Elaine Rotondo is a homemaker and a freelance writer. She and her husband, Ronald, have three daughters; they live in Sebastopol, California. In January, 1990, her poignant story appeared in Decision magazine:

Our third little girl completed our family, a special blessing. As I held her in my arms, I marveled at how God works His purpose in our lives.

But driving home from the supermarket one afternoon, I found myself thinking about two other children from my past. Those two I had never fussed over. In fact, I had tried to forget them entirely. Before now I had not even called them children. I had called them abortions.

When I became a Christian, I understood that abortion was a sin, and I had asked God to forgive me. But I had never felt sorry over the loss of those little ones.

Pulling my car to the shoulder of the road, I sat for some time, my moist fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. Now I let my thoughts venture into a place they had never gone.

"How old would they be now?" I wondered. They probably would have had brown eyes, as their living sisters do.

I fought off the sickening reality that was rising in my mind. The full impact of what I had done so many years before was finally upon me. "They were alive," I said out loud. "They were real children!"

Shame washed over me like a dense, heavy wave. But as the tide of pain rose, I also felt the Lord's presence. This was too terrible for me to face alone; He would face it with me. God held me up in the moment of that horrible truth: I had taken life from my own children!

In my heart I cried out to the tiny souls who never had felt their mother's arms. I had never mourned these children. Now I longed for them. But it was too late. The pain was almost unbearable. I wept for a long time, wishing the very mountains would cover me and hide my guilt. Then I remembered Jesus. "The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5, NIV).

This was why He had died, to pay the price of sin for me. Looking over the seat, I gazed intently at my three-month-old daughter sleeping soundly in her car seat. She was so fresh and alive!

"Thank you, Jesus," I whispered. "You are so good to me."