her home, and I never heard or saw from her again.
A few months later, I was still in the same abusive relationship. I was at work. I was an in-home caregiver, and I was working with a woman who was one hundred years old. Like many before, this time, she tried talking to me about the Bible, and as always, I would smile slightly at her but then swiftly change the subject. On this particular visit, she and I were sitting at her kitchen table. Then to me, out of what seemed like nowhere, she began talking about how her husband had been an alcoholic. She then looked right at me and said, ‘If a man is mistreating you, you need to leave’. I felt like a ton of bricks hit me because it felt like she was talking directly to me and knew exactly what my life consisted of when I had shared very little about my personal life with her. Shortly after that visit, she passed away.
About half a year later, I was working a new job. I was a hostess at a restaurant that was located inside a hotel in a popular tourist destination. An older couple approached the hostess’s desk to ask a question. After I answered their question, the gentleman handed me a Christian bible track before they continued on. I disliked the whole ‘Jesus thing” but was moved by their kindness.
While working this job as a hostess, I lived in a communal dormitory with hundreds of other workers—the vast majority of whom were living secular sinful lives, including myself. After a couple of weeks at my job, I met someone working there who ended up being unique as she was a devoted Catholic. She talked continually about her family and other positive subjects. At the time, I felt pretty confused and a little weirded out by her lifestyle, but we became close, became roommates, and spent much of our free time together. I was still participating in sinful behavior, but I knew there was something better about her lifestyle than mine, and in some ways, I began to step away from some sin in my life.
One day after work I returned to my dorm room. My roommate was in our room scrolling through FB on her laptop. I changed my clothes from the workday, I peered over at my roommate, who had now clicked on a video she had seen in her news feed. The video was a computer-generated video of a baby’s growth in the womb put out by a pro-life organization. This video sparked feelings I had worked so hard to forget.
Fast forward a year or so later. I met Blake, who is now my husband. When I met Blake, I was willingly basking in a sinful life. The night he picked me up for our first date, I was dressed in an all-black outfit and heavy makeup, with many piercings on my face, and the front right side of my head was shaved. My apartment was clocked with the sounds of the Alice Cooper radio show, the smell of essential oil candles, a poster of Marylin Monroe, crystals, and tarot cards.
About six months after we met, something significant happened inside of me. I knew I wanted something different; I wanted the truth, and what I had was not it, but at that time, I still did not know what it was. So, I shaved my head bald, took out all of my piercings, and threw out all my makeup. At the same time, I started college and was an A student for the first time in my life. I cannot confirm this, but this change inside of me occurred when a particular Christian you will read about in the following paragraph began praying for me.
About a year and a half later, at this time, Blake and I were living together, I was still in college but wanted to bring in some money for us. As the summer approached, I got the idea I could work at the factory my parents worked at for the summer. Blake and I were living about an hour and a half from my parents. The plan was to stay at my parent’s house Sunday night through Thursday that summer while I worked in the factory, drive home on weekends, and be with Blake. Even though this saddened my heart at the time because I would be away from Blake, I knew it was something I needed to do because of the high pay and the amount of money I could make for us in a short few months of time. As the summer began and I lived at my parent’s home during the week, I got up every morning, and my dad and I started having conversations. This was profound as my dad had been absent for many years, and this was the first time since I was little that anything like this was taking place.
Not far into the summer, my dad began bringing Jesus and Christianity into the conversations. At first, I was entirely against considering Christianity as anything other than a hopeful fairytale, but as the weeks went on, my heart began to change. My heart had changed through hours of long conversations and the example my earthly father set. In our discussions, he made rational and historical arguments for Christianity while providing ample evidence and detailed answers to my questions. But this was not what ultimately changed my heart. Don’t get me wrong, this played a crucial role, but the one thing that was the key ingredient in this was my dad’s actions and his life. Let me explain: For many years. From the time I was ten or eleven and beyond, my dad had been absent at best and abusive at worst. When I was in my late years of high school, things were at their worst, and I genuinely believe he would not have noticed or cared if one day I had just disappeared; he maybe would have even preferred it. Thus, my dad had gone from what I just described to someone who was (very willingly and wanted to) help pay for my college education, give me hugs, have hours-long conversations with me, and more; in short, he became a different person. There was no denying that the transformation I had seen could be anything but supernatural. God bluntly entered into my life once again through my earthly father. Later that summer, Christ got full hold of me. I publicly declared Jesus as my lord and savior.
That fall I attended a post-abortion Bible study. After the Bible study I felt convicted to get involved in the effort to stop abortion but as life speeded up that conviction was put on the back burner.
Fast forward a couple of years later. Blake and I had gotten married, moved to Minnesota, and I was working a well-paying desk job in the metro area. One day, while at work (in July), I received a phone call; my mom told me that my dad had committed suicide early that morning. Within a couple of months of my dad’s death, I lost my job (I mentally could not handle it). My mom broke contact with me because she stated that she wanted to finally be able to live her life the way she wanted to, and the few extended family members I had also broke contact with me. Even though my dad’s suicide was tragic and, at times, extremely difficult to live with, it was the factor that pushed me to become directly involved in the front lines of anti-abortion work because it reminded me how precious life is. Even though my mom and other family members had broken contact with me, and at times, this was very difficult to handle, it ultimately helped bring me closer to God because it made me lean on God as I had never before.
I am very blessed by what God has done for me. I know I will get to see and be with God and my daughter one day. All of the glory goes to God.
