Nicole Cooley

So many students we meet on campus are really hurting.  Most of us have no idea what some of these folks have been put through.  This story is from Nicole Cooley, our Virginia Project Director.  She encountered a student on a recent GAP excursion.  We are changing his name and withholding the name of the school.

A desperate need for healing.

Stewart approached our poll table and declared his belief that abortion should remain legal.  Standing next to a large visual exhibit comparing abortion to other forms of historical genocide, I asked Stewart why he felt that way.

At first, he told me he was a “Darwinian Christian” and said that a person’s inner strength is vitally important.  We explored his views for quite a while as I struggled to understand them.  He admitted to a personal childhood of abuse, and given my own experience with rape, I found a link.

I silently prayed for God to help me reach Stewart and then these words came out:  “Stewart, you don’t believe a woman should have the right to abort her child, you believe an unborn child should have the ability to abort himself.”  He looked at me and the tears began to fall down his face.

He told me, “You don’t understand what I went through … for ten years!”  When I asked him if I could give him a hug, he willingly came into my arms and sobbed while I held him.  I spoke quietly to him until he calmed down and then I looked deep into his eyes.

When he affirmed that he could hear the voice of the Holy Spirit as a born-again believer, I told him how to be healed.  I told him that the only way out of the pit of despair was to allow the “Wonderful Counselor,” Jesus, to peel away the layers one at a time.  I understood that at a moment of trauma, how Satan had lied to him and told him that he would have been better off dead.  That lie, spoken into his subconscious in the midst of abuse, now led him to accept abortion.

I have prayed for Stewart ever since that day and I will never forget him.

Tags: abortion debate, abortion pictures, GAP, Genocide Awareness Project, Nicole Cooley

This entry was posted on Monday, October 24th, 2011 at 7:45 am and is filed under Campus Debate (GAP). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.