Review/Testimony of "October Baby" movie
(Received in email - This is truly a very personal review and an extraordinarily powerful testimony . . . . . received on April 15, 2012 . . . . the Feast of Divine Mercy . . . . . the celebration of God's Merciful Healing Love)
October Baby is a powerful, entertaining, moving, funny movie that proclaims and affirms, through its “beautifully flawed” characters, that Every Life is Beautiful. It so deeply touched me that I saw it twice this weekend. Here is a description by one of its producers, Jon Erwin, of the storyline:
As the curtain rises, Hannah hesitantly steps onto the stage for her theatrical debut in college. Yet before she can utter her first lines, Hannah-unscripted-collapses in front of the stunned audience. After countless medical tests, all signs point to one underlying factor: Hannah's difficult birth. This revelation is nothing compared to what she then learns from her parents: she was actually adopted ... after a failed abortion attempt. Bewildered, angered, and confused, Hannah turns for support to Jason, her oldest friend. Encouraged by his adventurous spirit, Hannah joins his group of friends on a Spring Break road trip, embarking on a journey to discover her hidden past ... and find hope for her unknown future. In the midst of her incredible journey, Hannah learns that every life is beautiful. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1720182/)
Hannah embarks on that journey of discovery with the hope of finding her birth mother, and the hope that, in doing so, she will find herself. She expresses that doubt more than once after learning the truth about her birth: that she doesn’t know who she is, and she states with great determination that she has to find that out. I believe that she goes a long way in finding out “who she is” by finding out, as the priest in the movie tells her, that she has the power to forgive and can make that choice to forgive. And from her forgiveness comes the power of healing that spreads to others.
I think that every person who sees October Baby will be deeply touched in a very individual way. I am a 61 year old woman who had four abortions when I was in my twenties—a very lost (spiritually and psychologically) young woman. I was living in darkness and believed each time, like the nurse in October Baby, that I was aborting“tissue” that was not yet a person.
When I returned to the Catholic Church in 1992, God quickly gave me the very painful light that those were my first four children that I had chosen to have killed. It was the greatest pain that I have ever experienced in my life, to come to that knowledge. At one point, I said to the Lord, “You can take both of my arms and both of my legs, if only you would give me back those babies.” But God had other plans for me. He has powerfully healed my heart and soul and made me a witness for the sacredness of life and, most of all, a powerful witness of His Divine Mercy.
I was afraid to go to see October Baby. I was afraid that I would discover that I was not completely healed. But, on the contrary, seeing the movie affirmed my healing. It affirmed yet again that my unborn babies, who are with God—in His eternal love and joy—want me to live, “to live life to the full.”
Go and see October Baby, and God will touch your heart where it most needs to be touched! I guarantee that it will be a healing touch!
April is Abortion Recovery Awareness Month. If you are a woman or a man in need of healing from the emotional wounds of abortion, call Amistad Pregnancy Care Center at 830-775-8076 to begin your own journey of healing. We also offer free pregnancy tests; Christian counseling to women of any ages who are in crisis pregnancies; and we have somebaby clothes and diapers. We are also available for educational presentations on abstinence training, abortion, and/or post-abortion healing testimonies.
