[Editor’s Note]: Amy Ford is the President and Co-Founder of Embrace Grace. Embrace Grace is an organization with a self-described vision “for every girl with an unplanned pregnancy to have a church to go to for spiritual, emotional and physical support.” In accordance with that vision their self-described mission is “to inspire and equip the church to love on single and pregnant young women and their families.” A truly noble cause. Recently, CFC staff had the chance to hear Amy Ford share her testimony and we wanted our audience to be able to hear it as well.
Ford began her testimony by explaining how she herself had an unplanned pregnancy when she was 19 and felt completely alone. “I didn’t want to tell my parents, I thought I was going to get disowned,” she stated. “It’s like a lie from the enemy, and I actually went to an abortion clinic to have an abortion. But at the beginning of the abortion procedure I passed out from hyperventilation.”
This circumstance turned out to be for the good, as the nurse then refused to let Amy have an abortion.
“So I went home and we told my parents. And they didn’t disown me,” she said.
Then she explained how she married the father of her son. “My son is 18 now and leading student ministries and really has a calling of God on his life,” she rejoiced. And that is the miraculous story of how Embrace Grace was founded.
However, the road ahead was still difficult. The pastor who they first asked to perform their wedding ceremony refused to marry the Amy, and the father of her son. “It was like this cloud of guilt hung over us. It was like this dark, dark time in my life,” Amy recounted.
But it doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be this way. “Girls who need help should feel comfortable with going to the church for help, she stated emphatically. That’s when you get the opportunity to talk about grace, and value, and identity, and worth and that individual ends up falling in love with Jesus. Amy acknowledges the fact that you can’t fix everyone’s problems, but you can at least help offer them solutions.
The church is supposed to be there to pick one another up when we stumble and fall. “A baby is a miracle not a sin,” Amy stated powerfully. There are natural consequences to sin, yes. But the church is not there to impose consequences. Rather, the church collectively should make girls and women with unplanned pregnancies feel safe, welcome, and comfortable. “Our job is to create safe places for women and girls who feel unsafe,” shared Amy.
“We are the light of the world, the hope of the world, and so we can’t leave it all to the pregnancy centers, often those places can only provide so much,” Amy reminded her audience. “We have an opportunity to connect with these women and girls and prevent their babies from becoming a statistic. We have front row opportunities to make a difference and be servants, to let women and girls know they don’t have to walk alone through this process.”
Visit EmbraceGrace.com for more information on Amy Ford and the valuable work she is doing to encourage and assist churches to reach out and be there for pregnant, and single young mothers.
