Hope and Healing Ministries

Hope and Healing Ministries

Toll Free 877-896-HOPE

563-322-1645

WEEKEND RETREATS & COUNSELING REFERRALS

Project Rachel

hopeandhealing@

davenportdiocese.org

“Now glory be to God! By His mighty power at work within us, He is able to

accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.” Ephesians 3:2

Diocesan Home Page

Project Rachel is the post-abortion healing ministry of the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1984 in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee by Vicki Thorn. At this time, Project Rachel is in more than 110 diocese in the United States with more ministries forming.

This diocesan based ministry is composed of a network of specially trained clergy, spiritual directors and therapists who provide compassionate one-on-one care to those who are struggling with the aftermath of abortion. Project Rachel is designed to provide confidential and skilled help to each individual who comes to the ministry.

Project Rachel is an outreach of the Catholic Church, but it is open to anyone who is struggling after an abortion loss. It is able to help women and men; parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and others whose lives have been impacted by an abortion loss.

You'll watch over every step I take,

but you won't keep track of

my missteps.
My sins will be stuffed in a

sack and thrown into the sea

—sunk in deep ocean.

Job14:16 &17

A Mother’s Testimony

“Tomorrow is Mother's Day. I am 48 years old and every Mother's Day since I aborted my two children has been painful. Some years, and most of the days in between, I muted the pain by listening to the cultural messages around me that there had not been life present anyway. I tried to talk to my female therapist about what I was feeling after the first abortion. She told me that women who give up their children for adoption suffer trauma but women who have abortions generally do not. So, in addition to feeling regret and sorrow unlike anything I had ever known, I then felt there was something wrong with me for being as affected by the abortion as I was. I stopped talking about it.

What I did was what some of us do after having an abortion…I got pregnant again the very next year. Even then, I understood my unconscious wish to undo what I had done. I thought about carrying this child to term, but my cowardice and shame overtook me once again. I chose to stop the process of life for a second time.

Often during the last years, I would think "how old my children would be now if they had lived?" But last November, at a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat, I let myself realize the full truth...that they are alive, that they exist today. I met them in my heart and did what I never thought in a million years I would be able to do-I named them Rachel and David. I finally began my relationship with them six months ago. I acknowledged their eternal existence, and I loved them.

I have heard it said that our children are the ones who keep after us, pushing us on toward healing and reconciliation. I think this is true. I was led to the retreat which was the single most powerful, profound and life changing event of my life. I knew I had been reconciled with God before the retreat. Nine years ago I returned to Him and received His forgiveness through one of His priests. But I did not feel reconciled to myself ,or my children. God's love flooded me during the retreat and led me to the reconciliation and internal peace that had always been out of reach.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. In my church

on this day, the priest asks all the mothers

in the church to stand at the end of the

Mass for a blessing. It has always been

agony for me, as women all around me

stand, and I sit. You see, I never had a

pregnancy again. I have never given birth.

And until last November, I never let myself

know that I have two children, that I too

am a mother. So when the priest asks

tomorrow, I will kneel for my blessing.

The women who gave birth deserve to stand.

I am at peace receiving my full blessing from

a more humble position. Text Box:
As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Psalm 103:12

Friend, please try. Trust your heart, trust

God and your child to lead you where you

have always needed to go. For my part,

I will pray for you and will ask Rachel and

David to look out for your little one until

we join them there, surrounded by God,

who is Love.”

God bless you,

A Mother

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I John 1:9

Perhaps ...

you are a woman who has had an abortion and is not hurting...then I appreciate your hearing me. I have been where you are too. That time in my life can best be explained by this analogy.

In my heart there is a closet which for a really long time I didn't even realize I had. A part of me that I hid from my friends, and since I had hidden it from myself, I think that I even thought I'd hidden it from my God. I built it out of what I thought were indestructible materials called shame, guilt, and self-condemnation. Into it I threw all my pain and grief for the loss of my son, and I put God's love in there too. (Because I didn't think myself worthy or deserving of His love.)

God gave me the gift of forgiveness in Confession. But I didn't open it... I tugged on the beautiful ribbons a little bit and threw it into my closet. But I didn't want to go into or even look at that closet—whose walls were so ugly—to get to His love and forgiveness which I felt I didn't deserve anyway.

Our God is so good and patient ... Finally I looked at the walls of the closet I had built. God knows how hard I worked. I tried to pound on the door of my shame. I tried to wrestle with the walls of my guilt. I did my best to trample the stones of my self-condemnation.

"How am I to get in there to You, God?" I asked.

"Lay down your sin at the foot of My cross... I have paid this price for you already. You already have the gift."

He replied.

But the gift was in the closet and how was I to get through the walls without a key! For me, the key to that closet was "Come to Me all you who are burdened and I will give you rest...”

Finally … finally … finally!

I went to Him and asked Him to heal me. The first time I asked for this, I couldn't even say the words. I typed them on my computer. Then one time later, I thought them. I asked again in a whisper. I was gifted the courage to say them out loud and to attend a Mass for the healing of myself and my family. Finally one night I prayed to Jesus to heal me. In confession that night I placed my past into Jesus' hands which He holds with my future. And the door swung open when He, through the priest, said “May God grant you pardon and peace…”

I have prayed for you too, that you be spared the great pain and suffering that I have experienced, and rest only in His peace. And should you ever need Him, unlike me, don't drag your feet...but run with all your might into His loving arms.

“My little gift from God, baptized by blood—he is among the other martyrs, praising, thanking , adoring God so perfectly. There, he and I will never again be parted.

God Bless You.”

(Dedicated to Paul Matthew )

877-896-HOPE |

563-322-1645 | hopeandhealing@davenportdiocese.org |

2706 North Gaines St, Davenport, IA 52804-1998