Abortion Controversy, The

Healing From Abortion -part 1

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Steve Wohlberg (Host), Dianne Wagner

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Series Code: TAC

Program Code: TAC000011A


00:08 Abortion is perfectly legal, and yet countless
00:12 men and women have suffered terribly when the reality
00:15 finally hit them that they have chosen to take the life
00:19 of their own innocent child.
00:22 Is true healing really possible?
00:25 The answer is YES!
00:27 Next on "The Abortion Controversy"
00:59 Thank you for tuning in to part 11 of a 13-part series
01:03 called: "The Abortion Controversy"
01:05 We are dealing with huge issues.
01:07 Today, again, my guest is Dianne Wagner.
01:10 She had two abortions, she has suffered more
01:13 than I'll ever know or you'll ever know
01:15 or anybody except God really will ever know,
01:17 and yet she has truly found healing.
01:20 And today, she's going to go into some of the details
01:22 that she has not shared before
01:24 as to how she found that healing.
01:26 Dianne, wow, before we came together this time
01:31 I know you were outside taking a walk, you were praying,
01:34 spending time with God, getting ready for this segment,
01:39 and I'm sure it's very emotional,
01:41 but let me just hold your hand here.
01:43 Thank you for your courage to be willing to talk about this.
01:49 And a lot of people need this, and as you have told me,
01:52 women have come to you in the past telling you
01:55 how grateful they are that you have actually opened
01:58 up and that you are talking about this.
02:00 That's what motivates me to keep telling my story
02:04 because of people's response
02:06 to it and that's what has brought me here.
02:09 Thank you for your invitation... Your welcome
02:12 You know, I have experienced the Lord's redemptive
02:15 power in my life like I never knew existed,
02:18 and it has made a huge impact on me.
02:23 I know what God means now when He says that...
02:25 "All things can work together for the good."
02:27 You know the things that we may be victim to
02:31 and had no choice or say, and the things that we suffer
02:35 because of the choice we made or a decision we made,
02:38 that He can make all things work together for the good."
02:41 What a promise! I love that!
02:45 I think Peter... just quickly, he denied Jesus 3 times.
02:49 The Bible says he wept bitterly, and yet the Lord
02:52 still loved him and He used that situation to turn
02:56 Peter's life so far around that on the Day of Pentecost,
02:59 God was able to use him to change and convert 3,000 people.
03:03 So God can take evil and He can turn it around,
03:07 and He can bring good out of it. That's right!
03:09 He is a wonderful God!
03:10 The Lord reigns! That's right!
03:12 Well, how I looked at it was... that God created us,
03:19 and He had this plan of salvation in place
03:22 before we even needed it.
03:23 He sees those sins we try to hide;
03:27 He watched as His Son's beard was being plucked out;
03:30 His face spit at... You know, that same God
03:33 loves even me, after seeing all this,
03:38 and I know that that same God has the power to not only
03:46 forgive, but to restore a post-abortive woman or man,
03:51 someone who has taken the life of the most innocent of us all,
03:55 you know, her own baby... That's a hard one.
04:00 And I don't think it's humanly possible for us to even
04:02 grasp that kind of love, it's supernatural.
04:06 It's beyond what humans, in themselves,
04:09 can give or understand. It's huge
04:13 You've told us some of the details in the past,
04:16 but you're going to go into some new territory today.
04:19 Yeah, I gave my heart to the Lord when I was 15,
04:21 and I know the Lord was with me,
04:24 and the Lord was jealous for me;
04:25 He wanted to be the One to take care of me.
04:28 But as I got older, I made decisions,
04:30 I didn't seek the Lord for wisdom;
04:33 I sought the world's wisdom.
04:34 And I made choices that alienated me because of sin.
04:41 And I love the thought that... you've read the text,
04:44 "the gateway of hope," and He waited at that gateway
04:48 of hope for me even when I was alienated because of sin.
04:52 He never gave up on me,
04:54 and that makes me fall more in love with Him.
04:58 So, I told you how we met Antionette,
05:02 my husband and I, at the 2011 GYC in Houston,
05:07 and she had this ministry for the post-abortive...
05:12 She had a booth there... Right, right and I saw that...
05:14 And I had always avoided pro life movements
05:17 because of past experiences that were very hurtful.
05:21 And, like you said, I had had two abortions in my life
05:25 at that time - it had been 30 years...
05:28 And when I saw that booth, for the very first time,
05:31 I allowed myself to go up there and look at pictures
05:35 of babies, the ages that mine were when I had them aborted,
05:40 and I had never allowed myself to do that,
05:42 even though I had already experienced
05:43 the Lord's forgiveness and I knew, by faith,
05:46 that the Lord had forgiven me, there was all this baggage,
05:50 the consequences that I had never dealt with.
05:53 And no one knew how to help me deal with that
05:55 up until this point. Even in the church?
05:57 No, you know you very rarely hear of the subject
06:02 of abortion brought up... And we've talked about that.
06:04 I have a growing conviction that the Church of Jesus Christ
06:08 needs to deal with this issue because it's such a big issue.
06:12 It's such a real issue; it's a Ten Commandment issue;
06:14 it's a sin issue; it's a grace issue;
06:16 it's a hurting issue; it's a people issue.
06:18 And Jesus wants to reach out to people right where they're at.
06:23 Exactly! And there's a lot of women
06:24 who are right where you were, and they need Jesus
06:28 through the church to deal with this issue...
06:30 That's right. ...and not to just avoid it.
06:31 Let the church be a refuge and a resource. Right
06:35 As well as the standard bearer that we were talking about.
06:38 Well after meeting Antionette, as I've told you before,
06:43 I left that hall and I cried when I left the exhibit hall
06:46 that night... I mean, my heart was breaking!
06:50 And I knew that there were unresolved issues;
06:53 things that I had not confronted yet when it came to
06:56 the subject of my abortions.
06:59 And, I started doing research about it because Antionette
07:04 had talked about the redemptive healing that the Lord has,
07:07 you know and the value and the intrinsic value and so much
07:11 enthusiasm... as you know. She's pretty bubbly!
07:14 She is and it made me jealous for that.
07:17 I wanted that, I knew something was missing in my life,
07:21 so I started doing research on the post-abortive woman.
07:25 And I came across a ministry called, "Rachel's Vineyard."
07:32 Now "Rachel's Vineyard" was started by Dr. Theresa Burke,.
07:37 and actually, I think when she was working on her doctorate,
07:41 she was doing some group therapy and the women in
07:44 her group... actually, it was an eating disorder,
07:47 it wasn't a post-abortive, but so many of these women
07:50 came up with having post-abortives,
07:54 and some of them were very volatile and mean and angry,
07:57 and some of them were broken-hearted, mournful,
08:00 and just all these different scenarios.
08:02 But they all had the same symptoms,
08:06 where it was surfacing, how it was surfacing
08:09 in the eating disorder, and the self-hatred
08:11 and the treatment of themselves.
08:13 So she started the weekend retreats,
08:17 Christian weekend retreats.
08:18 Well she, herself, is Catholic, so they offer a Catholic weekend
08:23 and they offer a nondenominational
08:26 Christian Bible-based weekend.
08:28 And did you find out about her ministry on the internet?
08:31 On the internet, I was doing research...
08:33 Was Googling... I was!
08:35 Post abortive healing. Exactly! Exactly!
08:37 And so I called the lady that had the weekend retreat
08:43 in North Carolina and I told her... I said,
08:45 "You know, I'm not Catholic, and she said,
08:47 "Well, I'm not either, you'll need to go to the
08:49 nondenominational one."
08:51 She was wonderful and just such a difference from
08:55 the last time I had reached out because, if you remember,
08:59 the last time I had actually called somebody
09:02 was that 800 hot-line number,
09:05 and I was just broken then.
09:08 I hadn't even had confessed my sin of abortion yet.
09:12 And the woman was... "Well you know
09:13 abortion is murder."
09:15 So "bang, don't you." Right
09:18 So I just hung up the phone,
09:19 and I didn't want anything to do with it.
09:23 And so, this woman was very kind; in fact,
09:27 in the weeks before the retreat, I got a card from her,
09:32 and I got a little letter encouraging,
09:34 "This is going to make such an impact on your life."
09:36 Good for her... It was just amazing!
09:40 But the week before that retreat,
09:44 I absolutely panicked.
09:47 I had the same anxiety and fear and literally shaking.
09:53 In fact, one day I went to my husband's office,
09:55 and I climbed up in his lap, and I was just that pitiful
10:00 because I was so afraid of confronting something that
10:05 I had stuffed so deeply.
10:08 And he was awesome, he was totally
10:10 supportive of me doing that.
10:12 And I went, and I know now it was the devil.
10:15 The devil did not want me to experience full redemption.
10:19 Now, was this a weekend or a week or?
10:21 It was a weekend - a long weekend.
10:23 And how many other women, I'm assuming...
10:25 Were there women and men or just women?
10:26 Well, there was about 4 other women and a man.
10:34 I want to look at my notes because I don't want to
10:36 miss anything, but I had friends praying for me,
10:43 Antionette, of course, was praying for me,
10:45 and then I had 3 other friends, that the entire weekend,
10:49 they were praying for me.
10:51 And then when I got there, I realized that this
10:54 "Rachel's Vineyard Retreat," they have people praying
10:57 around the clock the entire weekend just for us
11:01 coming for this as they see the importance of us
11:03 addressing these issues.
11:05 Was it in a house?
11:07 Well, it was a really big farm house that
11:10 was made to accommodate weekend retreats and stuff like that.
11:14 Nice rural setting, peaceful. It was beautiful!
11:16 It was beautiful.
11:18 So, it was a wonderful retreat and I can honestly say,
11:23 "I've never been so ministered to in my life
11:26 as I had been that weekend.
11:27 They were very attentive, and it was a safe environment.
11:31 where we felt we could share our stories and confidence.
11:37 In fact, we agreed there, initially, that the stories
11:42 we heard from these other people,
11:44 it was all going to be held in sacred confidence
11:47 because people were bearing their souls and their stories,
11:50 and heartbreaking stories.
11:52 And because of that, we became very close and we wept together,
11:58 and we prayed together, and we confessed together,
12:03 and we shared each other's pain.
12:06 And by sharing each other's pain, we validated
12:11 what we had been going through.
12:13 And we were given the opportunity to dedicate
12:18 our babies.
12:20 Now, you know the babies that I have that are now all grown,
12:23 I dedicated them when they were babies.
12:27 We went to the church, in the front, and pastor...
12:29 We did the same thing... Right
12:31 But I never thought of dedicating my unborn babies,
12:36 but I had never allowed myself to even acknowledge them...
12:39 You know, much less go to that.
12:41 It's like a closet that was shut tight,
12:44 and that weekend opened the door.
12:47 It did and it's okay, it's safe here.
12:50 You're going to go where you need to go.
12:52 So it was then that I really felt the healing
12:57 when we had the dedication ceremony.
13:00 It was incredible.
13:02 And was it for both of your babies?
13:05 Yes, it was for both of the babies that I had aborted,
13:08 and in my little book, I share that I had
13:11 had 2 miscarriages, so actually, there were 4 babies
13:15 that I had lost because the miscarriages were on the hills
13:19 of abortions, and were they for sure because
13:24 of the abortion...? I don't know,
13:26 but they very likely could be.
13:30 And so they encourage us to include those babies,
13:33 which I thought was very important.
13:36 We need to grieve for that loss as well.
13:39 So, we had the dedication,
13:44 and it was then that I felt the healing.
13:49 And I had never thought of dedicating my babies,
13:52 and it was powerful.
13:53 But the key here is by doing that,
13:56 I was acknowledging that this baby was, indeed, a part of me,
14:00 and I was choosing to trust the Lord with my baby now.
14:05 And ha! It makes an impact on you, actually it does!
14:09 ...And that's when the grief comes.
14:12 You know, as a group, we had shed tears of regret,
14:15 and now came those cleansing tears of remorse
14:21 where we can grieve the loss of our babies...
14:26 without that condemnation.
14:29 It was a beautiful thing!
14:31 And if you start crying, I'm going to be a mess.
14:34 I'm sorry...
14:35 So with that, we had this grief without condemnation.
14:40 We were encouraged to write letters to these babies.
14:43 Now, I want you to know, I could have never written
14:45 a letter to this unborn baby if I hadn't already
14:49 gone through the previous steps.
14:51 It was critical and it was beautiful.
14:53 So, the denial was gone and I was talking to my baby.
15:00 And, I named that first baby "Uriah."
15:04 Uriah, after the brave and honorable "Uriah the Hittite,"
15:09 in the Bible, and if you want, I'll read the letter to you...
15:15 Yes... by God's grace.
15:19 Do you have a letter for each child?
15:21 I have a letter for each child,
15:23 and they're beautiful letters,
15:25 and I treasure. You don't have time to read them all. Right
15:26 Just one... So, I'll share this.
15:28 Uriah would have been my firstborn.
15:31 "My Dear Uriah, You would have been our
15:36 firstborn, Uriah, an honored and blessed position.
15:40 You bear with me...
15:44 But your dad and I prevented that from happening.
15:47 We didn't trust God's Son.
15:49 We leaned on our own understanding of things.
15:53 We trusted man's wisdom over the wisdom from above.
15:57 The doctor's told us we should abort... every one of them.
16:01 I'd like to think that was the only reason I did it,
16:04 and thus blame them, I can't.
16:07 I was afraid, son... Even though I was engaged
16:11 to your dad, I felt shame and fear.
16:14 I think that if I had had a spiritual mentor at the time,
16:17 I might have reconsidered, maybe...
16:21 I didn't have a church family to be embarrassed around.
16:24 I was afraid of what the radiation
16:26 might have done to you, but I can't blame it
16:28 on just that.
16:31 I named you "Uriah" because he was a righteous man,
16:34 and his life was taken away.
16:37 He was in the way.
16:39 Through him, David's shame would have been revealed,
16:43 so he had him killed.
16:45 If I had not had the abortion, I would have been shamed.
16:50 Shamed! So son, I had you aborted.
16:53 I had your precious little body destroyed,
16:59 and removed from the safety of my womb.
17:03 Now I know what real shame is.
17:07 You would have been 31 years old by now, son.
17:12 You would have been big, beautiful and strong.
17:18 But I took it away. I am sorry son.
17:22 I am so sorry.
17:25 I look forward to the day when we are reunited.
17:28 I want to hold you close to my heart and thank Jesus
17:32 for forgiving me and giving you back to me.
17:35 I love you Uriah, Mommy
17:39 Well, as you can imagine, there was a
17:43 lot of tears shed that day.
17:45 I had 4 letters to read.
17:48 Another lady had 4 letters.
17:49 The gentleman there had 2 letters.
17:52 And, each one of us, had a way of memorializing.
17:59 Some had maybe a poem they had written,
18:03 just different ways that they wanted to always remember
18:06 this child that they had not had.
18:09 And so I came up with this and I'd like to show it to you.
18:15 Was this part of Rachel's direction? It was...
18:19 This is what they directed you to do...
18:20 Well they encouraged us that if there was something we
18:23 wanted to do, and at the time,
18:25 to be honest, I didn't know what to expect when I went.
18:31 In fact, I called her the week before and said,
18:35 "I just need to know there's nothing weird
18:37 going to be going on."
18:38 You know, I was like venturing out on territory,
18:42 but I wanted the Lord's redemptive power in my life
18:46 so bad and I wanted healing, and I didn't understand
18:49 the significance of acknowledging these babies,
18:53 and giving myself permission to grieve...
18:56 "You know, it's okay to grieve, Dianne,
18:59 the Lord has forgiven you, now forgive yourself."
19:02 And that is the hardest part... to forgive yourself.
19:07 So I thought about what kind of memorial,
19:13 and I remember going to the store and thinking,
19:16 "Okay, maybe a little baby doll,"
19:19 and then... OH, there was no baby doll."
19:22 I went to the office to David and I cried...
19:25 "I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do,
19:27 I can't find anything."
19:28 He said, "Well, let's just look at something on the internet."
19:31 So he's the one who really helped me
19:33 steer in this direction.
19:35 And we found these adorable little babies,
19:37 and I'd like to show this to you.
19:39 I have one for each one.
19:41 Here is Uriah's... it's a little box
19:44 with the baby feet and when you open it,
19:47 there's just a little baby.
19:50 And this is not like something I'd keep out for everyone to see
19:55 I keep it tucked away in my pajama drawer.
19:59 But it is my little memorial for Uriah,
20:05 and it has helped in the healing.
20:08 We don't allow ourselves to heal,
20:12 and that's very sad and that's why I encourage
20:15 everyone to plug into some kind of post-abortive.
20:22 It has made a new woman out of me.
20:25 And it will be 2 years in March that I went.
20:29 And all the ladies at that retreat know I'm here
20:32 and they're all praying for me.
20:33 So you're keeping in touch with them... Absolutely!
20:35 In fact, we're given the opportunity to exchange
20:39 contact information, but only if we wanted to
20:43 because of the confidential... Of course
20:45 And, I actually heard from one of the ladies
20:48 not too many weeks ago and her husband was going to go
20:52 to the retreat and I was thrilled about that.
20:57 In fact, David... we were just talking about this
21:01 maybe the last few months that he wants to go to one.
21:06 Really? He said, "But only if you
21:07 go with me. Wow...
21:09 It really helped you.
21:11 It's huge. I want to read this text
21:15 that just really means so much to me.
21:17 It's not a text, it's a quote.
21:20 Usually when I give a presentation,
21:21 I read the whole thing, but I won't read the
21:23 whole thing here, but the reason I'm reading this
21:26 is because the men and women who are out there
21:29 hearing this - watching this need to hear this.
21:33 "Satan stands at our right hand to accuse us,
21:38 and our Advocate stands at God's right hand to plead for us.
21:43 We have reason to have hope.
21:46 He has never lost a case that has been committed to Him."
21:50 When I read that, that was like opening a window.
21:54 "He has never lost a case that has been committed to Him."
21:57 Praise God! I committed my case to Him
21:59 and I know it was through Jesus that I found Rachel's Vineyard
22:04 because even though the Lord had forgiven me of my sin
22:09 years ago... the sin of abortion
22:11 that I had taken the life of my innocent child,
22:14 He had forgiven me the consequences.
22:18 The sad thing about it is... the consequences I suffered
22:23 for 30 years which is pitiful,
22:26 and that's why I'm here today because "yes, I have
22:29 experienced the redemptive power of Jesus Christ
22:31 in my life and I don't want other men and women to suffer.
22:36 Yeah, you know I've thought so much about this and I have
22:38 thought about the whole freedom issue,
22:39 and I thought of... what if a man was on the edge of a
22:41 cliff talking to somebody else and the man was about to jump...
22:46 What would I say to that person?
22:47 Would I say, "You know, I totally respect your freedom
22:50 to jump if you choose to." No
22:53 Now he has freedom. Right
22:55 But I would give him every reason NOT to jump
23:00 to save him and really, that's what
23:02 I see as part of the mission of the church.
23:05 ... Is that the church needs to, yes, we respect freedom,
23:07 but we need to help people to understand
23:09 this is a sin issue.
23:11 It's a right and wrong issue, and we want to help people
23:15 so they don't have to go through 30 years like you
23:19 have suffered, but Praise God you found healing. Amen!
23:22 And the silence, that's why we need to break the silence,
23:27 and do something.
23:29 I got it... You mentioned the men too.
23:32 As I've been thinking about this,
23:33 there was something that really hit me the other day
23:35 that if I knew that a woman that I was with
23:39 became pregnant and through our consultation or whatever
23:45 she chose to have an abortion, and I finally realized
23:48 what I had done later on, this is something that would
23:50 really minister to me.
23:52 I've been just thinking about this about Jesus.
23:54 It says in John 1:10 that "He was in the world
23:57 and the world was made through Him."
23:58 That Jesus is the Maker of everything, you know,
24:02 and there's another verse in Acts 3:15 that says that,
24:05 "He is the Prince of life."
24:06 And I've just thought about that.
24:08 I thought if it was my baby that was aborted,
24:12 for me to realize that not only is Jesus the Prince of Life
24:16 who made that child that was supposed to grow full-term,
24:21 and I contributed to the death of my own son or daughter,
24:27 the same Jesus who made that child, made me,
24:32 and that He came down into Mary's womb
24:35 and He came full-term, and then He grew up
24:38 and He lived for me and suffered
24:40 and He died at the end of His life and He rose.
24:43 And I guess my point is that He made my baby,
24:49 but He also made me and He loves the baby,
24:52 and He loves me so much that He became a baby
24:55 and He grew up and He did all that to let me know
24:59 that He loves me too.
25:02 That thought just hit me one day and I thought,
25:03 "You know, that would really help the healing process for me"
25:07 and I know God uses different insights and ways,
25:11 and I'm so thankful that He has used that retreat to help you.
25:14 It was huge, it was huge.
25:17 I don't know how much more time we have,
25:20 so I don't want to start. Got about 2 minutes...
25:22 But the intrinsic value, besides this retreat,
25:25 what you were just saying, what Jesus has done for us...
25:28 when we see that, we can see how valuable we are.
25:33 I think we'd say, "What would Jesus do?"
25:34 I've asked myself, "Would Jesus abort a baby?"
25:37 And my answer would be, "Not if there was any
25:42 other way." The answer would be "No."
25:46 We talked about women in certain situations
25:48 where the mother's life is at stake,
25:49 but His answer would be "No."
25:51 If there's any other way because He's the author of that life.
25:55 That's right... And He's the author of your life.
25:57 And, Dianne, your testimony is helping a lot of people.
26:02 Well thank you for letting me share it. Thank you
26:04 You're very welcome, and I'm assuming people
26:06 can contact you in the future. Absolutely
26:09 If they are struggling, they can find Rachel's Vineyard,
26:11 and they can find "Mafgia Ministry,"
26:14 and they can get the information that they need
26:16 to help with the healing process.
26:19 Well as we wind this up, I'm glad I'm not bawling,
26:24 I could be - I cry quite a bit when I think of my kids.
26:27 I was a little worried myself about me.
26:29 I want to finish this up with a verse in the
26:31 book of Revelation.
26:33 I've shared this many times as a pastor and as a speaker,
26:38 and as a writer, Revelation 21:4-5 says that
26:43 "One of these days God will wipe away all tears from their eyes,
26:48 and there will be no more death, neither sorrow,
26:51 nor crying; neither shall there be anymore pain
26:54 for the former things will all pass away,
26:56 and He that sat upon the throne
26:59 said, "Behold I make all things new," and He said to me,
27:04 "Write, for these words are true and they are faithful."
27:11 The Bible is the truth. God is the truth!
27:13 Life is from Him and whatever you've done...
27:17 if you're a man who has contributed to an abortion;
27:20 if you're a woman who has had an abortion,
27:21 you've heard Dianne's story, you've heard the Word of God...
27:24 Jesus says, "Those who come to Me, I will never cast out."
27:27 And some day, all tears will be gone and we invite you
27:31 to get to know that God right now.
27:34 Dianne Wagner shares her life-changing story
27:38 in today's free offer: "Redeemed, A Gateway of Hope"
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27:44 and would like a powerful sharing book to give to women
27:46 who need to hear this message of hope, call:
27:48 1-800-782-4253
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Revised 2015-09-10