having a second chance."
I looked at him with a blank expression on my face.
"I don't want to get all preachy on you," he continued. "But that's precisely why Jesus came to earth. He didn't come here for himself, since he was already perfect. He came to help us--all of us. He knew we would make mistakes, and that sometimes they would be terrible mistakes that we would think we simply could not forgive ourselves for. But HE made it clear that he would forgive us regardless. And then he took on himself the pain that all of our terrible mistakes ever caused. He experienced every bit of that agony. He knows the pain you're feeling Kate, because he's felt it himself! He felt it for you! You don't have to pay the price of total anguish for that sin of abortion, because he already did. All you have to do is ask God in true remorse to forgive you, and to apply the blood of Christ to make you clean--and then you can be clean and free of it. But that can't happen if you don't forgive yourself. When you hold back on forgiveness of yourself, you're basically saying God is a fool to forgive you, and you know better than Him whether you are worthy of it. And it's never wise to call God a fool."
I stared at my Dad, dumfounded. I'd never heard him talk like this. We went to church, but I'd never heard him say much about the stuff they said there. Now he was talking about all this as if he knew it from personal experience. Which, I had to admit, maybe he did.
"What you need is to forgive yourself, and give yourself a second chance," he repeated. "And then you need a focus. You need to put your energy and talent into some worthy goal so you can stop dwelling on the abortion."
"A focus?" I said dumbly. "Like what?" I couldn't think of any worthy goals to focus on, except maybe to kill myself.
"Anything that's good!" he said in exasperation. "It can be school or work or helping someone or service, or anything. Any goal that is bigger than you, that makes you feel like you're doing something that makes a difference, that contributes something to the world and leaves it a better place at least in some small way."
"I have nothing to contribute," I said dully.
"That's simply not true," countered Dad. "Everyone has something to contribute, no matter who they are, and no matter what they've done in the past or how untalented they may think they are. And I know you, Kate, well enough to know that you have many, many talents that can help lots of people--IF you'll just overcome your fixation on YOU long enough to do so."
"Fixation on me?" I blurted.
"Exactly," he said. "You're still in abortion mentality--thinking only of self. You feel hurt and guilty, and think you deserve to be punished. All of this is still just thinking of YOU. Do you honestly think if Jonathon were here right now, he would want you to kill yourself? Would that make HIM happy? Would it accomplish anything? Wouldn't he rather see you go out and do something to help someone else instead?"
This thought startled me. What would Jonathon think? Indeed, why had I never thought of that before? Yes, I'd killed him, but did that mean he wanted me to torture myself about it for the rest of my life? Would self-torture ever get me anywhere?
"You learned from your mistake," said Dad. "You know for yourself now, by personal experience, that abortion is a bad thing. You'll never do it again, right?"
I shook my head emphatically. Boy, did he have that right!
"Then it's time for you to move on," he said. "Sure, you'll still feel bad about it and feel regret at times--but you've got to stop dwelling on it, and try to fill your life with service and something positive to fill the void. Otherwise you'll go crazy."
I just stared at him, long and hard. This was pretty deep stuff, that I never thought my Dad was even capable of saying. But I couldn't deny a lot of it made sense. I thought I'd had a good goal in killing myself. But would another killing do anybody any good? Wouldn't it be better to do something productive instead? Wasn't living more helpful to others than dying?
These were pretty deep ideas that I'd have to mull over and think about for awhile. And from the look of this suicide house, it appeared that I'd have plenty of time here to do just that.
But one thing I knew for sure. If I did decide to change my goal of self destruction and pick a crusade to start fighting for, I had absolutely no doubt what that crusade would be. No doubt at all.
I would fight with all my power to end abortions.
May 17
Well, I'm back to writing in this stinking journal again. If anyone was to ever read this they'd see what a stupid dunce I've been. Killing Jonathon, driving my mom to the brink, then trying to murder myself. It's like I couldn't get enough of killing once I got started, even though I hated every minute of it.
I thought about what my Dad had said for a long time. That's not unusual really, considering where I was. After all, there was nothing else to do but sit there and think. Other than a doctor coming to check how my wrists were healing, and an occasional nurse checking to see that I wasn't trying to drown myself in a cup of water, I didn't have any other visitors. There was a TV, but I didn't feel like watching it. So I just sat there and thought.
My Name is Kate and I Just Killed My Baby Page 15