“Love never fails…” 1 Corinthians 13

I can still see her
Screaming and saying he made
Me kill my baby ~ kmp

I was a sophomore in college. And I had been warned: she’s coming over to talk to you. The ex-girlfriend of the guy I had been dating for a a few months. Why? She needed to see who had replaced her, who he had exchanged her for. I remained unaware of their past, of their baggage. You don’t really get to know someone well in just one fall semester, especially at 19.
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And the memory is now fuzzy but I can hear the pounding on the door, see the screaming on the porch, him holding her back, the tears and the anger. I was told she was the psychotic ex who had to stay behind in their small Texas town while he went off to bigger and better things.
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My carefree, Christ-free mentality of ‘no drama for me please’ was shattered that night as their past was rehashed in front of me, an unwilling participant in their unresolved pain. “Did he tell you? Did you know? He was dating me. For two years. And he said we’d get married. But I had a baby and he made me get an abortion. Did you know?” I didn’t. She was 19 too.
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Somehow I managed to back away into my apartment, confused and speechless. And they eventually went away arguing. But my memories stop there. I didn’t see her again. And didn’t talk to him for a while. I wasn’t a believer in Christ at the time and had no opinion about abortion. No understanding of the post-abortion trauma. Why did any of this matter to me?
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Now I see: a piece of her soul was ripped away as her living and breathing unborn child was ripped from her womb. And she felt she had no other choice. He made her feel she had no other choice. Together, their immaturity and ignorance reigned supreme and they “did what seemed right in their own eyes.” And how do you even voice that suffering at 19 years old aside from releasing rage and wrath upon the one you feel betrayed you? Some things you just can’t really speak about so you scream and cry and feel as if every part of you is dying a slow, excruciating death.
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I’m not sure why I’m writing about this more than 20 years later, now a regenerate believer in Jesus, but I hope by now they’ve found healing in the hands of the King. This King Jesus, the risen Christ who gave His life because of love for those who were His enemies and enemies toward one another. Love kept Him on the cross and love brought Him forth from an underground gloom of darkness so He would forevermore eternally be the One to hold us close on earth and in heaven. All because of love.