Melissa Ohden“In a world where everyone wears a mask, it’s a privilege to see a soul.”
What do former abortion clinic workers and abortion survivors have in common?
If you’ve ever wondered what goes through an abortion survivor’s head on their birthday, I’ll give you a sneak peek into mine on my 40th birthday.
I don’t believe God originally wrote abortion into my life, as God is the Creator of life. But when it was introduced by man, or in my case, a woman, He rewrote the story of my life around it, to create the story of a life that is more intricate, more redemptive, more grace-filled, than anything anyone else could have planned or written.
“You Carried Me”: That’s the title of my memoir, which was released through Plough Publishing House in early 2017.
This thought keeps ringing through my head as we approach Election Day. Truly, we should soon be back to our regularly scheduled TV programs, although to be honest, I can't remember what TV or even radio content used to consist of before this year's election coverage, scandal reporting and political ads.
I will never forget when, years ago, a writer commented that it was “creepy,” when I indicated that children survive abortions like I did in 1977, far more often than most in our world would care to admit. “Creepy” is understandably not the word that I would use to describe the matter or frequency of our survival. It's a miracle that any of us survive. The fact that there are more than one of us (my count currently through The Abortion Survivors Network is 209 worldwide) isn't “creepy,” it's powerful.
It's hard to believe that it's been a year now since the Center for Medical Progress’ videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s practices came to light, raising the consciousness of the greater American public and individuals around the world about the practices of abortion and the harvesting of body parts.
Everyone has a story. Everyone. But every story is different, and how we are called to use our story is also different. We are not all called to share our stories publicly; we are not all called to write a book. What we are each called to do, however, is live out the story of our life as God has written it, and believe it or not, as we live out the story of our lives, others are reading it, right along with us. What are they reading in the story of your life? The story that you’ve worked to edit or even create for yourself, or the story that God wrote for you?
