From Prostitution to Purity......

So first, I would like to ask that you read this with the eyes and mind through your Spirit and not the flesh, so many times no matter how much we know of God's grace we still cling to those things which God deemed clean, so who are we to say otherwise (I had to ask myself this)? And second, I'd like to say Lord, this is all for Your glory and honor, I would not tell it otherwise!

Well family, I had this posted on a group but I felt like I needed to put it on my page as well, this is only a part of my testimony, but I felt led to share....

Growing up, I was saved at 5, and never knew anything other than God's love and a life geared full bore towards Him. I was the all-American girl next door, choir girl, honor roll, even led worship in church since I was in 7th grade. I remained pure all through high school, living a life pleasing to the Lord and honoring to my parents. I graduated high school with a $140,000 scholarship to college...thought my life was set, if anyone would have asked me where I would be in 5 years I would have just known the answer lol....

A month and a half into college I was raped by two men who were senior basketball players, as an alumni funded private school, the college covered it up. The men admitted to the rape but got off with 30 days suspended practice. I had ignorantly agreed to letting the college's private judicial system handle the case. I was put under disciplinary actions, counseling, restraining orders, and probation of sorts. Too ashamed to tell my family, and never having gone through a trial of any magnitude, I didnt know that God was still there, I thought I was done for...broken, abandoned, used....I was damaged goods, no longer worth the love of any man let alone a man of God....even though I knew God still loved me I figured my effectiveness in His kingdom was over. I remember sitting on this sewer vent outside the dorms between the hours of 1am and 4am because it was the only time I could leave my dorm without seeing someone who knew or their friends, was a smaller campus. Night after night I would go to this spot and sit...and cry...looking to the sky like there had to be an answer, even though I didnt know the question. One night, I remember this night and almost exactly how the trees looked and where the stars were placed....I looked up and felt sooo tiny compared to the big tall buildings and trees and everything that surrounded me. It was me against this giant...just then I saw a shooting star...and my perspective shifted....now I was looking at how enormous the heavens were compared to this giant I was facing....my God was bigger than any situation I was in. That week we left for Christmas break and I flew back to Montana where I played it all off like nothing happened, I had failed all my closses for lack of attending, but the school had said "due to the circumstances, we will allow you to return next semester" lol....due to the circumstances....but I agreed because now I knew my God was bigger and I can do this..."I'm strong enough". In Montana I regained my bounce in my step and thought I was golden, until the school called a couple nights before I was to return and said I wasn't welcome to come back, not even to get my belongings but that they would pack them and ship them to me. My parents stood over me as I was on the phone and I started to cry...what was I going to tell them...I couldn't tell them what happened...I was sooo ashamed.As they kicked me out of the house I pleaded with them saying "you don't understand, it wasn't that..." as they threw everything to my childhood barbies on the front porch and just said "you want to party your way out of a full ride scholarship then you have no place in our home". For months they wouldnt speak to me, nothing...I was now not only broken and damaged goods but now disowned by the ones who gave me everything I stood on.

As time went on I tried to stay focused but was beginning a life of drinking and promescuity. Wasn't too long after I turned to drugs....crack, crank, coke, meth, shrooms, acid, exctesy, anything and as much of it as I could get my hands on...smoking it, snorting it, shooting it, it didn't matter. Pretty soon I found myself working three jobs to support my habit and needed my habit to support the three jobs...my life was out of control. One night/day...I still don't know...I overdosed my body had enough...my friends left me there laying in my bed. I woke up three days later with vomit crusted all over me, I had lost all three of my jobs, my car had been taken....wow, my life was spiraling down. I laid there crying remembering where I was not too long ago as that young woman chasing God and realizing what I was doing. I knew I needed help, I called my dad and he came and got me and moved me in to a small camper trailer in their backyard. I locked myself in the camper for two months, I thought "Im strong enough"...but once again I managed to pull myself up by my bootstraps and (of coarse unbeknownst to me with the help of God) get clean, I overcame the addiction and tried to press on with my life, even more damaged and used....

After this point, I spent most my time drinking, partys, men, the whole loving the world thing. I had other crazy things happen in my life in traveling and mistake after mistake. But maybe I'll share more of that some other time lol. I ended up taking a greyhound bus to South Carolina where my mothers parents and family were. My grandparents who were KKK and family that were anything but living for God. One of my mothers cousins offered to bring me to Myrtle Beach where he lived, of coarse the beach sounded great! So off to the beach I went and stayed with him and his kids. But shortly after arriving I found out that he was a cokehead and being that I was clean and his kids were in the house I couldn't stay with him, i couldn't stomache it, but I loved the beach. So I found a little cockroach infested hotel there and worked a block away at a restraunt earning that nights room and eating the one free meal I was allowed. Saving up whatever left over money I had each day. Made freinds with the owner of a club that was right behind my workplace so that I could go play pool during the day. It was there that I ended up meeting a man, who I eventually started "dating". After a period of time, still liveing in this hotel, I got a message at work that a pstor from Great Falls, Montana was in town and looking for me. So when I realized it was my aunts husbands parents I was a bit baffled...but something inside me longed for that connection with God, and missing home I teared in joy to hear their voices on the phone! They were vacationing in Myrtle Beach and wanted to see me...I was so overwhelmed with emotions! We went to dinner that night and they cried as they dropped me back off to my hotel as they saw what kind of life I was living in, and pleaded with me to think about what I was doing to myself. But....I just told them I was fine, I would figure it out, "I was strong enough"....

Not a few days later my heart was so heavy to leave that place, so I decided to go back to Greenville where my moms family was. My uncle and his wife came to pick me up, and showed up one morning to me in my hotel with the guy I had met at the club. Unknown to me they called ahead and informed my family I was with a black man so when I got to my grandparents house I was met at the backdoor with a shotgun and told to get off their property and a colorful array of racist names. I stayed with one of my aunts but was so mad and hurt...again being abandoned by family and thinking to myself that no matter what I tried life just didn't want me standing...I felt used, damaged, and now like all I was good for was pleasing men, I had nothing left...So the guy I was seeing brought me back to the beach where I was now determined to PROVE that "I was strong enough"....

Back at the beach, with a drug dealer for a man, I kept waitressing but also took on a side job...I would sleep with men to gain their trust and get them connected with my boyfriend so we could make money off them...he used my body to network and it worked. Soon I was not only doing that but I took up stripping, it was sooo empowering, I could have these guys and I was in control, "I was strong enough", or so I thought. Through stripping I made some "wonderful" friends who then introduced me to the life of an escort and it was a glamerous life. Hanging out and sleeping with all the celebrities that came into town, being on stage and arm in arm with Snoop, Mr. Cheeks VIP girls, I thought I had finally made use of what little I had in me....my body. Full of material things and "fun" I was making around $5,000 a day between all my ventures....great huh....woo hoo...until the fun faded and I found myself not only living that glamorous life but in a life of darkness and fear. Each "little" step I took further and further into this lifestyle was not just a little step...they were giant leaps into destruction. I soon found myself so money hungry and vain that I had no limits with my body. Next step...prostitution here i came....I was a full on prostitute. Evne though I still had my hand in the other ventures, I found this one the best. It was me "gaining control" of my body even more and these men had to pay me for it. I in my mind wasn't worthless anymore, even worse I put a price on myself. I ended up needing to take a "vacation" due to my hand in the drug scene and came back to hide out in Montana for a couple weeks. While I was there my landlord called, by this time I had a condo on the beach, and he wanted to know what was going on. Confused I asked him why that I was in Montana. He then proceded to tell me that my condo was shot up, ransacked, and everything in it was gone. Shocked but not too suprised I called my boyfriend to go check it out. It was the next day when one of his "family" members told me that they had been raided and he was locked up...I had nothing to go back to....so I stayed in Montana.

After a month or so he was sentanced to 15 years in the stae pen and I was nervous to ever return to that city. I figured I would just start again here in Montana and try to once again pull myself up by my bootstraps..."I was strong enough".

I agreed to counseling reluctantly but through it I realized that I was in bad shape, I was living a self destructive lifestyle, diagnosed with PTSD from the rape, mugging, kidnapping (didn't tell that), and the shootouts and drugs and yadda yadda yadda.... but still I thought "I was strong enough" I was better but not with God....I got into an abusive marrige, had kids, got divorced, and still was a sex addict, pornography, it was insane, every kind of sexual promiscuity i could i did. Still felt like that is all I had of worth....

I am skimming alot, but there is too much, maybe the book will come, but point is God's grace is sufficient for me! Up to the point of my surgery I was living in this sex addicted fleshly lifestyle that was destroying my soul, worst part was....I didnt care...

BUT Praise God, He had different plans!!! I had found out about my brain tumor and as I have blogged out on my profile...God brought me through every risk that the doctors gave me, and yet after I still didn't get it lol. I remember the depression and anxiety...the panic attacks, the horror of locking myself in my house refusing company or to leave....finding no strength left at the end of the day but to crawn down my hallway in tears after putting the kids to bed...I was a mom and not only could I not have sex and feel "useful" but I couldnt even be the one thing I knew God gave me...I couldn't be a mom...my babies wouldnt even touch me, they were scared of my bald head and big incision on the back, i couldnt hold them, chase them, play with them, discipline them, I couldnt even take care of my home. I remember trying and trying to be "strong enough" not for me but for them...but I couldn't and it just fed into my depression and fear of failing....

Night after night for months I crawled down that same hallway on all fours.....crying out to God "God, where is my strength" and "I don't understand why I can't do this"....I still didn't get it....until one fateful night praise God.....I crawled down that o so familiar hallway and cried out with all that was in my soul as I curled into a feetal position "God Im NOT strong enough, I NEED YOU!" THAT is right where God needed me for the healing to begin....THAT is right where I needed to be to see that I even though was strong was NOT strong enough to live life without my God, my King, my Savior, my Redeemer! He took me so gently and gathered the broken, damaged, used peices of my soul and began to replace them with HIS love, HIS grace, HIS mercy, HIS peace, HIS joy!!!! Step of faith after step of faith as I walked closer to Him, He drew closer to me, He met me where I was at and brought me back to the place where I first knew Him. I began laying aside EVERYTHING in my life, back in church and back leading songs in worship, back to my faith, back to my LOVE in HIM!

I used to keep my senior picture on my desk and my scholarship clipping on the fridge, not out of being proud of myself but to remind myself what I USED to be, of what I lost, of what I walked away from....but slowly my prayers were to be restored to that...my hearts desire was to be like that young woman with a light in her eyes, a fire in her heart, and a purity in her soul....all I wanted was to chase God, I never wanted to be out of Him again, only wanted to abide in Him and Him in me, only to be a light to those around me, regaurdless of their opinions because many had some, I wanted to live for CHRIST not man!!! He took me up and wrapped me in His love and grace!!!! HOW IMMEASUREABLE is the grace of God!!!! From a prostitute to purity..... from damaged to whole....from worthless to priceless....from broken to a new creation....from "Im strong enough" to "I never want to lean on my own strength again!" PRAISE GOD HE IS GOOD!!!!! I am soo glad He was patient with me!!!

Family, there is nothing we can do to separate us from the love of God, it's never too late, your never too broken for God. His Word says that His power is made perfect in weakness... So be weak, fall to your face at the foot of the cross, and lay down your life to gain a life!!!! I share this with you to show the enormity of God's grace, and that His restoreation is complete...His ways are perfect! THAT PERFECT LOVE!!!! God is not only my Savior but now He is my Restorer....and I cant wait to see all that He will keep doing in me and through me. Thank You Lord for bringing me back to that place when I first knew you!

Matthew 22:37 says love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and with all your strength...chase God and the rest will follow....Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.....LOVE God and love one another, because God is a God of restoration and it's never too late!!!!