Redemption

When I was 5 years old a neighborhood friend had me over to spend the night. She was 5 as well. We slept in the same bed. Innocent enough, right? Then she asked me to play the "boy" and have sex with her. I knew it was completely wrong and I argued with her about it. Unfortunately, she pursueded me. I remember feeling as if we were being watched - perhaps from the closet. This was the pattern of our relationship throughout our grade school years until my family and I moved away from that neighbourhood when I started 5th grade.

For the first time in my little life I felt deep shame. The pure innocence of my childhood was ripped from me. A heavy, dark cloud hung over me from the first act on. Never again in my grade school years was I a carefree little girl. Instead, I withdrew and isolated myself because I felt dirty and unlovable. I was bound up in the chains the enemy had planned for me.

My Dad and Mom would take me to Baptist church just about every Sunday. At around age 8 I gave my life to Christ and was baptized. I did have a new level of peace when I asked Jesus into my heart. But in the back of my mind there was a nagging memory - the shameful acts I did with my neighborhood friend in grade school. I never felt completely saved because of this.

When I was 12 years old I had a friend who was 5 years older than me and she had a green camero. She went to a Spirit-filled church called The Lord's Chapel. She would take me to church every time the doors were open. Eventually, I was filled with the Holy Spirit at around age 13. Jesus and I were closer than ever before and I was the happiest I had been in a very long time. But things at home were getting bad and my parents divorced.

My sister and I moved to Key West to live in a two bedroom apartment with our Mother and her younger, bartending boyfriend. I really did not like her boyfriend - at all. I resented my Mother for taking us as far south as she could from our Father and making us live with her boyfriend. My Mother told me all the gory details about why she divorced my Father. This should have never happened because I was not prepared to hear what she had to say. I was a 15 year old in a major crisis because my complete support system collapsed right out from under me.

I could not stand to be in that tiny apartment with my Mother and her boyfriend, so every sunrise I was out the door, and did not return until after it was dark. It was my way of coping, but as a result I was alone on that island every single day. This put me in a very vunerable position, unbeknownst to me.

I would spend hours and hours at the peer at the County beach. One day a man walked up to me and asked if I wanted to go swimming with him. I said yes. He led me out further and further and charmed me into following him. It was low tide so we could stand up in the water. Then he proceeded to rape me. I had no idea what he was doing. I questioned him about it and he told me to not scream or he would drown me. Afterwards he told me not to tell anybody or he would find me and kill me. Key West is a 5 by 7 mile island. I did not open my mouth.

Because I had lost my virginity to a rapist, in my mind, I was now majorly damaged goods. Another burden of shame and dirtiness was added to my already heavy 15 year old heart. This too was carried into my adult life. Even so, all along I knew that I still had God as my Father. I remembered what I was taught that He was the one I could count on to never leave me or forsake me. However, because of the rape, I had a very deep emotional scar on my soul that would need the Lord's touch.

When I was 19 and in college at Belmont, I started attending Belmont Church with Don Finto as Pastor. I attended Belmont Church throughout my 20's and 30's. We had small home groups and I was a member of one. At one of our home meetings we were watching a Benny Hinn service on tape when I started to feel very uncomfortable. I went into the back bedroom to check my answering machine at home. I was still feeling very weird so I stayed back in the bedroom. A couple of the girls came back to check on me and I told them how I was feeling and asked if they would pray for me.

As they were praying for me I started to writh on the floor like a snake - I kid you not! A demon was manifesting in me. This demon had attached itself to me during the rape. The girls and one of the husbands got a book out on deliverance and started reading the prayers over me. As they were praying, I started going through the emotions in rapid succession that I should have gone through regarding the rape. I had stuffed all my emotions down inside of me for fear the rapist would kill me, It was a survival tactic. I never before since the rape had allowed myself to feel what I was feeling at the deliverance and healing session: terror, anger, mourning the loss of my virginity, devistating saddness. At the end of all the emotional responses I suddenly felt warm air on my face. It was if a big mouth was blowing on me. I asked my friends if they felt it too, but they told me no. However, later they told me the room was actually quite chilly to them. I was the only one in the room who felt the warm air. As the warm air was blowing on me I started to giggle. The Lord was restoring my emotions and completely healing me from the rape.

When I was in my early 20's I had a phone conversation with the girl I had done those shameful acts with. Nonetheless, she had become my best friend. She proceeded to tell me her father had been sexually abusing her and her little sister (who was 2 years younger) repeatedly throughout thier childhood. It all made sense. I thought we were done with this issue for good and we could move on with our lives. But little did I know there was a deep scar that had formed inside of me in my early childhood that would stay with me until the Lord healed me in my early 30's.

In my 30's I had joined an inner city ministry and we had a retreat in the country. It was all about creativity and using our gifts for the Lord's glory. However, they had a gentleman speak on inner healing. I was disturbed by this and left to go find a store to buy a toothbrush. As I was driving to the store, I was complaining to the Lord about the topic this man was going to speak on, and how I did not want to "go there". On the way back to the camp the Lord showed me that there was a "room" in my heart that was locked shut. He asked me if I could open the door. I told him no. He then asked me if I would let Jesus open the door. I agreed. He instructed me to and submit to listening to what the man had to say about inner healing. Then He instructed me to go to the man after the teaching, tell him what the Lord had shown me, and ask him to pray for me. So I did just that.

When the gentleman prayed for me I had a vision. I "saw" Jesus and I at the locked door of my heart and watched Him open it. The room was completely bare with wooden floors, bare walls, no curtains, and only one electrical wire dangling from the center of the ceiling with a bare light bulb. 5 year old me was sitting on a small stool under the light bulb. Jesus and I walk over to her and Jesus put her on His lap. He told her that He and I were taking her out of that room and were going to raise her together. Afterward I felt so free - freer than I had felt since I was 4 years old!

For about ten years after that I would have several dreams of first being in grade school, then one or two about being in high school, and finally I had one dream about graduating from college. I knew that the little five year me was completely mature and healed because I never had another school dream again.

Why do I share these very personal things? To give you hope. To help you understand that when I talk about what the Bible says about the gay lifestyle, I am not coming from a totally ignorant place. I know what I am talking about. I have been there. I want you to know that I too have been abused as a child indirectly by the man who committed heinous incest with my dear, best friend and her younger sister.

I am not some holier than thou Christian who only has the hard scriptures to offer you. I have a personal testimony of God's healing and deliverance. I want you to see from my story that no matter what kind of horrible pain and abuse you have been through, God is the answer if you give your life over to Him for His healing and deliverance. In order to gain access to God the Father, you must first ask Jesus to forgive you of all your sins, and then ask Him to be the Lord of your life. He is the Door to God the Father and eternal life. He will put you back together better than you were before the trauma. If He did it for me, He will do it for you. All you have to do is let Him.