For the past nearly six years I’ve spent in the blogosphere, Mark Pickup has been one of my very favorite fellow bloggers. I’ve shared many of his posts here and I publish a lot of his writing over at Catholic Lane. Currently I’m running the story of his life that he wrote recently in seven articles.

Yesterday I ran part four in which he talks about pressuring his then girlfriend (and now wife) into aborting their first child:

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to be a Dad someday, but not now. There were parties to be had, songs to be sung, drinks to be drunk, opportunities to be explored. A child would, well, cramp my style. With each passing day of pregnancy I intensified the pressure on LaRee to have an abortion. Quite simply, the baby had to die.
…
By day, I could squelch the guilt of the abortion and willful abandoning of my own innocent offspring. But at night I drifted to the land of Nod.[4] It was during the quiet rhythms of sleep in my dark bedroom that human defenses relaxed. Guilt would break through and I could hear blood of my child crying out from the ground. It was as though I bore the [M]ark of Cain.

I hope you will go read the whole thing. Everything Mark writes is moving and powerful, but this is some of his best work. While you’re at it, be sure to check out parts one, two and three and stay tuned for parts five-seven.

Also, please keep Mark and his family in your prayers. On top of being in the advanced stages of multiple sclerosis, he was recently diagnosed with cancer and is now undergoing treatment for that. Knowing Mark, I’m sure he has abandoned himself completely to the will of God and I pray that his burden will be light.