“What would you want me to know about you that I wouldn’t know unless you told me?” That was the question I (Susie) asked the college basketball transfer who was sitting across from me.
She answered, “I am not as strong as people think.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve been through some hard things,” she answered.
“Like what?” I asked.
This student began to tell a story that I want to share with you.
She had gotten pregnant by her boyfriend (whom she had been living with) at her old school. The boyfriend cheated on her. She got angry with him and took everything that belonged to him from their apartment, dragged it into the parking lot, and set it on fire.
Her pregnancy would mean that she couldn’t play basketball, she would lose her full-ride scholarship, and she would have to drop out of college. The trajectory of her life would be forever changed. She had grown up in the inner-city, her mom was a drug addict who had left her with her dad when she was 10 years old. She had no support system. College was her ticket out of the desperate life she had been born into. So she ended the pregnancy.
I am pro-life. I have strong feelings about little babies dying ever since I had miscarried twins. But in the moment, after a brief feeling of disapproval for what she had done, I was filled with compassion for her. She was very distraught and was in tears knowing that what she done was a sin. She worried that God would repay her sin by removing the ability for her have kids. This was a lingering worry she had even before she had met me.
She asked me, “Would God do that?” She told me she had already had one medical problem which had left her only one functioning ovary.
Later that season, after our discussion, by coincidence, she developed an ovarian cyst that needed surgery to be removed. Apparently it was the size of a softball. So her question to me was legitimate and actually made me pause. I had to ask myself that question. “Would God take away her ability to have children because of her abortion?”
“No,” I told her, “God’s grace is sufficient to cover your sin.” If she lost the ability to have children, I did not think it was punishment because of her sin. I told her to repent, and follow Jesus.
I was one of the few people in the hospital for her the day the doctor removed the softball-sized cyst, and I prayed for her right before she went into surgery. (Not even her dad came.) When the doctor came out after the surgery, he said that the ovarian cyst had been in the already damaged ovary and she still had one perfectly good ovary. I got to be with her when she woke up and heard the news herself. She started to cry tears of thankfulness to God for answering our prayers that she could still have children some day.
She started attending Athletes in Action meetings with us after that, and going to church with some of our students. In the few weeks she had left on campus (she was a senior) I got to spend time with her and her friends.
She graduated soon after that and got a good job and was set on a totally new trajectory for her life as she was walking with Jesus.
A few years have passed since then so I thought I would reach out to her. I sent her a text last week and she responded immediately. She told me she is living out of state. Then she sent me a photo. It was her beautiful baby girl. She looks just like her mom.
Yes, God’s grace is sufficient.
