March 23, 2026

After The Story | Episode 16

After the Story - Choices Like Rivers Episode 16

This podcast discusses each chapter of Choices Like Rivers and each episode is posted directly after the book episode. This corresponds to Chapter 6 Section 3.

Listen to my professionally narrated audio books and other podcasts here: AUDIO BOOKS & ALL PODCASTS.

Doesn’t this just seem typical? You are flying high on life and everything seems to be falling in place and then… and then life deals you a horrendous blow.

I lived like this for many years when I was young. So much so that I hated to allow myself to enjoy the good. I was always suspect that if I was happy then something bad was waiting right around the corner.

As time went on, I learned through the help of God to fully live in the joyous moments. Life became richer and fuller. I realized that those hard moments would come anyway and that by denying myself joy in the good times I was depleting my soul from the energy it needed to weather those bad times.

This is not some mystical practice. It is just the way God helps us to have the strength he knew we would need to get through the hard times. Yes, our main strength comes from him, but he also builds within us a way for our soul to bolster itself.

There are countless scriptures in the bible that talk about the strength that joy brings to us. By denying myself the enjoyment of feeling the joy, by being skeptical of it, I was denying myself strength.

Sharon had a bad blow when she was forced to have an abortion. But, she slowly healed and began to trust that Patty was a true friend. She was even able to allow Will to love her. She let her guard down.

Then she suffered the second most massive blow yet in her young life. The person she had first taken a chance on, the one she first let her guard down with was now taking that friendship miles away.

But in her heart that wasn’t the worst part of it. The baby, little Evan had become her surrogate child, in essence replacing the baby she had lost in the abortion. It was as if she was suffering another abortion against her will all over again.

She was shattered, and covered herself with the facade she had learned to present years earlier. But Will knew better. He knew she was gutted and suggested a walk.

He could never suspect the full extent of her pain though until she decided to attempt to blow it all up in one fell swoop. It was almost as if she was attempting to prove herself right that Will would leave her too and thrust her deeper into the depths of despair.

The confession of having had an abortion caught Will off guard. In his mind the two things, Patty and Lenny leaving and Sharon having had an abortion had nothing to do with each other.

But in Sharon’s mind and heart they had everything in common. Each time she was losing a child. A child she would never get back.

In this era there was no internet and as far as Portland was from where Sharon was might as well have been on the moon. They could write letters, but phone calls carried long distant charges so had to be budgeted and planned for.

This distance would separate her in a way where she would never again get to experience the day to day joys of watching Evan grow. She would never again get to feel his sweet body hug hers. She was truly gutted.

Will was a good man. He recovered and was able to comfort Sharon, even forcing his comfort on her when she attempted to resist.

At first the shock caused him to think the aborted baby might have been his and the news hit him hard. But when he realized it was well before they had been a couple, and that her father had forced it on her, he like Patty began to feel compassion towards her.

However, the stigma of having had an abortion in that time was there. Would someone good like Will be able to get past it? What did he really want in a wife? Would Sharon really be the person he wanted to marry? And what else didn’t he know about her?