Too young to be a mother, and too young at age 13 to even understand, Susie’s mother took her for her third abortion. Terrified, she laid on the table shaking and crying. A nurse, seeing her tears, talked in a hateful way to her, treating her like nothing more than an object. Why is the nurse so angry? Susie wondered. She dreaded what she knew was about to happen because she’d been here twice before when she was twelve. The doctor walked into the cold, tomblike room and paralyzing fear gripped her. Time stood still in the little girl’s heart and mind as the doctor did what he had come to do. A short time later, Susie was taken home by a mother who was a stranger to her. There were no words of comfort, no expressions of kindness, no one to help her process what had just been done and no one to protect her from future violation.

Three decades later, the suffocating memories still haunt her—not because she hasn’t tried to forget. As a matter of fact, she’d tried very hard. She tried counseling, prayer, special groups for abortion survivors, but nothing stopped the silent screams in her heart and mind. Nothing could fill the grand canyon of emptiness that consumed her soul. Her pain, guilt, shame and immense loss clung to her like a wet, cold blanket draining the life out of her. With each passing year, her torment only grew. Well meaning friends encouraged her to put the past behind her—she wished she could!

How could this happen to an innocent child? When Susie was two years old, her mother left. Her father worked nights. It wasn’t long before her father left her home alone at night. Terrified of being alone, at age eleven, a neighborhood teenager offered to stay with her. Too young to know better and too young to understand, her nightmare began. This young man took advantage of this innocent child. His actions resulted in a lifetime of torment for Susie. After becoming pregnant for the third time, Susie’s mother took her to live with her. She hadn’t seen her since she left.

Thank God Susie’s story doesn’t end there. After hearing about what God is doing on Our Father’s Farm, Susie came for healing. We began with a prayer and a blessing. Susie then consecrated her imagination to God and asked Him to come. The suffocating pain, which had become her constant companion, rushed to the surface. I invited Susie to tell her heavenly Father how she felt. A vivid memory came up—she saw herself in that awful room. Her body began to shake violently. I held her close and cried with her—the way someone should have so many years ago.

I invited her to look around the memory and “find” God—He is everywhere, all of the time. She immediately felt the Holy Spirit surrounding her. I asked her what she would like the Holy Spirit to do and she cried out, “I need life put back in me!” Comforter wrapped His love around her like a warm, fuzzy blanket as He lifted her off of the table. As He poured life into His little girl, she sobbed for over 30 minutes. The memories of that awful room that were trapped inside of her were being processed and healed. God spoke words of affirmation to her dead heart. His power flooded her physical body healing the pain in her neck and back.

I watched as God did what only He could do and what no one else had been able to do. At the end of our two hour session, Susie laughed so hard she cried, but this time they were tears of joy, freedom and relief. The pain was finally gone and peace filled her heart. Susie said, “I feel alive for the first time in a very long time.”

(Susie and her husband now live on Our Father’s Farm and she is training to be a facilitator to help other women)