Makers of 'Unplanned' Release 'Planned from the Start' Devotional to Help Post-Abortive Women Heal

The pro-life film "Unplanned" scored big at the box office, with millions of faithful followers. 

With only a $6 million budget, the PureFlix film started making a profit on its opening weekend after debuting with $6.1 million, eventually earning more than $17.7 million overall. 

It tells the true story of Abby Johnson's transformation from Planned Parenthood clinic director to pro-life advocate. 
    
Johnson's compelling story has opened up the hearts and minds of thousands of people who have seen the movie.

Last month, Chuck Konzelman, director of the PureFlix movie revealed to Congress that nearly 100 abortion clinic workers have sought to leave their jobs after seeing the pro-life film.
    
The film's makers have now released a companion devotional called "Planned from the Start," to help former workers and other women heal from the pain of abortion.

The website for the film describes the book saying, "Planned from the Start: A Healing Devotional reveals five core areas of emotional turmoil often faced following abortion and brings healing to those who are hurting—healing to the emotions which trap women and men in the prison of pain that abortion has brought into their lives, and into the lives of those who love them."

 Author Lorraine Varela was tapped to write the book.

"My husband and I – Gabriel – were on the set of 'Unplanned' as their prayer warriors as part of their prayer team, and as we came back from filming we spoke with Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman, our directors, and they invited me to write a healing devotional because we saw so many testimonies come forward while we were on set," Varela said in an interview with CBN News.  

"They knew that they had to offer a resource to women and men who had been affected by abortion, who would have some feelings and some emotions stirred up as a result of seeing the film.  And they wanted to provide support for them."

She explained the reason for the devotional's title "Planned from the Start."

"'Unplanned' has somewhat of a connotation that things happen outside of our control and 'Planned from the Start' just tells us that God had a plan and a purpose before we were even born," she said. "And one of the things I heard from so many who had gone through abortion as I was writing this devotional was, they felt disconnected from the plan and purposes of God, and there's nothing we can do that will separate us from His love.  And we wanted this book to be a connector of hearts back to the purposes of God and to His heart."

Varela said the devotional outlines five key areas that both women and men face following abortion: guilt, grief, shame, regret and depression.

"Those are the areas we know we don't want people to stay in a place of grief," she said. "The Lord wants to take your grief and bring it to joy and so for each of those areas of emotional pain, the Lord has healing in the opposite spirit. He has forgiveness for guilt, and He has grace over shame and so forth."

She is hopeful that the devotional will help many on their journey to forgiveness, healing and wholeness.

"First, I hope that it takes off shame," said Varela. "I think what we've heard is that there have been women that have been living with their emotional pain of abortion for decades. And they have not had that ability to address their pain because, for one, our culture says they didn't do anything wrong... that having the abortion was like the same thing as going into a procedure at a dental office. It's no big deal."

She added, "Yet they've known that they have caused the loss of a life and they've carried this guilt and they've had no way to express that because culture hasn't allowed them to."

"So, the first that we hope we can do through this book is just lift the shame off what's taken place in their life so they can start the healing process," Varela said.