Shattered Pots
Paula Talley, A True Princess
A True Princess
By:
Paula Talley
(reprinted by permission from "Motherhood Interrupted" by Jane Brennan)
"You are not a pretend princess, my child. You are a real princess, and I am your God, the King of all kings. I chose you before you were even born to be my princess. You are very important in my kingdom...Remember, a crown and a palace do not make you a true princess--it is your love for me and for others that will make you special. Love, Your King and Father in Heaven." (by Sheri Rose Shepherd, in His Little Princess:Treasured Letters from Your King, published by Multnomah Publishers, 2006.
I was only six years old when physical and sexual abuse entered my life. The perpetrator was my own father. In time, my mother left him, and we moved to Southeast Missouri to live with my grandmother. The abuse stopped, but the damage remained. Covering my victimized existence, I lived for perfection; and one way I gained any semblance of self-esteem was through worldly beauty.
I entered many beauty pageants in search of that constant need to be beautiful. During one competition when I was sixteen, a young man named Larry Talley fell head over heels in love with me. I was young, and not at all interested in becoming a wife. There was a big world out there with plenty besides my small town living, and I intended to explore all my options. At seventeen, I left home and headed for the big city—Memphis, Tennessee.
Stars were in my eyes as I traveled to the city that Elvis made. But I lived far from the lights of the stars. My home was the YWCA, and when a knock came on my door, it was the same small town boy who had proposed to me once before. Larry had followed me to the big city, staying for a year before he decided to give up and go back home.
I was determined to meet the man I really loved—Elvis. One night I convinced my new best friend to sneak in and meet the King of Rock. “C’mon, Lily, we’ll be fine. The fence isn’t that high, and if we climb it just so, we won’t get a scratch on us. Barbed wire is a completely overrated deterrent anyway. We can do this.”
“Only you would think of a doing something like this—and only I would actually do it with you!” Lily was with me and with that I grabbed my new best friend’s hand. We were going Elvis fence climbing.
As expected (but not desired), security nabbed us and took us toward the house.
"I’m going into the house . . . Oh my gosh!"
Lily had to be thinking the same thing, even though both of us were scared out of our minds. Little did I know this would be the first of many evenings spent there attending parties for Elvis. “Want to go to a party?” asked one of the security guards hauling us in. And with that, I became an acquaintance and did go to Elvis’s house.
For six months or so, I attended party after party with Elvis’s friends. I even have a picture of Elvis and me. The time spent at the parties was enchanting, and it certainly helped perpetuate my understanding of worldly beauty. I was beginning to understand the power beauty held. What I failed to grasp was the power it could hold over me.
One afternoon another friend and I went driving downtown. Legionnaires were visiting Memphis for a conference and the media followed them. The Legionnaires pulled me out of my car and asked us to do the twist with them. We agreed. Little did I know the media would take my picture and it would end up on the front page of the newspaper. One of the executives of the bank where I was employed recognized my picture and called me the following week
“Are you the Paula Kish who works in our bank and whose picture was in the paper?” he asked.
“It was really me,” I answered, not knowing the implications of that response.
“I thought so.” Soon afterwards, that same executive came down to the bank while I was working, took me to a back room and forced himself on me. It didn’t stop there. He began showering me with roses and his attention. I knew he was a married man and I tried in my naïve way to stop his advances, but I was young and not able to completely comprehend how this would affect my life. His maturity made me an easy target and in his manipulative way he continued to pursue me. We had an affair.
He constantly told me how beautiful I was, which again propelled my sense of self-esteem to convince myself that the affair was okay. He was much older, but our age difference didn’t deter anything about our relationship. There is no doubt that when I was with him, I felt like I was somebody special.
But his possessive behavior only escalated and he would call me ten times a day checking on me. Finally, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I took time off of work. He didn’t stop. Friends helped me regain control of my life. In the end, the obsessive executive admitted, “I’m a dirty SOB for what I’ve done to you.”
Hoping to regain control of my life I began to see single men. However, one night, during a date, I was raped once again. Reeling from all the events in my life, I ended up in the hospital. The man who assaulted me called and threatened me. The situation escalated to the point that the married executive threatened to go after the man who raped me. One night when the date rapist called me, the fear on my face was so startling that a friend grabbed the phone out of my trembling hands and told this man never to call again. He didn’t. But the damage was done.
At this point, I convinced myself that I was okay and I could start over. Just three short months later, I met another man. We married not long after and had two beautiful daughters. But at the age of 33, I divorced him and became a single mom. Bitterness settled in my heart as far as men were concerned, and my callous (and careless) attitude set me on a path toward promiscuity.
I began looking for a new career and settled into the travel industry. However, since I had been at home with my two girls, I hadn’t worked in eight years. Travel school took me to many different cities and one time in particular, I met a man at a hotel restaurant. One thing led to another, and we spent the night together. Weeks later, I called him to let him know I was pregnant. He immediately offered money for an abortion, and I readily received it.
So many fears rushed through my head. I had just started a new career! This pregnancy could only hurt my reputation as a professional in the business world. Worse, if my ex-husband or his family learned of my exploits, I thought I might lose my daughters. With all these fears, I decided abortion was my only option.
I told my supervisor my dilemma, and she offered to go with me to the abortion facility. Once we were actually there, I tried to leave, but she said I had no choice. I knew I had a choice—at the expense of my job—but a choice nonetheless. Unfortunately, I made the wrong decision.
Waiting in a cold room with several other women, I eventually got up the nerve to look at them. There they sat; sadness and fear etched deeply into their faces. What were their stories? The stories of my life played over and over in my head.
"So many wrong turns, how did I end up here? It won’t be long until each of us will have taken the lives of our babies."
The nurse called my name, and I followed her into the procedure room. While my baby was being sucked from my body, I felt nothing. Empty. Looking back, I believe I used a defense mechanism known as disassociation. The room was white, and against that backdrop, I could see the medical staff, but the vantage point seemed to be from a place beyond myself. After the abortion, I knew I had taken the life of my child, but I found it was easier to go into denial and tuck it away with the rest of my past.
Denial did nothing to lift the heaviness I felt, so in order to cope, I began drinking wine. There were plenty of opportunities. Being in the travel industry constantly allowed me the time to socialize with men, and more promiscuity followed. Most of my acquaintances thought I was a jet-setter living the good life, but in actuality, I was struggling financially and hated myself for the way I was living. But I tried to stay active, giving me less time to focus on the pain of my life.
Another drink of choice was something many don’t consider. Nyquil. At first I began to take it when I had a cold, but then I began to drink it even when I wasn’t sick. I was a functioning empty soul. I took care of my two daughters as best that I could and I remember my ex-husband always telling my girls that I was a good mother. We attended church too, but I didn’t let God in really.
I maintained that façade, but deep inside my life continued in a downward spiral as the memories of my baby remained. I believed in my heart that I had aborted a boy, and I always missed my son, especially on the day that would have been his birthday.
Seven years of my life were wasted on promiscuous, out-of-control living. I reached such a low point that I almost made suicide an escape out of my misery. I remember driving to the riverfront in Downtown Memphis. I seriously considered driving over the river bluffs into its murky waters. No one would see any evidence of a car buried in a muddy grave. As seriously as I considered it, suicide just wasn’t an option. I still had my girls to raise.
My mother became very ill that same year and I drove home to Southeast Missouri to visit with her. When she passed away, I had the responsibility of notifying friends and extended family members. One of her friends happened to be the father of Larry, the young man who pursued me across the state line many years ago.
During a phone conversation with Mr. Talley, he encouraged me, “Why don’t you give Larry a call too, Paula. I think he’d want to hear the news about your mom from you, not his old dad.”
My mind wandered to the past. Where have the years gone? Larry—the man who left our small town to follow me to Memphis—I wonder how he is doing. I thought about his perseverance and many marriage proposals. He had stayed a year in Memphis before he finally gave up and went back home. I’d often wondered where life took him, but hadn’t considered getting in touch with him again.
“You really think I should call him—after all these years?”
The resounding affirmation in Mr. Talley’s voice spoke volumes, and I couldn’t disappoint a family friend. I scribbled Larry’s information on a scrap piece of paper and promised to call.
I took a deep breath and dialed the number.
“Hello. This is Larry speaking.” He sounded as if the years had no effect on his voice.
“Larry? This is Paula . . .”
“Paula? How are you? Where have you been all these years? Are you well?” Questions as to my well-being fired at me in rapid succession, and each time I opened my mouth to answer one, another came before I could say a word. “Are you in town? I would love to see you again.”
Larry and I did get together. In fact, Larry once again followed me to Memphis. Only this time there was a wedding, and I followed him to St. Louis to live.
During our first year of marriage, I knew I needed to tell my husband about my past—all of it-- so I opened my heart, telling him about the rapes and finally, my abortion. Larry reacted with a compassion I had never known before. His understanding went beyond my own as he tenderly comforted me. The only anger he expressed was for the men who had betrayed my naïveté. His expression of love mirrored the love of Christ—without judgment or condemnation.
Our marriage was unlike any relationship I had ever known; and for the next four years I embraced my new life. It seemed all was completely well until Larry suffered a heart attack. I rushed to my husband’s side at the hospital, and as they examined him further, not only had Larry suffered a heart attack, but he was also diagnosed with lung cancer. Over the next three years, Larry underwent cancer treatment while still working full time. Five years after the initial diagnoses, Larry, the love of my life, died.
Grief was my constant companion for six years following my husband’s death. Though I received many phone calls from concerned friends, one in particular stood out.
“Paula, God has a plan for you. You’re going to begin a ministry from Larry’s death.” I pondered my friend’s words and felt the need to begin putting my emotions down in words.
"I love you, Lord. I truly do, but my heart is breaking. Please help me." These were the first words I had ever written regarding my personal experiences, and I have been journaling ever since. Getting my feelings down on paper not only created a safe place for me to express my emotions, but led me to a place of trusting a counselor with my pain.
I was not out of the woods yet. A series of events would catapult me further. Work at a large travel corporation became a source of great stress in my life. I got into a car accident that totaled my car which led to more stress. But the final blow came from a doctor’s visit where I learned I had a heart murmur. Exhausted physically, mentally and spiritually, I went home after the doctor’s appointment and crawled into bed.
Oddly enough the next day I felt refreshed in a different way. While I sat drinking coffee with my oldest daughter that morning, the Holy Spirit moved me to do something I’d never thought I could do. I told her about my abortion. In surprise, she said, “You what?”
That began the start of my healing. That night I told my youngest daughter. The next day a friend called who knew about the abortion to see how I was doing. “Paula, there’s someone I want you to talk to…”
I connected with a woman who had a post-abortive ministry and I shared my story with her—another step in healing. At the end of our conversation, she encouraged me to talk again. “I want to connect you with another woman, Paula. Her name is Sally, and she shares the same past with you.”
Sharing with this prayer warrior was difficult enough, how was I going to share my story with someone I didn’t even know. But I did.
The next day, this precious lady called me, and as we shared our stories, the floodgates opened. I cried for what seemed hours. That phone call sealed my decision to attend the abortion recovery Bible study, "Forgiven and Set Free" If the compassion of the women who led this study was half as genuine as this woman on my phone, then I knew I would be in safe hands.
My first meeting proved to me that I wasn’t alone in my pain. Many other women were hurting just as I was. I learned that as a result of my past, including my abortion, that I was harboring deep-seeded anger. This anger had damaged my relationships with so many others in my life. During the course of this study, I was able to recognize and move through the emotions I was feeling. And I knew I was forgiven, once and for all. I had been set free. We each received a crown that day, a symbol reminding us that we were daughters of the King.
I’ll never forget one of the last things we participated in "Forgiven and Set Free" concluded with a memorial service for all the babies we had aborted. It was an incredibly emotional experience, but much needed to bring closure to the death of my son, whom I named, Jeremiah. My beloved, Jeremiah.
When I got home and unpacked, it occurred to me that I still had an old crown from a beauty pageant so long ago. I dug it out and set the two down together. Now I understood. This old tarnished crown represented worldly outside beauty—beauty that humans perceive. But my new crown represented who I am in Jesus’ heart—a beauty that can never fade.
Today I minister to many others including widows, post-abortive women and single mothers. But it is only through my confessed sin of abortion that God has healed me enough to allow me to minister to others. "Thank you, Lord. You have blessed me indeed."
There are times when I see a young man and wonder what my son would have looked like if he was here—his smile, his eyes, his personality. I often think of Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope.” To help my healing and to bond with my son, I wrote this poem.
I entered many beauty pageants in search of that constant need to be beautiful. During one competition when I was sixteen, a young man named Larry Talley fell head over heels in love with me. I was young, and not at all interested in becoming a wife. There was a big world out there with plenty besides my small town living, and I intended to explore all my options. At seventeen, I left home and headed for the big city—Memphis, Tennessee.
Stars were in my eyes as I traveled to the city that Elvis made. But I lived far from the lights of the stars. My home was the YWCA, and when a knock came on my door, it was the same small town boy who had proposed to me once before. Larry had followed me to the big city, staying for a year before he decided to give up and go back home.
I was determined to meet the man I really loved—Elvis. One night I convinced my new best friend to sneak in and meet the King of Rock. “C’mon, Lily, we’ll be fine. The fence isn’t that high, and if we climb it just so, we won’t get a scratch on us. Barbed wire is a completely overrated deterrent anyway. We can do this.”
“Only you would think of a doing something like this—and only I would actually do it with you!” Lily was with me and with that I grabbed my new best friend’s hand. We were going Elvis fence climbing.
As expected (but not desired), security nabbed us and took us toward the house.
"I’m going into the house . . . Oh my gosh!"
Lily had to be thinking the same thing, even though both of us were scared out of our minds. Little did I know this would be the first of many evenings spent there attending parties for Elvis. “Want to go to a party?” asked one of the security guards hauling us in. And with that, I became an acquaintance and did go to Elvis’s house.
For six months or so, I attended party after party with Elvis’s friends. I even have a picture of Elvis and me. The time spent at the parties was enchanting, and it certainly helped perpetuate my understanding of worldly beauty. I was beginning to understand the power beauty held. What I failed to grasp was the power it could hold over me.
One afternoon another friend and I went driving downtown. Legionnaires were visiting Memphis for a conference and the media followed them. The Legionnaires pulled me out of my car and asked us to do the twist with them. We agreed. Little did I know the media would take my picture and it would end up on the front page of the newspaper. One of the executives of the bank where I was employed recognized my picture and called me the following week
“Are you the Paula Kish who works in our bank and whose picture was in the paper?” he asked.
“It was really me,” I answered, not knowing the implications of that response.
“I thought so.” Soon afterwards, that same executive came down to the bank while I was working, took me to a back room and forced himself on me. It didn’t stop there. He began showering me with roses and his attention. I knew he was a married man and I tried in my naïve way to stop his advances, but I was young and not able to completely comprehend how this would affect my life. His maturity made me an easy target and in his manipulative way he continued to pursue me. We had an affair.
He constantly told me how beautiful I was, which again propelled my sense of self-esteem to convince myself that the affair was okay. He was much older, but our age difference didn’t deter anything about our relationship. There is no doubt that when I was with him, I felt like I was somebody special.
But his possessive behavior only escalated and he would call me ten times a day checking on me. Finally, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I took time off of work. He didn’t stop. Friends helped me regain control of my life. In the end, the obsessive executive admitted, “I’m a dirty SOB for what I’ve done to you.”
Hoping to regain control of my life I began to see single men. However, one night, during a date, I was raped once again. Reeling from all the events in my life, I ended up in the hospital. The man who assaulted me called and threatened me. The situation escalated to the point that the married executive threatened to go after the man who raped me. One night when the date rapist called me, the fear on my face was so startling that a friend grabbed the phone out of my trembling hands and told this man never to call again. He didn’t. But the damage was done.
At this point, I convinced myself that I was okay and I could start over. Just three short months later, I met another man. We married not long after and had two beautiful daughters. But at the age of 33, I divorced him and became a single mom. Bitterness settled in my heart as far as men were concerned, and my callous (and careless) attitude set me on a path toward promiscuity.
I began looking for a new career and settled into the travel industry. However, since I had been at home with my two girls, I hadn’t worked in eight years. Travel school took me to many different cities and one time in particular, I met a man at a hotel restaurant. One thing led to another, and we spent the night together. Weeks later, I called him to let him know I was pregnant. He immediately offered money for an abortion, and I readily received it.
So many fears rushed through my head. I had just started a new career! This pregnancy could only hurt my reputation as a professional in the business world. Worse, if my ex-husband or his family learned of my exploits, I thought I might lose my daughters. With all these fears, I decided abortion was my only option.
I told my supervisor my dilemma, and she offered to go with me to the abortion facility. Once we were actually there, I tried to leave, but she said I had no choice. I knew I had a choice—at the expense of my job—but a choice nonetheless. Unfortunately, I made the wrong decision.
Waiting in a cold room with several other women, I eventually got up the nerve to look at them. There they sat; sadness and fear etched deeply into their faces. What were their stories? The stories of my life played over and over in my head.
"So many wrong turns, how did I end up here? It won’t be long until each of us will have taken the lives of our babies."
The nurse called my name, and I followed her into the procedure room. While my baby was being sucked from my body, I felt nothing. Empty. Looking back, I believe I used a defense mechanism known as disassociation. The room was white, and against that backdrop, I could see the medical staff, but the vantage point seemed to be from a place beyond myself. After the abortion, I knew I had taken the life of my child, but I found it was easier to go into denial and tuck it away with the rest of my past.
Denial did nothing to lift the heaviness I felt, so in order to cope, I began drinking wine. There were plenty of opportunities. Being in the travel industry constantly allowed me the time to socialize with men, and more promiscuity followed. Most of my acquaintances thought I was a jet-setter living the good life, but in actuality, I was struggling financially and hated myself for the way I was living. But I tried to stay active, giving me less time to focus on the pain of my life.
Another drink of choice was something many don’t consider. Nyquil. At first I began to take it when I had a cold, but then I began to drink it even when I wasn’t sick. I was a functioning empty soul. I took care of my two daughters as best that I could and I remember my ex-husband always telling my girls that I was a good mother. We attended church too, but I didn’t let God in really.
I maintained that façade, but deep inside my life continued in a downward spiral as the memories of my baby remained. I believed in my heart that I had aborted a boy, and I always missed my son, especially on the day that would have been his birthday.
Seven years of my life were wasted on promiscuous, out-of-control living. I reached such a low point that I almost made suicide an escape out of my misery. I remember driving to the riverfront in Downtown Memphis. I seriously considered driving over the river bluffs into its murky waters. No one would see any evidence of a car buried in a muddy grave. As seriously as I considered it, suicide just wasn’t an option. I still had my girls to raise.
My mother became very ill that same year and I drove home to Southeast Missouri to visit with her. When she passed away, I had the responsibility of notifying friends and extended family members. One of her friends happened to be the father of Larry, the young man who pursued me across the state line many years ago.
During a phone conversation with Mr. Talley, he encouraged me, “Why don’t you give Larry a call too, Paula. I think he’d want to hear the news about your mom from you, not his old dad.”
My mind wandered to the past. Where have the years gone? Larry—the man who left our small town to follow me to Memphis—I wonder how he is doing. I thought about his perseverance and many marriage proposals. He had stayed a year in Memphis before he finally gave up and went back home. I’d often wondered where life took him, but hadn’t considered getting in touch with him again.
“You really think I should call him—after all these years?”
The resounding affirmation in Mr. Talley’s voice spoke volumes, and I couldn’t disappoint a family friend. I scribbled Larry’s information on a scrap piece of paper and promised to call.
I took a deep breath and dialed the number.
“Hello. This is Larry speaking.” He sounded as if the years had no effect on his voice.
“Larry? This is Paula . . .”
“Paula? How are you? Where have you been all these years? Are you well?” Questions as to my well-being fired at me in rapid succession, and each time I opened my mouth to answer one, another came before I could say a word. “Are you in town? I would love to see you again.”
Larry and I did get together. In fact, Larry once again followed me to Memphis. Only this time there was a wedding, and I followed him to St. Louis to live.
During our first year of marriage, I knew I needed to tell my husband about my past—all of it-- so I opened my heart, telling him about the rapes and finally, my abortion. Larry reacted with a compassion I had never known before. His understanding went beyond my own as he tenderly comforted me. The only anger he expressed was for the men who had betrayed my naïveté. His expression of love mirrored the love of Christ—without judgment or condemnation.
Our marriage was unlike any relationship I had ever known; and for the next four years I embraced my new life. It seemed all was completely well until Larry suffered a heart attack. I rushed to my husband’s side at the hospital, and as they examined him further, not only had Larry suffered a heart attack, but he was also diagnosed with lung cancer. Over the next three years, Larry underwent cancer treatment while still working full time. Five years after the initial diagnoses, Larry, the love of my life, died.
Grief was my constant companion for six years following my husband’s death. Though I received many phone calls from concerned friends, one in particular stood out.
“Paula, God has a plan for you. You’re going to begin a ministry from Larry’s death.” I pondered my friend’s words and felt the need to begin putting my emotions down in words.
"I love you, Lord. I truly do, but my heart is breaking. Please help me." These were the first words I had ever written regarding my personal experiences, and I have been journaling ever since. Getting my feelings down on paper not only created a safe place for me to express my emotions, but led me to a place of trusting a counselor with my pain.
I was not out of the woods yet. A series of events would catapult me further. Work at a large travel corporation became a source of great stress in my life. I got into a car accident that totaled my car which led to more stress. But the final blow came from a doctor’s visit where I learned I had a heart murmur. Exhausted physically, mentally and spiritually, I went home after the doctor’s appointment and crawled into bed.
Oddly enough the next day I felt refreshed in a different way. While I sat drinking coffee with my oldest daughter that morning, the Holy Spirit moved me to do something I’d never thought I could do. I told her about my abortion. In surprise, she said, “You what?”
That began the start of my healing. That night I told my youngest daughter. The next day a friend called who knew about the abortion to see how I was doing. “Paula, there’s someone I want you to talk to…”
I connected with a woman who had a post-abortive ministry and I shared my story with her—another step in healing. At the end of our conversation, she encouraged me to talk again. “I want to connect you with another woman, Paula. Her name is Sally, and she shares the same past with you.”
Sharing with this prayer warrior was difficult enough, how was I going to share my story with someone I didn’t even know. But I did.
The next day, this precious lady called me, and as we shared our stories, the floodgates opened. I cried for what seemed hours. That phone call sealed my decision to attend the abortion recovery Bible study, "Forgiven and Set Free" If the compassion of the women who led this study was half as genuine as this woman on my phone, then I knew I would be in safe hands.
My first meeting proved to me that I wasn’t alone in my pain. Many other women were hurting just as I was. I learned that as a result of my past, including my abortion, that I was harboring deep-seeded anger. This anger had damaged my relationships with so many others in my life. During the course of this study, I was able to recognize and move through the emotions I was feeling. And I knew I was forgiven, once and for all. I had been set free. We each received a crown that day, a symbol reminding us that we were daughters of the King.
I’ll never forget one of the last things we participated in "Forgiven and Set Free" concluded with a memorial service for all the babies we had aborted. It was an incredibly emotional experience, but much needed to bring closure to the death of my son, whom I named, Jeremiah. My beloved, Jeremiah.
When I got home and unpacked, it occurred to me that I still had an old crown from a beauty pageant so long ago. I dug it out and set the two down together. Now I understood. This old tarnished crown represented worldly outside beauty—beauty that humans perceive. But my new crown represented who I am in Jesus’ heart—a beauty that can never fade.
Today I minister to many others including widows, post-abortive women and single mothers. But it is only through my confessed sin of abortion that God has healed me enough to allow me to minister to others. "Thank you, Lord. You have blessed me indeed."
There are times when I see a young man and wonder what my son would have looked like if he was here—his smile, his eyes, his personality. I often think of Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope.” To help my healing and to bond with my son, I wrote this poem.
“To My Son Jeremiah”
by
Paula Talley
Forgive me, oh Lord, for what I have done.
I know my child would have been a son.
I’ve named him Jeremiah, for the weeping prophet who shed many tears.
You knew him in his mother’s womb, and you knew my son as well I’ve learned after many years.
I’ve lived with guilt, anger and shame for so long, that I was exhausted and totally enraged.
I needed my daughters to know they had a brother, Jeremiah, so I shared my story with your sisters, Jill and Paige.
At times I think I’ve caught a glimpse of you,
As I gazed in a young man’s face.
Would you have looked like him?
Wait! Is that you passing by?
What a wonderful way that young man grinned.
Then I think how many others are feeling this way.
Precious friends, I know the pain you are going through.
I now begin to heal and experience God’s amazing grace.
I now realize that if God would give his Son Jesus to die for me.
Then I can share your message and run the good race.
I’ll see you in heaven some day, Jeremiah. Forgive me for what I have done.
I’ll share my story in hopes that others will know not to take the lives of their little ones.
“For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, say the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope.”
-Jeremiah 29:11
This article was reprinted by permission from
"Motherhood Interrupted"
by
Jane Brennan
ORDER:
http://www.motherhoodinterrupted.com/orderbook.html
by
Paula Talley
Forgive me, oh Lord, for what I have done.
I know my child would have been a son.
I’ve named him Jeremiah, for the weeping prophet who shed many tears.
You knew him in his mother’s womb, and you knew my son as well I’ve learned after many years.
I’ve lived with guilt, anger and shame for so long, that I was exhausted and totally enraged.
I needed my daughters to know they had a brother, Jeremiah, so I shared my story with your sisters, Jill and Paige.
At times I think I’ve caught a glimpse of you,
As I gazed in a young man’s face.
Would you have looked like him?
Wait! Is that you passing by?
What a wonderful way that young man grinned.
Then I think how many others are feeling this way.
Precious friends, I know the pain you are going through.
I now begin to heal and experience God’s amazing grace.
I now realize that if God would give his Son Jesus to die for me.
Then I can share your message and run the good race.
I’ll see you in heaven some day, Jeremiah. Forgive me for what I have done.
I’ll share my story in hopes that others will know not to take the lives of their little ones.
“For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, say the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope.”
-Jeremiah 29:11
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Paula currently resides in St. Louis. She is the mother of two grown daughters, Jill and Paige. She continues to support her ministry by working as a travel agent with Travel Haus of St. Louis and would be delighted to help with all your travel needs. You can reach Paula for travel needs at: paula@travelhausstlouis.com. |
This article was reprinted by permission from
"Motherhood Interrupted"
by
Jane Brennan
ISBN13 (TP) 978-1-4363-0229-6
ISBN13 (HB) 978-1-4363-0230-2
ORDER:
http://www.motherhoodinterrupted.com/orderbook.html
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