S2 E3 Layers of healing in abortion in the later years with Jane Abbate

Jane Abbate joins us to talk about the healing layers of abortion in our later years of life. Jane is the author of Where do Broken Hearts Go, healing and hope after abortion and the host of My Mentor Jane Youtube channel.

The mission of Your Healing Place podcast is to address common concerns of how abortion healing and faith intersect in order to validate the emotional pain and grief that abortion can bring and give hope that recovery is possible.

Episodes are brief conversations centered around common concerns that are often discussed in abortion recovery groups. Each episode focuses on biblical truth as it is applied to healing the emotional wounds after having an abortion that will validate the often confusing emotional response and give credibility to the need for healing.



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Episode Transcript

(01:42):
You know, so it doesn't go away. And whether we've done a lot of healing, or like this lady had not done any, there still can be ongoing healing.
Yeah, yeah, it's amazing because we can, we can stuff things away and Jane, this is a part of your story. You kind of numbed everything out.

(02:03):
And you stuffed things to the point where you have forgotten details. And yet, there's a part of us that knows that something is missing and sometimes that doesn't present itself until later in life.
You know, I haven't had an 80 year old come through but I've definitely had women in their 50s and 60s that are just starting to really deal with the abortion experience for whatever reason it took them that long to get to that point.

(02:31):
For me, I think about these layers of healing. I always thought I was going to have kids I wanted kids.
But after three abortions and a failed marriage, I was at a point many years ago where that wasn't going to happen. So I don't have any living children and I've been through divorce.

(02:54):
Fast forward 1520 years, 20 years beyond that. There was so I had to come to grips with that. Then the next sort of threshold point for me was as I was talking to friends of mine who were talking about their kids and how they're getting married and how they're having

(03:16):
children. And I'm always the one at the table usually the only one at the table who has no children, no weddings to celebrate, no grandkids sport games to go to. And so it was another loss, the loss of a future generation.
Fast forward a few more years where I am now and it's occurring to me I turned 70. It's hitting me that I have a couple older sisters my husband's a little bit older than me. What if I'm going to die alone.

(03:48):
Now having kids doesn't mean that they're going to be there for you. However, there aren't any kids or grandkids or in laws, when I'm in my final years. And so there's a new loss, and even a new fear of what is missing because of my abortions.
Oh, gosh, I get that when I turn right around when I turn 50 so about 56 right now. It was during COVID and I remember just driving down the road and all of a sudden I've never been a kid person so Jane we heard in your story that you love children I was always awkward around

(04:25):
children still am so I'm not the one to volunteer and children's mysteries you know I didn't really have that I wanted to have kids but I didn't have a longing, you know, like for motherhood.
But in my 50s I realized, I'll start thinking about these grandchildren, like you said that I never meet the spouses I would never meet the friends of those kids I would never meet and just how empty my life was, because of the choices that I made for my three children.

(04:51):
And so, I'd like you, at first I, it was sort of a melancholy feeling that I had. And, and then I realized, after a couple weeks, what I was doing.
And I was I realized my body was taking me to a place my head logically didn't understand because I'm like what am I thinking, Oh, I know what I'm why not what I'm doing my body's morning a loss there's like these.

(05:15):
We are governed by times and seasons and, and milestones and ages and things and I've had the same fear that you've had it well, you know I have I have one daughter but you know what if she's not around.
You know what if she's unable to help and care for us then what you know.
And, and obviously, our life is in God's hands. God, God is in control of our lives and I trust my life to him, and I have to trust my future to him. And so when we lay those things down we can have rest in Jesus and not be worried and anxious and

(05:49):
we're not very fretful about our future but there is this layer of healing that we never think about when we're young, you know how our choices affect us when we're older.
And, and it's very real. It's very real.
It, that's exactly what came to my mind as I was sitting one day and thinking about this I'm going to be all by myself is no I'm not. And the only real security I have is knowing that I have the Lord, and that he is there for me, and he isn't going to leave me

(06:26):
because that in Scripture I will never leave you or forsake you. People will die. There'll be strained family relationships or distance, but the Lord, he never leaves us, and that is the comfort that I cling to and why I believe that you can
make a lot of healing from abortion. The most complete healing and hope after abortion is when you make the decision to follow and commit your life to Jesus. Absolutely.

(06:58):
I read your testimony earlier that you had gotten your initial healing through Rachel's vineyard retreats. And as you continued on and began to volunteer and, and be involved in those retreats that there was additional layers that happened even as you were
ministering to others. How would you describe those layers.

(07:21):
There were layers related to relationships, particularly my relationship with my mother.
And looking at how that relationship with her impacted me and being making the decision to have abortions.
And it was like, you know, in a way my mom was the bad guy so then I had to look at, well, wait a minute. There are some relationship issues with my dad that I haven't grieved the fact that he wasn't there for me he didn't help me to understand that I was a child of God and that I deserved

(07:58):
better than I was. Say again, you were treasured. Yeah.
So there were the relationships there was the part of confronting my own, my own sin.
You know, there was a long time where I was healing all these emotions, but I wasn't looking at my own real contribution to what had happened.

(08:27):
And, you know, later when you get married, well you were already married when you went through this healing but you had to mourn the loss of not being able to have children with him.
I went through that same process with my husband because we were never able to have kids those were all the kids I was going to have and I didn't know that at the time, but yeah when we got married we weren't able to have children so there was a morning there was kind of going through that

(08:50):
loss and working through that too because, of course, I started thinking, you know, the lies of the enemy that I deserve this this is my fault, you know, I don't deserve kid blah blah blah all those things that are really lies it was just that was the number
of children allotted to me and those were the choices I made for those children. And that was it. And it wasn't God punishing me further it was just the consequence of it.

(09:14):
You know, we don't know how many I know women who have abortions and go on to have lots of children. You know, so, for whatever reason that was not our story, and that's just the way it is, but we have to come to acceptance.
And I think as, as we get older, we look back at our life and we can get caught up in regrets. And I don't think it's a bad thing to have regrets I do have, I do regret that I chose abortion I regret a lot of things in my life.

(09:46):
However, because we have the hope of Jesus.
We know that a regret is different than a condemnation.
That doesn't mean it's hopeless. And so when I find myself and sometimes it'll happen it could be, you know, the cold weather that we're going through right now in the dark, you know, the lack of sunshine that I feel a little more down.

(10:09):
And so, because of realizing that sort of regret. I don't have to spiral out spiral down and sink into depression. And just because now I'm experiencing this new level of regret and sadness of, you know, maybe dying alone being alone, doesn't mean that I haven't been healed.

(10:32):
It doesn't mean that there's something wrong with me. Like you said, Mindy, we have these natural seasons, and this is the next. This is the next layer for me of a consequence.
And we can't escape the consequences, but we don't have to deal with that alone. Praise the Lord.
I think the layers could also be not just layers of the bad stuff, but layers of goodness. You know, as we grow in this, there's a as we've come to know our savior more.

(11:02):
You know, there's additional freedoms, layers of freedoms in our personalities as he transforms us to be like Christ.
And freedom, you know, always a huge step for people new layers being able to share their testimony with others and watch him, you know, bless other people through your testimony.
So I think the layers can also be the positive as we grow.

(11:26):
And that's a great point. I mean, layers of goodness that we, we don't look at we don't, we tend to discount because we have relationships that we wouldn't have had the three of us now I'm not not promoting abortion but had the three of us not had abortion we probably never would have connected and and built relationship and that's a beautiful thing.
So God took what was evil, and he turned it into something good.

(11:49):
And so I just want to close this little segment, because there are younger listeners listening that are fresh, newly, newly, maybe within two years of having an abortion or maybe 10 years and there's still a childbearing age you know wherever you're at in your journey.
I don't want this to sound discouraging that later on you're still going to struggle with this. It doesn't mean that we're not healed as Jane said it just means that these are some of the things that we have to go through and so when you get to that point and that happens, there's

(12:22):
a lot of people that are going to be gone with you right, and you can actually embrace that and say okay I'm just going through another really level level of grief. That's all that is, and I can now embrace this because after going through, you know these groups I have the tools then to, to look to
walk and hope and to not, not spiral downward into that dark cycle of shame and isolation so I hope that there's encouragement there that yes, or no you're not at the end of your journey, but it doesn't mean that you're not at the end of healing.

(12:56):
I think a journey and healing are can be two different things. So, anyway, thank you for today.
We'll talk later. Email: [e-mail] To learn more about the abortion recovery healing groups offered by An Even Place fill out the Interest Form at this site: https://anevenplace.com/interest-form/