I ask people, “What’s your first memory?” The first memory I have of life is being raped when I was four by some neighborhood boys. That led to a lot of issues. I never told my mother because there was a lot of abuse and neglect in our home. I didn’t tell anybody. As a four year-old, I had already learned to not trust people and to hold things in. Over the years it welled up and welled up and got worse and worse. It created a lot of self-image issues. I started dealing with homosexuality tendencies when I was twelve years old. I really believe it's because of that one instance. That one instance dictated how my life was going to go.
As I got older, a lot of those issues started coming up, and I didn’t know how to deal with them. When I went to college I started doing drugs, smoking marijuana, and drinking. In November 2002, some of those choices caught up with me. I was brutally raped. That experience threw me off the edge. I left my husband…fell into homosexuality full force. Drugs and alcohol became a greater problem. In three months I lost my home, my children...I lost everything because of the drug and alcohol abuse and the extramarital affair.
I was living homeless in Memphis, TN. I went from Memphis to Knoxville, living homeless, eating out of whatever dumpsters I could find. I can remember being in the hotel room free-basing heroin, but God never stop pursuing me. God loved me even in the midst of all the drug addiction, all the sin, and all the nastiness that I was involved in. God still loved me. He saw me in that crack hotel. I said, “God, I just want to die because I don't have anything else. I don't have anything to offer anybody. In a way that only God can, He cleared my mind, and spoke to me through a man on TV. The man pointed his finger and said, “God knows right where you are and knows the situation that you've created. He loves you. If you'll trust Him, He will pull you out of the hell you've created for yourself.”
I remember feeling the warmth of tears running down my face. I said, “God, if you can help me, I need you, because I'll be dead in thirty minutes. I need you to help me.” I then fell asleep and woke up the next morning. I knew then that God had saved me because I was awake. I didn't know what I was saved from. My circumstances hadn't changed, but God didn’t let me die. I didn't bring myself out of the drug and alcohol addiction. I didn’t bring myself out of the homosexuality. God helps me walk everyday. It’s a daily walk of freedom and understanding that every day He gives me the choice to live or to die. I had to make a choice. God posed the question, “Do you want to live, or do you want to die? If you want to live, if you’ll walk with Me, I’ll help you.” Every day I walk saying, “God, today I want to live.”
I now manage the counseling and the deliverance ministries Abba's House (Central Baptist Church, Hixson, TN). I’ve come full circle from where I used to be. It’s so neat. Every time I'm able to walk someone through deliverance, it’s like a kick in the teeth to the Devil.
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