No One Told Me I Could Cry: A Teen's Guide to Hope and Healing After Abortion

Book Reviews

Her Choice to Heal: Finding Spiritual and Emotional Peace After Abortion by Sydna Massé and Joan Phillips

In Her Choice To Heal, Sydna Massé and Joan Phillipsgo step by step through recovery issues for women who are seeking emotional and spiritual healing after abortion. Using their personal experiences as a backdrop for each chapter, they cover the issues of denial, anger, grief, and forgiveness.

Each step is directed toward the ultimate goal of replacing the emotional and spiritual pain of this loss with the joyous knowledge that one’s child is in heaven and, through the forgiving love of Christ, will one day be reunited with his or her repentant parents. Every one of the very readable chapters concludes with a well-chosen Bible verse and a short “journaling” assignment that will help readers start working through the step described in that chapter.

At the end of the book, Massé and Phillips quite properly encourage women to continue the process of healing by seeking out a post-abortion ministry in their own area. While books such as Her Choice to Heal can certainly help women make tremendous strides in abortion recovery, Massé and Phillips strongly recommend (and I suspect nearly everyone involved in post-abortion ministries would agree) that the human element — talking face to face, sharing both tears and joy — is essential to bringing about final closure.

That said, it is also true that many women won’t talk to others until they have first been reassured by the example of women like Massé and Phillips that they, too, can be understood and accepted. That is why this book will be a great blessing for many. It would make an excellent gift for any woman you know who is hesitant about taking the first steps toward healing.

Ordering Information: Chariot Victor Publishing, 4050 Lee Vance View, Colorado Springs, CO 80918. Or Ramah International, Inc., 1050 Galley Square, Colorado Springs, CO 80915, (719) 573-7707, www3.n-gate.comramah. ISBN 1-56476-734-5, $9.95, 122 pages.

No One Told Me I Could Cry: A Teen’s Guide to Hope and Healing After Abortion by Connie Nykiel

Connie Nykiel, a registered nurse, has been a childbirth educator for pregnant teenagers since 1989. In 1993, she also began to minister to the special needs of teenagers who have suffered from abortion. (See page 1 of this issue of the Post-Abortion Review for an excerpt from the book, describing how this ministry came about.)

From the first page to last, Nykiel does an excellent job of conveying to young readers, both female and male, that they are not alone. She points out that the problems they face after abortion are common, not “weird.” Most importantly, she reassures her readers that even though it may seem that no one can understand what they are going through, there really are people who already understand and are anxious to help them.

Given its relatively short length and the author’s careful attention to keeping explanations simple, No One Told Me I Could Cry is amazingly complete. In a teen-friendly writing style that is neither condescending nor stuffy, Nykiel makes frequent use of metaphors and visual examples to describe all of the most common post-abortion reactions and to explain why bottling up feelings of grief and guilt can cause more problems.

Nykiel does an especially good job of (1) helping teens feel they have permission to grieve, (2) exposing the pitfalls that block the grief process, and (3) outlining the many issues that must be addressed in the process of post-abortion healing. She also includes a resource list in the back of the book to help teens seek out ministries that can help them find healing.

This book would make an excellent donation to high school libraries. And anyone who regularly works with teens should keep a couple of copies of No One Told Me I Could Cry on hand at all times. It may be just the right tool for injecting both understanding and hope into the life of a hard-to-reach teen.

Ordering Information: For Teen Moms Only, PO Box 962, Frankfort, IL 60423, 888-FOR-TEEN, youngmoms@aol.com, www.forteenmomsonly.com. or or Life Cycle Books at (800) 214-5849. ISBN 1-888231-02-5, $10.00 includes shipping, 88 pages.

Starting or Expanding A Post-Abortion Outreach Rose Diemler

Every new venture is filled with uncertainty, doubts, new problems, and a thousand decisions. This is no less true for those who are trying to start or run a post-abortion ministry.

Rose Diemler offers hundreds of practical suggestions in Starting or Expanding A Post-Abortion Outreach. Her large format, spiral-bound book reflects a solid combination of common sense and eight years of experience in starting, operating, and expanding her Cincinnati-based post-abortion ministry, Helping and Educating in Abortion Related Trauma (H.E.A.R.T.).

Diemler begins with a chapter on the practical details of running a ministry that simply can’t be ignored: affiliation options (with a CPC, a church, or as an independent organization), insurance and liability issues, establishing a tax status, building a board, defining the ministry’s mission, bookkeeping, finding a good location, and fund-raising.

Another chapter offers suggestions on developing co-leaders and a support network from which the ministry leaders can obtain spiritual and emotional support. For many, this may be an especially important section since it is vital that ministry leaders maintain both enthusiasm and balance. Without a sufficient support network, a thriving ministry will come unglued because of burn-out, and a struggling ministry will die because of discouragement.

Community outreach, publicity, and referral networking are discussed at length. Another chapter gives practical tips on how to prepare for and handle “first contact” with women and men who call for help, as well as information on record keeping and follow-up.

A major issue these ministries face, of course, is exactly how they will serve those who seek help. Will the ministry have licensed counselors or lay support persons? Will it provide one-on-one support, group programs, or only information and referrals?

Diemler examines the pros and cons of six options for program structure. The choice of which approach is best will probably vary given a ministry’s resources and the goals and personalities of the ministry’s leaders. Diemler offers insights that would be applicable to any program structure.

Since the bulk of Diemler’s experience is in leading groups that follow a pre-designed Bible study program for post-abortion healing, she also includes three chapters specifically related to such a program. These chapters include practical checklists for materials to have on hand at meetings, maintaining a group library, working with a co-leader, and doing follow-up. She also includes many tips for facilitators, such as how to keep the group focused, how to address both group needs and individual needs, and how to deal with expected or unexpected problems.

The book also includes an extensive list of organizations and resources available for post-abortion ministries, and many samples of handouts, brochures and other materials developed by H.E.A.R.T. that serve as useful templates for developing your own ministry’s materials.

In all of her recommendations, Diemler reminds the reader that there is no single or simple answer to all of these issues. But for those who are contemplating starting a ministry or are already involved in post-abortion ministry, this book is a “must have” investment that is certain to provide more than a nugget or two of wisdom and practical help.

Ordering Information: H.E.A.R.T., Inc., PO Box 54783, Cincinnati, OH 45254-0783, (513) 734-1177, heart@goodnews.net. $35 includes shipping, 184 pages.