This article discusses abortion and includes a distressing dream about the death of a child. If you have experienced abortion and are carrying grief or shame, you are not alone, and there is hope and healing in Jesus.
Who is having abortions? Brandi Cunningham, a registered nurse who has spent years in pregnancy crisis work, gives an answer many church leaders would rather not hear. In one year at a pregnancy clinic where she worked, she says, more than 80% of the women considering abortion identified as Christians. National surveys in the United States have likewise found that a majority of women who have abortions identify as Christian.
In this episode of the God’s Truth Podcast, Brandi and her husband Robyn of Fireside Grace tell Abigail Smith about two dreams that changed how they see abortion, and why they believe the church must lead with compassion rather than condemnation. What follows is their account.
“Lord, show me what’s on Your heart”
Several years ago, while teaching on abortion, Brandi and Robyn began asking God a simple question: What is Your heart on this? They encouraged everyone in their house church to pray every night, “Lord, show me what’s on Your heart.”
One night Robyn prayed it, and he dreamed. He was back at school, where a friend from the worship team was heartbroken. His girlfriend was pregnant, and the church had removed him from the worship team. He wanted to do the right thing: marry her and raise the baby. Robyn told him he was proud of him, but church people warned Robyn not to talk to “a sinner.” Robyn pushed back: “Which one of you was perfect?” (John 8:7). Outside, other friends urged the young man to “get rid of it” and party it off. Rejected by the church, he climbed into an ambulance with them and drove away.
At the end of the dream, Robyn says, the Lord told him: “The saddest thing I have to write in a person’s story is ‘mission aborted.’”
The church’s sharpest sword
The couple took one thing from that dream above all: the judgement of the church can push people toward the very choice it opposes. “The church has the sharpest sword,” Brandi says, “and they can use it to cut you the deepest, the quickest.”
Instead of leading with “abortion is murder,” they believe Christians should ask, “What are you in need of? What are you afraid of?” In all her years of work, Brandi says, she has met only one woman who truly wanted an abortion. Most feel “backed into a corner financially, emotionally, physically.” Believers who become pregnant outside marriage often fear rejection and judgement in their own churches most of all. “Conviction is the job of the Holy Spirit,” Brandi says, “and we’re not the Holy Spirit.” Until we develop compassion, she adds, “it’s better to keep our mouth shut than to speak.”
Their vision is a church that surrounds a frightened mother with practical love: childcare, meals, a baby shower, a crib, nappies, emotional support and mentoring, so that she never feels she has no other option. The church’s calling, they say, is to bring in “the misfits, the outcasts and the sinners” (Luke 14:21).
Brandi’s dream
About a year before recording, Brandi had a dream of her own, one she had shared only with those closest to her. In it, she was the mother of a sick little boy in a cold, stark hospital room. She saw a medication pushed into his drip and knew it would end his life. As he slipped away, she shook him and screamed, “Come back! Mommy loves you!” She begged anyone to help: “There has to be a reversal. Reverse it right now.” No one came. Then two church leaders who had watched from behind the curtain asked if she would be back to teaching soon, because there was “a lot to do.”
She woke up understanding that the Lord had let her feel what a woman might feel after taking an abortion pill and immediately wishing she could take it back. Within two days, “completely out of the blue,” she was invited to train and volunteer on a hotline for women seeking to reverse a medication abortion. (Anyone in that situation should speak to a medical professional straight away.) Her message to those women is simple: there is still hope.
Every life, known by God
Robyn points to Scripture’s language for the unborn. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, “the babe leaped in my womb for joy” (Luke 1:41–44). The Greek word there, brephos, is the same word used for the newborn Jesus lying in the manger (Luke 2:16). David wrote, “Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). And Brandi’s favourite verse on the subject is the angel’s word to Mary: “that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).
Brandi also speaks to pastors. She tells of a woman who returned from a retreat for post-abortive women, radiant with healing, and asked her pastor if she could share her testimony. He refused, saying women “can’t handle that.” Brandi believes churches need to make room for exactly those stories. Women who have walked through abortion need to hear that forgiveness and healing are real, and that they are not alone.
If that is you, hear what God says through His Son: there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). He is a Father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5), and His mercy is greater than your story.
Connect with Brandi and Robyn
- Website: Fireside Grace, including their free book The Abortion Prevention Manual (shipping only)
- YouTube: Fireside Grace Ministries
- Their testimony of spiritual warfare and healing: Pro-Life Minister Attacked by Demons, Then Healed
Scriptures in this episode
- John 8:7, let him first cast a stone
- Luke 1:35, that holy thing which shall be born of thee
- Luke 1:41–44, the babe leaped in my womb
- Luke 2:16, the babe lying in a manger
- Psalm 139:13, Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb
- Jeremiah 1:5, before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee
- Psalm 68:5, a father of the fatherless
- Luke 14:21, bring in the poor, and the maimed
- Romans 8:1, no condemnation
- Ephesians 6:15, the gospel of peace
Watch the full testimony
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