“Who is a God like Thee? Who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious acts of the remnant of His possession. He does not retain His anger forever because He delights in unchanging love” Micah 7:18 (NAS).

I became a Christian when I was six years old. But as a teenager, I replaced the guiding voice of the Holy Spirit with the voice of my peers, especially teen boys. And like too many fifteen-year-old girls entranced by the desire to be “loved”, I gave up my virginity to the first boyfriend who asked.

A few weeks after high school graduation, I found out I was pregnant.

I had three options: to carry and parent, to create an adoption plan or to abort. As a Christian I knew the only choice was to have the baby. But my fear of being a pregnant teen superseded any loyalty I had to Jesus. I was terrified of what others would think and say about my hypocritical-Christian-self.  I grieved the end of my carefree life as I knew it. But the Holy Spirit wouldn’t allow me to believe that this pregnancy was a “blob of tissue”. In the depth of my soul, I knew what grew within me was a precious child who deserved life. And I recognized I was choosing to end his or her opportunity. But I suppressed these emotions in fear of connecting my soul to theirs. So I ran as quick as I could to an abortion clinic.

The clinic

A nurse from the clinic called me day before my appointment. She told me to expect protesters at the front door when I arrived, so she suggested I enter through the back.

The next day I drove past the front of the clinic in my mom’s minivan—a Christian ictus fish glued the bumper. The protesters held signs and chanted. And though they had good intentions, I believe they were a poor representation of what Jesus would have done in that situation. I stepped out of the van and walked toward the nurse waiting for me at the back door. Little did I know, a demonstrator saw me pull in and ran to the high brick wall framing the parking lot. Though I couldn’t see him, I heard his desperate voice pleading with me, “Please don’t do this! I saw the fish on the back of your car! Jesus loves you and your baby so much! Please let us help you, we can help you, but please don’t do this!” His words became the Holy Spirit Himself leaping out of my chest, kneeling before me, and begging me with audible words.

A way out of this chaos and into freedom. But I placed my hands over my ears and walked inside.

I was soon lying on the table for my sonogram and the sonographer was careful to keep the screen pointed away from me.

“You’re too early,” she said.

“What?”

“You have to be between seven and nine weeks for an abortion and you’re not far enough along yet.”

Today, women have more abortion options than I did at eighteen. Women can choose the morning-after pill—to purge a possible pregnancy the morning after sex, or RU 486— a series of pills taken for abortions between 1-7 weeks of pregnancy.

But when I was a pregnant teen, surgical abortion was the only option.

Unable to have the procedure that day, I left. Another opportunity to run into the loving arms of Jesus and find liberty. Another way out.

I wish I could say I never returned to that clinic. I wish I could say my two boys have a nineteen-year-old half-sister. But they don’t. At least not here on earth.

Two months after my abortion, I talked with a friend mine on the phone. She had the opposite relationship with God that I did—resolute and strong—like an army tank resistant to the bullets of temptation.

For two years prior, she lovingly asked me why I refused God the way I did. She cast a vision of the plans He had for me, but told me God couldn’t carry out these plans if I wouldn’t let Him. Each time, I shrugged her off and walked away.

But that night was different. I felt raw and vulnerable. As she reminded me of the unconditional love of Jesus, my heart softened and for the first time, I saw my sin and I wanted to change.  It was like scales fell from my eyes revealing color instead of the fuzzy gray I’d learned to call “normal.”

As I rose out of the fog, I saw my life below me and I reviewed the previous years with new eyes. I expressed my anguish to God at the devastation I’d taken Him through.  But He silenced my deep distress with His impression in my spirit, “Oh Lisa, there’s nothing you could ever do that would cause Me to not love you.”

I quickly reminded Him of my years of lying, promiscuity and recent murder.

But His voice was louder, “All the more amazing then is My grace. Lisa, I’m crazy about you. And I will use you and your past, for My great glory and fame. But you will have to walk away from this life. You’re going to have to turn 180° in the opposite direction and follow Me. It won’t be easy. But I promise, I’ll make it worth it.”

And so I did. And He did. And I’ve never been the same.

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV).

A new creation

Changed, I attended Southern Methodist University that fall as a theater major.

I decided to date young men who deepened my relationship with God and brought Him glory. I asked God to bring me a husband one day who loved Him more than he loved me. If God was my husband’s authority, I knew he would love me well.

And God answered my prayers.

I met my husband while performing in a theater production in downtown Dallas. As we spent time together, I learned that Jesus was everything to him.  He had bowed his knee to Christ and refused to rise from that position. Ten months later he proposed.

When I told him about my past, he enveloped me in his arms, rocked me back and forth, and in worship said, “I cannot believe what Jesus has done through you. I don’t even see a glimpse of the ‘Lisa’ of your past. You are transformed! God is amazing!”

The endless fame God

When we were married five years, and ten years after my abortion, I went through post-abortion group counseling. I was reluctant at first because I knew I’d been forgiven. What more was there to learn? But there was so much more. In those two months of counseling, the Lord spoke to me every day through the Holy Spirit and His Word. He helped me work through buried emotions of grief and chiseled away the hardened clay of shame and guilt. He showed me His passion for the unborn and unheard, and His anger, no His fury, against abortion. I saw the gravity of my sin in light of a holy God and yet the radical grace and love of Jesus despite it. He revealed to me the gender and the name of this sweet baby that I never met. Her name is Christine.

At the end of those two months, each of the women in the counseling group had a chance to release their children into the arms of Jesus. When Christine’s name was called, I walked to the table with a white rose in hand, picked up her “certificate of life,” and replaced it with the rose. I sat down next to my supportive husband, closed my eyes and cried. These weren’t tears of grief, but of gratitude at the goodness of my great God.

And then, though my eyes were closed, I saw something I will never forget. A ten-year-old girl, with long, dark brown hair, much like mine. She wore a white dress, was barefoot and stood with her back to me. Though I couldn’t see her face, I knew her—Christine. Joy and Light radiated from her body. She was alive and she was complete. I recognized someone else with her, Jesus. I saw the profile of His face as He extended His hand to her and she placed her little hand in His. Together, He walked and she skipped away from me and they disappeared. And sweet Jesus whispered to my heart, “I’ve got her Lisa. I’ve got her.”

And He has since said to me, “Now go, and make Me famous.”

I don’t know your story. But I do know, from firsthand experience, that there is nothing you can do to escape the love of God.

People on earth may love us based on what we do and how we love them in return. But not Jesus—His love is unconditional and knows no boundaries.

Whether you are a Christ-follower or could care less about Him, there is Someone who sees all you’ve done and all you will ever do and loves you regardless. He doesn’t keep score. He doesn’t hold grudges. And His love doesn’t require an, “if you, then I” contract. All He wants is you.

I look back on my life with many regrets, but I have no regrets with Jesus.

He has made Himself famous to me and through me and I will proclaim His fame as long as I live.

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.  To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:15-17 ESV).

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