by Rosemary Benefield RN, MA & MPC

It seems that whenever God has a job for me, he first puts the desire in my heart. It was while working in the Pregnancy Counseling Office at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, counseling pre- and post-abortive women, that I felt a desire to do more. It came to my attention than many Catholic women who have had an abortion needed healing in this area. I referred them to an Evangelical Post-Abortion Healing Workshop. However, many Catholic women won't attend a program if it is not Catholic. So this desire was realized with the birth of "Rachel's Hope After-Abortion Healing and Reconciliation retreats for Catholic Women ( or Catholic Friendly)." My husband, Jim Benefield, MFCC, gives healing workshops for men who have had an abortion experience. The Holy Spirit opened many doors for me, and sent me supportive people, in the founding of Rachel's Hope.

As of April 2009, there has been 14 years of successful retreats, with over 500 women and about 70 men who have attended. Also the Spanish retreats began around 2000, held by different leaders.

In 1998 I had a desire to do more. I wanted to write about abortion aftermath. I have a good number of books on the subject, so I couldn't see myself writing a book. As this desire was percolating in my mind, I saw an ad in the Journal of Christian Nursing asking for authors to write courses for nurses Continuing Education Units. This immediately gave me a vision of reaching out to nurses or those in medical field.

When I finished writing the course it was given to the editor to determine if it was acceptable for publication. Well, God had an intervention for the editor in His plan. The editor was personally touched and received healing through the course because her mother had had an abortion before she was born. It was on the mother's death bed that she told the whole family about her abortion, upsetting everyone in the family. Now, she and the whole family may be able to better understand their mother.

In the past ten years my husband and I have written a number of articles in journals and many newspaper articles have been written about the retreats and workshops, as well as a Spanish program was developed to reach out to the Spanish population.

God has a plan bigger than my own. I will only be privileged to hear a small portion of His plan of healing for women and men through the women’s retreats, the men’s workshops and the Nursing Course.