Deeper Still

Rick was exposed to pornography at a very early age. This set him up for an over-sexualized youth and a lot of sexual promiscuity. As a college student, he was in a serious relationship, and his girlfriend became pregnant. Panic set in, and they chose to seek an abortion. Rick said he has often thought about his actions, "I was in a sexual relationship, but didn't take the responsibility for the consequences of my actions. I had a sick feeling that it wasn't the right decision and just went along with it."

After leaving her abusive marriage, Kelli kept searching for her knight in shining armor to take care of her. She felt like she had to work hard to be good enough for a man, but the men were always abusive. When she went to her Deeper Still retreat, she found the deeper healing she was looking for.

Kelli describes how the abortion clinic she went to in Gary, Indiana, was full of young black women and how black communities are targeted by the abortion industry. Her guilt kept her in an abusive relationship as a form of self-punishment. 

Kelli grew up in an unpredictable home where there was both love and abuse. As a teenager, she started to see the problems in her home, and then her dad left the home. She started to date a "tough guy," and eventually she got pregnant at age 15. Kelli was torn between her boyfriend, who wanted to keep the baby, and her mom, who wanted her to have an abortion. She ended up at an abortion clinic in Gary, IN. 

Hitomi experienced a lot of fallout from her abortion: relationship problems, drinking, and secrecy. She didn't share her story with her second husband, Sean, until they started pastoring at a church, and two men at the church shared their story about a past abortion. Hitomi went to a retreat in Hawaii, and Sean started realizing how important it was to talk about abortion in the church, especially how it also impacts men as well.

Hitomi was born in Japan but grew up in Hawaii. She responded to the cultural clash between her home life and the culture in Hawaii by becoming introverted and looking for love in all the wrong places. When she became sexually active with her boyfriend at seventeen, she got pregnant, and her family wanted her to have an abortion. They banned her from seeing her boyfriend. She felt alone and isolated, and that no one understood her pain after the abortion.

Karen had three abortions, two that were coerced when she was a teenager and one when she was a young adult. She now feels she missed out on many grandchildren because of her abortions. She didn't know how she could be made whole, but she started to follow God and began to change, but there was still shame and secrecy until her Deeper Still retreat.

Karen's parents divorced when she was in kindergarten. She responded by withdrawing, and she was very naive. Because of this, she didn't understand what sex was about and became pregnant at age 15. Her mother knew the doctor who performed the abortion. She was taken to the clinic by her mother. Karen had no idea what to expect. She had no idea how traumatic the abortion would be. 

After Mary started to get some healing for her abortion, she began to share her story publicly. She believed she wasn't qualified to talk to fully join in to the fight for life. She received prayer at a One Life conference, and later at home, she had a vision from the Lord, which was life-changing.

Mary wanted to go on with life after her abortion. She went to college and in her Freshman year, she developed an eating disorder. Later on, she became stressed out and wasn't sleeping. She also started going to church and came to know the Lord. After she came to know Jesus, she had a realization of her abortion as killing her baby. It became a secret she needed to outrun. She was full of guilt and shame. She met the man who would become her husband, and after they got married, their first pregnancy ended in miscarriage.