{"id":1079,"date":"2013-01-22T07:22:56","date_gmt":"2013-01-22T12:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayerplainandsimple\/?p=1079"},"modified":"2013-01-22T07:23:48","modified_gmt":"2013-01-22T12:23:48","slug":"abortion-a-prayer-of-repentance-for-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2013\/01\/abortion-a-prayer-of-repentance-for-healing.html","title":{"rendered":"Abortion: A Prayer of Repentance for Healing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cGod, I come to you broken and ashamed. I am sick with regret and don\u2019t know where else to go. Have mercy on me.<\/p>\n<p>I know that the choice I made to end this pregnancy defied your heart and your law. You create life. We must never presume that it is ours to give, or take away. My own life is a gift from you; I would not want another human to determine my destiny.<\/p>\n<p>And yet in my desperation I made that choice. I took your role and played God. I took a life in my hands. Yes, I panicked and couldn\u2019t see how I would live, let alone raise up a child. That decision has now ruined my life as well.<\/p>\n<p>But I am not alone. Others before me have sunk to this depth. Even heroes in the Bible, people who became saints made terrible things of their lives and yet found your mercy, forgiveness and healing. King David killed a man in cold blood, and yet received your pardon. Paul the Apostle destroyed entire families with violence \u2013 he called himself the worst of all sinners. But he came to you and your restored him to life. There is hope for me<\/p>\n<p>You do say, \u2018If I confess my sins you are faithful and just to forgive me my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9). I come with this confession seeking pardon. Take this life that I have thrown into hell pit and restore me. I don\u2019t deserve mercy; but I seek it. Cleanse me; wash away the stain of this sin and make something of my life.<\/p>\n<p>I come to you in sorrow but in hope, that you and your words are true. I believe; help my lack of belief. This will take a miracle, but you specialize in miracles, in bringing life back from death. I choose to believe that you have rescued the two lives I have thrown into hell \u2013 my child and my own soul. You have taken us both now into your own heart. That is my only hope. I trust you\u2026in Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cGod, I come to you broken and ashamed. I am sick with regret and don\u2019t know where else to go. Have mercy on me. I know that the choice I made to end this pregnancy defied your heart and your law. You create life. We must never presume that it is ours to give, or&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[235,211,243,86,236,76,238,240,241,234,237,239,242],"class_list":["post-1079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prayer-for-forgiveness","tag-abortion","tag-absolution","tag-baby","tag-forgiveness","tag-guilt","tag-healing","tag-pardon","tag-pregnancy","tag-pregnant","tag-roe-vs-wade","tag-shame","tag-terminate","tag-unwanted-pregnancy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Abortion: A Prayer of Repentance for Healing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2013\/01\/abortion-a-prayer-of-repentance-for-healing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Abortion: A Prayer of Repentance for Healing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cGod, I come to you broken and ashamed. I am sick with regret and don\u2019t know where else to go. Have mercy on me. I know that the choice I made to end this pregnancy defied your heart and your law. You create life. We must never presume that it is ours to give, or&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2013\/01\/abortion-a-prayer-of-repentance-for-healing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayer, Plain and Simple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-22T12:22:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-01-22T12:23:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark and Jill Herringshaw\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Abortion: A Prayer of Repentance for Healing","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2013\/01\/abortion-a-prayer-of-repentance-for-healing.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Abortion: A Prayer of Repentance for Healing","og_description":"\u201cGod, I come to you broken and ashamed. I am sick with regret and don\u2019t know where else to go. Have mercy on me. I know that the choice I made to end this pregnancy defied your heart and your law. You create life. We must never presume that it is ours to give, or&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2013\/01\/abortion-a-prayer-of-repentance-for-healing.html","og_site_name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","article_published_time":"2013-01-22T12:22:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-01-22T12:23:48+00:00","author":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2013\/01\/abortion-a-prayer-of-repentance-for-healing.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2013\/01\/abortion-a-prayer-of-repentance-for-healing.html","name":"Abortion: A Prayer of Repentance for Healing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-01-22T12:22:56+00:00","dateModified":"2013-01-22T12:23:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/29563cda917dd596f93dba2ff3a7fedf"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2013\/01\/abortion-a-prayer-of-repentance-for-healing.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2013\/01\/abortion-a-prayer-of-repentance-for-healing.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2013\/01\/abortion-a-prayer-of-repentance-for-healing.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Abortion: A Prayer of Repentance for Healing"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/","name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","description":"Prayer, Daily Prayer, Simple Prayers, Quick Prayers, Prayer Requests","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/29563cda917dd596f93dba2ff3a7fedf","name":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/94f\/94fb184ea80985d82e603e3d8dd0056bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/94f\/94fb184ea80985d82e603e3d8dd0056bx96.jpg","caption":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw"},"description":"Mark and Jill Herringshaw and their four children have been ministering in their local church since 1990. Jill is an accomplished worship leader and recording artist with several CDs in Target stores\u2019 \u201cLifescapes\u201d collection. Mark is the former pastor of the 7,000 member North Heights Lutheran Church. He holds a Ph.D. in leadership from Regent University, is the author of three books and a recognized conference speaker.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/author\/mherringshaw1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/478"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1079"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1081,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions\/1081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}