Frances Okoro: The Consequences Of Revealing That I Had An Abortion

I have been told that my mom has taken to a habit recently… grumbling at the dumb move I made by revealing my shady past.

I listen to my sister as she details the things my mom says and I want to ask “but why is she saying these hurtful things?”
But then the love of God constrains me to see through her lenses.
I remember that she wasn’t with us when all those things happened in my life and it would be easy for her to blame herself as the cause of everything that seemingly went wrong in my life.
I would have regrets too if I have not been cured of that by Jesus.

So here’s the truth…

The truth is that I encountered porn and started masturbating when I was 14…
I used to call up numbers of boys I had never met from the newspaper to look into being in a relationship with them…
I met a boyfriend when I was in the university; a relationship in which I was psychologically abused and in which I committed two abortions…
I was dead, empty, devoid of any self-worth or value and filled with pain and guilt arising from what I had done to my unborn babies…till I found Jesus Christ…
And now, the most important truth is that I am not that girl in the university anymore.

I was so worried when I got tugged on to share this story in public…
I was plagued by:
What will people say…?
What will people think…?
What will my mom say…?
Won’t my dad be disappointed in me…?

I wondered at backlash I would face from the public and condemnation from the great Christians who have never done anything wrong in their lives…
I was crazy with worry before the post went up on the blog and even more frantic when I knew that my story would go into my book on purpose…

But instead of the expected condemnation, I have simply realized that there are a lot of broken souls like I was in the past, each limping with clipped wings, wondering if they would ever have anything of worth to offer the world.
I realized that I am not the only one who has scars from the past that needs to be healed by Jesus, we all have something or the other that needs healing.

And so consequences of my revealing that I had an abortion became lives transformed and renewed in Christ.
Letting my scars out has simply served to heal other scars.

Sometimes I wish my mom’s eyes could be open to see why I am so unashamed about my life.
If perhaps she could get the same mails I get on lives surrendered to live in purity or lives that have been hunted with guilt from the blood on their hands being set free…
If only she could see the joy in that young girl’s face who was suddenly got the truth that God still has good plans for her life despite whatever may have happened in the past…
Maybe if my mom could see these things, she won’t be so hard on herself or on me.

And if I was asked “Frances, if you were allowed to go back in time… to the moments before you hit publish on that blog post or before you released your book with your story within its pages… would you do things differently?”

Today, a year after I obeyed God and shared my past for all to see, I can answer that question with a sincere NO.
I am so glad that I obeyed God.

I thought it was going to be terrible, instead it has sprung life and light both in my life and in the lives of others.
Lives are being surrendered to God’s purposes for their lives…
Hearts are being mended from the pain of the past…
Other lost souls like I was in the past are finding hope… all through one story I thought was too shameful to be revealed to anyone.

The consequences of my sharing that I had an abortion have been…
Lives renewed…
Hope reignited…
Souls won to Jesus…
Women being plunked back on the right track…

And for these kinds of consequences, I can only hope that my mom will someday understand why I share my story to everyone who needs it over and over and over again.

There are too many broken souls in the world.
Too many souls with blood on their hands from past abortions…
Too many ladies who think that their lives ends at having sex with multiple men…
Too