At 13 years old, Serena Dyksen found herself in an unimaginable position: she had been raped by her uncle and was now pregnant. At such a tender age, Dyksen hardly understood what had happened to her. She was too afraid to tell her parents, but she knew she needed help. “Finally, I ended up sharing what happened to a random student on the bus. I knew I needed help. That student reported what I shared with staff at my middle school,” Dyksen recalled in an op-ed. The school called her parents, who took her to a doctor who confirmed the pregnancy and advised an abortion, a word Dyksen didn’t understand at the time.

Dyksen was taken to Women’s Pavilion Center in South Bend, Indiana, which was operated by Ulrich George Klopfer. Klopfer made headlines after authorities discovered over 2,000 fetal remains at his home in his Will County home after his death. Dyksen described the abortion as “the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life.” Dyksen’s mother would later have to check herself into a psych ward after hearing Dyksen’s screams of pain. Her father had to carry her bloody from the clinic. He would later leave the family.

At age 16, Dyksen was pregnant again, but this time she understood what an abortion was. After confessing her past abortion history to her boyfriend, Bruce, they agreed they would keep the baby while parked outside a Planned Parenthood. They got married and had another baby. But Dyksen hadn’t yet processed the trauma of her previous abortion, which only worsened after a miscarriage. She fell into drugs and alcohol. Drunk in her car one day, she called out to God. “I prayed, ‘God, I have only you.’ What I love is that God saw me at my worst yet still lavished me with a love that I had never felt before. That night, I knew I needed to go home physically and spiritually,” Dyksen recalled. She returned to her husband and the two sought counseling, where Dyksen was able to unpack the trauma of her rape.

Dyksen didn’t unpack the trauma of her abortion, however, until she saw the film Unplanned, which tells the tale of Abby Johnson, who left her position as a Planned Parenthood director to a pro-life activist. “I heard the Lord say, ‘Now is the time to tell the rest of your story.’ I had told the Lord, ‘I’ll do anything you ask me to do, but don’t ask me to be a speaker,’ which is hilarious. I really thought that I was going to go to abortion clinics and help women choose life,” Dyksen told The Christian Post. Dyksen decided to receive training from her local Right to Life on sidewalk counseling. There, she met a nun who advised her to seek post-abortive counseling. After two abortion recovery retreats, Dyksen was able to begin to grieve the child she lost.

Dyksen wrote a book, She Found His Grace, detailing her experiences. After hearing from women who had similar experiences to herself, she and Bruce founded She Found His Grace. The ministry helps men and women with in-person and online abortion recovery as well as helping women in difficult pregnancies. The ministry now seeks to purchase a $2 million property by September which will become the Redemption House. Those who wish to help with funds can help here.