My birth-mother, Alisha, was 16 and afraid. She discovered she was pregnant in December 1991 and the most terrifying thing to her at that moment was telling her father. He immediately scheduled an abortion for her and later she told me she thought he felt the situation was a reflection of his parenting. I, who I was a fetus at that moment, had just a few days to live.
Alisha was against this decision, but as simply a junior in high school she didn’t really feel like she had a choice. Three days before the scheduled abortion, my grandfather gave her the choice; abortion or adoption. Alisha gladly accepted the latter, writing in her journal “I was so happy I didn’t have to kill the baby, so I agreed. It deserved a loving family.” I was finally born on July 28, 1992.
For the next 18 years, while I was being raised in a loving Christian family, Alisha and I kept in contact through letters, pictures and of course, Facebook. In 2010 I was an intern at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. Once a week my friend and I would lead the prayer room in prayer for the ending of abortion. One week after we were finished, he turned to me and said, “Has the thought ever crossed your mind that what you are doing in prayer right now, is actually what might have saved you from death?”
The idea intrigued me, but I had no idea that he was actually speaking more truth than I could ever imagine. One month before my 20th birthday, my best friend and I made a pro-life “video letter” that explained my story and gave statistics of abortion in America. By this point in my life, I had met Alisha, different members of her family, and was beginning to develop more of a relationship with all of them. I shared the video with her and my grandmother, Kathy who then, in turn shared it with all of her Facebook companions.
A few days later, Kathy messaged me with something a friend of hers had written after watching the video:
“I remember years ago you told me that Alisha’s decision had to be made by the morning… but what I haven’t told you before was that I laid face down on my dining room floor and prayed with all my being for that precious infant’s life… and I feel so blessed to see the complete fulfillment of that prayer…first, by being present at the hospital just after Katie was born to see her ‘physical’ life, but also seeing her now…a life abundantly beautiful! And I am so overjoyed to see YOUR joy, because I know that it was not easy for a lot of years. God is good…VERY good!”
This is why my heart is for those who have been silenced…because I was almost one of them, and I believe with all my heart that this woman’s intercession is what saved me. Thank God for her, and thank God for LIFE!
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Katie and her birthmom, Alisha
LifeNews: Katie is on staff at the International House of Prayer. She has been gripped with the issue of abortion from a young age, believing every life is just as precious as her own. This passion grew during her year as a student in TheCall Institute. Her heart is to see the adoption movement spread across the country and a culture of LIFE established in America. This originally appeared at the Bound4Life blog.
