Ep 68: How Her Abortion Helped Her to Birth Purpose with Latoya Mathews

Latoya Mathews, fondly referred to as the Underground Railroad of Freedom for wounded women, is a grace-filled healing coach and speaker who has earned a reputation as a beacon of hope for leading women who have experienced abortion from shame and self-condemnation to wholeness and freedom.

After taking her own traumatic, solo healing journey, Latoya is on a mission to unravel the shackles of guilt, pain, and regret that bind countless other women who have experienced abortion. In this episode, we had a conversation in which she shared her story and insights like:

Latoya has such a beautiful spirit. Please join us and tune into this episode to be filled with hope and have tools on moving forward after experiencing abortion.

Tune in for another dose of Grace for Breakfast! Find me on Instagram @ivianabynum and say hi!

Welcome to the Graces for Breakfast podcast. I’m your host, Iviana Bynum, and today I’m with Latoya Mathews. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you for being on here. I know that this is your day off, so I mean this is like a sacrifice for you too. So thank you for taking the time. So let me just introduce you to the audience.

Latoya is a grace filled healing coach and speaker who has earned a reputation as a beacon of hope for leading women who have ex. Experienced abortion from shame and self condemnation to wholeness and freedom. After taking her own traumatic solo healing journey, Latoya’s on a mission to unravel the shackles of guilt, pain, and regret that bind countless other women.

Those whose lives have been radically transformed by Latoya’s anointed message of hope and restoration fondly referred to her as the Underground Railroad of Freedom for Wounded Women. Welcome to the show.

It is an honor to be here and thank you so much for having me. And this, I promise it’s not a sacrifice.

This is what I love to do, so thank you.

Oh, that’s so great to hear. So Latoya, I know that right now you’re working on some really great things and. I mean, you’ve got a whole movement going that’s really encouraging women who have dealt with abortion and things like that. But can you bring us to the beginning, like your upbringing or whatever you wanna share that really led you to that point of getting an abortion?

And then we’ll share EV with everybody where you’re at now, and just how God’s brought healing to your life.

Yes, ma’am. Um, well I grew up in Mississippi. I’m originally from the Mississippi Delta, and um, I was, I had moved back to the new, uh, new City. We had moved back and it had been a while since we’ve been there.

And so I was, um, going to school, getting ready to graduate, and that summer I just remember hearing the three words that I never thought that I would hear. You are pregnant. And so it was one of those moments where it was. Like a scene from Charlie Brown, like when she said it was like, won, won, that’s all I heard.

Um, because I had met a guy and it was just like one of those things where it was like we met. And, you know, we did it and got pregnant on the first, you know, the first try. And it was one of those things where it was like, um, I’ve graduated high school, I have a scholarship to play tennis and play basketball, and I just didn’t see, um, where a child would fit in that.

And let alone I didn’t have a really great relationship with my mom. And so it was just like those things, those external factors that played a part in it, it just. That made the decision easier for me. And to be honest, I had never even heard of the word abortion until that moment, and I think maybe she had handed me a pamphlet or whatever the case may be, but I had never heard of.

Of what an abortion was. And so I just thought that it sounded like something that would be best fit for me because of everything that I said I was going through at that time. And I wasn’t like a religious person. I didn’t grow up in the church or anything like that. So I think that it just made the decision even easier for me, but.

You know, we scheduled the appointment and I found myself walking into the clinic and it was just like the walk of shame. I went in, I, I had my, he held low, like somebody really wouldn’t know who I was, right? And so, and I was just sitting in the waiting room by myself and there was like other young women around me and they called my name and I went to the back and we had the procedure done and they took me to a recovery room where I had about 10 to 15 minutes to recover.

And immediately after that I went school shopping and it was just like one of those things where I’m gonna do what I need to do to just take my mind off of what just happened. And so I went shopping for college, but that night when I got back to my family member’s house is just, everything just came crashing down.

Like the walls just like. Came down and I was just like, what did you just do? And that was the night really, the guilt, the shame and the regret really set in. And I prayed after that. I prayed every night for God to forgive me for what I had done. And it wasn’t until I moved to Georgia. I moved to Georgia in 2006 and.

I have my now pastor who introduced us to this book called The True Measure of a Woman by Lisa Bevere. And in that book she, it’s like one of those chapter books where you read and at the end of the chapter there are questions. And in the second chapter, I remember reading, cleaning out the closets and it said, what do you have in your closet that you need to clean and help?

And I just. Again, burst into tears because I knew that it was God telling me that it was time to clean that same piece of abortion out of my closet. And that second question was, what is it that you have to offer to other women? And I just remember my face being hot and I just. Busted like the, the tears instead of drips now was like a river, because it was just like, God, why did you create me?

Because I have nothing to offer to anybody. Like there’s no purpose for me. I have no value of that I can add to anyone else’s life. So why did you create me this way? And that’s a. That’s where the enemy had me in this mindset that I wasn’t worthy, that I wasn’t of value, that I didn’t deserve, you know, the good things that God had for me.

But it wasn’t until we met and I told the pastor what I had done cuz I wasn’t gonna share cuz I was like, I’m not sharing this because you know, who wants to share, you know, something like this. Because I had never heard of anyone sharing and let alone, I didn’t know of any groups that existed, that handled these types of situations.

So I told her, um, what I had done and she said, sweetie, God forgave you the very first time that you prayed. And it was just like the gift that I needed because no one knew that for over a decade or so I had had this pain in my stomach. That reminded me of my decision, and every now and then it would be this sharp pain that would come almost kind of like, you know, this is what you have to live with because of the decision that you made.

But when she said, sweetie, Godfrey gave you the very first time that you prayed, I’ve never felt that pain anymore because it was almost as if, and I knew that it was, now I know that it was me holding onto that unforgiveness against myself. That I was the cause, you know, of this pain. And that was the gift that I needed at that time, and I haven’t experienced that pain anymore.

Wow. That is, that’s so powerful and impactful. And I want to go a little deeper there with what you just said about unforgiveness of yourself because a few years ago, I’d done an episode on Forgiving Yourself, right? Mm-hmm. And I didn’t know what that looked like. I wasn’t really studying the Bible about it.

And it raised a debate about forgiving yourself. It really did. And the people who came to me and told me, Basically spoke against what I had said. They were Christians, right? They were believers. Mm-hmm. And they were like, no, as a Christian, you, that’s like, not, that’s not right. You shouldn’t forgive yourself.

And it’s, it, it unraveled a lot in me through the years, and now I have a full understanding that God’s given me about what that means and how it looks like. Mm-hmm. That topic of forgiveness, but can you share a little bit more about what your perspective is or what God’s shown you in that department, in your healing journey?

Because I think this is really important.

Yeah. And so for me that forgiveness of self is giving yourself grace, right? It is truly not being hard on yourself, not holding those things against yourself, your decisions, your actions or whatever, holding that against yourself, and God just really has been showing me that.

You know, and I know that the Christian thing to do is not to say, you know, not to forgive yourself, but I truly honestly believe that you do. There is a level just like you have to forgive others. You have to forgive yourself. And you know, that comes with acknowledging and coming face-to-face with those things that you’ve done.

And so one of the things that. God has really shown me is that even with the self-forgiveness, it’s one of those things where I have to really honestly say, and because God loves me, there is no shame. Right? I have to, and when he says, my people will not be put to shame, that self-forgiveness now goes into that.

You know, there’s no shame with this. Like I can walk freely in who I am called to be.

That’s exactly what my experience has been. That’s exactly what it’s been. Because it was like the unforgiveness was actually tied to shame. Mm-hmm. And that’s what the enemy wants, right? The enemy wants you to feel guilty.

Shameful Yes. And embarrassed. Mm-hmm. And hide. Right. And, and just not even fulfill any purpose in the world. Um, and that’s, I, I feel like that’s where it was tied together for me. Mm-hmm. So, I agree.

Yes. So where does the, once this happened, where, where did the path take you? What started happening?

So after that, I really went on this journey of really praying and asking God to open my eyes, and my prayer was, God, give me eyes to see myself just as you see me. This really understanding who I was and what his words said about me because that decision, when I would read the Bible, I didn’t see myself in the Bible because of that decision, because of the guilt and the shame and the regret that I held.

I couldn’t see myself as someone who was a daughter of the most high King. I couldn’t see one myself as one who could be healed. I thought that this would be something that I would live with for the rest of my life. And so I would pray and ask God to give me eyes to see myself as he saw me. And I really had to change my perspective of things that were happening because I was always the person that felt like I could never get it right.

I was always making mistakes and that this was my punishment for the things that I had done, for the decision that I had made. But I had to really come to that mindset of, you’re human, you’re gonna make mistakes. And guess what? God knew that this would be written in your story. This was written before you were even formed in your mother’s room, right when he said, I knew you.

I formed you. Like I wrote it out. And so I had to really come to the understanding that if God isn’t holding this over my head, then why am I? He knew that this would take place, but yet, and still he choose to use me. And so I, in like 2018, there was this voice that started, you know, this small still voice that started coming in saying, it’s time for you to tell your story.

And I was like, nah. Nope, I don’t, I don’t, Nope. Get somebody else to do it. Right. Because it was like, I don’t want the judgment, I don’t want people, you know, saying things about me. So I chose other things to do. I got a certificate in image consulting, um, because I wanted to help women, moms especially find themselves, because we tend to lose ourselves after we have children.

So I was like, this is the thing that I’m gonna do because I’m not, I’m not telling this story. Like, that’s not a part of the, the plan. Okay. But then 2019. The voice just got louder and louder. And I was like, okay. And I think this is where I met you. I was at confidence activated in 2019. That’s where I met you.

And I got up and I asked Tiffany Montgomery the question of how do you incorporate something so taboo into business? And she was like, you just tell the story. You just do it. And I remember. Standing at that microphone, I was shaking, literally like scared. Like, okay, Latoya, what are you doing? Because this is not you.

Why are we doing this? Okay. And I began to tell the story when I was 18 and um, having the abortion and you know, she always talks about your name having meaning, and I know my name, Latoya means Victoria’s one. And after I began to share that story, After it was done, I ran out of the room and I remember, um, I forgot her name, but she came after me and I just burst.

I, I bursted into tears because I was like, what just happened? And. What happened after was the confirmation and affirmation that God was telling me that this is the path that you need to be on because the number of women that came up after saying Thank you so much for sharing your story. You know, one young lady even asked me to pray with her because she thought she couldn’t have kids because of an abortion that she had.

And so we prayed together and that was like the very thing that got me on my journey to where I am now. Taking that bold step to stand at that microphone and ask that and tell my. Story and just God confirming like, this is why I need you to tell your story, because there are so many other women who are suffering in silence.

And so in 2020, I joined Commander Stage with Patrice Washington. So because I was like, if God wants me to tell my story, I wanna make sure that I tell it, you know, in the way, um, that. You know, it continues to glorify God’s name. And so I began to just share my story and then people started reaching out to me saying, I need you to help me.

Can you help me? And. I started coaching women and it was just, it just blew my mind because I was like, wow, God. Like you knew what you were talking about. Like obviously I didn’t know. Um, I just saw the negative side of things instead of just seeing what God could do with this. And so just telling that story and just having women reach out.

Um, even women that have been raped, women that have been molested, all of those women started reaching out to me and I, I had clients in Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, like all of these women reaching out. And it was just all from me telling my story. And so that led me to this path that I am on now.

And God just began to show me that. Yes, you may have had an abortion, but it doesn’t, but your promises like your abortion helped. My abortion helped me to birth purpose, even though is

I, I remember, I remember the day that you mean that declaration? I’ll never forget it. There was like a wave in the room.

Like it was just like a whoosh. You release and then from that moment on, it’s like you bloomed like a flower. I mean, you just. You didn’t stop, you just, there was no turning back for you.

Yeah. Yeah. And so it, it’s like I, and I say this now, it’s just like my abor, my abortion helped me to birth purpose. And one thing that I’ve realized is that you may not have had a physical abortion, but you’ve had things in your life that have tried to abort your destiny.

Wow. And so we may not all have gone through a physical abortion, but you’ve went through things in your life, whether it be divorce, addiction, drugs, whatever the case may be, that have tried to abort where God wants to take you.

I wanna go back to what you said. You made a comment, and this is a, this is something that I’ve, had a lot of conversations about and I’m curious what you have to say to that woman who has had an abortion and has had a hard time having kids after.

Have you noticed that happen again and again? Because I know that I have, but it’s definitely not a place that I feel like I can speak to. So what would you say to that woman?

I would say that God tells us in Mark anything is possible for those who believe. And I’ve had two women actually that I’ve coached who didn’t think that they would be able to have children.

And one, she’s in Belgium, she has two girls now, and another young lady, she has a daughter. And working on that for forgiveness is key. And I would say forgive. And I know someone might, you know, same thing with you, come against what I’m saying, but. You have to forgive yourself and know that God has forgiven you.

Because one of the things that I’ve realized is as long as we hold these things, it’s just like that book that called, that’s called Body Keep Score. Your body is holding all of that tension. Your body is holding all of that shame. Your body is holding all of those emotions and those emotions is what block your system from properly functioning as it should.

And one of the things that I say is in, I’m writing a book now about my, um, a memoir about my abortion experience called Unveiled Freedom. And . One of the things that I wrote in there is that shame causes secrets. Secrets causes stress and stress causes sickness.

Ooh. Repeat that again. You said shame causes you, you repeat it. It was so good. Yes.

Shame causes secrets. Secrets cause stress and stress. Cause sickness. And this is what we have to do as women who’ve experienced abortion and the, you know, to think that we aren’t able to have kids, we have to give ourselves permission to release that shame and to say, you know what, I’m, this is a decision that I may have done, but if God isn’t holding this over me, then I’m not gonna do it either, and I am going to give myself permission to walk out who God has called me to be and release that shame.

Drop the mic. That is so good. That is so good. Yeah, it’s, it’s directly linked. It’s all directly linked, and I think that the healing, you know, going backwards on it, just. Letting it out, releasing it. And I believe that’s what happened when you were at that event. It’s like you just let it out into the world.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. You’d spoken to your pastor about it, but you’re like, uh, I don’t know if I’m ready for this next layer. Right. That was safe, but

Yes. Yes. And, you know, um, Rachel Luna said something, um, I heard her say, and I always like to, um, quote this too to my clients, be okay with letting things be better.

You know, even after abortion, be okay with letting things be better even if you aren’t able to have children. God provides us another way to be able to, you know, have children and they may not be blood, but you know, God offers adoption and so be open to the ways that God wants to give you your child.

I think this is a perfect segue into redemption because earlier along I wanted to ask you that while you were telling your story and how would you say that, and I think that’s what everybody wants to hear, like how did God redeem you? Uh, and you know, when we talk about redemption, it’s like if you, if you think about the story of job, right?

Job lost so much, but God redeemed him. Mm-hmm. God gave him back more than what he’d lost. So how have you seen redemption in your life and during this healing journey and as you’ve helped women or what, however it looks like where

you at? Redemption has, it has been beautiful but messy because I’m still learning me and I’ve seen redemption just through hearing the stories of women who have worked with me and just say, you know, that have said, thank you for your, yes, thank you for showing up.

Thank you for allowing me to be seen. Thank you. Um, and that is what redemption looks like. You know, for me, just being able to, Share my testimony because the Bible says that we overcome by the blood of the lamb and by the words of our testimonies and that we bear one another’s burdens. And you know, just being able to let women know that we are not in this alone.

You’re not the only person who’s gone through this. Um, and just really being able to connect with women and just being able to hold them in this space of where they are now.

And when, let’s say we’re looking at, you’re speaking to a woman who is in that place of, they’re still in that place of shame and they’re wanting to move forward because the journey’s not always pretty.

It’s, it could be painful at times. What would you say to that woman as far as staying strong and being steadfast through the healing, uh, while waiting in, in the waiting for, mm-hmm. Something beautiful to come out of it, right? In that like dormancy phase of just, just healing, right? That’s it.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I would say you think of, think of the seed in a plant, right?

Because. That seed is, is pretty much lying dormant underneath the ground. It’s in a dark space, but that dark space is allowing that seed to be fed and nurtured and you know, so that it does bring forth the fruit, right? It does bring forth the sprout. And so it’s in these places of darkness. And one of my favorite scriptures is in Psalm 1, 1 39 when, um, when the Lord was speaking and he said, Even darkness is light to me.

So in your darkness, in your darkest times, it’s dark to us, but it’s light to God. And so even in that darkness, know that something beautiful is being produced until the very moment that is sprouts forth. And it takes being nurtured. It takes being watered, it takes being fed, and it takes being, um, around sunlight.

And so those four things are the community that you have to surround yourself with in order to really bring forth who God has called you to be. And one of the best things and most powerful things that you can do is speak, be around a safe community where you can speak. And even if you don’t have that, you can drop me a DM and just speak it.

Because one of the, that’s, that’s the, that’s the way that we overcome shame by speaking. And that’s one of the ways that we get to grow by speaking. And so just surrounding yourself with community and people who can pour into you and speak life into

you.

You are, we’re here. Let me tell you, Psalm 1 39 is the most, one of the most healing psalms for me and has been prevalent probably even for the past month. Like I was faced with parts of my past recently, . But I was faced with someone, well, I was faced with the potential of.

Looking head on or re interacting with the person who sexually abused me back when I was 15 and I thought I had healed, I thought I had healed, and it was a new layer of healing that God was bringing me to. It was like God was like, okay, I want full freedom for you. And that’s something that. Everybody has the potential for reen encountering even when they’ve healed.

Mm-hmm. Let’s say if you had an abortion, you’re like, I think I’m past this, but then all of a sudden something else happens in your life and and it’s like, oh, okay. I’m really not past this still. And the part of it I think that tries to hold onto us the most is that shame part that we keep talking about, that shame part.

And it’s like, for example, you had a level of healing when you spoke to that pastor and it was just there and then. But God wanted you to come into that new level of healing with just like, now it’s time for me to speak it out into the world. And if we look at from the beginning of creation, God spoke Earth into existence whenever Jesus was walking on earth.

He would speak out the healing, he would say, mm-hmm. Be healed. It wasn’t a thought in his mind, it wasn’t anything. It was always spoken out. And so telling your story, speaking about it, and surrounding yourself with people who are gonna speak life into you, it’s gonna create this whole new wave inside of you, in which now you’re in turn going to speak that healing over yourself.

And speak truth. Yeah. And, and start seeing yourself the way that God sees you and start to release that shame. And one of the things that has been so healing for me now is just all the scripture in the Bible. I mean, I, I got nothing right now. Y’all already know. That I know scriptures, and sometimes I don’t know where to find them, but there’s so much scripture in the Bible that talks about how God cleans us, how we are clean, and I think that that’s something really special for us as women, especially when we’re dealing with things that had to do with our reproductive organs and our bodies.

A lot of the things that the hurt that’s happened, happened to our bodies, and so, mm-hmm. God wants us to know that we are clean and that he cleans us. Yes,

yes, yes. That’s so good. So good. Hmm. Just take us to church

now. You take us to church, girl. Oh my gosh. I’m like, I wanna keep talking to you about this a lot because I, I don’t often hear people say these things, and these are the things that have brought me healing too, so.

I know for a fact that the women that you’re working with are just experiencing a new level of freedom. That, I mean, ugh, that’s, thank God. Yeah. So now, now you’re here in this place. Right now, you’re helping these women. I wanna ask you, the question is, what does Grace mean to you right now in your life?

Or maybe what has been the theme for you that brought you to this place? Whatever you wanna share. Yeah.

For me, I will say Grace and the, um, what has brought me to this place is I would define grace as

beautiful, messy, surrendering, um, because it has. Surrender is no joke. Okay? And in order for you to really grow and to really be who God has called you to be, it takes surrender, especially when you’ve been in this place where you’ve tried to control every aspect of your life and control it how it’s gonna turn out.

And so Grace is just giving God permission to work how he does as the prodder of your life and just being beautiful. And messy and surrendered, just like that clay that’s on the wheel being pliable. It, it looks messy, it gets, you know, but at the end of that process, something beautiful is made from it.

And so that’s what I would say grace is for me. Just giving God permission to be that potter in your life and allowing it to be beautiful and messy, but also surrendering to what his, what his hands wants to do in your life. So

beautiful. I just had the most amazing image of just God’s big hands just lining things up for me and working with me.

Yeah. Aw. So tell us about what you’re working on. You did a little mention about the memoir, but how can we, where can we find you and connect with you? And I know that you created a devotional, didn’t you? I

did, I did. Um, I am on Instagram as well as Facebook, the Latoya maths, and it’s t h e l a t o y a m a p h, just one t, um, in maths.

And I do have a devotion, um, a 30 day devotional called Discovery. And like I said, I’m working on my memoir right now called Unveiled Freedom, my Journey to Removing the Veil of Shame After Abortion. And, um, The I do retreats. We have a, a marriage retreat coming up in October, um, for couples who’ve experienced, you know, reproductive loss and, but I don’t want you to get caught up on the title because usually we we’re just excited to help couples connect and heal and grow an intimacy and just come together.

You know, the be is one because we know that the enemy wants marriage is separated, and we know that a house divided cannot stand. And so in October, we’re doing the Merit and free retreat. October 5th through the eighth and next year we’re gonna be doing, we’re gonna get back to the Free Woman retreat.

It’s gonna be in March, and my coaching is on hold right now because I feel like God is moving me to this place of being face to face with women. So where I can really just. Touch them and just really hug on them and love on them the way that Jesus did while he was in the earth. Right? Just being the hand and feet of Jesus, being able to touch them.

And so those are ways that you can connect with us and, um, be a part of what we are doing. And I am also, um, we’ve also launching our nonprofit called Heal the Womb, which is a 5 0 1 that is dedicated to ministering. And just being a source and resource for individuals and families who’ve experienced reproductive loss.

And so we have quite a bit that is going on. And God is just, you know, I’m, I’m surrendering to the process. No matter what it looks like, it’s stretching me to the max, but I wouldn’t have it in the other way.

That is so exciting to me. I can’t wait. I mean, there’s women in my life that I can’t wait to send to you because it’s something that.

God wants to heal, like God wants to heal all of the broken places in us, everything. And God is able to heal all of the broken places too. And there’s countless stories and that’s why I love to share stories like yours to see, like, look, this is possible for you too. And so if you’re listening right now and, and you have dealt with something, Painful, horrible.

That feels like it’s, it’s holding onto you. I just wanna encourage you and tell you that this is possible for you, that this healing is possible. So connect with Latoya. Remember her last name is Matthews with only one T. I had to learn that too. And I will also link you in the notes of this episode.

Thank you so much for being on the show.

Thank you so much for having me. It was such an honor and a blessing. Thank you. Thank you.