A Rape Victim Speaks Up for the Unborn

What does a rape victim have to say about the pro-life movement? Here again is Dr. Michael Brown passed away in his late 80s, so famous talk show host, famous on CNN for the many interviews he conducted, something like 50,000 interviews over the course of his life. We talked to many religious people, Billy Graham to probably the Dalai Lama, you name it, and would always ask probing faith related questions, but in kind of a down to earth way that others could relate to. But he was not a believer.

He was married multiple times, eight times I believe to seven different wives. During this interview he references his wife at that time being a true believer, but this is from a few years back. Larry King is explaining why he does not believe in God. Now of course at this point he knows reality having passed from this world and God only knows what happened in the days, hours leading up to his passing from this world. You hope for the best until you find out otherwise, but this is where he stood as he's being interviewed by a young man. This is a few years back and I want to dig into what he's saying because he's not the only one to say these things and to feel these things and the fact that he's not with us now makes it more poignant, a sense of greater urgency to reach others who may be thinking in similar terms. So the first clip's a little bit longer. Listen to the interaction.

Money Mandahar on Instagram. It's no secret you're fascinated with the afterlife. What are your beliefs on the afterlife and what do you think happens when someone passes away?

The trouble is I think nothing happens. I have no, I don't believe in organized religion or religion. I can't make that leap of faith. I've never seen anyone return.

I've never gotten a message. When I had heart surgery I didn't see clouds or white, bright lights. I know that people say they've seen it and I respect that and I hope they're right. So I can hope. Hope is different from belief. My wife is a true believer.

She'll say things like, you know, her uncle died. I'll see him on the other side and whenever I ask where is the other side and what form of them when you see them and what does the spirit look like. I think it's all, my theory is this. Man came from the monkeys and gorillas.

I think that's obvious. All you got to do is look at gorillas and monkeys. We evolved and walked on two feet and then man was walking around with women and one day he fell down and they looked at him and he didn't get up. He wasn't sleeping. He didn't get up and they didn't get up and then he started to smell bad, you know, so they put him in the ground. You know, what else are we going to put him?

Put him in the ground and then someone had to say, some smart guy had to say this is it. I think it's all religion is based on death. If you didn't die there'd be no religion. So what it does is is encourage the masses. Karl Marx called it the opiate of the masses which I believe it is. I don't think my wife is nuts.

I don't think my father-in-law's nuts. I think they all firmly believe but I think it's superstition based on this desire to want to know you're going somewhere. It makes you feel good and you can't be proven wrong because if you're dead and you go somewhere you were right. If you don't go somewhere you don't know it and nobody knows.

It's a win-win. I can't make the leap. That's a long answer but I can't make the leap. Yeah obviously it's very sad when you watch this especially because we can't pray for Larry King now. We can't reach out to him yet again. He's gone from this world and what is, is. That's the reality. It's interesting that he hoped for life beyond the grave.

Hoped it would be true. Perhaps hadn't processed the thought that there might be accountability to a God. Not just blissful passing on into another world but accountability to a God and a judgment at that point for good or for evil. But his idea, forget the evolutionary part, his idea that religion, belief in God all has to do with the issue of death.

Obviously the issue of death is very very major and you have certain say religions in Asia or Africa and they venerate the dead and they offer sacrifices to the dead and they think the spirits of the dead are with them. Obviously these are questions people deal with and is this life all there is? But the reality is when you know the Lord it's about every day. It's about your ongoing relationship with him. In other words every day of breathing for me is not breathing because I'm going to die one day. It's because I'm alive and every day spending time with my wife Nancy. It's not a matter of well get time in because we're going to die. No it's we're married. This is this is our life. My point is to just think that someone came up with the idea of a God or religious faith or an afterlife because the only real issue is death is to miss the whole part of life with God and purpose in God and destiny in God and being in right relationship with God and it's not a matter of in the complete fleshly carnal way let us eat and drink and be married for tomorrow we die.

You know just get everything you can indulge the flesh because tomorrow you're out of here. There's a purpose to our living there that we're created in God's image and we're made for fellowship and we're made for intimacy not just with each other but with God and when he comes in your life all the other stuff that seems so important and big and major that goes out the window and now you have a whole new purpose and to think wow he never knew that. Again God only knows what happened in the last moments of his life were days or weeks or months I hadn't followed his life before that and certainly many people must have prayed for him watching some of his interviews and things like that but it's so much more than the issue of death and what happens after it's this life. It's life with God. I remember seeing an interview with Groucho Marx famous member of the Marx brothers and they asked him Groucho do you believe in life after death he said I'm not so sure I believe in life before death. Obviously typical Groucho Marx cynicism but life before death this this is what prepares us for what happens afterwards and this is what we have right now this is our existence and God wants to be involved in our lives now and the God who put us here will call us to account for our lives here. Now the fact is if you're an atheist if you're an agnostic and you've tried and you've looked you just say hey I can't make that leap I'm not condemning you I'm not saying where is your faith what's the matter with you how dare you but my prayer is when God does pull you and work in your heart that you don't resist don't you to harden your heart.

All right the interview continues here's what comes next. What made you actually lose your faith? A very good question I lost my faith by not getting answers to questions. Every religious leader has never answered questions like okay man has free will right what did that have to do with Katrina? If God is omnipotent could he have prevented the monsoon? So I lost my faith right at the bottom of my bar mitzvah I started asking rabbis questions because they encouraged me to ask questions then I would ask questions of really I interviewed except for the pope every major religious leader had the Rosh HaVadah church head of the Mormon Mormon church Catholic bishops James Pike the Episcopal bishop and there's one that they never have an answer and if same answer is we don't question the ways of the Lord or the Lord has a plan. Do you believe that some mystical figure up there has a plan for you and the plan might be to blow you away in a hurricane? Right so first thing is I'm glad that rabbis encouraged him to ask questions he felt he didn't get answers what troubles me is I'm sure that there's there are people that he spoke to from rabbis to Christian religious leaders to others that had answers to his questions beyond well you can't question the will of God or the ways of God. I mean in point of fact if the world is under a curse from God because of human sin in other words we've made our bed and we're sleeping in it and just like God does not stop stop us from acting on our will so someone is angry and goes to get into a fight with someone and God doesn't stop it and may end up killing that person God does not stop and intervene every moment in history the same way there are consequences to our sins and actions and that's created a fallen world as well but what if God can bring good out of suffering what if God can bring life out of death and what if this world is not the end of the story and that there can be things set right in the world to come in other words there are so many potential answers that can be given that somehow didn't get to the depth of his heart I have a new book coming out called has God failed you and one of the chapters is called permission to doubt saying it's fine to have your questions but there are valid answers perhaps God knows the issue is not so much the answers but the humility to receive them God only knows one more clip from the interview and then the Lord of the first of the Old Testament I didn't like him at all so if I'm supposed to love this God I instead was taught to fear him you'd be good or yeah now again it sounds overly simplistic but that's very real to people and if you read the Old Testament maybe the first time through you might think wow this God's angry or spiteful or mean or this or that's crushing everybody fear me I'm speaking on Mount Sinai fear me or die but obviously you have to keep reading and then seeing the compassion and goodness and mercy and long suffering and patience of the same God and then the full expression of the same God sending his own son into the world to die for us if he's just this cruel despot just destroy us all no he enters into our world and enters into our suffering and takes that himself because that's how deeply God loves us and cares for us and when we see him rightly all we could do is just love back once we ask him to forgive us for our own guilt and sin and rebellion and pride the bottom line though is we've got to have solid answers we also have to pray that the Holy Spirit would open hearts and minds because outside of that our answers will only go so far but let this Larry King video remind us it's important to have an environment where people can ask questions it's important that we have solid answers for them and then it's important that we pray that they encounter God for themselves as someone once said a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument all right we'll be right back it's the line of fire with your host dr michael brown your voice of moral cultural and spiritual revolution here again is dr michael brown thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire 866-34-TRUTH i received an email this morning from a well-placed international christian leader and he works a lot in the far east and he said we are dealing with the failed trump prophecies in asia we are dealing with issues in australia this is not something we just sweep under the rug we're not on a witch hunt we're not out to condemn but these questions are coming up left and right people are doing their best to sort them out we're doing our best to help sort things out one of the big issues to me is prophetic accountability honesty integrity recognizing error new testament model first thessalonians five don't despise prophecy right don't throw it out despise prophecy rather test all things hold fast to that which is good don't put out the spirit's fire don't quench the spirit don't despise prophecies but don't just believe everything test every we're called to test everything first corinthian excuse me first john four don't believe every spirit test the spirit first thessalonians five test everything hold fast to that which is good doesn't say stone and destroy the bad but hold fast to that which is good first corinthians 14 two or three prophets speak the others weigh carefully what is being said that's the new testament pattern all right let's take a look at this explanation of mario morillo as to why so many prophets prophesied trump's reelection and it did not happen were they false prophecies were they failed prophecies let's take a look at what he has to say and i'm pleased to know that he's been spending his time more and more out on the streets evangelizing preaching the gospel to the lost and as the elections got closer he was doing more and more of that glad to see him doing that let's analyze what he had to say here he said what really happened between the prophets and the election he says this i've waited until now in order to answer this question having now gained a better perspective my delay is modeled after the verses that followed they took place as joe sat with his friends who were trying to help him make sense of the horrific ordeal that had befallen him being younger than the three friends of joe ellie who listened and stayed quiet as long as he could then he finally spoke and he quotes from joe 32 and saying hey i wanted to wait and process things great that's always wise when we do that he says if you've been following my blogs recently you'll remember that it did not prophesy a trump victory but i supported the true prophets who did so he said hey god didn't speak to me about this but i do believe he spoke to these prophets so how can we reconcile what has happened to the predictions of the true prophets he said i was surprised that no one i know of so the obvious answer to what has happened with these prophecies the truth has always been in place and the truth has always been in plain sight in the bible so i'll now speak knowing i'm risking wrath from both those supports who support the prophets and those who reject them now there's not going to be any wrath tour from me towards mario but we'll analyze what he says and see if it holds water scripturally all right again people follow these things read these things so we're going to comment and interact we read in second kings 13 about a prophetic prediction jahosh the king faces the syrians beseeches the prophet elisha for god's help elisha said to him take bow and arrows and he took bow and arrows and he said to the king of israel put your hand upon the bow jahosh put his hand upon it and elisha put his hands upon the king's hands and elisha said open the window to the east and he opened it then elisha said shoot and he shot and elisha said the lord's hour of victory the hour of victory over syria for you shall smite the syrians at afek until you have destroyed them then he said take the arrows and he took them and he said to the king of israel strike on the ground and he struck three times and stopped and the man of god was angry with him and said you should have struck five or six times then you would have struck down syria until you had destroyed it but now you shall strike syria down only three times so marion marillo says first elisha prophesized the complete destruction of syria at afek saying for you shall smite the syrians in effect till you have destroyed them but the king failed to seize the promise and rather than striking repeatedly jahosh made a half-hearted effort the promise though valid was thwarted the prophet said but now you shall strike syria down only three times here's what albert barnes commentary says god had been willing to give the israelites complete victory over syria but yahosh by his non-acceptance of the divine promise and its fullness had checked the outflow of mercy and the result was that the original promise could not be fulfilled he said that is a direct parallel with what happened in america there were true prophets and false prophets and while their messages about trump seemed the same there was a stark difference the true prophets rightly coupled the promise of trump's victory with a call for the church to repent but the false prophet spoke as if he were we were entitled to an automatic victory now hang on there because the vast majority of prophetic voices that i heard speaking that i think mario would put in the category of true prophets were not calling for repentance they were simply saying trump would be re-elected i heard that over and over and over and over and almost nowhere did i hear the condition that we must repent and in fact if you gave one of the true conditions namely we must repent of looking to trump in an idolatrous way putting our trust in him as some type of political delivery deliverer putting all of our eggs in his basket as he's the one that can save america and preserve the free world if you dared to raise that as i often did over the four years of trump's presidency as a trump voter you got slammed you got attacked and and many of those following the province that you're discouraging us no i was saying if you want him to be re-elected we better search our hearts and not look to him in a wrong way so the very message that needed to be preached was hardly preached at all and the message we heard over and over it's going to happen it's going to happen it's going to happen it's going to happen for sure he said we also entered a but now moment just as the king did elijah said but now you shall strike syria then only three times in the same way now we got an election win but not the victory to carry us over the finish line again this to me is scriptural gibberish to be honest okay number one to say we got the victory is still an opinion everything official right up through our courts says it didn't happen and biden is the president but even if even if there was electoral fraud even if that was the case and many fine people believe there was fraud many thinking people non-conspiratorial people believe there was fraud let's just put that over here the only issue with the prophecy was not theoretically who will win an election but never serve as president but who the next president will be let's not go back and reinterpret it the only issue the only thing that was being talked about was who the next president will be not who will win an election but have it stolen and someone else will be president who the next president will be that was the only issue the only concern and that's what was being prophesied and that's why they said he will have a second consecutive term he will be president for eight years it was emphatic and it was reinforced over and over and over again but not only so in terms of prayer there was more prayer leading up to this election and after than any election in my lifetime and i'm going on 66 years old so i've been around a little bit okay there was massive prayer oh there was not massive repentance of putting too much trust in the election and too much trust too much trust in the political system and looking to a man too much a very flawed man there was an adequate repentance of that but there was massive prayer for god's will to be done more than anything i've seen so again this is just breaking down on on every on every front just as the prophet ordered the king to take arrows and strike the ground so god ordered the american church to rally around trump the american church did rally around trump the american church rallied around trump to the point it was idolatrous the american church rallied around trump as if he was the only man that could save america the american church rallied around trump to the point of overlooking the destructive things he was doing right up to throwing mike pence under the bus january 6th you better believe the american church rallied around trump like nothing we've ever seen the fact that things did not come to pass as these prophets said is because they weren't speaking for god they were not speaking accurately for whatever reason the true remnants struck the ground but many others did not some misguided voices diluted the church's ability to run with their prophetic promise that's why i wrote weeks and weeks events don't blame anybody else don't it's going to happen or not woke voices such as beth moor and jim wallace know that we made it their mission to insult into me most trump and his supporters at no time did they offer any sort of meaningful alternative to god's provision for america even there's just completely politically charged statement i don't agree with the politics of of jim wallace from what i know about beth more there are things i wouldn't agree with i do agree when she pointed out a cult-like devotion to trump and a trump idolatry or unhealthy christian and nationalism i do agree that those were genuine concerns instead no they stopped it from happening let me say it again the prophets over and over said it was going to happen even after november 3rd they guaranteed it was going to happen they gave dates they gave specifics even after the election so whatever quote arrows were being hit whatever emphasis was being made even after that the very profits that mario's speaking of that were the so-called true prophets in this they kept prophesying trump's gonna you watch in january 20 you watch what's gonna happen the shift is gonna happen i had broadcasts sent to me watch this watch this so this breaks down on every single angle we struck the enemy three times we actually didn't with the election trump won by a landslide again his opinion but we did not get the full victory that would have come if the fraud had been exposed and overturned and amazingly all the true prophets who prophesied the reelection somehow missed the steal of the election and again what is the use of an election that doesn't elect what what what's the use of a promise that doesn't deliver the only issue was not who's theoretically going to win an election the only issue is who will be the next president this needs to be owned this needs to be embraced this needs to be recognized the the more you read things like this misinterpreting scripture and misapplying scripture the the less and less credibility is left for those that are saying no these are these are good people who prophesied well and somewhat well then prove it prove the integrity of character prove the love for the holy spirit prove you have a shepherd's heart for the body for the flock that is hurting and confused by saying we got it wrong nobody's fault we got it wrong we're going to the lord to sort this out we ask your forgiveness we got it wrong that's the place to start sing flame it's the line of fire with your host dr michael brown get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-truth here again is dr michael brown there is constant talk today in the church about pro-life issues president trump strongly pro-life president president biden strongly pro-abortion president kamala harris vice president even more so so there's constant talk about abortion about baby killing about pro-life but on the grassroots level on the person-to-person level on the level of really understanding issues and pain things that women go through there's not nearly enough discussion in fact there's very very little and and this is where we really have to put our focus courts and other things we want to do so much the key thing is changing hearts changing minds and then with that let's see laws change as well so i want to bring on the line of fire now for the first time donna grisham i've had the pleasure of working with donna as she's worked as a producer in different media ministry i've worked with over the years and i was really interested to hear that that she'd written a book compiled it with some others and it's called journeys of choice there is hope in the midst of an unplanned pregnancy brand new book just out we wanted to get donna on as soon as possible so welcome to the broadcast thanks so much for joining us hello dr brown thank you for having me yeah you know we we had you inadvertently scheduled an inauguration day and i told my assistant no that's that's not the day people are going to be focused so let's let's give a little breathing time and then get you on as soon as we could so donna what what prompted you to write this book how does your own life story tie in with the question of abortion well i had i was raised when i was 16 years old and uh was actually during the time during that time i went into a deep denial um my my actually i was raised by my grandparents my um somehow my mother uh was called and she came and i was taken to a doctor and you know i guess the trauma of the rape i had you know evidently just blocked everything out and uh i ended up being 25 weeks pregnant and was taken to an abortion clinic uh in birmingham alabama uh went through a what i call a saline abortion which um i i always let people know because you know we need to educate people on what happens you know to young girls and young women that go to abortion clinic a saline abortion which i'm not sure they use that anymore but that it burns the baby from the inside out i was taken there uh i was injected with uh the salutes saline solution uh i was basically told it was a blava tissue uh had to go back to where we were staying we were staying at a hotel had to go back and uh wait out and at the time i was 16 years old didn't realize what i was waiting on i mean say don't tell you give you uh too much information they try to they keep a lot of information from you and so we waited out i ended up started having a lot of pain and my mom ended up taking me to the baptist medical center hospital which happened to be right next door to the planned parenthood clinic that she had that i had got the infection from and so i had to go and ended up giving her birth to a baby i mean not a blob of tissue a baby it wasn't it wasn't you know like you know you think of a blob of tissue just like you know but but it wasn't it was a it was a baby with hands with feet you know with the eyes nose everything and the reason why i know that is because during the time the the nurse was supposed to pull the curtain tube and she never pulled the curtain tube when i looked over there was a in a jar like a pickle jar uh there was a baby and i instantly knew at that point that was that was my baby and i commenced the screaming i started i started making a lot of noise at that time everybody in that in that in that area started coming over trying to quiet me down uh the doctor looked at the nurse and said pull that curtain two right now and but it was too late i had already seen enough um i ended the the nurse ends up getting in my face and she basically said shut up you're going to be just fine well dr brown i'm going to tell you i was not just fine i after that i totally i went into a deep depression i had suicidal thoughts i would have nightmares nightmares of babies screaming um and they would be in blood and i would be trying to save them and i couldn't save them what i didn't realize was that was real this is what these babies go through and donna let me ask you this so you're raped at 16 and then well into the pregnancy you have the abortion and again you're just hey it's just blob of tissue to get rid of obviously not just an unexpected pregnancy but a deeply unwanted pregnancy because you've been raped so none of this i i can't relate to any anything you're saying i can't relate to being violated in that way i can't relate to being pregnant i can't relate to the abortion all of it but the obvious question is okay you're raped you're violated you just want to get rid of whatever this thing is inside of you and get on with life but at the moment you saw the baby you didn't feel that that was some intrusion and some terrible thing that was done to you at that moment you felt like that was your child so explain the mother's perspective that reality because everything about is intrusive and not what you want it and someone else imposing something on you and you could say get that thing away from me that's from that man but yet immediately you knew that's your baby yeah yeah i i did i i didn't i mean being as young as i was you know uh and and being raped i can't i can't for say that that i wouldn't have wanted the baby because i never had that chance i was never given the chance to say yes on any of it so even but when i saw the baby it was real to me it was it was it was the child to me it was something you don't just throw it in the trash don't just throw it away so donna what happens in your life after this the nightmares the spiraling down yeah yeah i end up like i said suicide assault uh ended up acting upon the suicide assault i was taken to the hospital numerous times because of trying to commit suicide um i ended up being very promiscuous i mean women either go one way or another when they're right they're either go the way of they don't want nothing to do with or they go the opposite i went the opposite and i basically was i didn't feel like i felt like i was trashed and if i wasn't i mean i was trashed not wanted no one was ever going to want me because that was the one thing the man told me that nobody said nobody would believe me for one thing and nobody would ever want me and so whenever sorry no please please so whenever i just decided my life wasn't worth anything it wasn't i wasn't worth living so i did everything possible to die so i didn't care about how men treated me i began to treat men probably the same way that i was that i was violated i began to you know have relationships with men and i ended up getting pregnant a second time i ended up my mom taking me again and and i was older let me just say this i was older and i could have i could have fought this i could have said look i don't want this even but i had blocked out everything from the rape to the first baby everything and and and i once i blocked it out i was trying to live you know trying to just survive but yet wanting to die does that make sense yeah absolutely it does and let me just press in and ask one more question obviously the rape is traumatic but are you saying that what really pushed you over was not so much the rape but the abortion and the reality of what happened yes yeah the abortion people think that just because the woman is right that abortion is the answer that puts more trauma that was the that was the nail to the coffin as you can say extraordinary nailed it you know just nailed it for me yeah so now second time around after promiscuity pregnant and go ahead taken my my under the pretense of where i lived in bridesburg georgia we were going to go shopping i was woke up one morning and my mom said let's go shopping we're going to savannah we go to savannah we pull up to a place still not i'm not paying attention we go to go into a place and i go to grab the door and i went to open the door and as i opened the door i saw the women inside and i it hit me i knew what you know and inside i my thought was oh god not again it just everything came flooding back and i said i froze and i heard a voice what i now know back then i didn't know that voice but now i know that with god he's heard the voice say run now number one the devil's not going to tell you to run from an abortion clinic yeah you know he's going to tell you to run to it yeah and so i but i froze and i didn't run dr brown i i i was went ahead and went through with the second one it was the suction abortion and once the the it's like sound it's like an industrial vacuum cleaner and once that machine was turned on i commenced the screaming saying stop stop please turn it off turn it off but it was too late at least at least i say they made it sound like it was too late you know i can't first say it was too late but yeah but it was too late and i after going through the second one i began to think you know what kind of a woman are you what kind of what kind of a person could do this the second time which women do they do it you know like it's like it's birth control and i don't understand that personally i do not understand that yeah yeah let me just let me just jump in uh friends we've got a break here i want to come back on the other side of the break with my guest donna grisham and then tell you about this book that she's put together with others who have amazing stories but you're hearing the heavy stuff the good news is this is a redemptive book this is a book of life this is a book of hope this is a book of forgiveness life choices can be made the name of the book journeys of choice donna grisham her story in there and other powerful stories as well we'll be right back it's the line of fire with your host activist author international speaker and theologian dr michael brown your voice of moral cultural and spiritual revolution get into the line of fire now by calling 866-342 here again is dr michael brown thanks for joining us friends on the line of fire i'm speaking with donna grisham author and compiler of the new book journeys of choice there is hope in the midst of an unplanned pregnancy so donna after your your second abortion plunging even deeper into darkness in your own life how does god come in and what's what's the hope and message that you have for women with unplanned pregnancies in your new book well the scripture that you know comes to me is genesis 50 20 you meant evil against me that god used it for good and that you know we all know that's the story of joseph you know and his brothers but i believe that it also meant for you know anybody that's been through the trauma that the enemy means you know to destroy you kill feel and destroy from you take from you but you know god wants to bring restoration to your life and the stories in this book each one of them has a redemptive uh you know there's there's some things that people go through but there's a redemptive side of it and they bring you know the redemption of jesus you know the power of the testimony is so powerful because uh revelation you know says speaks about that you know we're redeemed by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony so i believe that as people read this book and they read the testimonies i mean it's not just stories about women with abortion there's adoption stories in there an adoption story that's an amazing story that you know gives hope you know that there's an answer you know for an unplanned pregnancy you don't have to go out and go to an abortion clinic you know there's women men and women that cannot have children that that really are you know praying and seeking god for the answer and you know that story the adoption story is actually my daughter-in-law uh jackie she uh it's really neat because you know she chose life for her baby for her little girl you know but god knew that little girl was for the parents that did it amazing amazing talks about that so anyway let me just jump in and ask ask one last question uh jerry hell's story in the book so of course i got to know jerry and her husband steve very well worked side by side with steve for years in the browns for a revival uh what's what's jerry's unique story well jerry's story is her mother was raised when she was 17 and uh jerry was a product of race and what's so unique about jerry's story is even though jerry had to walk through some things in her life you know her mother chose life for her for her and now look at the impact that jerry hill is making on the kingdom of god yeah yeah and and steve hill would not have been steve hill without jerry hill and steve was one of the most significant evangelists in in in you know modern church history in america and jerry goes on to this day with with powerful ministry uh my my dear friend james robison product of rape should have been aborted and wasn't so this comes to things from every different angle friend i want to encourage you if you're a woman who had an abortion and and the wounds are still there the pain is there read this book it can give you hope it can say hey god can turn that around for good as donna shared some of her story if if you're right now in the midst of an unplanned pregnancy or have a friend loved one who is get him a copy of this book or get a copy of the book for yourself because it's going to show you choices that can be made choices for life hey donna you know i get asked all the time to endorse books or write forwards for books and like to do it more but don't have as much opportunity as i'd like to but hearing your story for the first time not knowing some of the background seeing some of the other stories in the book i said yeah count me in so glad i got to endorse the book and so glad to tell our listeners and viewers about it thanks so much donna for joining us i really appreciate it thank you dr brown god bless you all right so donna grisham journeys of choice is the name of the book and let me say again anytime we talk about abortion in this way and a woman like donna opens up her heart and shares the pain and shares the reality and the trauma it opens up wounds for some of you who've had abortions some of you love the lord you know you're forgiven but that wound comes up let me remind you when god forgives he forgives and there's guilt in all of us on unspeakable levels outside of his grace and yet he forgives he remembers our sins no more nonetheless he wants to bring redemption out of it if there's still a weight you feel that you're carrying say lord turn this for good somehow he can do it he knows how to do it you can't go back and change the past but you can change the future based on what happened in the past and if you feel guilt you're hit with this between the eyes maybe you're a teenager maybe you're an older person and you don't know the lord you don't know forgiveness this is a great time to turn to him and say god i realize just that one sin should damn me but you sent your son to die for me cry out ask for mercy forgiveness god will clean the slate god will assure you that he that that child is with him and and he can give you hope for the future and life and purpose and destiny all right let's uh let's go to the phones and stay on the subject we go to rachel in leesburg virginia thanks for calling the line of fire hey dr brown can you hear me yes i can thank you wonderful hi my name is rachel and i actually called with my husband jack i don't know if you remember um from leesburg as well a while ago and he had asked the question um what you know what do we do if our taxpayer dollars ever have to go towards abortion and um just the other day here in virginia um our senators voted on a bill to use our taxpayer money for abortions and it passed and we're you know young we're in our first year of working and it just broke our hearts that our money you know is going to go towards that so how do we reconcile that i mean it's done you know it's just been really hard to you know come to terms with right so let's look at the larger theoretical question then the specific one the larger theoretical question in romans 13 paul says the taxes should be paid to whom they're due and and jesus in matthew 19 talks about this and and or in matthew 20 and give to caesar what belongs to caesar and then in matthew 19 i believe he himself uh pays the the taxes so theoretically we are paying taxes into a system that is a worldly system and that some of the tax money is going to be used for things that certainly we could not agree with ethically and i'm sure rome went to war rome did certain things certain of the punishments look they were still paying taxes to rome even when rome was persecuting christians so we are paying into an imperfect system and as as much as it seems to be a moral compromise when you think of it when when the when paul wrote romans 13 believers were being persecuted for their faith by rome and yet he said pay taxes to rome so we have to accept that here we're paying taxes in america we may end up going to war and it's a wrong war and innocent people are killed with the help of act our textile tax dollars and even though planned parenthood supposedly is not receiving money for abortion services but for other services through our tax dollars at least to some extent hey it's going into their organization to me it's all the same pocket so what we have to do unless we feel called to move to another state because of the specific things in our state are heinous and therefore we're going to relocate and you may feel to do that out of conscience otherwise what we have to do is work tirelessly to try to change hearts and to try to change laws by getting the right people elected and recognize that we're in a fallen system fallen world that we are every day paying money into certain things that may end up using the money for corrupt purposes so it's it's a small comfort but it's it's a reality and again you might say well when we just don't pay taxes the problem is you can't separate righteous taxes from unrighteous taxes you'll end up in jail for failure to pay taxes or fugitives or fugitives in other countries and there might be a line that's crossed you know for example in hitler's germany if i know that i'm directly paying money into this war machine to slaughter jews and others do i draw a certain line in the sand and say fine then put me in prison or kill me or i try to flee to another country those are very valid questions to ask but to my knowledge even if it's not as blatant as what's happening in virginia which as i said could cause me to relocate to another state just for that one reason the whole thing is is a mixture and that's the world that we live in again i'm not justifying it i'm strongly active in pro-life it's one of the reasons i voted for donald trump rather than joe biden or hillary clinton was pro life issues but i understand even so during this time under these administrations as i pointed out as i pointed out many times in recent weeks under the administrations of ronald reagan george hw bush george w bush and donald trump so 24 years of of presidencies we aborted about 21 million babies during that time so this is a horrific evil in our day supported on some level by each government that's in and as i said you might ultimately say it's just too overt in my state and therefore gotta move relocate to a state that's not like this otherwise it's just part of the federal system part of the the mixture in this world let's do what we can to save one baby life at a time let's do what we can to change hearts and then work to get bad legislators out and good legislators in and then pray for the lord's return because this world is going to be mixed and fallen until that day hey i hope that helps friends join me tomorrow so much to talk about try to get to more calls a lot to discuss more great interviews coming in the days ahead as well god bless