Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1155: Embracing Grace in the Pro-Life Movement: Amy Ford

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Amy Ford is the Founder and President of Embrace Grace, a nonprofit that equips churches to love and encourage women with unexpected pregnancies by providing spiritual, emotional, and practical support. Over 1,100 groups are active in churches around the world who utilize the Embrace Grace curriculum and host support groups to help those impacted by unplanned pregnancies in their community. She has authored several books including, Help Her Be Brave: Discover Your Place in the Pro-Life Movement and frequently speaks nationally on how the church can change the world with love. Amy has been married over 25 years with 4 kids plus a daughter in law and lives in the Dallas area. In this conversation, Amy talks about some of the social factors that surrounding unplanned pregnancies and what kinds of care and love the church can offer to single moms as an alternative to abortion. Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Round. My guest today is Amy Ford, who is the founder and president of Embrace Grace, a nonprofit that equips churches to love and encourage women with unexpected pregnancies by providing spiritual, emotional, and practical support. Embrace Grace has over 1,100 groups that are active in churches around the world who utilize the Embrace Grace curriculum. She's the author of several books, including Help Her Be Brave, Discover Your Place in the Pro-Life Movement. Amy frequently speaks nationally at churches and conferences on how the church can change the world with love. I absolutely love this conversation. I learned so much and I just love, love, love Amy's what I would call a very holistic

approach to the pro-life movement. I think after you listen to just love, love, love Amy's, what I would call a very holistic approach to the pro-life movement. I think after you listen to this conversation, you'll see exactly what I mean by that. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Amy Ford. All right. Hello, Amy. How are you doing this morning? Actually, this afternoon in Texas, at least. Yes, it's good to see your face and talk to you. I'm doing good. So I told you offline that your name came up because I have a Patreon community that

supports the podcast. And periodically, I'll go to them and say, hey, are there some guests you want me to have on the podcast that I can consider? And I did that a couple of weeks ago or probably a couple of months ago. And your name came up with multiple people. So I was like, all right, let's have Amy Phelan.

So that's it. I looked in your ministry. I'm like, this seems like an awesome ministry. And what I love about, from what I've seen, is it seems to be intrinsically tied to your own personal story. Why don't we begin there? Tell us about your story and how you got into being passionate about pro-life. Okay, well, I had my own unplanned story. I

grew up in church, but I didn't have a relationship with the Lord. It was more of like my parents just made me go. And I found out I was pregnant at 19, and I was so scared to tell my parents. I thought they were going to hate me. I thought, you know, the enemy lies to you. And you think of like the worst case scenarios that could possibly happen. I thought my life was over. My dreams were over, that I was bringing shame upon my family. I was the oldest of four kids.

over, that I was bringing shame upon my family. I was the oldest of four kids. So I just really, it just, all I could think about was the negative of what is this going to look like? And so me and the father of the baby, we both felt the same way. We were just terrified. And even though we knew abortion was wrong, we just thought, you know what, we could just have an abortion and we could just deal with the consequences of a broken heart later. And so we convinced ourselves that that was the only way out. That was our only option. And so we went to the abortion clinic and paid for the abortion. And when I was in the abortion room, the nurses were just explaining to me how they were going to do the abortion. And I ended up hyperventilating and passing out in the abortion room. I had really up to that point, like tried

to stuff down all my feelings and emotions and not going to like kind of go in robot mode, you know, and I think it just all came up in that moment as they were describing how they were going to do it all. And so when I came to one of the nurses was fanning me, she was giving me a drink of water. And she said, you're too emotionally distraught to make this decision today. You can come back another day, but today you're not getting an abortion, which is kind of crazy because I've had a lot of friends that have experienced the trauma of abortion. And they're like, we never had a nurse. I was crying hysterically, and no one ever really cared. So I definitely think it was a very unique experience.

But I went back out into the waiting room, and the father of the baby was out there. And I said, we're still pregnant. And so we just decided in that moment, like, okay, we'll figure it out if we are going to be homeless. If our life is over, you know, we knew we had each other. And so we'll just figure it out together. And we were high school sweethearts. We knew we wanted to get married someday, just not necessarily in the order that it ended up happening. So when I went to tell my parents that we were pregnant, they definitely were disappointed in the timing. But we also all decided, like, let's get married. And we were going to wait in a couple of years,

but let's just go ahead and get married. And so we asked the pastor that had led my husband to the Lord years before if he would marry us. And he said, no, I'm sorry, because you sinned. I will not bless this marriage. And we were just like, okay, wow, like we are such horrible people. Like we can't even get married and be blessed in the eyes of God. And like, we've really messed up so bad. We ended up finding someone else that would marry us, but it definitely felt like, you know, a scarlet letter experience, you know, on a wedding day, just a lot of shame. And so I got married when I was 16 weeks pregnant. And after that, we tried to go back to church. But it's like

the elephant in the room, and people don't know whether to say congratulations, or I'm sorry. And so then people don't say anything. And then you just feel alone in a crowd of people. And so we just kind of stopped going for a really long time. But that one thing that's really cool, though, is that pastor that wouldn't marry us. Two years later, he actually called my husband out of the blue and he asked for forgiveness. He said he felt like it was his worst mistake in pastoring history that he had ever made. And we, please forgive me. And my husband loves this pastor.

He was like, yes, I've missed you. We totally forgive you. And it was super sweet. And we have a son. His name is Jess. And he is amazing. He's actually 24 now. And he's married.

He went to Oral Roberts University and has a degree in theology and has an MBA. And he's working in the pro-life movement. He's super passionate about his perspective of the story. Because when he was 13, we had to tell... I had my first book coming out. And so I was about to be on Focus on the Family and James Robinson. So I hadn't told him his side of the story, you know, how this pertains to him. And he hadn't done the math yet. And so we took them to the Cheesecake Factory and told them everything, which I have four kids now, me and my baby daddy, we're still married. We've been married for 25 years. And but we took that

oldest one to the to the Cheesecake Factory, which is kind of, you know, when you take one kid and not the rest, he's like, Oh, no, you know, am I in trouble? But that's not a good thing. We told him, right. And we told him, and I had all my friends praying. Cause I didn't want him to like accept it as rejection. I said, you know, we were young kids. We didn't know what we needed, but God knew what we needed. And even though you were unplanned by us, you were planned by God. And, you know, so we, we had asked him afterwards, he was in eighth grade. We asked him, how does this make you feel? Tell us your thoughts and your feelings. And he's just like typical eighth grade boy. And we're like, okay, well, let us know when you're ready to talk about it. So one day, we go to Gateway Church here in Texas.

And when he was 13, they had asked him to speak for five minutes on how you're an overcomer. They picked five kids to do this. And so he was processing what he was going to talk about. And he came into my room. He's like, Mom, I think this is what I'm going to say. And he said, I was an overcomer before I was ever even born and that Satan had a plan to take me out. But I'm here.

And so how can I use my story? And how can I use my life to change people, to lead people to Christ? And I was like, that is amazing. And he had that perspective. And when he was 16, that pastor that would marry us, he asked me to come speak at his church. So we live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And this pastor had now moved on to Austin.

He's a pastor in Austin, Texas. And so, which is about four hours away. And so he was very open with this congregation before I had gotten there leading up to the week I was coming about what he had done years before. He said he had a Pharisee heart and a religious spirit. And this is what I did to them, you know, 16 years ago, all of this stuff. And even kind of what God did in his own heart, because he had some healing that happened about grace and things that he wanted to share about. And so when I got there, I spoke, I did my thing. And then afterwards, he asked me and he asked my son, Jess, who was 16 at the time to come

back on the platform in front of, This is in front of the whole congregation. And he said, Amy, years ago, I asked your husband for forgiveness, but I never really asked you. Will you forgive me for what I did 16 years ago? I was like, yes, of course. I forgave you a long time ago. We love you so much. And all of that.

Well, then he looked at my son, 16 in front of the whole church. And he said, will you forgive me for planting seeds of rejection in your heart before you were ever even born? And while you were in your mother's womb, I rejected you. Will you forgive me? And my son, 16 in front of the whole church says, I forgive you. And it was such a powerful moment in that room. Like you could feel church wounds being lifted, that the fact that the pastor would humble himself in that way in front of everyone was even a healing moment for Jess and like what he was walking through after that. Like it was just, it was just amazing. And still to this day, we're close to him. And just going through all of this really made me think back on that time and think, you know, I did, even though I didn't have

a relationship with God, when I found out I was pregnant, I still went to church every week. So why did I not think that the church was a safe place for me to go to for wisdom, counsel, guidance, support, something to know what to do. Back then we didn't have Google. So I just went straight to the yellow pages. And if there's any young people that are listening and don't know what that is, it's like a big fat yellow book. It's like a printed internet. Google. A printed internet. LinkedIn. And exactly. Everything all in one.

And so we just go to abortion clinic and went straight there. And so if I had known that even what pregnancy centers are, which these are all around the nation, they're donor funded, they're totally free. And there's twice as many pregnancy centers than abortion clinics. And they help you, give you true resources of what's available. How did I go to church my whole life? No one told me what that even was, that they existed. And how could my story be different if I had known that the church was a safe place?

And so we, which is why we started a ministry called Embrace Grace, where we have support groups for these women in churches all over the nation. And they use our curriculum, our tools. They invite these moms in. A lot of times it's the pregnancy centers that are referring the moms, their clients to the local churches to go through. They get a baby shower. They get loved on. They get to hear the gospel. They find community baby shower. They get loved on. They get to hear the gospel. They find community and support.

And then hopefully by the end of the 12 weeks, we're hoping they're plugged into the church and they're a part of a spiritual family and they're raising their kids in the church. So we call ourselves a pro-love movement because pro-life is more of a belief. It's like a vote. It is something maybe you stand on, but it's love is the action. It's pro-life is more of like a belief. It's like a vote. It is something maybe you stand on, but it's love is the action. It's pro-love is the action. That is where things change and decisions happen

and transformation happens because it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance. And it's his goodness that draws us to his side. And it's love that makes people know that, okay, maybe I can do this. Maybe I can be a great mom and I have a supportive, a church family that's going to walk alongside me and I don't have to walk through it alone, that this is how we can make abortion unthinkable with love. And so that is our ministry. We have over 1100 support groups

around the nation in all 50 states that have Embrace Grace groups. Oh my gosh. First of all, thank you for sharing your journey. That's a tearjerker, that moment of reconciliation and forgiveness. And real, hats off to that pastor. Because when you told me the story, I was a little bitter at him. I'm like, come on. You're pushing people towards abortion by saying, I'm not going to marry you. Because when you told me the story, I was like a little bitter at him. I'm like, come on. You're like pushing people towards abortion by saying I'm not going to marry you. Don't you want them to get...

Even biblically, I think there's a verse, isn't there, in the Old Testament somewhere that says, you know, if you sleep together or something, you should get married.

Maybe there's not. I don't know. But you guys were doing the right thing and you very easily could have done not the right thing. And anyway, easily could have done not the right thing. And anyway, that's amazing.

If he's listening, hats off to you. In a world where I think leaders, Christian leaders keep getting a bad rap of being arrogant and narcissistic and power mongering. And here's one who demonstrated not that. Your story is interesting to me because a few years ago, I read a study from Lifeway and actually pulled up some of the statistics. This one actually,

it's a 2015 Lifeway study where it said that 70% of women who get abortion identify as Christian. And you might say, well, okay, they just say they're Christians. But of that 70%, 23 would be evangelical Christians and a quarter of them go to church at least once a week. As far as we can tell, these are church-going, Bible-believing Christians who believe that abortion is wrong and yet they get an abortion. And when they went into some of the reasons why is very reflective of your situation. Well, if I have the baby, there's going to be so much shame that this is maybe the better option. That adds some complexity to the social environment of why people

get an abortion. I'm pro-life, you're pro-life. On a moral level, to me, I don't think getting an abortion is morally right, but there's social factors that go into it that are a little more complex. Right. It's complicated. Right, for sure. And the abortion rate, it pretty much is the same inside the church as it is outside. There's no difference. And it's one in four have had abortions. So 25% of our churches, a lot of times are women that have had abortions. And so a lot of times people aren't talking about it. There's a lot of shame, even in a past abortion.

And I've had, every time I speak, I always have people come up to me and whisper in their ears, you know, like, I've had an abortion. And, but, you know, sometimes they'll say, but God's healed me. And I'm like, well, why are you whispering then? And like, if we can tell our stories, we know that, that revelation 12, 11, it says we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. Like our stories are healing and we can be the person that we wish we had years ago when we made that decision or if someone made that decision in their past and who did they need in their life when that happened like did they need a support group did they need someone to say i'm in this with you're not going to have to walk through it alone did they need someone to say you can do this

well you can be that for someone else and And we've seen so many women become more vocal in their stories by leading embrace grace groups and sharing with women like I've gone through this and I don't want this for you because it was a super traumatic experience. And these women are in our pews. One time I spoke at this arena, it was a women's conference through my church gateway and it was over 10,000 women were there and here in Fort Worth. And they did an interview with me, and then they were done. And they were like, thank you so much for Amy for sharing.

And I said, you know what? I want to say one more thing. And I said, there is 10,000 women here. And so maybe 2,500 of you have experienced an abortion. And I just want you to know that God wants to heal you. He wants to heal your heart, that you are qualified for ministry, that you can go to Him and ask for forgiveness. And He wants to heal you.

And now go and be the person you wish you had in your life during that time. Who did you need? And just said a couple of of sentences and that was all. And then afterwards, we had a booth at this conference. And afterwards, we went back to the booth to work our event. And we were inundated with women. Some wouldn't say anything. They just had mascara down their faces. And you could tell there was just... There's something that they connected with the story. And then, but I remember specifically, there were three women that came up to me and they all had matching t-shirts. They were sisters and they were doing this big women's

conference weekend together. And, but they were holding up the woman in the middle. The woman in the middle was just bawling. And one of the sisters said, she was really touched by what you said, and she wanted to come talk to you. And so I waited for her to kind of get her emotions together. And I'll never forget what she said. She looked at me and she said, you mean to tell me that God can use me? And it was like no one had told her that before. Like no one had given her permission or even talked about this topic on a ministry platform that she always felt like she was the friend.

She was the one that can't because of a past decision that she made. I really believe that we can help talk about this more. Number one, it will prevent future abortions. But also, if we can help heal women that have had them in our past, free people, free people. And it will be contagious, the freedom that happens. There are great abortion healing curriculums that are out there that people can have as well. Just like Embrace Grace, you can have an abortion healing curriculum in your church. There's lots of great ones out there. I know My Church Gateway is a multi-campus church,

and they have abortion healing groups at every single campus. Like it's very important. And, um, women need freedom in this area and we need to be talking about it more. And even in the movement, like I had no, if someone would have said, I work in the pro-life movement, I would have had no idea what that meant. Like we didn't start Embrace Grace thinking we're starting a pro-life organization because I had no context as to what that would mean if I had to guess. The only thing I could come up with is that maybe that meant picketers outside abortion clinics because that's the only thing the media likes to show. Then it seems like it's always one person that's like, maybe you don't want that person to be showing on it. And but I would have

no idea. And I remember after we had started Embrace Grace, we became a nonprofit, all of that we were at kind of a conference where it sort of was a pro-life conference, but I'd never heard of them ever. But it was over 1000 people were there. And they said, Hey, if you do this panel, we'll give you a free booth. And we were a baby organization. So we were like, sure, you know, we'll do that. Never heard of you, but yes. And so we set up our booth and I'm walking around and looking at all these vendors and the vendors are pro-life organizations that are boots on the ground. And I'm walking around and it's like maternity homes for homeless and pregnant women. It is grants for single moms. It's so many great

resources of organizations. And I'm like, how have I gone to church my whole life and no one ever told me that there's a whole world of resources out there to help these women? And how many other women are going and having abortions because they don't know that this exists? How can we put a spotlight on all of this great stuff that's happening? And the church, we can talk about it more. It doesn't, we don't have to talk about the politics if a lot of pastors want to shy away from that, but we can talk, this is a people issue and we can talk about this and love and talk about the, how to use solutions, you know, of how we can help as the church, because the church has all of the resources available. They have the people.

Like, we keep looking at churches as a building, but it's a people. And we have the attorneys. We have the HR experts. We have people that have cars they don't want anymore. They, I mean, we've got all of the resources within the church. There's over 300,000 churches in America. Like, if we all were doing something with this, we could make abortion unthinkable. This is okay. Here's, here's where my mind goes, obviously. And you kind of hinted at it. Um, abortion has become so politicized, right? Um, so politicized on all sides. And I just,

I constantly, when something becomes so politicized, I just, I instantly get a little nervous. Like, is this, is this the best route to go? So here's, I guess, here's, here's my question. Is, is changing abortion laws politically, is that the most effective thing we could do? Or is changing the culture that fosters, like, like you, your story and many in this study, like, well, I don't want to have an unplanned pregnancy. I don't want to have a kid out of wedlock, whatever, all the shame and everything. Or how am I going to care? I'm 15 years old and how am I going to afford this thing even if I did want to, even if there was no shame? There's so many social factors that go in. Is changing the law more effective or is changing the culture more effective? And obviously,

it's a false dichotomy to say you can only pick one or the other, but if we had to choose one, I'm just curious if, if putting so much as just genuine question, it sounds loaded, but I'm not, I don't intend it to be. If we could only choose one or the other, which one would be more effective? Does that make sense? That is a loaded question. Yes. It's definitely a loaded question. Yeah.

I, there's going to be people that say one way and there's going to be people that say another way. I just, I mean, in a perfect world that we were doing all of the resources and all of the help and all of the love and the church was so active in this. I believe that, that it would be would be amazing for a woman to say, you know what, I'm choosing life not because I had to choose life. I'm choosing life because I want to choose life and I feel empowered to choose life. And that they are more empowered to go on and be the mom that God created them to be. But that's as if all of the working, you know, everything's working in the right order. We are, you know, we know Roe was overturned in 2021 and then it went to the states.

And so half the states ish are offer abortion. Half the states don't. But even in the states that don't, they're making it easily accessible still for women. Like I'm in Texas, you know, women can go to another, which we don't have abortion here. Women can go to other states and have an abortion still easily. There's all different ways that they're making it so that they can get there. And so I just, I mean, I feel like love is the answer, but it's not to say that what the political side isn't important too. But I just, I just, I love it when a mom just has that moment of like, I can do this.

And I feel like that's true feminism. Like the world is kind of twisted feminism of like, you have to sacrifice your child in order to achieve your dreams. Like that's making us as women look weak. Like we're strong. Like we can do this and not to sugarcoat it. Like it is hard, especially as a single mom. Oh my gosh. It is so hard. But if we have that wraparound care of the church and doing this together, like she can do this. And true feminism is like, you can have your baby and your dreams too. Like you can do this. Yes.

It may take a little longer. It might be a little harder, all of those things, but like you're strong and you're a woman, you can do this. And it's all been twisted over time to something that it's not. And that's not feminist. And it's not,

you know, you see the actresses and stuff and they're accepting their awards and they're like thank you for women's rights that i could get this award and it's like really like you probably actually could have done both you know like it's it's just painting a certain picture but then on the other side on the political side like i've had girls actually think about getting abortions and maybe get abortions because they're like well if it's illegal then it must be okay like they wouldn't let me do this if it wasn't like okay you know and so they'll sometimes use law as their moral compass when you know so

it's the both and really it's it's um yeah it's very complicated it's the both and really it's, it's, um, yeah, it's very complicated. It makes the both and make sense. What I would say is if all you do is the political and don't change a culture, I think that's going to be profoundly ineffective. And this is where I see a lot of the, maybe some of the activists, they're just, I'm going to vote this direction because this guy's pro-life, whatever they made, they're the one issue voters or whatever. I'm like, I, that's, I, I, um, I see value in that. But if then at your church,

you got a quarter of your women still have an abortion because there's the church culture has so much shame built around unplanned pregnancies and no, nothing in place to help women to have the baby. Right. Then they're just like, good luck. Hope it works out for you. I mean, I still hear in some churches in smaller towns where they're like still making women stand up in front of the church and confess their sin, that they're pregnant. When actually the pregnancy isn't a sin. The pregnancy is a miracle.

The baby is a miracle. What they did leading up to the pregnancy, you know, may or may not be a sin depending on, you know, if was forced or or if it was elective but um that is just it's like why is it that sin why is that one the one that we're gonna highlight why not that the pastor ate too much at the buffet why doesn't he talk about that or whatever the sin might be like why are we just highlighting that when actually that's just contributing to the abortion rate like their girls don't want to subject themselves to that. Like they feel like, gosh, I'd rather have an abortion and not have to deal with that or

never step foot into a church again, which I hear that all the time too. Like there's so much church wounds. And I talked to a lady, an older lady the other day, I was speaking somewhere and she came up to me and she said that years ago, she had an unplanned pregnancy and her and her husband wanted to get married. The pastor said the same thing. I won't marry you because you guys have sinned. And she went to a second one, then a third one. And three pastors in a row all said the same thing, that they weren't going to marry her. So the fourth one, they just decided not to tell him that they were pregnant and he just

married them. But because of that, they had been married for like 50 something years and they had never stepped foot in a church ever. And her husband had recently passed away, like within the last six months when she was telling me this story. And she said that right before he was passing, there were churches in their neighborhood that were bringing her like food and stuff and even stuff that he saw when he was in high, he had cancer. So like things that he saw as he was passing, like made her think like, is there a spiritual realm? You know, is God really there and all of that. And so afterwards she decided to try church and she did. And it was such an amazing experience, but she just looks back at all of this time that was robbed because of her perspective of the church based on how they treated her when she was pregnant. And that her husband went on without ever having that experience.

And there's people like this everywhere that have church wounds and things specifically around this issue that's so hard. It's like, I don't, it definitely is contributing to the abortion rate where women in a church don't feel like they can talk to them because what does that mean? And women outside the church don't feel like the church is a safe place to go to, to talk to for support. And I would say like, when I, when, if I ever have a pastor, it's like, oh, I don't really know if this is for us. The reason, like Embrace Grace, the reason a lot of times is number one, they'll say, well, we don't have pregnant people in our

church. And I'm like, you do, you actually do have pregnant people in your church for sure. But say, you know, cause they're probably going to get abortions. Like if you don't know about them, they're probably good or they're just leaving and not coming back. But say it is like a teeny tiny church. That's like 20 people and it's senior citizens. And you just know for sure that there really aren't pregnant women in your church. Well, change your perspective of like, this isn't just in reach. This is outreach.

Like go out into your community, Go to the pregnancy centers and say, I want your clients to feel welcome at our church. Please tell them to come to our church. We want to love on them. Because it sounds like even you need some young kids and young blood in your church, and invite them in to be a part of your family. And then every once in a while, back when we started our first group in 2008, we heard this way more than we do now, but sometimes still we do where they're like, well, this baby shower, is this condoning sin?

Is this rewarding bad behavior? Like one lady was like, maybe they just deserve gently used stuff and not brand new stuff because of the situation, like what led to this. And we just try, we just say this, every baby is a miracle. Every baby should be celebrated. Every baby is planned by God. And on the other side, on the woman's side of this, when you think about the prodigal son, I love in the story, it says, and while he was a long way off, when

that son was a long way off and he had decided to come back home, the father ran to him and he had his servants put a robe on his, on his back and a ring on his finger. And he was like, son, I'm so glad, you know, you're home and you were lost and you're now you're found. And a lot of these girls really are a long way off, but they've turned. They're coming to church. They're hearing the gospel. They're listening.

They're turning to their Heavenly Father. And we can be a part of the celebration. He didn't say, go get the leftovers from yesterday and let's throw a party. He said, let's kill the fatted calf. He's here now. Let's throw a party. He said, let's kill the fatted calf. He's here now. Let's throw a party. They did a feast. And we can be like the other brother that was like, well, that's not fair. I've been the perfect Christian and you're going to go celebrate this person over here after the decisions they've made. But the father's like, son, you have everything that you need in me.

So let's go and celebrate that your brother was lost and now he's found. And so which one are we? Like, are we a part of the celebrating? Are we a part, like how awesome do we get to partner with God and be a part of this experience of like a cool prodigal party? Because we see even women, the night of the baby shower, choose that night to surrender their life to the lord like they're so moved by a congregation that is wrapping their arms around her and buying gifts for their baby like in the favorite color you know whatever theme they want for their baby if it's a boy or girl if they want western or safari you know whatever it might be like that they are getting so specific and unique

in loving on her in that way and celebrating with her about this life. They want that kind of love for they want to be a part of that they want to surrender their life to their Heavenly Father. And we've seen some churches even do an altar call, you know, at the baby showers, people get saved at them, they're bringing family members that are getting saved. It's pretty amazing because it really is. It's this kindness that leads us to repentance. It's the love that does it. It's not, you shouldn't do this anymore. And that's another thing about the prodigal son. It wasn't like as soon as he got home, the dad was like, these are all the things you did wrong. You shouldn't have been with the prostitutes. You shouldn't have wasted all your money and all of this stuff. He's like, oh my gosh, you're home.

And they just had a party. And it's not our job to fix people. It's our job to love people. And we can create an atmosphere where the Holy Spirit can move and transform their hearts. And so many of these girls are so hesitant to even step foot in a church because

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The fear going back to the baby shower, the fear in that situation, unplanned pregnancy, outside of marriage, that if you throw the baby shower, you're celebrating the sin. Is that the fear? But then I can, so I can, yeah, even before you kind of described it, it makes perfect sense to me. Now, I haven't really thought about the question of the baby shower. Um, but I can only imagine that there's already oftentimes such deep shame and, you know, reluctance to engage communities. So if that community comes around and celebrates again, the miracle, not the sin per se, um, that can help reverse some of that shame. I I'm curious, um, do we know what kind of percent, like what percentage of women who get an abortion have regret?

And I want to, you know, obviously if you're, if you believe you did something morally wrong, there's probably going to be, might be a 98% regret, you know, but I'm like, broadly speaking, is it much more common to have regret even outside the church, outside of religion? Because like you said, you have, it seems to be celebrated almost in kind of the broader culture. Is that a charade? Is that a facade in your opinion? Yeah, I think so. I just feel like anybody that's like actually celebrating it, I'm like, how in the world?

But I don't know what the statistic is, but I will say I have a friend that runs an abortion healing ministry. And she said for the longest time, they've had women more that have had their abortions like 20 years ago, that will then come around and be like, I can tell that I need healing here and things, memories, birthdates, you know, whatever, it's like it comes up. And I even had a therapist one time tell me that whenever someone comes in for something they're struggling with, they kind of go back and hear the backstory. And a lot of times, if there is an abortion that comes up, that therapist will say, let's start here. Tell me

about this because she, a lot of times they find that it is whatever they may be struggling with now is, or could be linked to that. But anyways, with this friend that has this abortion healing ministry, all of a sudden she's saying they're seeing this huge influx of young girls and they are like, and they're very much like, they love to know the why's, you know, why all of a sudden are we seeing young, like they just had their abortions within the last year. Why all of a sudden are we seeing young? Like they just had their abortions within the last year. So they started digging into it of like what has changed.

And it is what they found out is it's because of the pill. So during COVID, especially, you know, Biden released the pill method of an abortion to make it easier to not have to go to like doctor's offices and things like that. And you can order. It's a two pill method. You take one and things like that. And you can order the, it's a two pill method. You take one and then 24 hours later you take the second and you just basically have your abortion like in your home and in your bathroom or, you know, anything like that. If anybody's ever watched the movie unplanned, you can kind of see that story unfold of that. You know, it's a reenactment but it's you have it in your house and so what they're finding out is like the abortion clinics will say this is just like you're gonna have some cramping you or it's gonna you're gonna have it'll feel like a little bit heavier of a period

but you're gonna have this in your home and call us if you have any problems well they kind of downplay when all of these women are like, I feel like I'm dying. Like this is way worse than they said it was. And then they're having, they're seeing an influx of emergency room visits of women that are just going because they think something's wrong because it's way worse than what it was.

But then they finally have their abortion in their home, in their bathroom or whatever. They're seeing the baby and it's completely traumatizing. And they're calling like, what do I do with the baby? Like, do I bury it? Do I flush it? Like what? And it's, it's just completely messing with their minds so bad. Whereas abortions before it's like, you don't, you know, there's a procedure done. They may put you to sleep or whatever. You don't see the baby, but now with the pill method you are seeing it and it's really messing with people's minds.

So these women, I mean, the good thing is they're getting healing early, but are working on that. The bad thing is that they're being lied to about what to expect because it's never what they expected. So I thought that was super interesting that we're all of a sudden, because that came out really hardcore more in 2020 because of COVID. And so

now we're kind of seeing the after effects of that, of like all of these younger women coming and trying to find healing, whether it's chat rooms or watching, there's like resources. There's lots of different healing methods there's retreats you can go through through pregnancy centers or catholic churches or um evangelical churches there are support groups there's things you can watch online if you're like i'm not ready to be around people you know as i go through healing if there's things you want to watch there's all different ways you can do it um but they're just seeing when their people are registering for the different things. They it's all it's a lot more younger.

So I don't know what the statistic is, but I've honestly I've never heard anyone say I had an abortion. And I'm so glad I did personally, like in my personal interactions. I mean, I've seen things, people make comments about that, but I've never personally known anyone. And you're around, I mean, this is what you do. So when you're around tons of, you have a large pool of anecdotal. A lot of women. Wow.

So how old does the unborn baby have to be? Is this like take it within the first trimester or is it any point? I guess I don't, I just know about it from a distance. I'm not, yes, I'm not. If you go, there's one really cool thing called abortion pill reversal that has come out. That's pretty awesome. Where if you take the first pill, depending on the timing before you take the second, there, there are ways you can reverse it. Um, but I think that I'm not for sure. You all would have to look it up on your own. But I think it's around 12 weeks is as far as you can take the abortion pill. But it could be 16.

I try to just stay in my lane of just trying to help get these women into support and spending time with them and equipping leaders to help with all of this. But there's, there's a lot of information online about them. And it's just very, the hard part is, it's just, it's really easily accessible, you know, for women to get to these, to the pill, because it just can be mailed to you with, you know, a telehealth appointment through Planned Parenthood's website. I would imagine too, and again, I don't know much about this at all, but let's just say it's like you have to take this prior to six weeks. Or sorry, did you say six weeks? I think it's around more like 12 to 16, somewhere in there.

Oh, weeks. Oh, that's far. Oh, yeah. Because there's 40 weeks at a pregnancy. Yeah. So it's – and a lot of times people don't usually know that they're pregnant until about four weeks if they're like on it and like, no, oh my gosh, I was supposed to have my period yesterday. And that would be around four weeks.

So you have a little bit of time. So that's further along. That's a couple – two to three, four – okay, wow. But what I was going to say is I can imagine people, if you're just getting these things in the mail, they might take it at 20 weeks. I still need to get rid of this baby, you know, or something. And then what are the side effects of that? Do you know how they work? What does it do to end the life of the... It basically induces labor. Like it just makes you, yeah, go into labor and have your baby. Oh, so you are delivering at whatever stage

if it's 10 weeks that's you're delivering a baby so that's not just a heavy period i mean i'm no doctor but that's yeah yeah no that's why they're like seeing it because they just delivered the baby um it's super traumatizing to them it really messes with your head and it's hard it's i mean i so the last embrace graceace Grace group I led was like a year and a half ago. I lead the national organization. So we equip all these churches, but at my own church, you know, there, I lead a group there and I've taken a break for the past, this past year. But this last one I had, there were six moms and four of the six had had pre-mace abortions and all of them and sharing their story were crying about

the experience. Um, one of them, I, she said that she was having a panic attack in the bathroom at that, um, abortion clinic and crying in the stall of the bathroom. And that one of the nurses came in to check on her. And she said, you know, we do give you one um you know after the abortion they gave her one um complimentary like therapy type appointment you know after you have your abortion and so but she was like hysterical they she went through it then had that after appointment bald all the way through it but she said it didn't even feel like it was more clinical it did they it wasn't that they cared or anything and she still weeps over that. She's like, I will never go through that ever again. And it's just hard. And I just think that people aren't really

talking about it. I really feel like we can create a Me Too movement with this issue. But if we had more people talking about their past abortions, I think that it would help give other people the courage to say, that was me too. And even pastors and platforms, that's a great way to do it. And again, it's like you don't have to get into the political part of it if you don't want to. This is just real people that have gone through really hard things and they don't know where to turn to. There's so much shame around it and regret. And for a lot of women, it's really held them back to do all the things that God's called them to do because of struggling with their own shame. How can we help get them to healing and help them be set free so that they can be the change?

be set free so that they can, can be the change, you know? And, and cause those are like amazing. We have so many women that have had abortions that lead embrace grace groups and they are so powerful. So amazing. Like to think if they were, and a lot of them say they were, they felt like they were held back for a while, you know, because of their own shame and that there weren't really a lot of resources and people talking like you have to go hunt for it you know but i'm so glad for people like you and and and that are shining a light on this issue and not um wanting to stir the pot by talking about it when really we're just talking about love you know that we we want to help be the change how can we be the person a support system for someone that's making that decision. How can we walk alongside her to make her know that she's not alone? Like even with my own pregnancy, like

people just sort of backed away and it's not that they didn't like me anymore. It's that they just didn't know what to say, you know, do, what did they say? So how can we empower people to like lean into that? Be, go check on her. Say, I don't, you can say, I don't know what to say, but I'm here for you. But I'll just tell you, everyone that's listening, a baby's always a miracle. Say congratulations. Because no matter how the baby got here, a baby is a gift from the Lord. And whether she chooses to place for adoption or to parent, you can be there with her. And even after the baby, it's not just about pro-birth.

We're not just trying to help her choose life. We want to be in this with her. And that's what's cool about the church. We could walk alongside a mom forever if she'll stay connected and all of that. That's the beauty of the church. The other side likes to say, oh, you only care about the baby. You don't care about the mom. And that's so not true.

We love her. We want to help her. And we have so many stories of women that have been empowered in their decision and had wraparound care from the church. And it's just amazing to see when the church steps up and says, I can help with this and I can help with that. Again, meeting the people and the church can as well, like the organizational part of the church, but really it's the people. We've got all everything between all of us. Like that's, we're the hands and the feet and the fingers and the toes. Like we're all of it that can help walk alongside her. I was just thinking as you're talking, Amy, and this is, it is what it is. You know, I'm 48 years

old, been a part of lots of different churches, many, you know, different kinds of denominations, traditions, different parts of the country across the different, you know, different kinds of denominations, traditions, different parts of the country, across the different, you know, across the United States and outside of the United States. I don't, I'm just kind of doing the memory Rolodex. I don't think I've ever heard abortion or caring for mothers with unplanned pregnancies ever mentioned, ever. I know. I've heard they ever do it. Yeah, that ever. That's 20. Yeah. That's, that's a lot of,

a lot of church services. And not, and, and, and not even, uh, or even mentioned like, Hey,

we have this program that you, if you are, you know, not even like pointing people to kind of like a minute, I could have, maybe I've missed it. If I've been a part of a bigger, maybe they did have some industry that wasn't aware of,

but I just, I recall, I don't remember ever, but then you said 25% of the women. Yeah, right. That's a huge demographic. Well, I know Sanctity of Life Month is January and that is because of Roe v. Wade, you know, January 22nd was the date that, uh, that became legal back in the seventies. Um, and so that has always been Sanctity of Life Week. So anytime I do hear pastors talk about this, it's usually on that weekend where they'll talk about this subject.

And it's the March for Life in DC and all of that. There's just kind of like a big rallying week around this, even though Roe's been overturned, but it's still, you know, people still march because it's still an issue. Yeah. Yeah. What does support look like? You've kind of, I mean, you've kind of mentioned it, I think it's along the way, but let's just go like embrace grace. Like what does support look like? First step, second step, third step.

So you already said like, you know, saying congratulations, maybe throwing a baby shower, just kind of reversing some of that shame. But what are some other steps that people can take? Also getting her connected to pregnancy centers. And if you're not sure what that is, it is. They are totally free and they're donor funded and they can get a free sonogram. If you just type in Google pregnancy center in your community, there most likely will be and get her connected to that. I love Tony Evans, who's one of my favorite pastors. He says that the pregnancy centers are the first response team and the church is the hospital. And that's so true because like if we can link arms, we really

can make abortion unthinkable in our community. So getting her connected to that, if she has an anasonogram or anything like that in those pregnancy centers, a lot of times know about the resources in the area and then getting her connected to an Embrace Grace support group. And you can go to embracegrace.com and put in your zip code and all of the groups pop up in your area, or anyone can lead a group at the church. But having that structured help and walking alongside her through that group starts and that relationship that's being built, it starts to open your eyes to what she needs. Like I wish there was a cookie cutter way to be like,

if you do this and you do that, then a woman feels empowered to choose life when really it could be, she needs a car or her job. It will be like, she can never take off for a maternity leave. They don't have maternity leave. And so she would be able to afford that time that she would be off. Or it could be that her education is going to be erupted. This is going to interrupt it. It's going to mess

up her college. I mean, it's so nuanced and so complex. You only will know really by having a relationship with her. And so through Embrace Grace, that relationship is formed. And then you really see like, what is this girl's need? What are her needs? And we've just seen so many women get that care. There was one girl once who she had been trafficked. She had ran away from home when she was 18 and got stuck into a system of trafficking. And she was in it for eight years. And every time she tried to leave, the people that had hired her said that, we're going to kill you. We're going to kill your family.

And even at one point, she was put in jail. And the police said, if you will tell us who is the one that's hiring you, then we'll erase these charges. But the person that hired her said that if you do tell, we're going to kill you and we're going to kill your family. So she ended up getting, it was a tax evasion, a charge of felony on her record. She had to serve 13 months. And then she ended up going right back to it. Well, finally, when she found out she was pregnant, that gave her the courage of like, I have got to get out of here.

There's no way I can raise a child in these circumstances. So she just ran away and prayed to God that they weren't going to kill her and all of that. And she went back home. And that weekend, her mom was so happy to see her. She said she climbed back into the house through the window she climbed away out of like eight years before. But she ended up going to church that weekend. And she was so moved by the sermon. And afterwards, she went down front for prayer. And she said, I'm pregnant. I have no money. My credit has been destroyed by the pimps and everyone that's been hiring me. I have nothing to my name and I don't know what to do. And the lady that had, there was a woman pastor at the front. She said, we have an Embrace

Grace group. Let me get you connected. So she got connected. And as she started, she started getting more comfortable going to church. Well, then she went through Embrace Life, which is our second one that is in the church. And the church started finding out like, oh, she left her to a 17. She needs a GED. So they helped her get that. And this is the corporate part of the church on this part. Then they started helping cover some of her child care expenses. She had a little boy so that she could go to college.

She was really smart. And she had a passion to try to pull other women out of this industry. She wanted to do some legal degree to try to see what she could do. So they started helping cover some of her child care. And she went to school full-time plus worked. And as she's doing this, someone stepped forward within the church and was like, I have a Volkswagen Passat that has over 200,000 miles on it, but it still runs great. I would love to give it to a single mom. And they were like, oh my gosh, we've got a mom. She really needs this to go to school. And she can't get one on her own because her credit's so bad. So she was so thrilled that she had her first asset. And so then someone came forward. She had a lot of custody or not a custody, but issues with

that felony she had. And so an attorney came up and said, I would love to cover her expenses pro bono to help like get all of this stuff, you know, with that. Then someone came forward and said, this woman needs a lot of therapy because of what she's been through some major traumas. I would love to pro bono cover her therapy and like counsel her through it. And someone was like, I'll help with tutoring. I mean, all these people within the church started helping, like say, I can help with

this and I can help with that. Even the baby shower, she got through Embrace Grace and people bought her diapers for a long time after. And she ended up graduating college. And right after that, this is so crazy. But right when Trump, when he was almost done and he had to pass the torch off to Biden, right before he was finished, he did some presidential pardons. And a lot of presidents do this right before they're done.

Well, she got a presidential pardon. And we all just couldn't believe it. So the felony was totally off her record. He heard her story and put her on the list of like, this girl needs to be pardoned. So one of this, she kind of was starting to serve with the anti-sex trafficking industry at this point, because she had gotten her degree and she was like training police officers on how to find these girls, what to be looking for. And one of the philanthropists that so went to the ministry,

she was serving at, through her presidential pardon party. It was like at this huge house. And all these people came that she had affected. And even the prosecutor that had put her in jail for the tax evasion came and said, this is how she's affected and changed my life, to see how much of a fighter she is and all of that. And all these people got up, it was girls that she had helped pull out of the industry. That was like, she sat beside me in my court cases and I didn't feel alone. You know, all, everybody kind of got up and talked about how much it affected her. And I was thinking, does the guy that gave the Volkswagen Passat, does he know that he had a part in changing the world or the people that bought diapers or the lady that said she'd help with tutoring or counseling or whatever it is all this whole organic wraparound

care of the church like everyone being obedient to the holy spirit's leading had a part in changing the world and this girl is making a huge difference in the world. But it took a lot of people to help her to get there. Not to say that she couldn't have done it on her own. It may have taken a lot longer or whatever, but she definitely was thankful of the church and where she would be if she hadn't had that community and support that around her to get her to where she is today. And whenever we just are all obedient to the Holy Spirit's leading to reach out and serve or do something or paying even little things like paying for the person's groceries in front of us

or whatever that is, it's all of us being obedient to that. That is how all of us working together will change lives. And we help people have hope and think I can do this. And there's tons of women like her that are making a huge difference, but they really are so thankful that the church had wrapped around care. I talked to one girl the other day who her little boy is five, but she said that she went, the closest Embrace Grace group was 40 minutes away. So she drove it every time. But she said, what's so crazy is I now even going to another church after I finished Embrace Grace, I got plugged into one that's closer to me. But I still like, I wouldn't have even gone to church if it wasn't for Embrace Grace.

Like that made me feel comfortable with going. But she said the church that I went through Embrace Grace, 30 to 40 minutes away, they shipped me diapers every other week until my kid was three years old. It was always on my doorstep. Like I never had to buy one diaper for my kid. And how amazing is that? That little thing she's still talking about, and that's what drew her to the Lord, that love. And now she's working at a nonprofit and doing all this. She's counseling kids through golf therapy, which is crazy. I didn't even know that's a thing.

Golf therapy, I didn't know that either. Yeah, for kids. And she's really good at golf. Like she's making a huge difference. Like there's, we, it's just love and whatever it is that God specifically is calling us to do. And even my husband's like, he, what can I do? I'm a guy, I don't know. And I'm like, well, what are you passionate about? You're really passionate about budgeting. We know that. So why don't you help a single mom with budgeting? I know a mom who just got a tote the note car with like, it's horrible interest rate. She needs to get some help and figure out how she can undo this or do a different plan. And he sat down with her and helped her. And it was like he was thriving because that's what that's the gift that God gave him. And he's using it to give back.

And so we all have something. It's not so we can, you know, strengths and gifts and talents. It's not so we can have a better job, which that is important, but it's to do the good works that God's called us to do. So how can we use that to change lives

and to give people hope and love? And we don't want to just be a clanging cymbal and talk about what we're against. We want to be loved and be. And we don't want to just be a clanging cymbal and talk about what we're against. We want to be love and be for what we're for. It's the church being the church, right? I mean, like you said, the church, the big C church has so, so, so many resources. And I would say not only gifts and talents, but willing hearts. Like if people knew that there was these girls that have the choice between abortion, having the baby, and if they had the resources around them, the psychological, spiritual,

and even material resources that they would definitely choose life. If the church knew that tons of people would jump in and do it. So it sounds like, I mean, embrace grace is just bridging those two worlds together, putting people that have the resources, the desire to help connecting them with people that have the needs and need help. And gosh, what an amazing ministry. Tell us, we're pretty much out of time. I thank you. Yeah, love hearing your heart and your story.

And I love the title. I'm a big grace guy. And I love how that's an emphasis in this whole thing. And it completely makes perfect sense. Where can people find out about your ministry? And if somebody wanted to start, is it something where if a church is like, gosh, I want to start an Embrace Grace ministry at our church, is that something they can do? And how would they go about doing that?

Yes, just go to embracegrace.com, click start a group. It doesn't mean that you are, it just means you're like getting more information. We'll send you a sample chapter and you can start an Embrace Grace group at your church and also look to see if there are other churches in your area that have one. Also, we have Embrace Legacy, which is for young single dads. So any men out there that are listening and you want to mentor and walk alongside a father, a young father, we have the curriculum and everything that you can lead that as well. It's great to launch both of them at the same time. And also one last thing is I have a book called Help Her Be Brave, Discover Your Place in the Pro-Life Movement. And it has over 300 ideas of how to get involved in the movement and

lots of great stories. So if you're still like, I still don't know what it is that I can do. There's super simple things. And then there's big things like getting involved in certain organizations. But it just gives you lots and lots of ideas at the end of every chapter. It's just bullet points and tons of ideas. So check that as well. You can get it on braceface.com or Amazon or Barnes and Noble, any of the bookstores. That's awesome.

Well, Amy, thanks so much for being on Theology Draw. I really enjoyed the conversation. Yeah. Thanks for having me. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.