Focus on the Family

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John Fuller: This is John Fuller, and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website.

Sarah Zagorski: It was healing, it was powerful, it was Christ at work directly, intimately. Like they said from the beginning, regardless of how this turns out, we're going to love Sarah, no matter what happens to her.

John Fuller: Last time on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, Sarah Zagorski shared her deeply personal story of surviving an abortion and God's work in her life in her childhood. We're so glad you've joined us. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, we did have a really good heartfelt visit with Sarah last time. We're going to continue today to talk about the things that she experienced as a baby, as a preborn, and then in both a real turbulent and unhealthy environment with her birth mom and then eventually in foster care and what that did for her spiritually.

We said last time her mom eventually came to the Lord, and that's a very good place to start the discussion: that there is always hope in Christ. I'm sure there are women listening that are feeling guilty, feeling shame. I'm telling you, you can put that at the foot of the cross. Call us, we have caring Christian counselors. Let us talk to you about what redemption means in Christ, even like Sarah's mom, who had a very difficult life, found eternal life at the end of this life.

John Fuller: Give us a call if we can help you in any way. Our number is 800-A-FAMILY. Sarah Zagorski is the senior director of public relations and communication at Americans United for Life. She testifies at state legislatures and before Congress about born-alive infant protections. She's contributed to a really powerful book called *Choose Life: Answering Key Claims of Abortion Defenders with Compassion*. Learn more about Sarah and get this book at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: Sarah, welcome back for day two. Appreciate that effort to hang in and go—it's hard to talk about your life. You're exposing all these pains, so I really want to say thank you because that's not easy. I know you do it a lot because you're in that mission field to talk about the importance of a child and a mother and what they're going through. Thank you for laying it out there every day to say, "I'm for life."

I'm thinking I've seen those opportunities where we've had good friends like Melissa Ohden and others, yourself, testifying in front of Congress. Those that support abortion are so mean toward you. Melissa once told me when she was there and, again, like you, she was the one who was rejected, was aborted but survived.

She just looked at those who opposed her and said, "What do you see in me? Am I human or not?" One female pro-abortion congressperson walked by her and said, "Yeah, I don't think you should exist," and walked away. Think of just being told that—that you as a human being shouldn't be here. Who has the right to say that? Seriously.

Let me kick it in here. We're going to cover some different territory today: your foster experience, your relationship with your foster family, the good they did in your life, which is awesome. Let's go there. How old were you when you first stepped into the foster program and when did you begin to realize what was happening?

Sarah Zagorski: The first entrance into foster care was at 16 months. At that time, I was too young to remember many things. I went through the process of what is common in foster care as reunification attempts with my birth family.

Jim Daly: That was the number one goal.

Sarah Zagorski: That's the number one goal of foster care all the time, every time. Try to get you back with your biological parent or parents. I went through those reunification attempts multiple times, as the state is often leaning toward trying to give that birth family every opportunity to improve their life and become the parents where a child can be protected and safe.

During those reunification attempts, it was very heartbreaking for my foster family, even though they had released me to the Lord. They did get calls in the middle of the night: "Sarah has to go home." That is what happened. Sarah had to go home.

I definitely had such a great love for my mother and for my siblings. I wanted it to be a perfect haven, and I even made this huge castle at my foster parents' house of our family living all together in love and in harmony. But that was a fantasy, that wasn't reality.

Jim Daly: But it's what your heart wished for.

Sarah Zagorski: It's what my heart wished for. Especially with my mother and my sisters, I really wanted to be back with them. Like I said, my mother had three more children after me: a set of twins who I often, during that reunification period, would protect. I would bring them into bathrooms and get food with them and those sort of things. I had deep bonds with these individuals.

Jim Daly: How did the Christian family that was your initial foster family care for you that made that impact on you spiritually, particularly? Again, I just would encourage more Christian families to consider. If you want to go to the chaos of the world, there's no greater chaos than foster care.

Of course, the scripture talks about bringing God's Shalom, His peace, into this world of chaos, which is a sinful world. So you look at it: you want to jump into the deep end of the pool and do a lot of good work? Jump into foster care. Speak to that dynamic of your Christian foster parents and how that unfolded.

Sarah Zagorski: I'll give you a couple of examples. One of the ways in which they were involved when I was even reunited with my family is they were still in my mother's life because my mother still allowed that. She was overwhelmed with the many children she had.

They would bring food and clothes to my family. They'd make hygiene boxes and bring them to my mother to try to help them during those times. Also, there was a time where my mother allowed for—again, this was during a time where I was still with the family—they allowed for my previous foster family to take me to school.

My adopted mom was an elementary teacher, so she enrolled me in the school she went to. She would pick me up from my birth parents' house and she would bring a change of clothes because my clothes were not suitable for wearing. She would bring baby wipes and those kind of materials to clean me up before school and then bring me back. That was so powerful because it showed her love for me regardless of how foster care panned out for them.

Jim Daly: Well, and the dignity. When you look at that and felt that at the time—you got me crying now—but being aware of that in itself is really amazing. What's happening to me right now?

Sarah Zagorski: It was healing, it was powerful, it was Christ at work directly, intimately. They would throw birthday parties for my other siblings. They did everything within their means to support my mother and her children. Like they said from the beginning, regardless of how this turns out, we're going to love Sarah, no matter what happens to her. That was powerful. They were committed to the end—a long-term situation.

Jim Daly: This is a maybe unanswerable question, but we share some similarities. Mine was not as tragic as yours, but was it enough to offset the lack of what you may have perceived as normal or love from mom and dad that you didn't really have?

Sarah Zagorski: It did not replace that. It was something that provided hope throughout the process, which was life-saving for me to have hope at all.

Jim Daly: I think one of the difficulties for us that have done foster care—all you can do is show up. You can't make that happen in a child's heart. The best way to get there is by loving them, by helping them. I mean, what she did for you with clothing and wipes—that is love. You interpreted it correctly.

Sarah Zagorski: Yes. Then after a reunification attempt, when I was placed back in their care, I was riding with her and I asked her—and I know this hurt her deeply—I said to her, "Why didn't you come get me? Why didn't you come help me?"

But she couldn't at that time because the state had required that I go back. She bore those wounds too. She was a part of this. She suffered too in that. Now I completely understand as an adult why she couldn't just come get me.

Jim Daly: To give us a little oxygen and get the wetness out of our eyes, I want to make a statement here that I think is really cool, and that's the role *Adventures in Odyssey*, the radio drama, played in your life at this time. For all the donors that support Focus that help do that, we're committed to *Odyssey*. We have a movie coming out, I think September or October, at your theaters. You're going to want to go support the ministry by going. How did *Odyssey* help you?

Sarah Zagorski: *Odyssey* was amazing. I was first introduced to *Odyssey* in my foster care family. At that time, I believe Chick-fil-A would give a tape. I listened to one tape and I suddenly wanted every album that ever existed.

The beautiful thing about *Odyssey* is it brings the Gospel into the child's life. You have the mentorship of Whit, you have Connie who comes to maturity of faith, you have Eugene who, during the '90s, comes to saving faith. It's always introduced in a way that a child can understand. Of course, it has many Bible stories. I was really fed and nurtured and discipled through that. I mean, as amazing as—I know that sounds unbelievable, but it is true.

Jim Daly: You're not the only one. Thousands of now-adults say that when they were children, *Odyssey* was what gave them the foundation. You go to Sunday school, and that's really good and helpful, but when you could do that radio drama and envision these stories unfolding in what you perceive as a child to be a real-life place, and Whit a real character—the grandpa you never had—and just all those great lessons.

The writers are spectacular—Paul McCusker and so many others, Dave Arnold. We're so grateful for the talent of being able to do that. We're looking forward to that movie and the 13 episodes that are going to stream after that.

John Fuller: You can find out all about this new animated *Adventures in Odyssey* film we're so excited about. Learn more about it and support the work—it's going to take a lot of financial resources to get this project off the ground—and you can start by going to focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: Speak to the adoption now—the Christian family that said, "Yes, we'll adopt Sarah." Wow, tell me about that emotion.

Sarah Zagorski: At nine, so 1999, the state had terminated my mother's parental rights, which of course is a tragedy on its own. They terminated her rights for myself and for my three younger siblings. My older siblings, unfortunately, were in group homes or they aged out of foster care. It was very tragic to witness and see.

I remember my adoption day very specifically because I had to go before a judge and I actually threw up before the whole event just being so nervous. The judge asked me—it was a moment of decision—which I think is very unusual, but the judge asked me in front of my foster family petitioning to adopt me, where I wanted to live. I'm nine.

I knew enough that I would not survive in that environment anymore, but it was devastating and heartbreaking all at the same time, and also relieving at the same time. At that point, I was given a huge gift, though, which was permanence, which every child needs. That was the gift that began to mature me and help me grow my relationship with Christ and really shifted the direction of my entire life after that moment.

Jim Daly: I so feel what you're talking about. I really do. I had to tell my dad I didn't want to live with him when I was 10 because that's what my siblings thought needed to happen. It's true: he was an alcoholic, it wasn't healthy, and I moved in with my brother. But to say that to him? He just got up, came over, hugged me and said, "I love you."

Sarah Zagorski: The pain that I went through later on as a teenager and things like that of this belief that was circulated that I somehow chose this at nine. I had nothing to do with it. I answered the question, but it was already decided that my mother's rights were terminated. So it's very painful, it's very difficult.

Jim Daly: Well, and the beautiful way that you described that—in your heart, this is safety. Making this decision puts me in a place where there's food and love and comfort, and over here it's chaos and danger and I don't know if I'll be able to eat. Those aren't very good choices.

Really, the other one is without your mom whom you love. Speak to that other thing that some people that haven't been in this situation—the unbelievable love a child can have for their parent, as imperfect as they are. It is amazing how we can love as a child through all the bad stuff.

Sarah Zagorski: Oh, I adored my mom. I loved her with all my heart. I never wanted that to happen. I never wanted that to be my life story: to leave her. I always wanted her to improve.

I believed—had this childlike, you can call it being naive—but I believed she would pull through and things would improve. But time and time again, I learned it didn't improve. But the love never changed. The love never changed.

John Fuller: Sarah, if I have it right, your adoptive mom had an abortion element to her story, and her story has led you to this point of speaking so boldly for life. Is that right?

Sarah Zagorski: That's correct. My adopted mother is another heroine in my life. She had an abortion in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when she was in her 20s. That was the only pregnancy she ever had.

She came to her moment of decision at the age of 40 and cried out to God because she was suicidal over that abortion and was convicted that that was ending His child's life—the Lord's child's life. Then she started her own healing journey.

After her healing journey, she began counseling other women on the post-abortion recovery. Seeing her witness really inspired me. She would hold a sign outside facilities that said, "I had an abortion. Please come talk to me." I got to witness that devotion.

I also got to witness her ministry to my mother of healing, of what it looks like to heal from this: "God can forgive you, God will forgive you, and you can be set free."

Jim Daly: I want to ask this tenderly because so often in doing foster care, you're given a sheet: "Are you able to accept?" and then there's a whole list of things: food hoarding, head knocking, it can be lighting fires. There's no "normal" box. I remember filling that sheet out and I looked at Jean: sexual orientation issues, all kinds of things. You look at that list and you go, "Wow, okay, what are you willing to check that you're willing to bring into your home, your peaceful Christian home?"

In our experience, we had one child who was a food hoarder because they probably had the same circumstance you had. Every morning we started with him and he would say, "Can I have a bowl of cereal? Can I have pancakes? Can I have toast? Can I have bacon?" And he'd have this mound of food I would make for him.

This went on for like three months. Then one day, it's like he figured it out—that if he asked for it, it would be there—and that was the last time he did it. It was just the weirdest thing. He just needed to know, which we would call food security, that if he asked for it, it would be there. Then he just went back to a bowl of cereal. I was really attentive to that in that moment. All he needed. And yeah, we threw a bunch of pancakes away—what's the big deal? But it changed him in his ability to be secure that he had a place to eat.

That's what we're talking about in that context. Do you feel like when you look back on your life, did you come into that foster and adoptive situation with baggage? What were the boxes for you?

Sarah Zagorski: 100 percent, absolutely, no doubt. I saw many Christian counselors, I saw psychiatrists, I saw many different specialists in mental health things. I had issues with food disorders. It's just the truth.

Your body remembers the trauma you've experienced. That was true for me, so I had to go through a lot of healing and recovery from that time in my life. But my Christian foster care parents—later adoptive parents—provided that support. There were times as a teenager I was suicidal. It wasn't pretty. But it was Christ throughout it and them alongside me.

Jim Daly: Steady, consistent. That's so good. I mean, we would look at you today and how you're expressing yourself and we're going, "Wow, she's an amazing woman." But you had difficulty. I just want to make sure that is there and people know that. You have to work out those things.

Sarah Zagorski: And then too, the tragedy in my family—not to be so sober with you today—but the tragedy with my family is I've had three siblings pass away, and then my mother passed away and my stepfather passed away. So a lot of tragedy, and a lot of that comes from the ramifications of the abuse and the pain they experienced in their life.

Jim Daly: Sarah, this is an extreme situation obviously and all the degradation that you were facing. Again, I'm so proud of you. I wish I could have been there to be that foster dad for you. Jean would have been right there with you.

I'm thinking of even intact biological homes where things go wrong. This is far more desperate, but it's like every marriage and every family is a stench to Satan, and he is going to try to crush us at every turn. Look at the unfortunate impact he's had on marriage in this country.

But in that context, that woman that had that abortion—many in the church, and that's just a real statistic, like one in four women have had an abortion, and that data set from what I understand is very similar to the women attending church.

So there's this guilt. Women are so good at bearing guilt. You really do look at yourselves first and say, "What did I do?" How does a woman really feel like God can take that from her, take that sin and set her free? Is it possible, really?

Sarah Zagorski: Absolutely. It's just the simple fact of the cross. The cross that Jesus died on. He died for the sins of humanity, whatever that sin may be. It covers it. It erases it, white as snow.

I believe that with all my heart because I've seen it with my adoptive mother, and I saw the suffering and the guilt for my birth mother. But the cross levels us all out. We're all sinful. Our hearts are desperately wicked without the Lord.

But the Lord wants us to be free, and that's what he wants for that post-abortive woman: to be free of that guilt, free of that shame, acknowledging it for what it is first, having moral responsibility understanding "I ended the life of Your child, Lord," but then to experience the freedom afterward of "I don't have to carry this anymore. Jesus bore it for me on the cross."

Jim Daly: That is so good, and I think that's the main thing that I wanted to get across. If you're in that spot, you just can't feel it, maybe you've tried—you've gone down at your church several times—it just hasn't felt like it's gotten to that point where you feel free of that sin. Give us a call. We have caring Christian counselors that can help.

What in that ingredient, if I could call it that, talking to women, counseling women, working in the pro-life movement—what tends to be the most positive way that a woman can get there? What are those things that pour into her life?

Sarah Zagorski: A couple of things I think are important to remember is that a woman that's making the abortion decision is often a woman in what would be described as a crisis situation—not thinking through the future, only thinking about the here and now.

But what they really need from the Christian community is this understanding of: we are going to show you compassion, we're going to show you understanding about what is going on in your life, and we're going to help you unravel how you can raise your child with support.

That's really important because women in these situations, they don't have the luxury of judgment. I don't say judgment as if we are somehow condoning abortion; we're never condoning abortion. We're always telling the truth about what abortion does.

But we're reaching in, we are trying to get in her shoes and say, "Let's go through it together. Let's walk through this together. How can I help you before you make this decision? Let's look at every other way that your life could be, and let's also look at the future of what your life could be," walking her through that. If she's a Christian, reaching out to her with the message of the Gospel and the message of hope and that she will not be in this moment forever.

Jim Daly: I just hope people—women particularly in this situation—will grab ahold of that. Don't live in that despair, that guilt, that shame. Let's work together to get you to a healthier place. You're doing so much to do that. Thank you for what you've done.

Let me end here because we've had this experience. You said you showed up in a stained nightgown and half a bottle of Coke or something. That's so typical. What's really typical for foster care, which it was true of me: I had a hefty bag, a garbage bag of clothes that I had. When we probably had 15 kids come through our home over eight years or so with foster, always the same story: it was a trash bag of clothes.

So one thing that we've done here with the team, Dr. Sharen Ford and the team that work every day to help kids get connected into foster care and foster families, Christians to step up—and I so appreciate what they do each and every day—but they created a suitcase bundle.

So that dignity issue—like what you felt—we're able to supply a duffel bag with a children's Bible, with a little teddy bear or stuffed animal, with a handwritten note that the team or the church that we work with to put these kits together—they'll sign those cards to that child saying, "You're worthy, we see you, you're made in the image of God, we love you."

Join that. I mean, that is like the easiest thing you can do. We're not asking you directly to be in foster care, but can you do that? We've given, I think over 50,000 of these away to local foster agencies to work with, and they love it.

So let's be the light of Christ as Christians. Let's supply that to show dignity. In addition, we want to expose you to the great work of Wait No More, our foster adoption efforts here at Focus. Go to the website, call us, whatever the Lord's laying on your heart.

If He's saying, "You can come around and provide help to a foster family," it's called respite care, and it's a word that simply means get around them—maybe go shopping for them, do their laundry, whatever might be helpful to them—and then it just keeps going from that.

I loved my wife Jean: when we were talking about this program at Focus and I got home and she said, "If you're going to ask other people to do it, then we need to do it." And I said, "No, I was the foster care! I paid my dues!" Isn't that terrible? Now I think about it and she just gave me that great wife eye. Like, "That sounds dumb."

Sarah Zagorski: A lot of Christians think the only way to support foster care efforts is to foster themselves, but the foster care community needs support in a lot of other ways.

Jim Daly: Yeah, they have found—we have found—like a five-to-one ratio: for every family in your church that does foster care, if five families will just gather around them and help them with the things that I'm talking about, shopping and other things, they'll be very successful in that. They just need help. They need a weekend break, all those kinds of things.

So Sarah, with all of that, just thank you so much for being with us. I am already—I just want to be your dad! I just so appreciate, I'm so proud of you and what you've done. I'm grateful you were here for the internship all those years ago. You're like my star person. Listen to *Odyssey* and just God bless you, as He obviously has been doing since you were born and even before you were born. He was in your corner. Nothing better.

Sarah Zagorski: Covenant of love.

John Fuller: Learn how you can get activated and maybe start praying about what you can do to get involved in the foster care effort and to make a difference for life right where you are.

Please donate to our efforts here that we've talked about when you call 800-A-FAMILY or online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. And thanks for joining us for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.