The Sanctity of Human Life: Abortion, Pro-Love Ministries, and Pam Whitehead

Christians need to stop listening to the world and start listening to God so that thinking Christian becomes as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. This is Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological conversations, Thinking Christian offers a mix of interviews and discussions that highlight the ways God is working in the lives of His people and question the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that keep the church from conforming more closely to the image of Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everyone, this is Dr. James Spencer, and you're listening to Thinking Christian. On today's episode, we have a guest host, Maggie Hubbard. Maggie works with me at useful2god and was my co-host on our previous podcast, Faithful and Flawed. Some time ago, Maggie had the opportunity to interview Pam Whitehead, the executive director of Pro-Love Ministries. She and Pam talk about the ministry of Pro-Love and Pam's passion for her ministry. I hope you enjoy the conversation, and I look forward to being back with you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Pam has an intense desire to see women collide with their destiny. She calls herself a hope dealer, and she decided long ago that instead of focusing on what someone didn't do for her, she would offer what she didn't have to other women to see them empowered to prosper. Her life is truly a miracle. From conception, she was targeted for abortion. Her mother was just 15 years old when she became pregnant by a man her father brought home after the release from prison in 1973. This was only the beginning of darkness that seemed to follow her throughout her entire childhood and into her adult life. After years of abandonment, abuse, and addiction, she found herself facing a crisis pregnancy with only one option, abortion. The details and devastation following this decision are horrific. There was no relief in facing down her darkest hour while wondering what purpose she served. She began seeking the truth. She found the truth in Jesus Christ, and her conversion is radical, and so is her love for other women facing crisis just like she did. Pam's story can also be found in the devotional plan From the Start by Lorraine Vella that accompanies the major motion picture Unplanned. That is a lot to unpack, Pam. You are just amazing. Your story is amazing. And I just want to hand it over to you. I just want you to share your testimony and just your story and how you found Christ. You know, the only reason this story is amazing is because God's grace is amazing, and it extends to each and every one of us. And I am a recipient of that. You know, my life didn't start out well. I wasn't conceived in hope and expectation. You know, I was an unplanned pregnancy to a very young mother in a very dire circumstance. By all the world's accounts, I was a perfect target for abortion. And my mother, that was her first choice. She went to my grandfather and he said, No, you're not having an abortion. We'll support you or you can get married, but absolutely no, you're not getting an abortion. And, you know, I thank God for my grandfather for standing up for my life. And that wasn't the last time that he stood up for me. You know, I entered into the world unplanned, not a bunch of fanfare. You know, no one was expecting me to be here. And then my mom had four children by the time she was 24 years old. They were very young and very, very poor. We grew up very poor. My father was a terrible alcoholic and he abused my mom physically. And when I was eight years old, he ended her life. He beat her to death. And that catapulted me and my brother and my two sisters into foster care. So we entered the foster care system. I was eight years old. My brother was five. My sister was three. And then my infant sister was five months old when we were actually placed. And that experience was not ideal. We did get to stay together, which was, you know, better than not because we at least had each other to lean on. But the circumstances were not good. It was abusive and it didn't go well. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, mental, emotional abuse. So when I was 18 years old, I ran away from that home and I turned my foster father in and he went to prison. But by that time, I was already an alcoholic. I'd started drinking when I was 11. And when I graduated high school, I had scholarships to go to college. I was a really good student. I had a pretty high IQ. I was in a gifted program and made really good grades and had a really high capacity for learning, but I had no life skills. I couldn't imagine going to college and trying to hold a job at the same time. And where I lived was pretty close to an army post. It was right outside of Columbus, Georgia, across the Chattahoochee River in Alabama. So I was accustomed to seeing the military, you know, being around the military in our town. And I just got the idea to join the army. And so that's what I did. I joined the army and I got an education and I got a job, but I also learned how to be a really good alcoholic in the army. It was another place where trauma hit me pretty hard. I was assaulted a couple of times while I was in the army, sexually assaulted once by an officer and another time by three individuals at once. So the environment was difficult. But for me, by this time, this was normal. You know, I've lived for 10 years in a foster home with four different people sexually abusing me all the time. And so, you know, this was nothing compared to that. Sad to say, because trauma was just normal to me. And all I knew to do was to continue to drink. And I was very promiscuous. I had married and I could not be faithful to that man. Bless his heart. He was a good man, a sweet man, but I was not a good wife. We had a child and I did not want to be pregnant, but the word abortion was not in my vocabulary. Right. It wasn't anything that I ever considered in that marriage or in that pregnancy. I gave birth. I gave birth nine weeks early. But when he was born, I had no maternal instincts. I had no feelings really whatsoever for this child. And I'd stayed sober throughout my entire pregnancy. I did not drink. I didn't smoke cigarettes. You know, I did all the things I was supposed to do. It was the only time in my life that I had stayed sober. But as soon as he was born, he was put in the NICU because he was so early. And I was discharged from the hospital and I left the hospital and went to the bar. I immediately started drinking again. And my baby was in the NICU and I'm out at the club, you know, getting drunk and pumping milk and feeding it for him. And I just, I didn't know what was wrong with me at the time. I didn't have a name for it. You know, again, I didn't have my mom. I didn't have my dad. I didn't have any motherly role model in my life. No real support system. Right. And that's a protective factor that that like reduces the severity of crisis in your life. And I just didn't have that. You know, the trauma that you had been through. And I had no one to really go to. I felt that I had no one to really go to and ask these things. And I was trying to do what felt, you know, but none of this stuff came natural for me. This mothering. And every time my baby would cry, I would just feel like somebody was scratching their nails on a chalkboard. Like it was awful. And I would see these visions of me doing horrible things. And I felt like such a horrible person. You know, I'm like, who thinks this about their child? Well, come to find out I had postpartum depression leading to psychosis. Yeah. And I didn't know. I was so afraid to tell anyone because I thought they're just going to come in here and take that baby who I didn't know how to care for anyway, you know, but who, who wants their baby taken from them? You know, like that's just a terrible stigma. It's a terrible thing. Right. You know, I tried to tough it out. I tried to suffer through it. By this time I'm drinking back to just like I was before and worse. Mm-hmm. And our marriage just didn't make it. So a year after he was born, we divorced. And in that divorce, I surrendered my rights to my child because at that point I felt like there's no way. I was defeated. I felt helpless and hopeless and like a worthless human being. Like something's terribly wrong with me. Right. You know, that I can't be a mom. Like this is the most normal, natural thing that a woman is supposed to be able to do. Why can't I do it? And so I dove deeper into my addiction. And within a couple of months, the army sent me to rehab. It got that bad. Wow. And while I was in that rehab, I met someone. And when we were both released from this rehab, we went AWOL from the army together. And we traveled in my car across the country, writing bad checks, stealing, gambling, drinking, doing drugs, and just all these things from all the way from Fort Benning, Georgia, to Las Vegas, Nevada. And we lived in my car for three months. And on that trip, I became pregnant. And this man and I...

I decided to go and turn ourselves in. I knew I was pregnant. I was feeling sick, you know, and I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. So we come back and we turned ourselves in to the Army and he had to go to jail because he had committed some crimes. And I was just discharged with a general discharge. And so here I was now suddenly on my own, alone in the world, trying to find my way. And I found my biological aunt. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama. And so I went to stay with her, thankfully. She opened her home to me. And within a couple of weeks, I got a job. And this pregnancy was different. There was something that flipped. I don't know what happened, but I was excited. I think some of it was the relationship that I had with the child's father. We had bonded in a different way, whether healthy or not, but healthy or not, we had bonded in a different way. It was just different. And he was the person who saw me, like as a person. He had treated me like a human being. And he was the first person who ever did that. Now you can look at all the things we did that were wrong. You know, those things are absolutely true, but he also was a very gentle, kind man. Right. And it was the first time in my life that I had been treated that way. And it made a huge impact on me and the way that I felt about this child and life in general. But I couldn't, I had nothing to cling to. And I needed something in my life that was more powerful than the thing that had hurt me. And I didn't know what that was. I had no idea what that was. And so for me, it was always relationships. You know, if I could just hold on to this person, you know, if I could just be who they want me to be, then maybe they'll stay. And so I always make a joke that I took people hostage. Like I didn't have relationships. I took people hostage, you know. And I had these very unhealthy habits. And so I had this baby. I gave birth and her father was in a military prison. And so I'm alone with this baby. I stayed sober throughout the pregnancy, did all the things that I was supposed to do. had a beautiful birth with a midwife. Very easy, just like heavenly experience. And moved out of my aunt's house immediately because I had a job and I'd saved money and I'd done all those things and moved into my own apartment. And for 10 months, everything was beautiful. I'm taking care of my daughter. Everything was working. I wasn't on any public assistance because I made enough money to handle myself and I didn't qualify for anything. And when she was about 10 months old, her father came out of prison. And when he came out of prison, we reconciled and within two weeks, back drinking again and using drugs. And by this time, I had developed a cocaine habit. And the next three years, four years, were just drugs and alcohol and us partying and always trying to find a babysitter to keep the baby. Remarkably, I was able to keep a job. That's the one thing that I was always able to do. I had dysfunctioning habits. It's like I was a functioning addict. But all that did was it caused me to look at my child's father and be like, why can't you keep a job? I can keep a job. You know, I would compare myself to him. Right, right. And within a couple of years, he couldn't stand it any longer. He was like, I can't deal with you. And he left. So when she was about four years old, I'm alone again. You know, and I couldn't stand it. Right. When I was alone, I would... Everywhere you go, there you'll be. So no matter what, I'm with myself. You know, my own thoughts, the things I think about myself, your mind. I mean, the things that I thought about myself, that was my worst enemy. Nothing that anyone else could say to me was going to hurt me nearly as bad as what I said to myself. You know, because I knew me. I knew what I had done. I knew my deep, dark, ugly secrets, the things I did that nobody else knew about to get drugs. And so not long after he left, I dove deeper and deeper and deeper into depravity. And I found myself giving my body away to get drugs in exchange for drugs. And you had a four-year-old at the time. I did. I did have a four-year-old. Yep. I had a boyfriend, and I say that with air quotes, you know, someone that I had taken hostage, who stayed around and we did drugs together. So there was always a party kind of going on. And I had this habit of after everyone was done partying, it's as if I was just getting started. And so everybody else would stop or lay down to go to sleep or go to bed or whatever. And I would sneak away by myself. Oh, my gosh. The words that you speak are created. And I created my own world with my words. We'll be back with Pam Whitehead's story after this. Christians need to stop. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Stop listening to the world and start listening to God so that thinking Christian becomes as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. This is Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological conversations, Thinking Christian offers a mix of interviews and discussions that highlight the ways God is working in the lives of his people and question the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that keep the church from conforming more closely to the image of Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. In the darkest of night and go do the most depraved thing. Not long after this, in the middle of the year, in June of that year, I found myself pregnant. So I've got a four-year-old. I've got one son that I'd already surrendered my rights and he's a partial adoptee. My ex-husband's new wife adopted him. And then I've got a four-year-old and then now I find myself pregnant again, having no idea who the father of this child is. And at this point in my life, I had just got evicted from my home. I was seeking out family members because I'm in my hometown where I was born. So I found my father's family and I sought them out and I manipulated enough where I could get them to let me come live with them. They lived way down in rural Alabama, like Crenshaw County way back in the woods. And they let me come and stay down there. My father got out of prison in August of that year. This was 2001 after serving 20 years of a 50-year sentence for killing my mom. I'm pregnant. He gets out and his first fatherly duty was that he took me to have an abortion. Is that what you wanted or was he kind of pushing you to do it? I did. No, he was only doing what I wanted him to do. Okay, okay. Yeah, he was only doing what I asked for. Right. At this point in my life, it was as if I felt like, now this is how I felt. I felt like I ran the show. Like I felt like I was in control of everything. This was the pride that I had and just the bullying, the kind of anger that I had inside of me. Like if you didn't do what I wanted you to do, then you weren't in my life. Right. So I can't tell you how that word entered into my vocabulary. I have no idea where the suggestion came from. All I know that it is every person that I asked who at this point, I would consider my support system, my coworkers, a couple of friends that I had who, of course, I did drugs with. And now my aunt who were my dad's sisters and my cousins. These are biological family members. I'm asking all these people, I don't know what to do. What should I do? What should I do? And every one of them said, you can't. Pam, you can't. You can't have this baby. Those words drove my decision. Not that it's their fault. I take full responsibility for what I did, but that was the echo chamber. You know, it just confirmed, it affirmed what I already believed, that I couldn't do it. I never could do it. I haven't been doing it. I'm not a mother. I'm not a good mom. I'll never be a good mom. Those were the words that rang true for me. Right. And so I walked into that abortion clinic that day. And, you know, something remarkable that really drives me to this day is when I walked up to that clinic, there was not a single soul.

No one trying to stop me. Yeah, no signs, no one to pray with you. Yeah. No, no, where there are ugly signs, yelling, screaming, praying, singing, nothing. Nothing. Just silence. And no one, you know, and I'm telling you how powerful it is to be a witness. Any kind of any witness, a good Christian witness in front of that abortion facility would, I don't know what would have happened. Yeah, that's true. I asked you, if you were looking back at it, if someone would have been there, right, with a sign or said, Can I pray over you, over you? Do you think that could have had an impact? I believe so. Yeah. I believe so. Now, I wasn't a Christian. Right. I wasn't agnostic. No one had ever preached the gospel to me. I believed there was a God, something bigger than me, you know, but I didn't know Jesus. The foster home I grew up in, they took me to church every time the door swung open. We were the first people in there. But it was this little Presbyterian church, and it was very much that family kind of ran the show there, you know? Our foster family, they were a large family. They had seven children of their own, and then they took in the four of us. So you can imagine this business coming into the church, you know? So my foster mother was actually the first female deacon in this Presbyterian church. But I never once remember hearing the gospel. I never once... I mean, we heard a lot of stories. We heard a lot of talk about missions. We heard, you know, we sang, Come Now, Fountains of Every Blessing, and the Doxology. And, you know, I remember all those things, but, and I remember, you know, our Sunday school teacher taking us to McDonald's and going on canoe trips and those kinds of things, but I don't remember ever hearing the gospel. Right, just that miscomplicated straight to it gospel. Yeah. The simple gospel. I remember thinking, if this is what, what God is about, like these people, the way they treat me at home, and then coming here and worshiping this God, if he is okay with what they're doing, I want no part of that. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, I get this point in my life where I'm, I'm walking down the sidewalk into an abortion clinic, and no one tries to stop me. No one told me. I literally thought this was my only choice. When you looked at my circumstances, and that's what it's about, it was my circumstances. I just got evicted. I don't even have a place to live. Right. I, yes, I have a job, but my car barely works. I need, I'm addicted. I need help. Like, I don't even know who the dad is. Who knew what my health was like, you know, considering the things I'd been doing. And not one person, not one person offered me any alternatives to abortion. Yeah, like adoption. No one. Yeah. Nothing. Or even, hey, you don't have to do that. Let's get you some help and see what happens. Yeah. Or even talk to me about, uh, now, by this time, I am 28 years old, Maggie. I'm not a child. Right. I already had two children. I was a medical laboratory technologist. I was not ignorant of what was going on in my body. But you can know something and, but not have, like, the revealed knowledge of that thing, you know, like I understood that I was pregnant with a baby. But even at that time, I was 13 weeks and four days pregnant. That's into my second trimester. Yeah. Like, all that was driving me was my needs. And that's so important for us to understand when we talk about abortion. And so that day, I went in, I paid the $468 to have this procedure. There was one doctor there. It was a horrible situation. I ended up being stuck four times for them to get an IV going to give me the medication to sedate me, which should have been a red flag for me as a medical professional. I should have known, get up and walk out of here. What are you doing? Right, right. No, it didn't stop me. The night before, I'd been doing drugs. No one asked me. No one, you could probably still smell alcohol on me. Yeah, they didn't even check, like, your state of mind and, you know, I mean. No. Was it clean? Was it a clean place? I mean, what, what was it like? This place was called West Alabama Women's Reproductive Center, I think was the name of it, but it was in Tuscaloosa. It was like a house. So when you walked up to this clinic, it looked like a house. So when you went in, when I went into the front, it was like a living room, but it was just a bunch of chairs set up. And everyone that was, and it was dark. It was dim. Just lamps, you know, lit the room, not fluorescent lighting or anything. And I remember it was before cell phones were, I don't even know if we had cell phones back then in 2001. But everyone sitting in the lobby was just chit-chatting, like they were in a nail salon, you know? Yeah. Or waiting for some regular doctor's appointment. And I remember sitting there and thinking, what is wrong with these people? But I knew what I was doing. Right. I remember thinking that. And then suddenly, this, like, thought came to me, You are these people. You are these people. Like, I'm sitting here judging these other women in the room. Younger women than me, because I'm a grown woman and most of them were younger. And I'm judging them, but I'm doing the same thing. Isn't that what we do? Right. You know? That's hypocrites. And I'm... I was such a hypocrite. And I'm sitting there and I'm judging every one of them, and I'm about to do the same thing. Oh, but of course, my situation is different, right? Right, right. So, I'm sorry to interrupt, but, like, and I'm sure you'll probably get to it, but, I mean, did they, like, give you a sonogram? Did they tell you how far along you were? Did they, like, just go over the procedure in detail? They didn't go over the procedure in detail. The only sonogram I got was actually in the procedure room. Okay. Now, I had already... I personally had already had a sonogram, because I had already been to the doctor. Gotcha. Okay. I was pretty far along before I made this decision. I really did linger in making this decision. I did not get a sonogram before they actually did the abortion. And back then, I don't know if... I don't believe that was a law. When they'd be counseling, and again, I say that very, very loosely, there were five or six of us that were put into a very small room, and it was like a long table, and at the end of it, it was pushed up against the wall and there was a very small TV there with a VCR, one of those TVs that had a VCR thing in the bottom of it. Uh-huh. Yep. And they put a tape in that TV and walked out of the room. We were all supposed to sit there and watch that video. Well, nervously, none of us wanted to watch that. Right. So we start talking about something that made no sense, you know? And none of us paid attention to the video. I remember doing a urine sample and getting my fingerprint for anemia. And then they put me in the room. Now, when they put me in that room, again, they tried to stick me four times to get this IV started. And by the time they got the IV started, it was just very few minutes later that doctor came in, and he started the procedure. Wow. And I remember him turning on that machine, and it's like it has, like, a compressor on it, and so it's loud. And then it makes this sucking sound. And I felt pressure in my abdomen, and he, I felt something like, like, it was like a cut... I can't explain it. It was like a, like a cut. And I kicked my foot out, and I... he perforated my uterus. And I had hemorrhaged all over the place. And I remember hearing this slurping sound, like when you get to the bottom of your milkshake. Yeah. That was the sound that I heard in that room when he was performing this procedure. And I hemorrhaged all over the place. And for about 25 minutes, he tried to pack my uterus to stop the bleeding, and he couldn't do it. And so they had to call an ambulance, and I left that clinic in an ambulance that day. Were you by yourself? My father was with me. Oh, that's right. Your father took you. Oh, my goodness. Yes. My father, who had just gotten out of prison. And no one went out until, like, five girls went in after me, because they're trying and trying... Now, these procedures only take five minutes, normally. So he's in there 25 minutes trying to stop me from bleeding, and they've got five other girls ready to go. And my dad's still sitting out there. He's like, my daughter hasn't come out yet. You know, all these other people who went in after her. What's going on? Right. And they put him off and put him off and put

movie and the scene where the young girl, her uterus is perforated. I won't give the movie away if you haven't seen it, but when I watched that movie and I saw that scene, it was suddenly that I realized because I had minimized this experience. What did you expect, Pam? What did you expect? You knew better. You know, I really condemned myself and shamed myself for it. And I watched that movie and I saw what happened to that girl. It was suddenly that I realized, you almost lost your life. You almost lost your life. That was so unnecessary. Right. And to this day, there's a person missing from my family. Right. He would be he would be 21 years old this year. That was 21 years ago. So it was a boy. Yes. I, you know, I recovered from that procedure, but my life spiraled downward. Yeah. There terribly after that. And I can make it brief. I attempted suicide several times. I entered into a homosexual relationship. I dove deeper into drugs. I was prescribed opiates after that procedure and I ended up addicted to them and methamphetamine. And so my drug addiction just spiraled worse. And I found myself about three years later in the most hopeless place I'd ever been in my life. At one point, my daughter was taken from me and put into foster care because I got into a violent altercation with someone. Women don't do that. I mean, what in the world? Here was I'd become just like my dad, violent and alcohol and drugs. And the thing I vowed and inner vow is, I mean, those words, oh my gosh, the words that you speak are created. And I created my own world with my words. And I spoke those things over me. I'll never be like my dad. You're listening to Pam Whitehead's story on Thinking Christian. Stick around for the conclusion. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Christians need to stop listening to the world and start listening to God so that thinking Christian becomes as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. This is Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological conversations, Thinking Christian offers a mix of interviews and discussions that highlight the ways God is working in the lives of his people and question the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that keep the church from conforming more closely to the image of Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. And I spoke those things over me. I'll never be like my dad. And I was just like him. Yeah. In 2004, I found myself in a very dark place, drunk, high. I was in a condominium with, again, I was living a homosexual lifestyle at the time. I was living with a woman. And so I'm in this condominium with all these other people who were living life I was. We were all doing drugs. And even there, I didn't fit. You know, no matter where I was and whatever situation I got myself in, I always felt like I did not fit. And it's because I was a poser. I was a poser. I was fake. I was synthetic. I was never really being who I was supposed to be. And I'm in this situation. I walk outside on the balcony by myself. I'm drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette. Couldn't even get high anymore. I'm trying to do drugs. Nothing is working. Nothing was working anymore. Right. And I'm standing on that balcony, and I'm looking into this apartment. And all these people are in there under this bright, bright light. And everything looked like it was in slow motion. And it looked like they were laughing, like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, you know. And I heard this voice, and I know today it was the voice of God. And it said to me, this is your life. You are always on the outside looking in. Even in a room full of people, you still feel all alone. Yet I am with you. And I looked around. It was so clear. And I looked around, and I thought, maybe I am high. But I wasn't. I was clear as a bell. And it scared me, and it angered me at the same time because it was the deepest truth I had heard in a long time. Right. That was absolutely true. I felt all alone everywhere I went. Everywhere I went. Even when you were with people, right? Yes. I would always try. I put myself in social situations, which meant I had to drink because I was always feeling anxious. And even in those situations, I always felt like I didn't fit. If they knew who I really was, they wouldn't like me. You know, and so I always felt like I had to play a part. After hearing that, I left that condominium, and I booked it back to Montgomery, Alabama. That was in Orange Beach, and I drove back to Montgomery. And that day, I went to, I'd overdosed on all these drugs, even though I wasn't feeling the effects of them. I was overdosing. I could feel my pulse in my earlobe, but I wasn't high. And I get back, and I go to the emergency room. But before I went to the emergency room, I stopped to see my brother. My brother was, at the time, going to these revivals, like tent revivals, in Montgomery, Alabama. He had been homeless and on drugs, and we had kind of been estranged because of our drug addiction. We just couldn't be around each other. And during this period of time, it was a very small window of time, he was going to these revivals. And, you know, he had gotten religion or whatever you want to call it. And I, on the way to the hospital, I told my girlfriend at the time, you know, I was in this lesbian relationship. Right. I said, can you please stop? Because I felt like I was dying. I said, can you stop and let me see my brother? So here I was. I'd been in this situation where I hit this voice, and I think it's God. And then I said, stop and let me see my brother. I go in to see my brother. I curled up in fetal position on the floor, and he laid hands on me, and he prayed over me. Oh, wow. And I believe that it was in that moment that the phenomenon of craving left me and that I was delivered from drug addiction and alcoholism because I have not had another drink or another drug since that day. Wow. And that was April 26, 2004. Wow. I have full body goosebumps. That is, wow. And now I went on, and I did what I could do, you know, because I have to, I do what I can, God does what I can't. Right. So I went ahead and went on to the hospital. Yes, and I went to the hospital. I detoxed. I had no insurance, of course, so they just kept me long enough to medically detox me off of everything. And it's interesting. I have my medical records today from the abortion from DCH Hospital in Tuscaloosa that shows the perforated uterus. I have my medical records from when I went into detox that shows my positive drug test. And these things are so powerful when I show them to people, and they're like, you would never, ever think that. Or looking at you, there's no way. There's no way. You know, because it's a miracle that I have all my teeth that I'm, you know, I don't look weathered, that I'm healthy, that, you know, looking at what I did to my body. But God is good. He healed me. He delivered me and he set me free. Now I did not serve him from that moment on. Okay. After I got out of detox, I started in AA. That was my church for a long time. I went to AA three times a day. Yeah, three times a day. I would go in there, and you could still get away with a lot in AA. They talk about a higher power. You can call him God if you want to, you know. But you could still get away with cussing and smoking and even screwing around. Nobody's gonna mess with you. Right. It's not drinking and drugging. So while I learned a lot of great principles, there were also still a lot of bad behaviors that I had, but I began to work the 12 steps. The part that I couldn't get over was the defects of character, which is about step six. You know, those defects of character kept coming up, you know, the lying and control and pride and all these other things. And so a year after I got sober, my child's father came back into my life and he comes back into my life and we get married. And he's sober. I was sober. And within a year, we

attach myself to people and think that, you know, either they were going to save me or I could save them, but it gave me like a purpose, right? Right. So these relationships always kind of became my idol. And so now I'm in this relationship with him and I'm sober. And so any progress that I had made really in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous kind of stalled. And our relationship was rocky because my husband wasn't able to stay sober. He relapsed, yeah, over and over and over again. And then in 2009, his brother was diagnosed with brain cancer. And so he's originally from Texas. I'm from Alabama. And we left Alabama and came to Texas. Not long after we got here, he relapsed again. And thankfully, I had support here because his family was here. But before any time that happened, I'm kind of trying to deal with it on my own, you know? Right. And this time I didn't have to do that. And his cousin, you know, I really just kind of wanted to go and whine about it. And she tells me, hey, why don't you come to church with me? And I'm like, I do laundry on Sundays. I'm not going to church. Right. And she kind of thought I was joking. And I'm like, no, I'm serious. Like, that's my laundry day. She was like, okay. And she asked me again, and I was like, I'm not going. Like, I don't know why you're even wasting your time. And finally, I said, listen, I'll make a deal with you. You can keep asking me, but don't get mad if I say no. And she's like, okay. Basically, let's see who wins this fight. Right. And she kept asking. And finally, I said yes. And so I went to church. And I'll tell you something. Now, I had walked into that little church. My foster family took me in every time the doors were open. Right. But I never understood the scripture where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty, until I walked into this church. Wow. And immediately, I knew there's something here that I've never felt before in my life. And it was freedom. Mm-hmm. I had never known what it felt like to be free. And these people were free. Yes. And they had something that I wanted. And they had hope. And they had smiles on their faces. And they didn't have a lot of money. They didn't have a lot of possessions. Right. But they were full of life. And I'm like, what kind of drugs are you on? You know? I haven't tried those drugs. What drugs are you on? And I know. And so I get in there and I hear this. It was a couple weeks before I really surrendered. But I heard a message on Ephesians 5, which was order in the home. Christ is the head of every man. Man is the head of every woman. And, you know, the man must love his wife as Christ loves the church and the woman must respect her husband. And I'm listening to these things and I'm like, man, that's it. These people got this like in line, you know? And I don't have that. Like, I'll run my household and I'm always discontent and I'm ticked off because I'm the one having to handle the bills and handle all the decisions. And that's not how it's supposed to be. And no wonder, you know? Yeah. And that message is what led me to the altar. Wow. It was that message. I wanted family. I wanted family. Right. And I wanted it to be. I said, these people have something and I want it. And from that moment on, I began to read the word of God. And that word transformed my mind, set me free. Listeners, that is all the time that we have for today. Thank you so much for joining us for the second part of this interview as we continue our discussion on about Pam's journey and then talk more in depth about what ProLove Ministries is doing for women and a mother once she chooses life for her baby and how they come alongside and support her before, during and after her pregnancy. I cannot wait to share with you all what they are doing for the world. I want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. Christians need to stop listening to the world and start listening to God so the thinking Christian becomes as natural as breathing. Hi, friend. Are you stressed, maybe even worried about so many needs around you that you've forgotten you are worth taking care of, too? Well, I'm Bonnie Gray, the host of Breathe, the stress less podcast. I want to invite you to join me as I share practical tips based on science inspired by God's word to help you spark joy and restore God's peace and love to your soul. Subscribe now and go to lifeaudio.com