All Episodes

May 19, 2024 17 mins

Dawn is a wife, grandma, and Christ-follower. No one could see the crushing shame and regret she still carried from an abortion she had as a teenager, but it touched nearly every area of her life. Until the moment she took a reluctant step of faith, and let God into the place in her heart she’d kept locked away.  

Donate to Moody Radio: http://moodyradio.org/donateto/podcast/snapshottestimony

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ally Domercant (00:00):
Welcome to the Snapshot Testimony podcast. I'm your host, Ally Domercant.
In this podcast, I ask my guests to share one
pivotal moment that helped shape their faith in Christ. In
this episode, you'll meet Dawn, a beautiful wife, mom and
grandma and a Christ follower. No one could see the
crushing shame and regret she carried from an abortion she

(00:20):
had as a teenager, but it touched nearly every area
of her life until the moment she took a reluctant
step of faith and let God into the place in
her heart that she'd kept locked away for so long.
I pray you'll listen to this episode with an open heart,
especially if you're living under your own weight of shame
and wonder if it's possible to ever be free from it.

(00:40):
Here's a snapshot testimony from Dawn.
Tell me what was going on in your life in
your teenage years?

Dawn (00:52):
Well, in my teenage years. Let's see. I was dating
this boy who I thought I was in love with.
You know, that kind of thing at 16. And we
were together for almost a year having sex. I was
not a Christian at this time and wound up pregnant. Um,

(01:12):
there was a lot of abuse in my home, so
I was looking at it as, yay, I can get
out of my house. Um, I'm going to have a baby,
and he's going to love me in the baby. And
that was not the case whatsoever.

Ally Domercant (01:26):
So your initial reaction was excitement about about getting pregnant? Yes. Okay.

Dawn (01:32):
I thought it was a way of escape from my
home because of the abuse and everything that was happening.
I found it, thought it would be a new start
for me. Um. And I thought he would be my
rescuer and get me out of there and we would
just live happily ever after.

Ally Domercant (01:51):
And that's not not what happened.

Dawn (01:53):
Not at all.

Ally Domercant (01:54):
When did things start to shift from excitement to. Something else.

Dawn (02:01):
I told him, and he wasn't as excited about it
as I was. He was an Italian Catholic and thought
that his family would just kick him out and not
be happy, and we would bring disgrace to him and
his family. And then we decided to tell my parents,
and that didn't go over very well either. It was

(02:25):
disgrace brought upon my family. How dare 16 year old
wind up pregnant? Um, and so it was really my
parents were the pushing drive to get the abortion.

Ally Domercant (02:39):
How did they tell you that? Just that. Frank, we
think you need to do this or. Yes. What? What
it was like.

Dawn (02:46):
It was not a very good conversation. It was basically
this is what you're going to do because we cannot
have anybody in our family, any of our friends find
out that you're pregnant. And so it was actually my
mom and my boyfriend that drove me to the abortion clinic.

Ally Domercant (03:05):
Did you get to the point before the procedure that you.
Wanted it. Did you or did you go all the
way through it thinking, I don't want to do this?

Dawn (03:19):
I tried fighting it. I tried asking them to let
me save the baby. And they were like, no. I
had three people against me and I just felt so alone.
And basically my mom and boyfriend dropped me off at
the abortion clinic. I was alone. And I even woke

(03:42):
up during the abortion and I could hear the vacuum
and it was just so traumatic. And then after. I'm sorry. Afterwards,
they picked me up and it was never talked about.
My family never brought it up. I was so angry

(04:03):
at my boyfriend that within a week I couldn't even
stand his face. So I broke up with him. And
my parents never took me to counseling, never discussed it.
And so I was into drinking at um, 16 and
for the next few years got into drinking and drugs.

(04:25):
I think it was my way of hiding the pain
and not feeling things, but numbing. Yeah.

Ally Domercant (04:35):
Did you think about the baby often?

Dawn (04:40):
For the first few years I didn't, but what wound
up happening is at 19, I wound up pregnant again,
this time with my now husband. We've been together since
high school. Um, but after I had my first child,
when she turned a year, it started to hit me.

(05:00):
Oh man, my baby would have been four this year.
And so each year upon her birthday, I would think
about how old that baby would have been. And this year.
That child would have been 40. And the problem that
I was facing was my husband knew about the abortion,

(05:23):
but we never talked about it. I got saved at 21,
and even though the Lord saved me and forgave me
for all my other sins, that was the one sin
that I thought he would never forgive me for. And
so I just stuffed it down. And each year. Around

(05:45):
my daughter's birthday, I would just cry myself to sleep
for a week because I was in so much pain
thinking that I did what I did to that baby.
And how old they would have been. And you know Ali.
Once I had grandchildren. That's when it really hit me

(06:06):
that I like. Got rid of generations like I love
my four grandchildren so much. And to think that I
could have had more grandchildren. And I, I prevented that.
So I lived with that for 38 years, up until

(06:29):
two years ago, when the Lord set me free from
the shackles of shame and regret.

Ally Domercant (06:37):
Did anyone? Did you ever share with anyone how heavy
a burden you were carrying because of this?

Dawn (06:44):
My husband knew, but. He didn't know how to help me. Yeah.
We had gone through marriage counseling and we never brought
it up. And. After I became a Christian and raised
my children, they I had told them that they have
an older sibling that died. They knew about the abortion. Um.

(07:13):
And there was so much shame there too. Just telling
your children that they had an older sibling that is
no more. That was hard. Yeah.

Ally Domercant (07:26):
What did the Lord do in your life two years ago? Because,
I mean, the enemy is so good at. Keeping us
hiding and at making us believe lies. I mean, the
as you were believing the lie that God could never
forgive this one, that the price paid on the cross

(07:48):
for all sins doesn't cover this one. And so that
lie that just rattled around in your mind and caused
so much pain and shame for so many years, you
know that the enemy is just so cruel. How did
the Lord release you from that and help you see
the truth?

Dawn (08:08):
Well, I told you I had abuse in my past.
So I've been in trauma counseling with a Christian counselor,
and we were working through the trauma and the one day.
The abortion came out and she said, oh, we have
to work on this. She goes, you are not free
from any guilt or shame. She goes, you're holding that. So.

(08:32):
Tightly and in such a private spot she goes, you
have to let Jesus in there. Mhm. I was like mhm.
That's one spot I do not want Jesus to see.

Ally Domercant (08:42):
Had anyone ever told you that before? Like, kind of
like pressed you to like. Let's go there.

Dawn (08:50):
No, no, I wouldn't. Even if they did tell me,
I think I would have not gone there anyway. But
because of the healing that he was already doing in
my trauma. Yeah, that this was just one more step
for complete healing. Okay.

Ally Domercant (09:09):
And what would that look like when she when she
was like, okay, we're going to do this. What did
it look like?

Dawn (09:17):
I was scared, but I'm a very visual person, so.
And she knows that. So she would have me close
my eyes. And she had me picture Jesus standing in
front of me with his hands stretched out, asking me
to turn that over. And I'll be honest, three times

(09:38):
I kept saying, no, I can't go there. I can't
give that to you. It's just so dirty and so dark.
I can't let you see it. And he just looked
at me and said, one more time, you need to
give this to me. Otherwise you will not have healing.
You will not be free. And I paid the price

(10:00):
to set you free. And so the vision was me
holding a like an hourglass full of sand. And each
sand represented my tears and the pain and the heartbreak.
And he just held out his hands and he said,
pour it. And so I trusted him, and I poured

(10:24):
it in. The holes in his hands opened up, and
the sand went through and hit the ground and disappeared.
And after I was done. Pouring all that sand. He
said to me, daughter. Your faith has healed you. So

(10:46):
from Mark five, where he talks to the girl that
was bleeding all those years. Yeah. And he said, you're
suffering is no more. And it was like instant healing
and instant freeness. I just felt like it was off
my shoulders and I could breathe.

(11:08):
I could breathe. Wow.

Ally Domercant (11:13):
Did you tell anyone?

Dawn (11:15):
Oh my gosh. I told everyone I could after that.
my therapist and I just cried. And I told my
husband and I told my kids, and can I just
tell you a little side note going along with this story?
I am a nurse and I have worked at a

(11:37):
hospital for 15 years. And again, this is right after Covid.
And so I had thought about quitting nursing, but I
was praying at the same time, going through this trauma therapy,
that the Lord would lead me to a ministry in nursing.
And I really, honestly thought it was going to be

(11:57):
with the homeless people because that's where I thought my
heart was. And I prayed and prayed and prayed. And,
you know, two days after this healing session, the Lord
I he said to me, I want you to work
for a crisis pregnancy center. It was like what? What

(12:18):
do you mean? And also, I am a women's Bible
study co-leader, and my co-leader is the executive administrator of
our church. And her and I were meeting the next
day for lunch. And so we're sitting there and she says, Don,
she goes, this came across the church fax this morning.

(12:38):
And the Lord told me, I need to give this
to you. I'm like, okay. She handed it to me.
It was a job opening for a nurse stenographer for
a crisis pregnancy center. And I work there as of
today and have been for almost two years now.

Ally Domercant (12:57):
Wow.

Dawn (12:58):
So I get to work with women who are contemplating
having abortions, and I have shared my story with a
couple of them. I don't, you know, I'm not there
to manipulate. I'm there to just give their options and
show them their baby. But the Lord has really blessed
me through that. And I get to pray for these women,

(13:19):
you know, to help them with their decisions or to
help them just make the right decision. And they all
don't make the right decision. But I feel so blessed
and honored to be able to pray for them and
just wish maybe there would have been one person who
could have prayed for me back when I was 16. Mhm.

Ally Domercant (13:44):
Your story is incredible and it's such a powerful testimony.
The flip side, and I'm sure this is not lost
on you. Is that because of the contentiousness of this issue? Politically,
there are people who will not like your story. Right, right. Mhm.

(14:06):
What do you think is missing from the conversation, the
conversations that you hear surrounding this issue?

Dawn (14:15):
I see the biggest missing thing is one out of
four women in church have had an abortion. And that
affects one out of four men as well. And I
don't think it's talked about enough in the church. Mm. Um,
I think there needs to be an awareness of options
for women. Like, one of the biggest stumbling blocks for

(14:37):
me is when we talk about the options of parenting
adoption with these women. They they have such a stigma
about adoption that it's they'd rather do the abortion than
put their baby up for adoption. So I think as
a church, we need to do better. A talking about

(14:59):
these issues in the church and supporting these women who
are sitting in the pews for 40 years with pain.
A shame, thinking that the Lord will not forgive them,
when indeed he will and has.

Ally Domercant (15:19):
How would you? What does freedom feel like now, after
so many years of, of of carrying this, of, of
it always being, you know, just kind of tucked away,
maybe not top of mind, but always there. What does
freedom feel like?

Dawn (15:35):
Oh my gosh, it is so light. Like I was
just telling you my child would have been 40 this
year back in the day. If I would have said that,
I would have just felt so heavy and so burdened.
Now I'm like, you know what? The Lord has had
my child for the last 40 years, and I will
see that child again someday, and it'll be a good reunion.

(15:59):
But it's freedom. It's really light.

Ally Domercant (16:02):
So what would you say to the woman who's listening? Who? Maybe.
Doesn't have that freedom yet and is still carrying around
a lot of shame. Maybe she's. In church. Maybe she
doesn't know the Lord. What would you say.

Dawn (16:19):
For the ones that are in church and know the Lord? Please. Just.
Put your trust in him, that he does still love
you and that he does forgive you. And even for
the woman who's not in church or may not be
a Christian. That pain that you're feeling can be released.

(16:41):
It can be freed if you would just. Go to
that spot and let the Lord just take that pain
for you. Without that freedom, it just you feel like
you're stuck under a rock or a boulder and you
just can't push it up.
And then.

(17:02):
When you finally do have that boulder lifted off, it's
such a freedom.

S5 (17:07):
That's just so beautiful. And you.

Ally Domercant (17:10):
I'm so grateful that the Lord revealed to you the truth.

Dawn (17:15):
Me too.

Ally Domercant (17:16):
Because there's so many. I think this applies to a
lot of different areas even is I think obviously abortion
is a big one, but I think a lot of
us have things that feel kind of untouchable. Mhm. You know,
that are like you're free in all these other areas but.
But this little corner.
And so I think that this, this principle applies to.

(17:40):
More people than. We've and might realize Snapshot Testimony is
a moody radio podcast. I'm your host, Ally Domercant, and
together we're sharing the moments that shape a life of
faith in Christ. Thanks for listening.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.