Anne Reed
AFA Journal staff writer
Above, Wenz and her son Roman
July 2019 – “Your uterus is still very enlarged,” Cindy heard her doctor say. “We probably didn’t get everything out of you the first time. Your body still thinks it’s pregnant.”
Just two weeks earlier, Cindy had experienced her third abortion. And something had gone terribly wrong.
“Can I see what’s inside of me?” Cindy blurted out without thinking.
At the hospital, the sonographer scanned … and scanned … and scanned. Then she left the room and returned with her supervisor. The scanning continued.
Cindy’s anxiety heightened.
“Can you tell me what’s going on?” she implored.
“The baby is moving so quickly, we can’t get a steady image,” the nurse answered.
“Baby?” she gasped. “What baby?”
The screen was suddenly facing her, revealing a deflated gestational sac to the right and another intact sac to the left. One baby was gone. Another remained.
Twelve weeks pregnant, she was overtaken by the powerful, steady drumming of the heartbeat, and she watched as the tiny, yet perfectly formed body moved frenziedly within her.
Cindy’s own heart raced as she watched. How could this be? A peculiar muddle of shock, fear, and relief engulfed her.
Longing for more
In Healed for Life: A Story of Redemption, Cindy – Cynthia Wenz – tells her captivating before-and-after story of a girl who sought approval and excitement in older men and drugs during her teens and 20s. Left disillusioned and severely depressed, she continued in the same patterns for years. The repercussions worsened. Any experience of pleasure was momentary, only to be drowned by deep waters of hopelessness.
At times, she attended mass and prayed. She was desperate to find the peace she had known as a child. But promiscuity was an ever present part of her existence. She couldn’t seem to shake its hold on her.
“My grandmother used to come in my room when I was 12 and hand me her rosary,” Wenz told AFA Journal. “And even though it was [only] a religious symbol, I had felt the comfort of God.”
“[P]art of me wanted Christ so badly,” she explained. “But another part of me knew what I was. And I couldn’t believe that I’d ever fully change.”
At age 29, the failed abortion became the pivot God used to envelop her in His love and purpose. Since childhood, she had longed for the love of a prince. And she had utterly spent herself looking for him.
Responding to love
Finally, she began to respond to the One who had always been there, patiently pursuing her – her heavenly Father. And life began.
“On my own now, with a baby on the way, I really had no one else to cling to but Christ,” explained Wenz. As a verse from Romans 8 continually poured hopeful expectation into her life, she decided to name her son Roman.
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (v 28).
Roman was premature, weighing only 4.9 pounds. He had to be revived. But then, he thrived. For his mother, growth was a little less vigorous. With each passing day, she slowly learned to become more dependent on God.
Her mother moved in and became Roman’s primary caregiver while Wenz worked two jobs. Over the next several years, she became keenly aware of her son’s need for a father. And she also sensed God would provide in His perfect timing.
“I asked God if He would provide a man who, first, adored Him,” she explained, “second, would truly love Roman, and finally, would love me.”
Receiving God’s gift
She met Chris, a fitness instructor. They became friends and began sharing a time of devotion and prayer every morning after their workout at the Y. In no way did he fit the mold of men from her past.
“It’s amazing how God steers our journey,” Wenz said, “… taking our bad choices and their consequences, and putting them to work for His good in our lives.”
They married the month following Roman’s fifth birthday. But she was still unhealed and struggled in her role as wife and mother as a result.
“Chris saw that I was still broken,” she explained. “He saw my inability to connect from years of distrust and abuse, as well as my inability to clear my mind of haunting images and memories from previous relationships.”
But Chris Wenz, who embodied the patient love of Christ, gave her permission to heal. He suggested she accept an offer to volunteer at a local pregnancy resource center where she was offered a post-abortion healing class.
Though she initially took the class intending to help others, she soon realized it was what she desperately needed for herself. She completed the Bible study several times and experienced more of God’s grace and mercy as each layer of pain, shame, and deception was lovingly peeled away.
Walking in freedom
“Early in the process of my healing,” she said, “I heard God say clearly to me, ‘I am going to make you My banner now. I will showcase My healing in you. You will be a banner for all to see My redeeming love.’”
It took eight years for Wenz to break out of survival mode, to truly begin to live in freedom. Once there, God began to test her faith with frightening challenges.
She knew she had to find a way to tell young Roman he was an abortion survivor. But how? The thought was terrifying. Yet God made a way.
Then in the summer of 2009, she was offered the CEO position at the pregnancy resource center where she had volunteered and worked part-time for several years. It was an exciting promotion. However, the center had struggled to remain afloat during the recession, and the salary was less than competitive. No funds were available to pay her at all.
Initially, Wenz was angry that God would put such an impossible offer before her. The couple was already struggling financially. But her husband encouraged her. It required the kind of faith that, in the natural realm, feels and appears reckless and risky.
And, again, God made a way. And He’s been making a way ever since. 
Having Kingdom impact
As president and CEO of the Source for Women in Houston, Texas, from 2009 to 2017, Cynthia Wenz was named one of the city’s top 30 most influential women.
She and Chris have added two more sons to the family, and Roman is now married with a child. With Roman at her side, she shared “God’s story” of redemption at the Texas State Capitol.
“I was the tangible evidence of God’s miraculous power for everyone in that room,” said Roman. “I know God has a plan in store for me, and I know my testimony is part of that. … But what I’ve come to realize as I’ve gotten older is that, whatever I do in my life, as long as I’m following the Lord, it will be for His glory.”
Wenz is now a nationally recognized voice, traveling the country speaking. She serves as a regional director of donor relations for Care Net, one of the nation’s leading life affirming organizations.
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Healed for Life: A Story of Redemption by Cynthia Wenz, with New York Times bestseller David Gregory is available at healedforlifeministries.com.
