No! Barb thought.

She wanted to see her mom, who was recovering from surgery at the hospital. But her alcoholic father had locked her in her bedroom. Barb grabbed a metal folding chair and hurled it against her bedroom window. The window didn't break, but the crash incited a response. Her door flew open. Her dad glared at his 15-year-old daughter, grabbed her and forced her down stairs.

Barb sat on the couch, crying. Suddenly, her dad grabbed a bed pillow, threw it over Barb's face and held it down with all of his weight.

Barb kicked and screamed, but his hands firmly held down the pillow. I'm going to die, she thought. What am I going to do? Knock, knock, knock. Someone rapped on the front door. Suddenly, the pressure eased. Gasping for air, Barb sobbed. Her dad assured a neighbor not to be alarmed by the noise. Everything was OK.

But everything wasn't OK. Barb survived growing up with her alcoholic father but entered adulthood hardened to relationships. She worked hard as an accountant clerk at Merchant Marine Engineers and lived with her mom, who had separated from Barb's dad.

"My money went to supporting my mom and paying rent and bills," Barb said. "The rest of it went to partying, going to the bars and drinking. I never did drugs, but I drank a lot."

Relationships with men lasted from one night to three months, Barb said. At 20, Barb got pregnant. "I found out I was pregnant one day," Barb said, "and the very next day I got an abortion. I didn't even think about it." But afterward, Barb did think about it. She felt guilty for having the abortion. Putting the guilt "way in the back of my head," Barb suppressed it. For five years, Barb suppressed the guilt, worked and partied. Then one night at a local Baltimore bar, Barb met Rick, a Christian and a Southern Baptist pastor's son.

Rick was recovering from a broken engagement to an unfaithful fiancée. Hurt and depressed, Rick was slowly rebuilding his relationship with God. Neither she nor Rick wanted a serious relationship, Barb said. Nonetheless, they started dating. Six months later they celebrated Barb's 26th birthday. Bows, wrapping paper and new teddy bears surrounded Barb. Yet, sorrow and fear stole Barb's happiness--"I felt like I was harboring this terrible secret," she said. But she thought that if she told Rick about the abortion, he'd leave.

"We had talked about pregnancy," Barb said. "I knew Rick was dead set against abortion." Sitting amid wrapping paper and teddy bears, Barb broke.

"You're going to hate me," Barb told Rick, sobbing. "You're not going to be with me after this."

Barb shared her secret with Rick. "He just looked at me," Barb said, "and said, 'I forgive you. God forgives you.' "He grabbed me, hugged me, didn't let me go and cried with me," she said. "That was the first time that I ever felt how loving, complete and forgiving God's love is."

Rick and Barb continued to see each other off and on over the next six months. Barb started reading the Bible, initially wanting to please Rick, but then out of her own desire. She also started going with Rick to the church his father pastored.

Then one day, while sitting on the couch talking with Rick, she understood the Gospel. Crying with her, Rick led Barb in asking God's forgiveness and helped her to surrender her life to Jesus Christ.

Six months after He forgave her, God gave Barb a chance to forgive. Her father was dying of pancreatic cancer. For the last months of his life, Barb helped her mom care for him. Barb felt uncomfortable talking to her dad at the beginning because she still harbored anger for what he caused her to go through in her childhood.

"One day I was sitting next to him," Barb said. "He started talking to me and said, 'You know, I really did a lot of rotten things....' "By knowing the forgiveness God had given me I was able to say, 'You know what Dad, it's the past. It's over with. It's done. We can't change it. I forgive you.'"

Three weeks later, Barb's dad died. Eight months after her father's death, Barb and Rick married. Six years and two daughters later, Rick and Barb Slattery are preparing for the pastorate at Multnomah Biblical Seminary.