Journey Home - 2019-01-22 - Abby Johnson

[Music] [Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program and it is a great pleasure to be with to join you again after all these years and again I thank you wtn for this wonderful opportunity to do this so you and I consider here a story tonight we have a returning guest makes it the first time that I've interviewed this guest because the last time she was on the program my son John Mark interviewed her because my mother was going through a trial our guest is Abby Johnson many of you have heard of her she's a former Baptist can Episcopalian her journey has to do with abortion and abortion clinics and I think you're her life went in a whole different direction than she ever dreamed because of how the Lord by grace touched your heart Abby welcome back thank you so much for having me that's great it's great to have you here a great privilege I missed you the last time good to have you here your story and just before I get there I want everybody she has a website Abby Johnson dot org yes so if anybody wants to find out more about her the whole story and all that she's doing we'll talk about a lot of the other stuff in the program but for returning guests I do ask you to kind of review your journey and becoming Catholic for the audience that didn't see the program before and for old guys like me that weren't here when I was supposed to be so let me get out of the way then let's get your story again sure yeah I worked at Planned Parenthood I was an abortion clinic director I was there for eight years and had this radical conversion and all them stopped you when they interrupt you when you went to Planned Parenthood was there any challenge to your conscience at all when you first went there you know there had to be some I don't really remember specifically but there had to be some because I did not tell my parents where I worked for a year and a half because I knew that they would not approve because I had been raised pro-life and had been raised in a Southern Baptist Church that was pro-life and even when I started working at Planned Parenthood we my husband I were going to a Baptist Church and we left because they started talking about abortion and I thought oh I don't want you know I don't have anything to do with these these people these pro-life people so good conscience yeah okay yeah and so I must have felt something I must have felt some sort of angst but just sort of pushed it down and keep doing what I'm doing so we found an Episcopal Church to attend and they were very supportive of my work at Planned Parenthood all donors to Planned Parenthood the the priest was very supportive he used to send women to me at the clinic so that felt great to be so validated in my church community and so I had this big experience though and and decided to leave Planned Parenthood and when I became publicly pro-life our priests called us in the Episcopal priest called us in and he said because of your stance surrounding abortion you are no longer welcome in the Episcopal Church of America and which was fine because I you know I knew that I could no longer attend that church because they were so pro-choice and now it was in conflict with what I believe but I sort of wanted to fire them and so then my husband and I started searching and we knew that we we really loved the liturgy which was surprising because I had grown up Southern Baptists praise and worship so but I really felt at home in the liturgy and so we started looking and you know there weren't very many pro-life liturgical churches out there but we did visit a few and just really I don't know it just didn't fit and when I left Planned Parenthood I left all my friends behind so I had this new group of friends who happened to all be Catholic and they started inviting us to go to Mass and I can't say I mean I I did have some anti-catholic beliefs and I can't say they came from my parents they came from the church where I grew up but it was very subtle so the pastor might say well we know that you can't work your way into heaven unlike some religions and you know everybody in the congregation is saying Oh Catholic talking about Catholics and and so I grew up believing those sorts of things about the Catholic Church so when when my new friends kept inviting me to come to Mass I just thought oh my gosh I have no desire to be Catholic they're weird they worship statues you know all this got his stuff but I told my husband one Sunday I said look they keep bugging us about it so let's go we'll say we hated it and then they'll stop bothering us about attending Mass so we go to Mass and I remember walking out and my husband I sat in the car and we said wow that that felt right that was strange we didn't expect it to feel right and so as soon as I told one of my friends that we were suddenly in RCIA and really sort of you know learning more about the Catholic Church and we were very blessed because we had a beautiful RCI experience we we actually met privately with our CIA director and that was perfect because I had a lot of questions and I was pretty stubborn and he was pretty stubborn and so he was good at you know at really showing me the truth and not just you know I was all feeling I was all emotion and and here he was you know all Scripture and all Magisterium and that was really what I needed at the time and so I can't say I was really taking it that seriously my husband read theology of the body and he read Humanae Vitae and he came to me one day and he said I don't know where you are on this journey to become Catholic he said but I'm becoming Catholic well he said with or without you I am becoming Catholic and I really hope you will take this seriously I will say that it's not the normal case that a husband's going to sit there and read you man - Vijay in theology of the body so he himself was in an intense journey himself he was and very intellectual in that sense yeah and and he had never put his foot down with me like that before and so I thought okay he's really serious I need to get serious and so I started reading and and I just I fell in love with the church I fell in love with the history of the church and and I found I grew up believing that the Catholic Church was all rules and rituals and I came to the to the realization that those rules were actually incredibly freeing because I had grown up in a church where you could put 10 men in a room give them a scripture and asked them for their interpretation and all 10 could give a different interpretation and they're either all wrong or one is right and that was very uncomfortable for me I needed the rules needed tradition I needed somebody to say no this is what we believe on this and and so that was very freeing to me and so we ended up coming into the church together April 6th of 2012 and it was a beautiful experience it was it was so healing for us personally but also really healing for our marriage because my husband law I had worked at Planned Parenthood he was pro-life and and so we we had to do a lot of healing together as a couple and I truly believe that without the sacrament of marriage without that teaching without the the beauty of the teaching of marriage in the Catholic Church I'm not sure that we would have have made it without it and so truly coming into the church was the best thing that that we as a couple and we individually have ever done Wow you mentioned something a little bit ago about 10 guys sitting in a room in your past one Bible and 10 interpretations and and I wanted to say something to the audience for the sick the audience that you know we're I'm thinking if I were back as a Presbyterian pastor watching this program and just heard you said that they might have said well they look at the church today look at the message in the church look at all the opinions out there you're no different than Protestants and and I want to say there is a very important difference and the illustration that I've use and I think I've used it on the journey home is that if you took a shotgun and and shot two shots into the wall a shotgun doesn't have one hole it's a spread of a bunch of little things so if you took two shotguns and and it looked like a two equal looking spreads of all these little holes and in my mind one is Protestantism and one is the Catholic Church the difference is that in the Protestants spread of ideas where's the center you would say what's the Bible well which which diet what to die which but in the Catholic Church you know the center the Magisterium and union with Peter you know what the truth is so when you got somebody way out here they know were in relationship to what so when I'd look back on your journey you have the truth of theology of the body Humana vitae influencing your husband and you have a point of reference for what is true about all the things that that you had been doing and that's what I wanted to ask and again I wasn't here when you sat with my son John Mark and I heard your story interview with them years ago but I'm guessing and I'm wondering them a part of your journey as they after you've come into the church after you're no longer Planned Parenthood now you realize the truth of this Oh what had I done mmm talk about that what had how do you deal with what you had done you know I wrestled with that for quite a long time wondering can God really forgive me I mean I participated in over 22,000 abortions during my time at Planned Parenthood and and had two abortions of my own and so you know thinking can there be forgiveness how do I know that he's forgiven me a sort of this question this cloud that was always hanging over me and I think it also created a barrier between me and Christ because I just never knew has he gotten over it you know is he still mad at me as he really forgiven me and it wasn't until I went to confession for the first time and it was Easter so long lines right and I felt so bad for all the people behind me I'm gonna be in here a lot but I went in and of course was just ugly crying you know just giving it all out and and the priest that day was so gentle and and he was just the perfect person for me that day but hearing the words that I had been absolved of my sin it was like that barrier was suddenly shattered and I thought like now I have peace I had a peace inside of me that I had not had since I had left Planned Parenthood and I was you know almost three years out and I just run I wrestled with this just like just not having peace having this angst and not knowing if I was really forgiven but the sacrament of reconciliation gave me a piece that I honestly I'm not sure I'd ever felt before I was speaking I had never thought of it this way before but affect now I'm wondering if it really fits but Paul makes this great statement he says not that I have already obtained this or I'm already perfect but I press on to make it my own because Dreyse Jesus has made me his own brethren I do not consider that I've made it my own but one thing I do forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus I think Paul said that right after he came out of the confessional I you know when I it helped me because I remember thinking okay now I can move forward now this is truly behind me now I can move forward and now I can truly use this this story that I've lived through and I can use it now to glorify God and I move forward I felt stuck in a way I was still sharing my story I was still but I just didn't have that inner peace and and I felt disconnected there was still a disconnection from Christ because I was still hanging over me and so it was preventing me from really moving forward and using my testimony to then help others move forward as well yeah that reminds me again of another important passage I know I've said many times on this program but I find it so important and that second Corinthians where he says were we blessed Lord Jesus the father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in our flickr so that we may be able to comfort those or in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves have been comforted but that's what you're witnessing to the comfort you received because of what you done yet equipped you to help those that go through the exact same thing and really I knew that the ministry that I wanted to start couldn't start until I had I had really left my past in the past all right our guest is Abbey Johnson former Baptist bisk Balian what about and then there were none yeah so I knew that when I left Planned Parenthood there had to be other people like me people who wanted to leave maybe there were single moms and they needed a way out but they just they couldn't just leave their job and I thought for sure that in at that time almost 40 years of fighting legalized abortion that there there would be some sort of ministry to reach out to reach into abortion clinics and get workers out and get them on a path of healing and get them into relationship with Christ I thought surely we have done that and I started looking and there wasn't and so I started asking questions of different pro-life leaders and I started saying why aren't you doing this why isn't this done and the answer was the same to everyone I spoke to they said those people are too far gone and I kept hearing reprobate and they're they they're too far to be redeemed and I thought I remember saying out loud to one of them but what about me was I too far well you're different I thought no no I'm not any different actually I'm the same and I thought no if God can change my life I know he can change the life of these other people and so I really started praying and I said you know God somebody needs to start this so if you would just lay this on the heart of someone to start that would be great and he was you know like tapping me like hello dummy and you know obviously I'm preparing you for this so reminds me yeah be the Old Testament I think it's Isaiah where who will go for me in Isaiah he says we'll hear him send that guy and so I finally said okay I guess it's me nobody else is stepping up I guess it's me so we we got this started I came into the church of April in April of 2012 we started and then there were none in June of 2012 and I went to people and told them I was so excited about this and so excited about what God was gonna do in the lives of these people and I was met with so much resistance why would we want to help them look at what they're doing why would we help them you know they they've made their bed now they have to line it that was sort of what I was getting and I thought that is not the message of Christ here and I thought they deserve better they deserve better from us and I thought you know I felt I did honestly though feel discouraged cuz I thought well gosh maybe nobody is gonna come to us I don't know maybe this is a terrible idea so when we were when we were mapping out our strategy we thought well if we help 10 workers leave their job in a year we will consider that just enormous success and now here we are you know almost sick about five and a half years later and we've helped about 500 abortion workers leave and we've helped seven full-time abortion doctors leave their practices and they now fight for life and so it's amazing what God can do when you just give him your yes and we my husband and I gave him our yes for this ministry not knowing what that was going to look like not knowing how to how to start a nonprofit organization or anything but we just said yes or we are willing to do whatever it is and there's been a lot of trial and error because nobody else was doing this so we didn't have a model to look to you although you copied the coming home network but basically yeah and so we just we you know we started this and God has been so good and the the the workers that are coming to us it's been interesting because I sort of assumed that the majority of workers that would be coming to us would have grown up with no faith foundation what we're actually finding though is that for those who had faith foundations growing up the majority were Catholic and their fallen away Catholics and so well that was interesting to me and and some of them honestly mass going Catholics there they're still attending Mass but feel very disconnected from the church because of what they're doing and so you know then we said okay well now we have to shift gears because now it's important for us to get them back into the sacraments so it's been very interesting to see even how our organization even though it's not technically a Catholic organization we're still really evangelizing the Catholic faith to so many people who have fallen away yeah you know there's Protestants who have a presumption that well you know I accepted Jesus as my savior years ago and so it doesn't matter how I live my life if I died tonight I'm going to heaven because I accepted Jesus years ago so they can use that to justify doing things like this because well what I do now doesn't affect my salvation Catholics maybe they presume that go to confession once a while it takes care of it or I go to Mass so it really doesn't matter no more they get this bad teaching but but we live in a soup of ideas that like like the old frog in the pot theory that we become accustomed to things we give in someone's got to do it or what all the excuses and then there they are there they are in the midst of doing it now when you came through and turned to Christ by grace saw the beauty of the church we're all the Christian friends and family supportive of your decision to become Catholic you know it's interesting my I think my parents is sort of like okay okay we're glad you're not at Planned Parenthood anymore so I think it was a little difficult for him honestly it was more difficult for them when I became Episcopalian he my mom has said that was actually the more difficult transition because she said now she said then I thought oh my gosh now she's gonna be part of a faith community that's validating her immorality mmm and she said now it's gonna be even harder to move her back to the truth of Christ because she's using Christian this false Christianity to validate what she's doing and and so she said that was harder for her it's been really great because my parents still very strong Southern Baptists but it has helped us we've had so much dialogue about the Catholic Church and my mom has now become this beautiful defender of the Catholic faith to her Baptist friends who believe a lot of myths about the church and because of the conversations that I've been able to have with my parents they now understand the Catholic Church better and they see the fruit right they see the fruit in our lives and in the lives of our family and they say you know something has to be real there something has to be right there because I'm looking at my children and looking I'm looking at my daughter I'm looking at her husband I'm looking at all of their children and I'm saying okay they do know the Lord and they do serve the Lord and something is right so it really hasn't been a huge struggle that's been your mutual love for Jesus Christ in me so commitment to life I mean praise God yeah and and and my pet I didn't know you know I thought okay my kids they start getting baptized they start having First Holy Communion you know are my parents gonna be involved and they are right there front row super-supportive side has been such a blessing and such an answer prayer all right well let's take a break why don't we right now we want to come back talk about the blessings of children find out whether you got your children yeah I mentioned that yet so let's talk about that let's not going to come back to blessing of children and also just talking the big picture about this a whole or something anyway how does how do we understand what's going on in our culture so that for our children and grandchildren's sake hopefully by God's grace we can move this monolith in a you know in a good direction alright let's come back to that [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host and our guest is Abby Johnson before I get back and I just want to remind you I met I joked with her earlier that she was copying the work of the coming on network because they're coming on network exists to help non-catholic Christians discover the beauty of the Catholic Church and if you're interested in our work especially if you if you had a life where you kind of look back and wonder could Jesus even want me we'd love to have you contact the coming on network you can do that at ch network dot orgy or if you got friends and family that you would love to help discover the beauty of the church because they've drifted please come to the coming home network CH network or now before we broke I had asked you about the the impact of your conversion and we talked a bit about your family but I think it had a bigger impact on your life in terms of other friends who you thought might rejoice in your journey even want to hear what you have to say but something change so I was already speaking publicly sharing my story nationwide and when we became Catholic the USCCB actually sent out a press release unbeknownst us that we were coming into the church is beautiful great celebration and when that happened the the woman that books all my speaking engagements called me and she said we have a we have a couple of engagements that are cancelling now since you are Catholic and I thought why that's ridiculous so naive to this and she said well she said they they say that they want Christian speakers and I I mean I said well that's great I mean Catholics were the first Christian so we're Christian I don't understand and it was then that I realized that becoming Catholic was not just something personal for me that I had to really become an apologist for my faith because it did affect a broader audience people had questions the first speaking then I went to after becoming Catholic an older woman cornered me at the event and said I'm glad you left Planned Parenthood but I could not be more disappointed that you joined the Catholic Church and started going on and on about you know all of these things that she didn't like to prophet Catholic Church and and and I just thought okay I I really have to know my faith I have to be able to defend my faith it's not just about receiving the Eucharist personally for me it's really about evangelizing my faith as well to the public and so I you know I started reading even more I started reading more books apologetics books and and really being able to have conversations about the Catholic faith that has been that has been of critical importance to my ministry my personal ministry and the Ministry of and then there were none yeah you know I I remember my wife Marilyn and I were pro-life Presbyterians and we were fighting that battle in a pro-choice Presbyterian denomination small group of us because my wife had had eventually become the director of a crisis pregnancy center and that and she would say that long before we thought of the Catholic Church she would tell me that most of the people were the most faithful workers at that crisis pregnancy center were the Catholics and I remember trying to fight the battle in Protestantism to try and convince Christians Protestant Christians that abortion is murder and you know the Bible is the sole foundation for our faith so well it doesn't mention abortion in their per se so how do you how do you deal with that fact there's even one Psalm where the psalmist is so discouraged he's always talked about beaten babies against trees like what wait a second but in my journey I came across this passage that was a very old statement that goes like this now this is the way of life the second commandment of the teaching do not murder do not commit adultery do not corrupt doing a fornicate do not steal do not practice magic do not go in for sorcery do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant that comes from the decay which is one of the earliest writings of the church many scholars believe at the exact same time as the the writings of the New Testament in your journey did you come across these early witnesses that this has been a teaching of the church from the very beginning yes and that was really validating for me because here I had these beliefs but I had been part of a church that supported abortion and then you know knew other people who were Christian but pro-choice and so I you know but coming across these early writings it was it it was imperative to me that I was able to receive some some closure really that this is the truth this has been the truth since the beginning of Christianity I needed that in my life and so even though the Bible didn't specifically talk about abortion you know the word abortion isn't in the Bible I could see these early church writings where they did talk about abortion I could say okay no I am living in the truth now this isn't just someone's opinion this isn't just you know well that you know this church is more modern or this church is more that I was I was seeing the truth and that was that was how I knew I had to live my life was was in that truth and living that truth yeah that's why the Catholic Church has always recognized that it isn't just this inspired book alone this is a part of a wider deposit of faith that we have received from Christ to the Apostles passed on and that's a part of it and from the very beginning they recognized the that life is to be as sacred as to be protected which changed the way we looked at marriage change the way we looked at children look as Christians and and the importance of that I did someone did tell me that of all things you could be in a movie or it's a there's gonna be a movie talk about that yeah yeah about four years ago the directors of the creators of God's not dead email me and he said have you ever thought about turning your first book unplanned into a major motion picture and of course the answer was no no I never thought about that and I didn't know if that was actually something that I wanted to do but we started talking they are both strong Catholic men and so they insisted that we spend time in prayer about it and I felt like okay I think I think we could explore this a little further and so they wrote a screenplay based on on my first book and sent it to me and it was so beautiful for many reasons but just the we're going to be able to show people the the beauty of redemption and how even the worst among us okay they are even even then they are even worthy of redemption and and that it can't happen and then it is happening and that gives people so much hope I think and the the film is going to show the reality of abortion in a way that hasn't ever been shown before and so that excites me because I know that there will be many critics that go see the film in theaters I want them to go through the film in theaters because at least know what you're supporting right so but no one will be able to see this film walk away and say well I just didn't know they will know everyone who sees this film they will know the humanity of the unborn child they will know how abortion affects the mother and and hopefully their lives will be changed for the better and hopefully that change will move them closer to Christ yeah we the Old Testament prophets said that there will be a time when good will be called bad and bad will be called good and so we do know that there are people some people whose consciences have been so seared that not only are they naively doing something but they are doing it for the wrong reasons they're doing that there are though and they need our prayers they need our love they really do and then again there's that old love the sinner hate the sin so we we pray for the person but in but I see your example as an example who people who are doing things but don't always exactly understand the evil of it would that look back yeah I think that's accurate I think once they see the evil they have to make a decision either they stay or they leave and we want to try to be a part of their life when they're grappling with that decision oh and you know we have many many people who call our hotline we've a 24-hour hotline they call us two o'clock morning and they say I just I I just had a terrible dream about what I've been doing and I'm having nightmares and I know I have to get out of this I don't know where to start and why would anybody help me look at what I've done and that's just that's the best beauty of the gospel is that we're not just with them for that moment where they have that realization where that conversion begins in their life but we are truly accompanying them on this journey so we have people that call us say I'm really struggling here and I'm not sure what to do I I don't think I'm pro-life I think I'm still pro-choice but I want to leave I need help and we're like praise God right you have called the right place you do have to be pro-life to start receiving help from us that comes later because it truly is a journey just like coming into the Catholic Church it's a journey and you need people you know Pope Francis talks about the gospel of accompaniment you need people to accompany you on that journey and and that is entirely what we do with our ministry yeah that's interesting it again it kind of parallels our men feel a little bit because in our work with non Catholic Christians we're not standing in judgment of them we're not saying unless you'd come home to the Catholic Church you're gonna go to hell that that's we stand beside them we our goal is to help them discover the beauty of the church and to help them discover what God is calling them to do next and they were there to support them that's exactly what you're doing with with these folk who like you said wonder if they're even worthy of Lavo again once that touches him Abbey I want to again this abortion issue I want to ask a big question let's step back on this a little bit in Hall in our lifetime abortion has become a part of the soup in which we live that there are a lot of people that just said this is a right this is a right that we have their gum that comes so far to just know even it Pauls them to think that somebody might not think it's their right to have an abortion but I've often wondered and from your work and a bigger picture if we look back not just in the last 50 years 70 years a hundred years 150 years but there has been a movement of the Enlightenment period that really began to influence our cultures the idea that the only way we can save this earth is to reduce the population I remember that little quote that Dickens used in the Christmas Carol we're screwed says you know aren't there saddle houses for them let's reduce the surface population in what weighed it in your work is this abortion thing a part of a bigger strategy if you will almost a false gospel that for the good of this world we need to control this infestation of humanity yeah it's interesting because if we look back you know we focus on abortion so much rightly so because it is the taking of an innocent human being their life but if if we do step back and we say okay where did this start we see that abortion is merely a symptom of an environment that was created decades and decades ago ridding our world of the of the undesirables and that really started i think systemically throughout our culture with the wide acceptance of contraception that's why contraception was created it was created not to help wealthy people control their family size it was created to essentially rid the population of those that they considered breeders majorly the minority population and so we see that over time and we see even we look at various encyclicals from different people integrals we see that everything that's happening today was essentially predicted by the Catholic Church many many years ago and and I think even even myself I grew up in an environment where contraception was very acceptable I grew up knowing that I was a product of failed contraception with my parents and I think that that realization those realizations that so many people have in their life no I never felt like my parents had loved me as much or anything like that but just that contraception was so acceptable in our family so acceptable in our church body that when you get married two months before you get married you get on the pill right and I think that even that even those those how I was taught growing up or seeing large families and hearing my parents say oh don't they know what birth control is right all of those little things throughout my life I believe sort of culminated to a point where I said well abortion can't be that bad because we are trying to weed out those who are less desirable through contraception and I've grown up believing that my entire life and believing that as a part of my church's teaching and so you know so then of course if that perceptive method fails then abortion is Plan B it's always Plan B I mean I remember an abortion doctor where I work saying abortion is the final form of contraception so I think if we if we look back and we see you know this epidemic of abortion throughout our country if we look if we just step back even further and we sort of look at this and we say where do you get really begin and of course it's sin but if you look at sort of what has happened in our culture and where it began it really began with this whole sexual enlightenment and and the introduction of contraceptive methods and it may be even a little before that but I agree with you completely in the early 19th and 18th century this movement of trying to understand the origins of humanity apart from a loving creator how did we happen how did the well through Darwin and others we see that we're a natural development of evolution and so therefore if that's all that we are but yet were the pinnacle of it then do we have a responsibility to make sure to Denali let evolution happen but control that evolution and so that we can make sure that the development of humanity is the best that it can be and so that was what the Nazi doctors were saying and that's what Hitler used in in other words and we did it too because we sterilized mentally yes you know people during the early part of the 20th we did it in America and Margaret Sanger at a big part of that and and in their view again as Isaiah said calling good bad and bad good they thought they were doing a good thing and so they're improving humanity and I just read in last week that it looks like in China they are now actually changing the genome of fertilized eggs and then having them born so now whether they've really done it or not again it's this whole assumption that it's our responsibility to protect humanity from this infestation of lesser and bad genes and so abortion is just a part of this cold way of us doing our destiny it's merely a symptom and we see that even through IVF through designer babies you know we see celebrities who are picking out well I want a boy and I want a boy that has curly hair and I they can do that now and and it's such a violation of natural law but we have we have gone so far away from God's creative plans it's hard to see how we come back from it but we have hope that we will know yeah it gets scary today when so many cats have been led out of so many bags you know with this whole sexual you can totally redefine who you are because of how you feel and it's a crazy thing we've got about five six minutes left what I'd like to do is ask you a couple questions about some people that might be watching let's say there is a person watching right now who happens to work in an abortion clinic yeah it doesn't feel like she has anybody that he or she has nobody to talk to what would you say to them you know I would say that you need to call you need to call us you need to look us up on our website we would love to have you be a part of the growing number of quitters who have joined us and I tell people that there's a freedom in removing yourself from sin that is unlike anything you would ever in any other type of freedom you would ever feel but removing yourself from the burden of sin that you've been living in it's it's almost a physical weight that you feel lifted and we want these people to experience that sort of freedom and joy and you won't get it as long as you are cooperating and working alongside evil but once you realize what you're doing you must leave and and you know what I would want them to know is that we will be on that journey with you every step of the way we will not let you fall we will be the safety net to protect them on this journey out let's say another woman is watching who had an abortion years ago what would you say to her you know interesting ly enough I was I was watching this animated movie Kung Fu Panda with my daughter one day and in it there's this wise old turtle and he's talking to this guy and he says do you know why they call today the present and he says no why and he's as well because today is a gift I realized after hearing that he's cartoon that I had been given a gift and that I had to make a conscious decision every day whether I wanted to live here in the now in the present with Christ or if I wanted to live in the past Satan controlled my past Christ controlled right now and I didn't want to live with Satan anymore I didn't want to live in that bondage I wanted to live right now in the present and gosh Christ is so desperate for those who have been hurt to come to him and he's just waiting and and I tell people if he can forgive me he can forgive you he's ready to forgive he is the God of mercy he is the God of love he created you and and he's just waiting with arms open for you to run to him alright but not one more group of people out there non-catholic Christians are watching why should they make the same journey that you've made you know I I don't know if I have just a simple answer for that I came into the church for four different reasons people come coming to the Catholic Church for many different reasons many different things stick out to them I know that I've never been in love with Jesus like I am right now I know that I was never able to physically look at Jesus until I became Catholic and to see him those two things should be enough for anybody to say now I know what's going on there I want to know I want to know what she has I want to know what all these Catholics have and just the perfection of the church the perfection of Christ in the church is reason enough to just take a look and see what you find we've talked a lot about abortion and contraception and all this stuff but I'm gonna read a quick Psalm and just get your thoughts on this Psalm 127 lo sons our heritage from the Lord the fruit of the womb a reward like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one's womb happy as the man who has this quiver full of them first what about your quiver well I would say I wholeheartedly agree with that passage we let's say I'm pregnant with number eight right now our quiver is definitely full and our children bring us so much joy I can't imagine I joke that we became Catholic and we couldn't stop breeding but truly being open to life has been such a freedom and such a blessing for us in our marriage and just as our family have you thank you thank you so much thank you for joining us on the journey for your work I bless you and your work and the Lord continue to bless you in that again abortion worker calm as a website as well as Abby Johnson org and we do thank you for your willingness to serve our Lord to give your life to the Lord in the church to be a witness for all that he's done in your life thank you and once again I want to remind you about our work in the coming on network if a Abbie's journey touched you if you're on the journey you come home to the Catholic Church and you feel maybe not connected yet or maybe you forgot something in your past that you still want to talk about we'd love to have you contact us said to coming on Network CH network.org and again thank you for joining us on this program I pray that Abby's witness is an encouragement competence [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 97,979

Rating: 4.8664193 out of 5

Keywords: ytsync-en, jht, jht01641

Id: ItYF1jJ4tLg

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 21 2019