Fair warning: My story is about to avalanche into a disastrous mess here. Trying to sanitize it would only serve to keep me from embarrassment and protect my pride. I know that I’m not defined by my failure, and I refuse to minimize the grace of God that deserves to be maximized. So, I will share – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Deep breath.

I went off to college with big dreams and great expectations of what God and I would accomplish together. I had grown in faith over the years and was in love with Jesus. Convinced that God’s plans were best for me, I was a college freshman who sought His leading, stayed in the Word, and sang along with Steven Curtis Chapman when he belted out, “We will abandon it all for the sake of the call”. Until I didn’t. Until I didn’t abandon it all – all that the world offered. Instead, I abandoned the will of God.

College was different. There were so many choices. In the cafeteria I could eat French fries and dessert with every meal if I wanted to. Mom didn’t put veggies on my dinner plate and expect me to eat them anymore. Fabulous. In the dorm there was no curfew. I could come and go as I pleased. In the classroom, no roll calls. The freedom was intoxicating, and the allure of compromise was powerful.

And I caved. Gradually and subtly, I caved. I didn’t start hating on Jesus or anything. I just didn’t find Him or the ways of the Bible as compelling as my other options. I still went to church, but in my heart, I set God’s will aside for a season… and I wanted Him to keep quiet about it.

One foot in. One foot out. I plated the Hokey Pokey with God. I didn’t need to follow all of His commands, did I? I mean c’mon. His guidelines made partying way less exciting. And sin can seem very fun, you know. For a season.

Regretfully, I had to find out the hard way that sin is always tied with a death rope – and I hung myself with it my junior year. Shacking up was the thing in college. When you dated a guy, you slept with him. Even church girls did it. I only slept with that one guy. The one I was dating and fell in love with. The one who also loved Jesus and went to campus ministry meeting with me. You read that right.

I thought I was living the life until everything spiraled out of control when I got pregnant my junior year, chose death for my child in an abortion clinic, and then fell into a deep pit of darkness. Then I hid. And trembled. In the darkness. In the death. In my shame. In my horror. Light had no place there. I was confident that I could never be healed or whole or well again.

I didn’t even want to be well. It was too good for me. I deserved darkness and pain and all the tears and regret that ravaged my heart. I deserved death, since I chose it for my baby. Sin wasn’t shiny anymore. It was tar. Mucky. Sticky. Dark. Thick. Hot. Painful.

Sin closes hearts. And a closed heart isn’t easy to pry open. Mine was closed. Locked and bolted. And devastated.

Until the knocks came. The persistent, uninvited knocks on the door of my heart. “Where are you, Gwen? Come back!”

I heard Grace pursuing me. Mercy whispered through conversations, sermons, and directly to my heart when I was still. I covered my ears. I could never turn back to Jesus. I had wandered too far. Done too much. Forgiveness was for everyone else. Not for me. It could never be for me. The gilt was too massive. The light of it too bright. Utterly and completely undeserved. But Grace heard the cries my heart refused to express and pursued me in the pit. Grace doesn’t play by the rules of fairness. In spite of me, in spite of my defiance, Grace became my defense when Jesus invaded the darkness of my failing and stood between me and my sin.

Confessing fell from my heart like rain in a torrential storm. I was undone, wrung out, revived, and rebuilt by forgiveness. By Grace. By Jesus.

Then peace filled my soul as God lifted me from the dark pit, set my feet on a rock, and put a new song in my heart. He forgave this woman whose womb had been emptied by abortion and filled her with a burden to protect and cherish life. What was broken and hidden became healed and forgiven when my Father restored me with Grace. Darkness into light. Turmoil into tranquility. Broken into beautiful. Grace. Changes. Everything.

God is all about healing wounded hearts. His grace empowers me to embrace both the good and the grit of my past and present… because God can make all things – every last experience and circumstance – work together for my good if I love Him and trust His sovereignty (Rom. 8:28). Even my abortion.

The psalmist tells us, “He [God] heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Ps. 147:3). The word heals in this verse is the Hebrew word rapha, which means “to mend, to repair, to cure, to purify, to rebuild, to make whole.” We regret, we blame, we hide, we bleed, we shame ourselves and walk around wounded. From church lobby to church lobby. Pew to pew. These feelings seem right, but they eat us up from the inside out.

God wants to heal our wounds. He gives us what we don’t deserve when He rebuilds our lives in grace… when He cures our sin problem with forgiveness… when He makes our broken hearts whole again. But for us to experience this healing, we must accept this truth and allow grace to heal our heart wounds.

Have you allowed God to heal your heart wounds? I have. And after my wounded heart was healed, I began to realize that grace isn’t just for my past mistakes; it’s for my present and future mistakes too.