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April 2020 Prayer Letter
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Healing Hearts Ministries Internaional [LOGO]

Dear Friend,


Part of our 2020 series of leadership testimonies


My husband Scott and I grew up together and dated all through High School, and in my senior year were voted the couple, “most likely to                                .” As a hopeful 17-year-old, how would I have filled in that blank? Most likely to own a home with a white picket fence. Most likely to become a stay-at-home mom with a happy marriage and a dog. Most likely to live happily ever after.

By the time we had been married three years, we had achieved the first two. The thing not on my list or on my radar would have been “Most likely to…have an abortion.” In our third year of marriage, I was very content playing house, admiring my white picket fence, and raising our son. But Scott had grown distant and quiet. In the days to come, he would confess his feelings for a mutual friend with whom he worked. Neither of us had ever dated anyone else, so such feelings came as a surprise to us both. His crisis became my crisis, and he began the task of making a decision-me or her. The day Scott announced his decision, telling me that he was leaving us to pursue a life with her, I too had news for him-I was pregnant. His response? “You cannot have this baby. I have made my decision. I am leaving you. We have to have an abortion.”

I had always been an insecure, dependent, obedient daughter and now I was an insecure, dependent, obedient wife, with very few thoughts of my own. With fear driving me and with a deeply bruised heart, I made an appointment for a pregnancy test and then for an abortion. On the day of our abortion, Scott drove me into the city but stayed in the car as I robotically exchanged money from our bank account for the life of our innocent second child. As we left the clinic with me sick, in pain, and filled with hurt and shame, I experienced an entirely new feeling-hatred where there was once love. I’m not sure whom I hated more at the time-him or me.  I steeled myself, repeating my mantra, “It was what I had to do.” We sold our home, said goodbye to the white picket fence, and my son and I moved in with my parents.

Because of the betrayal and separation, it must have seemed appropriate to others that I was spending hours in my room weeping. But no one knew that I was filled with guilt, shame, and self-hatred, a response to our abortion and the loss of our child. Just weeks into the separation, Scott called late one night and told me that he had made a horrible mistake and that he wanted to work on putting the marriage back together. I remember hanging up the telephone, my first thought being, “I killed my baby for NOTHING.” That is when my anger towards him spiked, and my guilt, self-hatred, grief, and depression also reached new levels.

Over the next few months we were reconciled. I had truly meant my marriage vows. We had seen the effect the separation had on our son, and we both wanted our marriage to work, but our relationship had been damaged by betrayal, infidelity, mistrust, and our own personal responsibility for the abortion.

Soon I was pregnant again, longing to replace that once empty womb of death with new life! But with this pregnancy came a new set of terrifying fears-overwhelming emotions and a never-ending onslaught of “what ifs.” What if there is a God? Will He take this baby from me because I ended the life of my other child? What deserved punishment would be mine? What if the abortion damaged me and something happens to this innocent baby? How can I expect to love this new little one after killing the other? Will I always feel like this? Is there no hope?

Three years after our abortion, Jesus sent a woman into our life to share the Gospel with us. God began breaking my heart over sin and we began to attend church, though I was terrified to tell anyone the truth about our marriage.

Not long after beginning to attend church, Healing Hearts Founder and Director Sue Liljenberg came to our church speaking of hope and forgiveness for women who have had abortions. I was wrecked! As God placed His hand on my back and despite my many fears, I talked with her, and the very next week, I entered one of the ministry’s first post-abortion study groups, Binding Up the Brokenhearted. It was in that study that Lamentations 3:55-58 came to pass: “I called on Your name, O LORD, from the lowest pit. You have heard my voice: ‘Do not hide Your ear from my sighing, from my cry for help.’ You drew near on the day I called on You and said, ‘Do not fear.’ Oh LORD, You have pleaded the case for my soul; You have redeemed my life.” In the Healing Hearts Study, I discovered that God was my loving Father and that He longed to heal me and was more than able. In our group, God sent forth His Word and healed me and saved me from my many destructions (Psalms 107:20). I was welcomed with open arms. I received hard truths given with love and compassion, and in ten weeks I saw true miracles performed in my life, my marriage, and my parenting. I learned that I could be forgiven for all sin, even abortion, through Jesus’ death and resurrection. As God revealed my bitterness, I learned that time does not cure bitterness, it deepens it and defiles the soul. As God changed me and as my bitterness was examined and axed at the root, I forgave Scott and eventually I began to love and trust him again. Hallelujah!

Since becoming a Healing Hearts leader 30-plus years ago, I have humbly had the privilege to minister in churches, pregnancy resource centers, homeless shelters, women’s conferences, and even in my neighborhood, as the LORD uses my testimony to stir the hearts of hurting women. I have had the blessing to preach the Gospel of grace and forgiveness in other countries, and I have discovered that the hearts of women are the same all over the world. Sin is the same and Jesus crucified is the answer. I have enjoyed the blessing of mentoring many leaders through our Healing Hearts training and helping them to begin their ministry in their churches.

I am thrilled to report that our 41-year marriage is still happily intact and we are enjoying our grown children and our ten amazing grandchildren! ALL GLORY TO GOD! And because of the LORD and His Word, Number 3 on my list of most-likely-to’s, “live happily ever after”, will too come to pass.

Has my testimony struck a chord with you? If so, please contact us for the hope that leads to healing. Or perhaps your response will be to share this letter with someone you may know who, like I once did, needs to hear of the Love of God and His Gospel of grace, mercy, and healing.

Healing Hearts Ministries truly covets every prayer and donation offered in support of our work as we seek to heal the brokenhearted with the Good News through compassionate one-on-one, online, and small group biblical counseling services. It is through your generous support that we are able to grow and remain available to serve these needs. Consider visiting healinghearts.org/donate today.
Thank you! To God be all the glory, honor, and praise!

Teresa Rinker, Pacific Northwest Regional Director — teresar@healinghearts.org



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Healing Hearts Ministries is a federally registered non-profit corporation, all contributions are tax deductible. One hundred percent of all contributions made to Healing Hearts go directly toward supporting the various aspects of our ministry no "administrative fee" is collected by a fund-raising service. All donations and expenditures are internally and independently monitored and audited. Annual financial statements are available upon request.

We thank you for considering contributing to our ministry. Your contribution will enable us to reach out and touch individuals who need the hope and healing message that only Jesus has to offer.

To donate online click this link:
https://www.healinghearts.org/donate


Send checks to:
Healing Hearts Ministries
PO Box 44670 Rio Rancho, NM 87174

phone (505) 355-6922