Redemptive love and healing after abortion

Join Mark as he hosts an insightful discussion on the Denison Forum podcast about living a faith-guided life amidst the tragedies of our world. This episode features Laura Hughes and Arica Henry, who share their compelling journeys of recovery and restoration after abortion through God’s grace. They introduce their new resource, Redemptive Love, A Journey of Restoration after Abortion, which combines biblical truth and therapeutic tools to help post-abortive women and men find healing. Hear inspiring stories from participants, learn about the impact of unaddressed abortion grief in the church, and discover how churches can better support those affected. This conversation offers hope, encouragement, and practical steps toward a reclaimed life filled with God’s love and grace.

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Topics

• (00:28): The impact of abortion and God’s grace
• (01:21): Introducing Laura Hughes and Arica Henry
• (02:09): A Movement of Love Ministry
• (05:04): The prevalence of abortion in the Church
• (08:30): Arica’s personal story of abortion and recovery
• (12:25): The healing process and group support
• (38:03): The role of men in abortion stories
• (41:41): Encouragement for pastors and church leaders
• (49:20): Closing thoughts and words of hope

Resources

• Redemptive Love, A Journey of Restoration after Abortion
• Choose Zoe, A Story of UnPlanned Parenthood
• The Case for Life
• What does the Bible say about abortion?
• Abortions have increased in states with rigid bans
• Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade: My immediate response
• ¿Qué dice la Biblia sobre el aborto? • Denison Forum
• Six vital questions about abortion • Denison Forum
• Why the pro-life movement seems to be losing
• The role of politics in protecting the sanctity of life
• Why we must choose life

About Arica Henry

​​Arica Henry is the author of Redemptive Love, A Journey of Restoration after Abortion. She is a dedicated Child Welfare Social Worker in Solano County with a BA in Psychology. She brings her personal experiences and professional knowledge of trauma and mental health to her role in supporting women’s restoration after abortion. Arica’s commitment to Celebrate Recovery and her integration of faith and therapeutic tools lead to a comprehensive approach to wellness and recovery. As a speaker and advocate for Celebrate Recovery Meetings, charitable events, church and community fairs, she passionately seeks to facilitate healing and recovery. Arica is a mother of four and a loving grandmother, residing in sunny Northern California.

About Laura Lynn Hughes

​​Laura Lynn Hughes is a Sanctity of Human Life advocate, speaker, and author. She is a board member and volunteer at Alpha Clinic and CURE USA, and co-founder of A Movement of Love ministry. Represented by Ambassador Speakers, she teaches nationally and internationally at PRCs, churches, schools and conferences on topics related to pregnancy, human trafficking, on-line sexual exploitation of children, and post-abortion recovery.  A mother of five, Grammie of twelve, and Gigi to one great-grandchild, she owns a photography studio, Images by Hughes, in northern California. Laura is the author of Choose Zoe, A Story of UnPlanned Parenthood and The Case for Life, and Redemptive Love, A Journey of Restoration after Abortion. She has appeared on the Eric Metaxas show, Focus on the Family and the 700 Club.

About Dr. Mark Turman

Dr. Mark Turman is the Executive Director of Denison Forum and Vice President of Denison Ministries. Among his many duties, Turman is most notably the host of The Denison Forum Podcast. He is also the chief strategist for DF Pastors, which equips pastors and church leaders to understand and transform today’s culture.

About Denison Forum

Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, The Denison Forum Podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited. 

[00:00:00] Dr. Mark Turman: Welcome back to the Denison Forum podcast. I’m Mark, your host for today’s conversation, and we’re going to try to help you to be more equipped to think, live and serve in a way that is guided by faith and not driven by fear. What the Bible calls faith, hope and love. Now we know that. The Bible also warns us and tells us that Satan and sin come to steal, kill and destroy.

And we want to talk today about how we can really live holy and hope filled lives, particularly after the tragedy of abortion. And my hope is, is that you’ll stay with us for this conversation. And I think you’ll learn a lot about the journey. Past abortion and how God can bring amazing grace and recovery.

One of the great theologians of the previous hundred years was a guy named TB Mastin. I got to meet him when he was very much in the senior season of his life. He visited a class that I was a part of. One of the things that I remember Dr. Mastin saying was the road of God’s grace is always wider than we realize and is something we obviously need in a very big way.

And that includes people that have experienced the tragedy of abortion. And so we’re going to talk today about what recovery and restoration through God’s grace looks like and my conversation partners today. Our Laura Hughes, who is an author and advocate, a photographer and very passionate ambassador for the sanctity of life and hope and her daughter, Erica Henry, who is also very passionate about the sanctity of life.

She has served as a social worker, a community activist. A school counselor, and they have a very compelling story as well as a very useful, helpful resource that has been released just a couple of weeks ago about abortion recovery and restoration. So good morning, Laura, Erica, say hello. We’re glad to have you.

[00:02:07] Arica Henry: Good morning. Hi, Mark. Thank you. 

[00:02:09] Dr. Mark Turman: We are super glad to have a conversation with you guys, and so grateful that you’re open and willing to kind of talk about this from your own journey and how that journey is being redeemed by God for even greater restoration ministry and recovery for those that have been victimized in many ways by this journey of And Laura, help us to get started this morning about introducing us to what is called or what you’re calling a movement of love ministry and also this new resource called redemptive.

The redemptive love study. Talk to us about that. 

[00:02:44] Laura Lynn Hughes: Yeah. Thank you so much for this opportunity. A moment of love was laid on my pastor’s heart when they went to the prayer breakfast in 2012. Eric Metaxas was speaking and he said that if He ever got a chance, he was going to speak about abortion because he had seen Mother Teresa speak when he was younger and my pastor’s wife said, you could have heard a pin drop and she came back to her hotel and she was just praying we’re all advocates for pregnancy clinics. We’ve been involved for decades, but she said, God, what are you saying to me right now? What are you asking me to do? And she felt like the Holy Spirit said, I want you to help the women who have had abortions to heal. And so she came back and she’s a coauthor with me as well, Joan West, and we’re the co founders of a movement of love.

So since 2012, we have been leading groups. to find restoration after abortion study groups. And we really feel like healing belongs in the church in the pregnancy clinics, they have a hard time finding someone to lead the groups all the time. And it’s usually one on one and there’s such power in numbers when women come in a small group setting.

And so we are trying to bring healing into the church where the women can be further discipled. And it’s just been amazing to see. And so during COVID, when all of our jobs were absent and we couldn’t lead a group, we decided to write our own study. And it’s just filled with wonderful tools. Obviously, it’s the Scripture and the Holy Spirit.

spirit that truly heals. There’s no full healing apart from Christ. And with my daughter, Erica, as you’ll hear, she brought in the psychological aspects and we have women’s personal stories as well as stories that are in the gospel. And Jesus always loved the women of the gospel. And he still does today.

And abortion, it definitely stills life. But we found that healing can help the women to reclaim their life. 

[00:05:00] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, such a needed thing. Can you Laura, give us a little bit of a framework? This is one of the things I learned a good bit ago, but it was really astounding to me to realize that those women and men that are post abortive there are so many of them that are sitting in our churches.

But we probably don’t know it. We probably don’t realize it. One of my friends has a very profound story about he wanted to preach about the importance of the sanctity of life and the tragedy of abortion. And he did so as a young pastor in when he got through, he had someone stop him in the hallway and say, you do realize that there are many women, many people sitting in your church who have walked this road and they’re being silent.

Can you help? Let’s understand that, that this is not something outside the church, but it’s a reality inside the church as well. 

[00:05:53] Laura Lynn Hughes: It is inside the church. One in four women have experienced abortion in the U. S. And out of those, 70 percent were going to church at the time of their first abortion. Wow.

Our experience because we do speak about life and we do speak about abortion healing in our church It’s total proof. They’re sitting in our pews it’s important even to go into the staff some staff have an abortion in their background where maybe a pastor or one of the Sound guys have you know paid for an abortion in the past And same with the women there are women who are volunteering and Even in the pregnancy clinics, you know, like I think about a third of the women serving in pregnancy clinics have had abortions.

And so those women’s voices are the ones I believe that are going to change the, the feelings that people have in the church because when they are, when their silence is broken. Then they’re able to step into their healing and then they’re not silent about it anymore. But we have had many women come in our own church who have been sitting in the pews for decades.

We just had a book signing for our study, Redemptive Love, and one lady that came up to us said, My abortion was 50 years ago. So we’ve served women from 20 to in their 70s, and they are in all walks of life. They are lawyers, they are social workers, they are children’s workers. It crosses every generational line and every ethnic and every social guideline that there is.

They’re in our church, sitting in our pews, unaddressed. 

[00:07:43] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. And, and in many ways suffering. Yeah. And, and as you said, suffering and suffering in silence. Mm-hmm . And you know, and there’s this so important as we think about, pray about and look for ways to be just advocates. As and as y’all are ambassadors for the sanctity of life.

Obviously we wanna prevent abortion and other Yes. Other things that are attacking life, but we also want to help people recover. In the grace of God. And, and, you know, we should not be surprised 55 years later after our country embrace Roe v. Wade that we have this many people walking around as victims and as people suffering and in need of recovery.

and restoration. And I think that’s just a really important thing to call out. Erica, tell us a little bit about your story and your involvement in helping people to recover from the, from this tragedy of abortion. 

[00:08:41] Arica Henry: Sure. My story really begins with the secret that I didn’t really have plans of surrendering.

I had a secret abortion when I was 17. And at that time in my life I was just kind of rebellious in high school. And my dad wasn’t super active at the time in my life after my parents divorced before junior high. And I just was kind of reeling. And so when I made the decision, I came from a pro life background where I knew my grandmother worked at pregnancy centers.

My mother was a teen mom. And my grandparents, I knew the whole story that my grandparents encouraged her to life, but encouraged her to pray about what was the best choice to parent me or to adopt me. And so I, I did live an adopted life in terms of my biological father wasn’t involved much and my mom, my mom’s first husband legally adopted me.

And I don’t even refer to him as my adoptive father because that’s how much he engrafted me and I grew to know a secure father figure. But divorce damages families too. So I was acting out, I think, of that pain and found myself pregnant and like most women or younger girls who have abortions, where 95 percent of abortions are elective procedures.

It’s not due to the statistics and the propaganda that’s used. to coerce society into believing that abortion is absolutely necessary due to instances such as rape, incest, medical necessity all of that is, is usual, used to manipulate the argument for abortion. But like myself, I or like many others, I didn’t want to make that decision.

And I, I don’t think many women, whether they actively are pro life, feel good. about knowing they’re going to terminate a pregnancy. And it’s a very difficult decision, no matter how you were raised. And in my moral fiber, I knew it was wrong. I didn’t feel it was respectable. I didn’t feel that it was morally right or just, but fear is what propelled me.

Fear for my future. And I I cried for a whole week before the appointment, and I never thought I’d speak of it again. And then later in life, I ended up very motivated to make up for that decision. I’m gonna get a career, I’m gonna have an intact family, and little to my conscious understanding that abortion was driving my need for perfection and success.

And so I grew up seeing service, so I naturally was inclined to want to give back and I ended up working in multiple service sectors. But it wasn’t until I had my own family conflict, marital strife, the stress of raising three kids that I got into recovery for myself. And even some counseling, and I thought, okay, I’m learning to live a better connected life.

I grew in my faith in my twenties substantially. I was a baby Christian as a teenager, you know, in my walk with the Lord and I had that fire extinguisher relationship. So I kind of just prayed and I, I’ve, I’ve heard other women say they prayed if, if they made this decision to abort, like they would never do it again.

You know? And so I had a lot of vows functioning in my life, and it was through recovery that I learned a more intimate love the Father had towards me, but I struggled really believing, believing that because of this stain of abortion. And I, I grew to learn that our, our church had a recovery ministry, and I was already actively involved in recovery for four years through Celebrate Recovery.

And then when I, when I, got involved through a movement of love, there was a different level of revelation that the scriptures had for my life when I applied it specifically to abortion. And it was so freeing. I, I felt like for years I couldn’t, Not only go before family, like my own mom who would have allowed me and encouraged me to life during my teen years, that teen pregnancy, I couldn’t even go before anybody, including God with that brokenness because I felt like I’d be too broken, I’d be too broken and I couldn’t understand how I’d recover.

And walking through this ministry, I just had so much revelation of the word of God, the significance of his love for, for me specifically. And that just, it brought in a degree of healing and restoration because what abortion does to women, they partner with destruction. And it brings destruction to their life, and they either live out of that brokenness or trying to make up for it or conceal it.

And it ends up a stronghold in their life, and it’s continually, either subtly or very overtly attacking them. And so women need, post abortive women need a deep, deep healing for their soul. 

[00:13:44] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, that’s, you know, it’s just been one of the most phenomenal things that I’ve learned in being involved in pro life ministry.

You know, spiritually, somebody shared this with me a couple of years ago that, you know, the devil works both at the front door and the back door of the abortion decision. That he lies to us and says, it’s not a big deal. This is not a baby. This is not a life. And this is no big deal. And this is the best thing you can do for yourself.

And then when a woman makes that decision, he meets her at the exit door and then starts to accuse her and, and condemn her for killing the life of her child. 

Absolutely. 

[00:14:21] Dr. Mark Turman: Erica, let me, let me ask a few questions of, of clarity if I could, about your story. How long did you keep your secret? 

[00:14:30] Arica Henry: Like most women, it’s decades.

So when I was 28, I found out about our pregnancy centers and I thought, Oh, I’d love to give back in that capacity. So my abortion was at 17 and at 28, I went to a training and they’re, Oh, if you’re post abortive, you need to get healing. Of course, right? You need to be whole before you can kind of give back.

And so I. Tried and tried again as we talked about there being limited options sometimes with the staffing at pregnancy centers It was only offered on a particular day of the week. I was never available for two years So after that two years I said I’m gonna go through these activities and I started answering these questions for my own my own Just readiness.

And, and I later ended up sharing that information with my mom almost 10 years later, but it wasn’t till I was 36 that I participated in my first post abortive study. And literally now I’m 47. So my abortion was 30 years ago. And I, the, each time I went through I’ve gone taken other women. I started co facilitating and then facilitating the studies in about 20.

It was 2015 was my first study, and then I immediately got involved in the ministry. And it’s amazing to watch the transformation that happens in these women’s lives, but it’s often decades before they’re ever bringing this forward. And I found that each time I walked these ladies through, the freer I got, you know, when you can say unashamed what has happened As a fact, and yet have such radical convincing that God has done something with all of those broken pieces and put them together and used it to, to speak to other women, to give them the courage and the belief and the hope that God can bring resolution.

He doesn’t just heal the pain of the abortion experience. He, he brings. closure to the relationships that were damaged because there’s so much relational fallout, be it from the parents or the, or the significant other coercing the women, be it, I didn’t tell anybody, I didn’t give anybody a voice and how dare I do that to the father or the other relatives that are connected to that child, you know?

So yes, God heals a lot of things from that whole time period in women’s lives, which when they’re free, they’re. more fulfilled as an individual, their relationship in Christ just blossoms. How they show up at work and in their homes and in their community, that aspect of Healed Women Heal Women is just so profound.

[00:17:10] Dr. Mark Turman: How much of this, Erica, how much did your, in your season of silence, how much have you learned that your, your brokenness Was really driving you from kind of a subconscious level rather than I guess. Yes. My question is how much in the season of your silence was the trauma of abortion? Top of mind. How much of it was really more under the surface kind of driving various issues?

Thought processes and behaviors. 

[00:17:40] Arica Henry: I think for myself it was very subdued I have experience from leading women through that have had very tumultuous lives from the point of their abortion From multiple abortions to abusive relationships to addiction like a whole spiraling of events for myself As I said, I think I used it as a catalyst to propel me to better choices But because it was based in a vow Not in God’s word, but a vow that I had to make up for this when success was thwarted because of performance challenges, mistakes at work, my children’s misbehavior, disagreements in my marriage, all of that was hard for me to receive because my life needed to be succinct.

My life, things needed to line up. I couldn’t fail at work. I couldn’t fail in relationship. And so it was something that it was a stronghold that kept me bound to you’re not making up, you’re not doing good enough. And so it subtly attacked me in a lot of ways. And I found that even my first child, when I was pregnant, I just remember thinking, Oh my gosh, I’m pregnant.

Like after I had him, I remember laying on the table thinking, I’m a mom. I just kept saying, I’m a mom now. And I know that’s a natural transition for women. But I was lacking the joy part of it. I was like, Why aren’t I crying? Why aren’t I, why aren’t I having this moment? And really it was the guilt that some women have.

Like, why this pregnancy and not the other? 

[00:19:15] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, I really, yeah, I would love for y’all to kind of unpack that because that’s really actually kind of a thought process. I haven’t, even had until this moment, which is if you have an abortion at particularly an early season of your life, as often this happens right in teenage and college years, not limited to that, but often in that season between 15 and 25, roughly.

What is it like when, if later in life you become a mom, either of you, both of you talk about how that, how does that, tend to work out in people in women’s lives when they end up becoming a mom later on. 

[00:19:55] Laura Lynn Hughes: I can say that we had a young lady in a class recently and she’s a young mom with three littles and her first words out of her mouth were I struggle.

Am I a good mom or, you know, and she’s a stay at home mom. I’m sure she’s a great mom, but that’s what she struggles with. And so our prayer for her is that we’re going to help her work through that, where she can settle. The abortion experience and embrace motherhood and being a good mom. I told her kids are real little right now.

And so she’s got time. They’re not noticing if she’s feeling like she’s failing, they’re not noticing at this young age. And just because she’s aware of it. Shows me that she’s a good mom. We also have several women who have never had a child and that’s another aspect. You know, we, we had one woman, she had four abortions and four miscarriages.

And she was just like, she needed to know. That those kids are with God. She needed to know something about them. She needed to know, and the Holy Spirit was so beautiful with her, and so personal as he is with each woman in the class. When we had a memorial at the end she was able to find out God showed her who, each of her children were, their gender, their hair color, their eye color, whether they were artistic like her, or loved math.

And we released butterflies, and so she released eight butterflies. at the memorial and around the pond and they all fell on the flowers and they stayed there for a little bit. Like they didn’t just fly away. And this was really special because she is also a photographer and she takes pictures of flowers and makes them as greeting cards for people.

And sometimes they would have a butterfly on it. And so God. Made her feel like she’s seen she’s loved He’s heard her through this process and that those children the ones who aborted and the ones who miscarried are safe with her But many women are like that was my only chance to ever have a child, you know, some people aborted one child 

[00:22:17] Arica Henry: Yeah, one of the participants that stands out to me most, too, was that who had a medical issue and had to have a hysterectomy, so the only child she had been pregnant with was through abortion.

And when she came to the class, she’s actually a became a dear friend of mine. And I, she spontaneously told me her story one time. She said, I planned on taking that to the grave. I had no intent on telling anyone ever. I have no idea why I told you. And so I continue to invite her gently, gently each season that we have these Studies happening and she came this last, you know, year ago and had said, I just thought I’d show up because Erica invited me, you know, and I didn’t plan to stay.

I came thinking a couple classes and then I’m hearing the women divulge their stories and Where these women lack compassion for themselves, they end up finding deep compassion for their neighbor sitting beside them. And these groups grow so cohesively and only as the Holy Spirit can do, you know, whether they’re new in faith or have a solid faith.

And she kept finally around the fifth, sixth class. We knew she was there for herself and she just couldn’t believe, couldn’t believe that God was giving her these revelations and that she could be whole and healed. And she does a lot with women and is involved with, you know, victims of sexual assault and things.

And by the end of it, she goes, now I know anything’s possible, anything’s possible because she just had such a reluctance that this issue might come up unexpectedly in her life that it wasn’t affecting her in her own ministry. To say that women are suffering it’s sometimes very subtle, but it’s affecting them.

I, I also would say I really struggled in some capacity being emotionally available. I was a great mom with tasks and, you know, ushering them to sports and, but to just sit and be present with my kids, I struggled. And I wasn’t really even aware of that until they were all in elementary school age. And I was like, I’m not fully present.

And so I grew thankfully in their teen years to be more conscious of how else I could show up as a mom and, and the greater freedom I got, the more I could be transparent in a lot of relationships. There was no nothing to keep under wraps anymore. That’s, that’s the freedom. 

[00:24:43] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah, sounds that experience that probably all of us have at some point of sensing that we’re being emotionally numb when, you know, you, you start finding yourself in in places like I should be celebrating at the top of my lungs right now, but I’m not, or I, or I should really be upset or broken or sad about, you know, this situation that I’m in.

I’ve encountered and then you find out you’re not and you know, I know in my own journey at different times, a sense of emotional numbness. Is a signal of some kind that you need to play it pay attention to right? 

Yeah 

[00:25:17] Dr. Mark Turman: Talk about you guys talk about the uniqueness of this study that you’ve put together tell us a little bit about some of the details if somebody’s listening to this and they’re thinking You know, I probably need to be in that Or they know somebody that they care about deeply and they’re like, you know this This is probably what somebody I know needs to be a part of.

Tell us a little bit about what they will experience, how you combine biblical truth and other tools of therapeutic work. How does that look? What is it like to be in a session around this study? 

[00:25:53] Arica Henry: I’ll start us off. I, I think that the most impactful thing, whether they’re a new believer or Really well versed in scripture is that we have strategically chosen scripture that is kind of woven and repeated and the Ultimate theme is that you are going to encounter God’s love this entire time and in that process He’s going to address your abortion pain and maybe several other things connected to that time period in your life the presentation of each chapter is First, an invitation is the first chapter that we go through with the women to really let them know that this is God’s movement towards them and He has an intentional plan for them.

And then we move into so scriptures are used throughout maybe different types of things like underlining, reading a passage that sticks out to you. We additionally have those biblical stories to build upon meaning and understanding of scripture. And then, Okay, great. tons of testimonial stories. We have citations in there from Abort 73, which are separate stories of abortion experience and kind of the trauma that women may not have ever been able to articulate.

So for a woman who’s never talked about this, they can hear and things are going to resonate like they’re not going to feel alone. And we try to really dismantle that part of the fear of no one would understand and you’re not alone in this. And then secondarily, we have I Am One stories, which are testimonials from past participants.

And those are the stories that really also integrate more of how God transformed things. The tools that we implement are a series of things that Identify what we would know to be core beliefs and automatic thoughts. We, we utilize an emotional wheel to help the women practice identifying what feeling is at play.

And the more in tune we can get with our feelings of that period of time or during that event, we can kind of connect the thoughts that are unhealthy, that are motivating us to either stuff this feel anger, feel, Shame, and then we invite them throughout to continue to assess what their unhealthy stinking thinking is so that they can replace those thoughts and those lies and break down what those unhealthy core beliefs are with the Word of God.

And that also incorporates I am one in Christ using scriptures to meditate on. We focus on Psalms 103 and Psalms 139 to really understand who God says they are and what his intentions are towards them. And we address anger and have activities to understand what, how does anger look like and present itself in your life.

The memorials, there’s a lot of closure activities for what can you do, not just To say, you know, God has forgiven you, but what does God say about that child? How can you be reconciled to that child? And that’s where a lot of women do get a sense of who the child is and they can honor them. Because they want to be able to reconcile the loss and integrate the loss into their life so that they can take ownership for that individual child or multiple children as part of their family and not have to continue to deny them and deny that experience.

[00:29:28] Dr. Mark Turman: Even that Erica, even just that phrase, that idea of reconciling to that child is a really a profound thought, in my opinion. 

[00:29:37] Arica Henry: It absolutely is. 

[00:29:38] Dr. Mark Turman: Never heard anybody quite put it that way of just what, what does it mean for a woman? For a mother to reconcile herself to that child. And Laura, I was wondering, I had, I had a really good counselor friend who was helping me with somebody in my church years ago.

And I went to the initial meeting that my church member had with this counselor. Never forget what the counselor said. He looked at my friend in the eye and said, the degree to which you’re willing to be honest is the degree to which you’re going to get healed. That you’re gonna get better. Talk to us a little bit, kind of build on what Erica was saying about reconciling to this child, just this process of understanding the grief and how you can actually process that in God’s grace and forgiveness, but also in, as you already alluded to, kind of a sense of hope.

That there is a future here not only for this woman now, but there’s In in the promises of the gospel and an incredible future awaiting, right? 

[00:30:40] Laura Lynn Hughes: Absolutely. One of our favorite scriptures is psalm 137 to put your hope in the lord For with the lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption And so as these women are looking at the first time in their life when they get to mourn the child Because society has said it was your choice or it’s over and, you know.

If you’ve aborted a child, you don’t have a chance to grieve. And so grief is a noun, but to mourn is a verb. And it’s taking women actively through the process where they can get the restoration that they’ve been needing. And the Bible tells us that God comforts those who mourn. 

And 

[00:31:28] Laura Lynn Hughes: so mourning is that active Presence of what we do with our internal grief.

So when women are able to understand that this was a life, they’re able to say, I, I lost a child to abortion. And some people say that’s not even, you know, really great to be able to say. But some women have said I’ve taken my child’s life and I can repent that now. And it’s the, the love that leads us.

It’s the love of God that leads us to that repentance. But when women are able to really unpack that and know that their child is in heaven, has a space in heaven, they can rest. It’s like grieving other losses in our life when someone dies. It’s the process that we go through, how we memorialize them, how we talk about them, how we feel about what we’ve done.

And there’s a really beautiful picture that we give the ladies at the end of our class. And it’s a fingerprint, beautiful colored fingerprint of a mother on her knees and a little child with the hand on the mother. And it gives the sense that they’ve been forgiven by that child. And that really gives them a lot of freedom.

Because forgiveness really helps The thing women say is, I can’t forgive myself. I’ve done this. Why should I have a sense to mourn? And reconcile the loss when I’ve done this and they are totally free when they understand that it’s impossible to forgive yourself. You can let yourself off the hook, but there is absolutely no scriptures that tell us that we have to forgive ourselves.

It’s something that Satan does. He binds us with that. for the worst things that we’ve ever done, whether it’s abortion or other things. And once they realize that they are just to confess their sins to one another and he heals and that they are healed because God heals them and cleanses their soul, then they’re free.

They’re really free to be able to say, I had an abortion. I Loved this child, I wanted this child, or I was coerced, or I didn’t understand at the time, or I was lied to, I was told that it’s a clump of cells. They’re able to voice. Exactly how they feel and then they’re able to be, you know, it’s like healing is not just about returning who you once to who you once were.

Healing is about becoming what we were always meant to be. So it’s like that abundant life, right? When we talk about john 10 10 where the satan comes to kill, steal and destroy. But Jesus came to give us that life. That’s Zoe life. And when women can fall into that abundant life where God has given us everything we need for life and godliness, and they’re able to celebrate, they were finally able to reconcile the loss and put it in God’s hands.

Then the joy for them is so incredible. As I was working through my own grief of losing my very first grandchild to abortion, just recently, God was able to show me that, you know, it’s, it is a part of my story, but it’s okay for me to live again and to celebrate. I have 13 grandchildren I’ve brought. You know, help bring many of them all of them into the world and helped many other women in their delivery room and I love life and I didn’t know what to do with.

Losing a grandchild to abortion, but you know, I caught myself this week laughing out loud a few times. And so as we go through the mourning process and as we’re able to put an end to that, we do have a fuller life where there’s more joy. Our joy is restored. Our identity is restored. There’s so much like freedom in Christ.

And that’s where. It’s really beautiful to see how the women change and it helps us in our own lives. And so even if someone hasn’t had an abortion, but they have grieved the loss of a marriage or something, it’s so important to take all that to Christ because Our heart’s still breathing, so there’s still purpose, and we always have purpose in our life.

And I think that’s been really beautiful to see is how the women pick up and say, I still have a purpose in my life, and that is how God redeems. You know, I, I think about when I sat at the computer, when Erica shared an email and shared the story that she had aborted a baby, I was in such shock and I just read it and then I just deleted it so quickly and I went up into my room and I laid in my bed in a fetal position and I just cried and I didn’t know, I didn’t know what to do with that and when you finally get to, Get peace in your heart in that area.

Then you’re able to say, okay This is a this is a part of my story now and I didn’t dawn on me until recently That God redeemed my story at that same computer Typing redemptive love and so other people can heal and Erica said, when we go to the classes, we get a deeper level of healing every time in all areas of our life.

I really recommend for people to take women through this study and they will have therapy in their own life. Like it will heal wounds. We’ve had so many women that were part of our book launch. And men who have read this that said I never even had an abortion, but I feel so healed in so many areas Because that’s what god does He’s a loving father and he is really intent on healing his people.

I mean, he, he reconciles everything. Like he had a plan to bring Jesus to the world for us. 

[00:37:58] Dr. Mark Turman: And he’s just such 

[00:37:59] Laura Lynn Hughes: a good, good father. 

[00:38:00] Dr. Mark Turman: Absolutely. Yeah. And I’m glad you bring that up. Just touch on that a minute Erica or either Laurie, the one of you on this of, What about the men, particularly the men that are a part of these abortion stories?

You know, some of the work that I’ve had the privilege of being a part of in, in my area. What are y’all seeing and experiencing at this point in especially in the releasing of this new resource? How men have real healing that is needed in their lives as well. 

[00:38:30] Arica Henry: Yeah, I, I definitely think that as we’ve given women a voice, men are coming forward saying we have a voice too.

It is on our heart to find some material and to use some men’s stories so we can provide a resource to them as well. So I’m glad to hear that our men’s. our men’s ministry when we were doing our book launch, they actually, several of the leaders came and said, we have men that have this issue. You know, we’re going to encourage them to read the book.

It definitely is a woman’s perspective, but the tools and the approach still could be beneficial. I do say that I think we, they need their own men’s support for sure. And we, we would love again to create a resource more, more aligned with their. their part. I think the challenge has been that society has tried to say it’s a woman’s health issue.

I do believe that the rhetoric that’s used and that we’re selling murder as healthcare. And that’s just a hardcore fact. And the reality is abortion hurts. women. And so it hurts families and the men are connected to that family and the men that didn’t have an understanding of fetal development or that were fearful or that weren’t in a committed relationship or that just paid for a sister thinking they’re helping, you know.

that they are carrying guilt and remorse as well. And society has no right to say that they shouldn’t be involved in this decision. And working for child welfare I’m new to this field in the last three years. And I was very surprised to learn that if a man. impregnates a woman, even unbeknownst to him, and that woman goes, woman goes off and she ends up having an addictive lifestyle and the child’s born addicted to substances, that baby’s going to be removed and the father has to prove himself fit in order to get access to that child.

But he is also held accountable for issues of neglect because he didn’t ensure the safety in the womb for that child. So he bears a responsibility for the baby’s health and development. 

Right. 

[00:40:40] Arica Henry: Through, through child welfare law, but he doesn’t have a say at the point of conception that the child should come forth to life.

[00:40:48] Dr. Mark Turman: And just so many times our, our laws are hypocritical and so contradictions, 

[00:40:54] Arica Henry: contradictions, 

[00:40:55] Dr. Mark Turman: contradictory of each other. But just, you know, there’s so much and this is why your resource is so needed and other resources as well. But there’s just so much that, that God’s grace needs to pull apart in terms of this deception and this decision and all of the things that are wrapped up in here that.

As you said, the devil just uses all of this to not only lead us to make really horrible decisions to end the life of a child in the pre born season, but to keep people bound up. But when we read scripture and we understand the story of what God is trying to do in Christ, we realize Of course, the devil, the thing that he hates the most is the thing that God loves the most, which are people 

[00:41:35] Arica Henry: creation.

And 

[00:41:36] Dr. Mark Turman: he wants to stop that in every way that he can. Just a few more minutes before we wrap up. Laura, I wonder if you in my experience working in pro life areas and also as a church pastor. I was surprised and, in fact, really disappointed how many churches, how many pastors try to just stay away from this whole issue, okay?

Can you speak a word of encouragement and wisdom to pastors and church leaders why it is important that they lead in this area? 

[00:42:08] Laura Lynn Hughes: And first I want to give a little bit of grace because if you think about it The vast majority of pastors are men. In every Christian faith, and some men don’t know what to say about it, and they, you know, may feel like it’s ripping a band aid off, and then there’s There’s no tool to heal it.

And you know, the culture has said nothing. And the church has also said nothing. And it is up to the church to disciple the women and the men who have had abortions and offering care and compassion. And, you know, in the church, women do sit real silently. But now, pastors can have a resource. It’s, it’s easy and we can help pastors, too.

We’re doing a training this Saturday, it’s in person, but we’re gonna film it and we’re gonna make a training to where pastors also will be able to look at it if they’re wanting to address this in their own church. Because pastors also need to be educated that you know, just in how to put the, how to put the class together.

And because they have a resource now. It will help fulfill that need. You know, you have a problem. You have women sitting in a church with their abortion pain unaddressed, but now they will have a tool where they can help women through maybe these women’s studies and be able to offer something for the women.

And so I, I think there’s a lot of grace for pastors in this area. And I know that they, pastors are called to disciple and they love. And I don’t think they have ignored this on purpose. I really don’t. 

[00:44:00] Dr. Mark Turman: And this, you know, and just speaking from a pastoral perspective, I can tell you that churches can make a difference.

You know, I, I didn’t even know what an abortion was when I first became a Christian in my late teens. And the only way I found out was because my church hosted a seminar to try to explain the tragedy of abortion. And I can, I can trace my involvement with this with this issue all the way back to that one simple thing that my church did.

And I would also tell you that for all the ways that I’ve been involved, I’m never comfortable, you know, this is such an intimate issue. It’s such in some ways, it’s certainly not only a female or a women’s issue. It is a life issue. But I, I, I freely confess I’m never really all that comfortable. But then I think.

You know what? This is, this is the life of a child as well as the life of parents, a mother and a father and rippling out into large circles of family and, and community, right? And it just, at some point, we just kind of have to confront our discomfort and step into it. And know that as y’all talk about is it can be messy.

It can be awkward. It can be clumsy. If you’re a church leader, there’s a lot of wisdom and care and compassion that needs to be worked through. If you’re going to offer this kind of opportunity within your church, you can’t just stick a sign on the door or in the church bulletin and expect that this is going to be successful.

You have to be much more prayerful and careful with that. Because it is so deep and it is so tender and it is, it is really just fundamentally hard. Absolutely. 

[00:45:44] Arica Henry: And you got to find your footing when you’re entering into these conversations. You have to find your footing of not what your point of argument is, but where your compassion is and where you’ve seen transformation in order to.

Encourage others to embark on the journey in their own way, whether it’s as a pastor or a ministry leader I think what we’re really talking about is that not only is life at stake, it’s that human dignity is being stomped upon. And the church is the best equipped place to help restore people, be it men or women.

And if a pastor is feeling that contradiction of the issue or backlash from the opinions and because there’s so much stuff said in society and in our media that people really are ignorant. on the devastation that’s happening from abortion. So they’re only seeing it from the political and the, the, the secular media slant.

And so if we can just educate them on the sanctity of life, just little by little, if the pastors can find their way, even if they don’t even actually. talk much about abortion initially, but just honor the sanctity of life and that that means we want to care well for our people. And this is one of several ministries at our church, you know, as churches have, I talked about celebrate recovery.

We have different financial peace. We have marriage and divorce care. We have different things to help restore people. So why not this? And, and in addition to that I do think The pastors that part of the secret sin is that we have families who’ve coerced a child, and it’s been years later. So you have parents sitting in that congregation as well.

And when, when people feel the sin or the shame, and even if it’s the self condemnation, it’s not necessarily a condemnation coming from others. Sometimes we either shrink back or we grow more fixed in our rightful stance of why that decision was necessary. And because the law says it’s okay. Because the law says it okay, Christians struggle with, that’s a line they can cross.

You know, and, and I think even like we were saying, minimizing the words that are used our pastor did a phenomenal teaching on the sanctity of life. And one of the things she said that stood out to me is, you know, she didn’t say this part, but anytime a people group is being stepped upon and their rights are being diminished.

We find a way to rename them, right? And so for some reason, fetus is a minimized or derogatory term that allows us to say it shouldn’t, doesn’t have any value, but fetus in Latin means offspring. You know, and so just our use of language and how we can educate gently and not get in. I think people are so fearful of that.

It’s such a political divide and, oh, we don’t want to bring politics into church. Jesus, Jesus, you know, challenged the political culture. 

[00:48:58] Dr. Mark Turman: And this is, this is, this is not first and foremost a political issue. It is a political issue, but it’s not first and foremost, it’s a, it’s an issue of life. And it’s an issue of soul and, and it’s an issue of eternity, right?

[00:49:12] Arica Henry: And that’s what we have to keep on the forefront of the discussion and, and people can feel empowered to embrace that. 

[00:49:19] Dr. Mark Turman: Absolutely. Laura, I just want to would would just ask if you just close us with a word of hope if there I can imagine that there could be a person listening to our conversation. They didn’t even know when they woke up this morning that they were going to stumble into a conversation about this.

And it is maybe something the spirit is using to confront them with. Where they are. What word of hope would you give to that person about why they need to walk toward this and even into this really great tool that y’all have created around redemptive love? 

[00:49:54] Laura Lynn Hughes: I can say if you have had an abortion or if you have been involved in an abortion, one thing is God is not mad at you, but he is definitely madly in love with you and wants to restore you.

He totally stands with open arms. waiting for you to come to him with this and You know, so many things happen in our lives, but this is a very, very vulnerable one. And women are really brave that do come to the Lord with this and come to their church leaders with this. So I want you to, I want you to know that there’s bravery in this.

Even for you to think about coming to a healing class, there’s such bravery. So just continue to be brave. God already calls you an overcomer and there is definitely hope and it is so worth it. Anything really, really difficult can be hard, but it’s also very, very worth it. You know, I, I was pregnant at 15 and I had my girl, Erica, and it was really hard, but it definitely is worth it.

So don’t let society keep you bound and don’t let Satan keep you bound. Bring it to God and it’ll be so worth it where you can laugh out loud again and you can find joy again and your peace can be restored. And your identity who God says you are. God is in the business of healing his women one life at a time.

[00:51:37] Dr. Mark Turman: Yeah. What a good word. And so we’ll pray with you and for you for that courage, that Holy Spirit inspired and And provided courage to step toward this and to find that flourishing life that God wants you to have and not to allow the devil to continue to trample on you even years or decades later.

Ladies, thank you so much for the conversation today. Thank you for this resource. The book, the workbook is called Redemptive Love, A Journey of Restoration After Abortion. Thank you. We would encourage you to get this resource. We would encourage you to share it with your church if they are unaware.

And we pray that God will use it to the restoring of many lives in every way. And we just, again, thank you for being a part of the conversation, ladies. And we thank you. You are. Thank you to our audience for being a part and listening to this. We trust that God will use this conversation in all kinds of great ways.

And we’ll see you next time on the Denison Forum podcast. God bless you.