 came to give us life and life flows. So I just thank you that today, God, you are overflowing life into every viewer and friend of ours today. I'm Amy Schaefer here on Hope Today with Sydney. And Anna, we haven't been together, all three of us. I'm also like a Tom's chair. Oh, I'm gonna make myself very comfortable. What's going on today? Yeah, so we have a very special program for you today as we focus on life and healing after abortion. Our guest, Jessica Patterson, bravely shares her story of choosing abortion, experiencing unexpected grief afterwards, and years later finding hope and healing through a very special support group. Today, she leaves that group and walks alongside others who are hurting after abortion. Sydney, this is such an important topic to cover because even when we make past choices that are not good ones, there is always redemption and hope. There always is redemption and hope. And we know this story is so apropos of what's happening even right now in the news and our culture. You probably recently heard that appeals court is upholding a ruling of blocking the abortion pill. We know since the overturn of Roe vs. Wade with the Supreme Court leaving it up to the States, this has been a hot button issue. But you know, always Amy, that in the church as we as the body of Christ, God gives us answers and solutions. So this is really good that we get to talk about it and show a different side of the hope and the healing that comes with that. There is always hope and healing in Christ. And that's what we do. We run to him always, no matter what it is. We don't run away from him. We run to him. He is a loving, good, faithful father. And he somehow takes our messes and turns them into messages. He takes our ashes and he makes something beautiful out of them. So we just say today, live, live again, breathe again and be all that God's called you to be and your family. And there is always, Anna, hope. There's never a dead end with God. There's always light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, that's right. You know, I think that one of my hopes for today's program is that we will start to put a light on past choices that we regret where there's shame that there is deep grief that we're just kind of stuck in that place. And somehow somebody or somewhere has caused you to believe that God cannot forgive your past, that you are not worthy of God's love and His forgiveness and healing. And yet that's such a lie. God already knows that we're gonna mess up, like sometimes big time, like big time mistakes. And there is no mistake so deep, so messy that God cannot put it back together again. So true. Yeah, and I love in the word of like a message. It's like our mess is how we create a message in our lives. And so maybe today that you are walking through a mess or even bringing up this topic of talking about abortion. We know there's so many women and men that have walked through this and made this tough choice, that tough decision and regret it, that we are here for you. So give us a call at our prayer line at 888-665-4483. I have friends, I have loved ones that I'm close with that they've talked to me about making that choice and how hard it is and their regret and all the things that they've went through and walked through. So there's no shame, there's no judgment. This is a safe space. We are creating today on the show and on this program. Anna. Yeah, that's right. We're ready to bring things out into the light. So recently I had the opportunity to visit the home of Jessica Patterson and hear her story of choosing abortion, experiencing unexpected grief afterwards and later finding hope and healing. Today Jessica leads support groups for other women who are hurting after abortion. Please listen as she bravely shares her story. And if you have been touched by abortion and want someone to talk to, we'll have a graphic immediately following her story with contact information for support. Here's Jessica. So Jessica, it's such an honor to be here with you today and with your story. Can you take us back to your growing up years? You have shared that you had this need for acceptance. How did you go about looking to fill that need? I would say I pretty much look to other people. I look to friends, I look to peers. What other people thought of me was very, very important to me. I needed to be accepted. I needed to be liked. And even as I got older, that's when compromise would come. I began to whatever would allow me to fit in or feel part of the crowd I would do. Yeah, it's such a normal human need to need that acceptance and need to be loved. And so then you found yourself in different relationships with men and take us on that journey a little bit of what that looked like through your teen years and your adult years. Well, I got involved in relationships at a pretty young age. And they were always very serious. And along with that, there was a lot of physical intimacy at a very young age, giving a lot of myself away. And I did that, I think, because again, back to that wanting to feel loved, wanting to feel wanted and needed and accepted, and just giving away whatever part of me somebody would take in order to feel that love, in order to feel that acceptance and feel wanted. When I found out I was pregnant, I was actually pretty scared because in all honesty, I wasn't 100% sure who the father was. Okay. Yeah. So I did find out through a series of meeting with timelines and all that, I was able to figure out. But the relationship that I was in, it was not stable. It was very on again, off again. And I take a bit of responsibility for that because again, I was always needing that acceptance. So I was unfaithful in that relationship, not because I didn't care about the person, but because there was such a void in me that I had to give myself away in order to feel loved and accepted. So when I found out I was pregnant, I was actually really scared. But then whenever we realized that who the father was, we decided initially that we were gonna keep, we were gonna carry and we were gonna raise this child. But in my mind, it was not a child yet. I didn't grow up understanding fetal development. I didn't understand really. I always knew it was going to be a baby. But I had a friend of mine about a year prior who had had an abortion. And I was the chauffeur, so to speak for that. Again, out of need to be a friend. Right, sure. And feel appreciated. I was offered to be the chauffeur. So when here I am, faced with this uncertainty of this pregnancy and moving forward and the father did not want to not be married. He decided if we don't get married, maybe we shouldn't have the baby. And it was at that moment I realized I could change course, I could have a way out. I didn't have to go through with this. And since I had known where to go, I knew how easy it was. Just to make an appointment. Okay. So that's how that came about. Okay, so was it a hard decision? Was it an easy decision? I honestly feel like I didn't think I had any other decision. Right. Stuck. Yeah. No other options. Yeah. And so you went through with the abortion and then what was it like for you in the days, weeks, months afterwards? Well initially after the procedure I was put under anesthesia. So I don't remember so much about the procedure itself but I do know that when I came out at anesthesia I remember sitting up on that table and looking over at the biohazard container and thinking my child is probably in there. Gosh. And that was a pretty profound moment for me. I remember that. But then it was done and I just kind of picked up the pieces and went on. Basically just had to bury it. Had to pretend it didn't happen. I remember feeling pretty traumatized for the first couple of days but then I just had to move on. I was already living somewhat of a party lifestyle with binge drinking and doing some drugs and so that was an easy escape to avoid. Right. The trauma of what had happened or what I went through or what I decided to do. I think I just slipped into a bit of a numbness about it. Okay. But I do remember being triggered often. I bet beforehand I loved babies. I loved being around kids. I always pictured myself being a mom. But then the weeks and months afterwards if I was at a shopping mall and I'd see a mom especially with like a brand newborn. I would get physically sick and I'd have to like look away as much as possible, as fast as possible. And I remember for at least five to six years if not longer, not one day. Not one day I went by that I didn't think about it. When did you find the Lord through all of this? Was there like a, was that the shifting point that started helping you realize that there was hope for healing after abortion? Well, I was at a point in my life where I had been divorced and I was now remarried. And again, me and my husband were looking at our children trying to figure out how we're gonna raise them well with the amount of baggage and pain that we both had had from past relationships and past decisions and lifestyles. And I had grown up believing in God. I had always knew who God was and knew that he created me, knew what he had done for me through his son Jesus. Right. But I had never allowed that to transform me, you know. It's like I knew he was out there and I believed in him and I loved him. Yeah. But I wasn't, I didn't allow that love that I knew he had for me to guide me in my life. Okay. I was always trying to figure it out on my own. Right. So here I am looking at these two beautiful gifts from God. I had gone on to have these two beautiful children and wanting to teach them a better way. Right. And for so long, I had always tried, I feel like I had tried every other way under the sun to figure out how to make things work or to feel good or to feel right about myself. Whether it was through people, whether it was through performance, whether it was through drugs or alcohol or whatever, none of it worked. It all felt short. Yeah. So here I am looking at these kids and I looked at my husband and I said, there's only one more place we can go. And we started going to church and we began to read the word. Yeah. And we began to read the word alongside other believers and realized that we don't have to know it all. We don't have to have it all perfect. That God is open to us where we are right now. But He doesn't want to leave us where we are right now. And so we really spent time growing in our relationship with the Lord, knowing who He is. But in a lot of ways, I felt like I could only come so close to Him. Was it good? Because that guilt, that shame of what you have done. Exactly. I only come so close. It was like a Mother's Day service and there was a baby bottle campaign by Women's Choice Network going on at our church that our church was hosting. And I had never seen that before. I'd never heard of a pregnancy center. And so when I picked up this baby bottle and I read the information about the Women's Choice Network, so much anger rose up inside me actually, you know. Because that was my immediate initial defense at all times. Anytime somebody spoke about abortion. You connected with these women. I did. And what did you find out? Well, that was all Holy Spirit leading me today. So connect with Women's Choice Network, absolutely. Because I was still doing it out of anger. I was doing it out of, I want to find out who they are. I don't know. No, he totally, Holy Spirit just totally led me. And when I went to meet them, they welcomed me with open arms and they looked at me and they said, you can help somebody make a different choice. Yeah. And that was the first time I realized that what I had done, that awful, destructive, horrific thing that I had done could actually be used for good. Wow. And they encouraged me to go through a healing group. Well, I didn't think I needed that at all. You see, I was in church and I was in a Bible study and I was studying Romans. I didn't need that. Okay. Okay, I didn't need that. But I did. Wow. I did. I learned so much. God met me right there in that moment where I found the courage to open up and really take a look at what I had done and in a safe place, admit what I had done and recognize that it was wrong and recognize that that child that I aborted was indeed a life and was a child and was my child that was entrusted to me. Yeah. And there was a humanity that I recognized that I never saw before. And there was also a part of me that I realized I had lost in that as well. And through that group, there was so much recovery and reconciliation, but there was also an introduction to God in a way that I had never known before. I had never seen Him in that light as someone who I always thought this sin was too big. Yeah. And I realized that that sacrifice that He made, that forgiveness that He offers, that new life that He gives to us, that that is for this too. Amen. I think it's so profound how like we started your story that you had this need for acceptance and then where you found the ultimate acceptance was with Jesus and that changed everything. Absolutely. Like He took you just as you were with everything that you were carrying and gave you new life. So can you share with us where you are today and what you are doing through the support groups now? I am working with the Women's Choice Network as the after-abortion care facilitator. We have a program that we call Breathe. And we offer small, intimate, confidential groups where women can come and they can feel safe to open up about probably one of the most painful parts of their past. And it's in a place where they know that they are accepted and that they are loved and that they don't have to live in silence anymore. They don't have to put up walls or live with defenses or justify what they have done. That's the biggest thing that keeps us from healing is to continually have to make excuses or justify or defend our sin. What God invites us to, He invites us to confess that sin because He knows that when we do, we're laying it at His feet. We're not holding it on to it anymore. We're laying it at His feet. And one of the things He really has been impressing upon my heart in this season is that He's telling me He's the God of the great exchange that when we give Him even our worst, we give it to Him like fully and 100% just surrender it to Him. Because I don't wanna hold on to this anymore. I don't wanna allow this to define me. He will take it, He will remove it and He will replace it with His plan and His purpose and His identity. Our identity is not wrapped up in what we've done or who the world says we are. Like truly life restored. So Jessica, thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you so much. Maybe Jessica's story is like your story. Maybe today you're feeling that pain, that guilt, that shame of that choice that you've made. Maybe even as I'm watching, I'm thinking there are women who have walked through divorces. There are women who have walked through miscarriages. There are women who have walked through having an abortion. And there's just like an ache and a heaviness in your heart. But I love what she said. This is the key. That God is the God of the great exchange. And we just have to lay it down at His feet. And we have to say, God, I give you this heartache. I give you this pain. And you know what He does? It's so beautiful, Sidney, what God does. He takes our pain. It said, He suffered for us. So that we don't have to walk in this heavy suffering. He took it on the cross. It was the great exchange. So today we can walk as free men, as free women. So Sidney, I believe today is an important day in somebody's life. It is the day where you say, I cannot carry that anymore. I have to give it over to Jesus. Let Him come into my life. Redeem, restore, and do what He does best. He makes old things new. He gives us, Sidney, new life. As you were saying that Amy, the one song I just was reminded of is when I was at Crossroads United Methodist Church where I grew up in Oakdale, Pennsylvania. There was a song we used to say, like, I'm trading my sorrows. I'm trading my pain for the joy of the Lord. Like, yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord. And maybe today that is where you are at. And I love that Jesus says, like, take my yoke. It is easy, my burden is light. That we have a God, His name is Jesus. That no matter what the situation is, as like Amy was mentioning, if it's abortion, if it's divorce, if it's pain, if children are running wayward, whatever it may be, that Jesus is saying in this moment, wherever you are, if you're watching at home, in your living room, maybe in your bedroom, or maybe you're just out and about wherever you are, that you can make an altar of sacrifice. You know what, God, I'm gonna lay this all down because it's too heavy. Sometimes we try to carry the pain and the burden on our own shoulders, but Jesus is just like, come here, my daughter, come here, my son, and lay it down before me. He truly gives us beauty for ashes. And we wanna share this resource to you on your screen that if you have walked through abortion, we have a resource, or you see it right there on the lower third on the screen, because we wanna show you that there is help available to you, that you do not have to walk anything alone. That is the greatest thing I think about when it comes to walking through hardships and pain, the importance of healing and community, even what Jessica shared, that she was part of a group but she was able to share and open up and discuss some of those hard things. And there's something beautiful, Anna, when you come around a group of people that have walked around the same thing and the same story and the same pain, there's freedom and there's healing in that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, suddenly you feel seen. You feel heard. You feel like, wow, these people get me. This is a place where I can truly feel safe and start to explore these things from the past. One thing that Jessica shared that really stood out to me was how when she saw that baby bottle at church and saw that it was the women's choice network and sort of a little bit about what they did, like her first response was anger. She didn't think that she needed help. Like she reached out and connected with them really just to see what they were all about and be able to like give her a little two cents. But what she experienced, as she said, was totally the Holy Spirit. So today, if you watched and maybe you're in that same place where it actually stirred up a little bit of anger in you to hear this, and maybe you're not even in the place like, I don't need help. Like I'm in a Bible study, I'm in church, I'm doing this. Well, if the Holy Spirit is still like nudging your heart even in the midst of all of that, listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Because you see, since you were born, God's been pursuing your heart. Because before you were born, before he even created this earth, he had plans and purposes for you to be a mighty, lovely, fierce woman of God who would go out into this earth and do good works, which were prepared for you before the beginning of time. Don't let things from your past hold you back. If you feel stuck, if you feel these negative emotions, today is your day to step out, see what this is all about. It's a safe place, it's a beautiful place where there is hope, restoration, and rebuilding. And Anna, as you were talking, I just heard God was just saying like what Anna was just sharing about, like sometimes we watch things and they can be triggering. And I know Sarah, Jake, Robert, she recently had a sermon called Glory Triggers. And sometimes God allows these things when we're watching something that serves something up in the inside, because the Holy Spirit is saying that's still there. The trauma is still there. Take it from someone who I trauma trapped in my body for years, didn't even know it. Certain things would stir me up and I didn't know. And the thing is like the bondage of the enemy, it's the lie of the enemy that wants to keep you trapped, wants you to ignore your trauma and to continue walking the same way. Maybe you have like thought patterns or things that you're saying or the way that you're acting out. Today is the day that God is saying, my daughter, my son, those are glory triggers. I'm trying to get your attention. I'm trying to let you know that there is something deeper going on and there needs to be a response. Do not let that yuck, that cuck, all of that stay within inside of you. Jesus is a deliverer. Jesus is a healer. And the one thing when you're able to get that deliverance and that deep healing, I know that something that God is doing so mightily right now is deliverance is casting out those things that are deeply rooted in our spirits and our soul. There is freedom in that. And today we're declaring into Korean that this is your deliverance day. This is a day that God wants to deliver you from the bondage, deliver you from the pain, deliver you from the trauma so you're no longer repeating and going through those cycles and those patterns that are keeping you trapped. So guess what? God doesn't force this decision on you. It's a decision that you have to make for yourself and say, you know what? I'm ready. And when you're ready, we just encourage you to reach out to a support group but also to a church and a loving family that'll wrap their arms around you because one thing when it comes to recovery, you can't do it by yourself. You need other people around you to uphold you, to support you and to love on you. Amy, you know, I hesitate in sharing this but I just believe that it will bring you such hope today. Several years ago I had a dream and I saw my grandma in heaven and in her bedroom, she had a little bed beside her bed and I could tell that the bed was undone and that they were out like in heaven playing. And I called my dad and I said, dad, who would Amal be with? What little kid? And he said, Amy, when you had a miscarriage that would probably be. And I thought, you know, there is no baby, Sydney or Anna that is not in heaven right now with Jesus. So never fear. Don't let that agony of what has happened, those choices that have been made, just literally give it over to Jesus. I love the scripture. It says, I call on heaven and earth to witness this day against you. That I have set before you life and death. I've set before you blessing and cursing. Today is a great day to choose life and to walk in that peace and that knowledge that Jesus saves, it's real. Jesus redeems, it's real. Jesus restores. That's what he is the master of restoring. The master of redemption. The master of taking those things and taking the rubble and creating something beautiful in our lives. So whether divorce, bankruptcy, abortion, miscarriage, the hurts, the pains, the separations, the relational issues, the career problems, give it over to God today. And I promise that you are going to find hope again. You're going to live again. You're going to smile again. You can have joy again. You can have peace today. And I believe like never before today, you're going to breathe and live again. On tomorrow's hope today, discover how to find peace, confidence and courage during these challenging times. Bishop Mark Steven Filkey addresses the widespread prevalence of anxiety and fear in our society and offers a deeper understanding about the God who created you to live a life free from fear. Don't miss tomorrow's hope today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.