The Backstory:
Part I- L’s Testimony:
Aloha my name is L, and I come from a small town on the countryside on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.
My mother and father were both teenagers when they had me where I came from. There was lots of poverty and oppression. My parents, we’re both addicted to drugs and alcohol and the lifestyle that was not good for anyone let alone a baby.
When I was born, I was only 2 1/2 pounds. I was born addicted. My very first bed was a shoebox, and I could fit in the palm of your hands so from the very beginning, I was a handful.
Despite my parents issues, they loved me. My mother was the type of mom who made a game out of everything constantly exploring together. My mom was my first teacher.
Unfortunately, my parents addiction took control of our lives. Some of my early childhood memories are of my parents fighting my father being abused towards my mother.
One day, it went too far and as they were fighting over drugs, rocks were being thrown back-and-forth, and one of them hit me in the eye, leaving me legally blinds in my right eye
I remember my mother running across the street with me and her arms to the fire department desperate for help. I have flashes of my father‘s face my mom‘s voice, the hospital and then eye chart.
The next day, after being released from the hospital, my mother came with the police officer to get me from my grandma’s house. My dad‘s mom my aunt told the officer that I was not there as I peaked through the bedroom window. I saw my mom‘s driveway. I did not understand and I was so sad.
Shortly after that, the state stepped in, and I was put into protective custody. I went into the first of many foster homes.
My first foster home was with a family who had multiple children of all ages. I did not understand why I was there what was happening or why another foster kid would climb on me every night and do what he wanted.
It was a very dark time for me. I felt very unloved and alone I felt abandoned. I felt neglected. I felt like there was no hope. Eventually that foster on led to another foster home, led to being with family for a majority of my younger years when I hit my teenagers, I went into a rebellion started away, which landed me in more foster homes.
I wanted to be loved I want to be held. I want to be comforted. I was in search of something that I felt like I never had, and I found it in older men at a very young age.
Part I- The Unfolding:
I ended up getting pregnant at 14 by a man twice my age who is physically abusive, I had stepped into the same generational curse my mother had. I ended up having an abortion, and barely escaping with my life.
I tried to do better, but only ended up doing the same thing I had just got out of and ended up pregnant at 15.
I could not go through another abortion. It tormented me and left me with full of regret.
I decided I was going to go through with the pregnancy and the boyfriend that I had at the time convinced me to put my child up for adoption.
That was the plan that my foster parents and my boyfriend‘s parents had for me. When the time came and I had my child, I could not go through with it after he was born. I told the nurses that I did not want to see him and that I needed to pray so for two days I pray, and on a third day I woke up and I knew that I was ready to be a mom and then I finally had a purpose and a reason to live that I was somebody’s mother and that I was gonna make a difference in someone’s life and he had already made a difference in mine so I kept Kyle I got my life together. I graduated from high school with a two year-old on my hip. I did really well and turning things around I was able to get a scholarship for college and my own place a happy home for Kyle and I.
There was something missing still I have this hole in my heart.
When Kyle was 2, I met someone fell in love and had two more sons Joey and Blaze.
At 21 years old, I found myself with three children, a full-time job and a home to run. I was overwhelmed, exhausted.
It wasn’t long before I was introduced to methamphetamines and what they could do. It started off as something casual and eventually took full control of my life for 22 years. My life had major highs and major lows. Nothing was consistent except the drug use. I always file myself praying myself out of yet another catastrophe, barely holding anything together. God was who I called upon when I was in a 911 emergency and even though I wasn’t faithful, He always was.
My children got older. I never got any younger and my addiction got stronger.
Part II- Storms Came:
It took everything away from me, my dignity, my self-worth my purpose as a mother.
I couldn’t hide from myself and the choices that I made that got me to where I was at, so I just took a deeper pit so deep that there was no light left.
I abandoned my children, left my relationship and let myself sink deeper into my depression. I lost myself in the lies that I told believed about myself.
I would try to tell my children the same lies that I was doing good not on drugs. all the while I have been homeless living on the beach still inactive addiction.
By this time, my oldest son, Kyle had children of his own and he had made a choice to protect them and stopped them from talking to me because he was done with the way that I chose to live my life. He told me Mom I’m done listening to you. Tell me that everything is good especially when you’re calling me 2 o’clock in the morning the only time that someone calls anyone at that time is if they’re in the hospital, arrest, arrested or high, so which is it not gonna believe it until I see it for myself.
I didn’t want him to cut me off my children, and my grandchildren were the only good things in my life and so I decided to leave Hawaii and go to Florida where he was at and try to convince him that I was OK.
When I got there, he didn’t judge me or hold anything against me. He just told me to stay and start over and that’s what I did. I built myself back up. I got a job. I got sober for a few years, but I still had that nagging hole in my heart that I thought that I could only feel with a man so I got into a relationship with someone out of desperation, there were lots of red flags that I only ignored cause I was so lonely that I settled for less than what I deserved.
I ended up relapsing and just as quick as I relapse was just as quick as the abuse started. What started off as a slap punch kick push, pushing down the stairs, turned much more violent where I ended up in the hospital with a fractured eye socket, and stitches to the head where I have been kicked.
You think that would be enough to stay away, but it wasn’t and I continue to go back until the state picked up the charges and he went to prison.
While he was in prison There was a calm in my life, but it really was just a calm before the storm.
Because there was still that hole in my heart that I so needed to feel when the drugs in the alcohol could not fill it. I look too man again like I always did.
This time was much worse I had let the devil in to my home. He was disguised as a friend until I let my guards down like a roaring lion prowling around, looking for prey that that’s what he did to me. he told me once that you fear God, but I respect the devil I should have run and never looked back then, but I had been so worn down from life that I just let it be knowing that I would probably live to regret that.
After I got out of the hospital for my injuries a few days later, I was walking into a store, a Piggly Wiggly in Sneads, Florida, as I was approaching the store I came across a table, set up with two ladies who had the biggest smiles on their face and a table full of crosses and scripture. I tried my very best to avoid them, but they were not gonna let me get by.
They stopped me to talk to me they asked me how I was and they told me that they were a part of a program who helped women coming out of domestic violence, homelessness, and addiction. They told me that they provide a safe place for women to live and to heal, and then they told me that it was a year long.
It sounded good at first until I heard a year long in my mind. There was no way that I could go somewhere else for a whole year to get better that I could do it on my own before leaving them. They handed me a car and certified knew anybody to please give it to them. I put down my sunglasses and said I might know someone they saw my two black eyes and asked if they could pray for me.
I said yes, and during that prayer, I remember her saying that she prays that I would come to know how valuable I am to God and how worthy I was of his love and that I would come to know it.
I thank them. I took the card and I went about my way. I never forgot that prayer and never forgot that card that I had I pull it out often for a whole year when life got hard I would read it and it would give me hope that if one day I needed it it would be there.
Part III- Winds Blew:
I knew that things were getting worse, but I didn’t know how bad until that second man that I had met manipulated me using my situation of losing my home against me and convinced me to go and stay with him. Once I was there, I was stuck for three days. He beat me, strangled me and raped me to the point where I had stopped breathing twice and he had to revive me. I remember thinking that I was gonna die and that no one was gonna find my body and at one point, I begged him from my life. And I heard a voice say you’re asking the wrong person and I looked up past him and looked up to the ceiling and started begging God for mercy and that I wanted to live and I didn’t wanna die this way within minutes he rolled off of me and he went to sleep and throughout that night I had this intense heat that covered my body. I know now that it was God‘s embrace and he was keeping me protected until the next day. God told me to get to the Dollar General and to call Saving Grace to ask the store for help so I begged him to take me to a Dollar General bathroom down the road the next morning so I could use it because the trailer he had been keeping me in had no running toilet. He said yes and as soon as I got in there, I dialed 911 on a phone that only had emergency services and within minutes, the police had arrived. They knocked on the bathroom door and arrested him a few minutes later all I had on me was the Saving Grace card and I called them. I did an intake and they accepted me into the home but they could not pick me up for another week the Dollar General manager Let me stay at her home for a few days until my family saw that I was serious and I got to spend a few more days with my family until Saving Grace came and picked me up.
I remember the ride the Saving Grace so vividly I remember thoughts of doubt in my mind. What am I doing? Where am I going? Who are these people that I am riding with but once I walk through the doors of the Florida home I knew that I was stepping into God‘s will for my life and overwhelming sense of peace hit me right in my chest, and I felt God’s love penetrate my heart and I cried, and I cried, and I cried because it was finally OK to let my walls down and let my healing begin.
Right away, God took the taste for drugs and the thirst for liquor and the desire for men away from me instantly.
With those things gone, which were only the surface problems God started to reveal to me the true issues. Which is I had a heart problem, and the problem with my heart was that it was filled with anger, bitterness, fear, resentment, entitlement my heart was very dark. God revealed these things to me through his scripture and through learning more about his character and who he was..
Pt. IV- The House is Built:
When I came into the home, which I knew was a year-long, I had made a commitment to God that I would be there for two years because he had saved me from two abusive men, and who knows the countless other times that he had saved me with his grace and his mercy I wanted to get back to him. So fully surrendered, I said yes to everything that God’s asked of me and I said yes to everything that the staff of Saving Grace required of me.
God used the people, the other ladies in the home to help reveal areas of my life that I needed to change if I wanted to be more like him, and if I wanted to live my life pleasing to him. I used to think that sarcasm was funny. I used to think that my opinion was more important than others. I used to think that I was entitled to behave the way that I did because of the things that I’ve been through I justified made excuses and validated my own self.
I started to see the way that I affected people around me no one wanted to be around me or talk to me. I would enter the room and they would leave out the other end and God told me that I was starting to become like my abusers and that hit me hard because I remember what it felt like to be belittled to feel unloved, and I started to change my ways. Which meant digging up the deepest roots I had which was pride and fear. I needed to be humbled by God and I needed to operate in the Holy Spirit and when I allowed that to happen, I started to see a change in the atmosphere around me. I spoke life over myself and others, and my confidence started to build a godly confidence. I started to claim God‘s promises of restoration and healing over my family, believing it before I ever seen it, and there was a shift in my life.
Part V- A Lotus Blooms:
I wanted more of what God had for me and I diligently seek him. I saw him everywhere in the sky in the wind and the grass beneath my feet. I realized that God had been there the whole time. I just only needed to acknowledge Him, and the more I acknowledge Him and stayed in the Word, the more he pulled off the layers of pain and revealed to me my purpose.
