The Little Book that Made a Big Difference

I heard about Jesus when I was in a Bible study in a basement in the Bronx, NY. It was up the block from my house. I was fourteen years old, soon to be fifteen. My father asked, “What do you want for your birthday?”

“A Bible,” I answered. Everyone thought I was crazy.

My house was what I call a “house of terror.” Alcoholic parents, violence, winos from the street sleeping in my bed. I was very depressed and felt, It doesn’t matter… No one cares anyway.

I wanted to find a new home or make my own safe home, so I ran away from home with my boyfriend when I was fifteen years old. We hitched rides to Colorado and then New Mexico, where we slept in the mountains. It may sound romantic, but it wasn’t. We slept on the streets and at one point I was kidnapped, beaten, and left for dead.

In my pain I called on God to help me. He did.

When I returned home to the Bronx two months later, my mother was there alone. I learned a murder had taken place in the house while I was gone. I stayed just long enough to know my mother was okay and then ran away to California.

My boyfriend and I slept on beaches and ate crackers from a salad bar. We were invited to eat Thanksgiving dinner in the mess hall of a naval base near where we slept. As I was going into the mess hall, I saw a rack full of literature and a small green hand-sized Bible. I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I read it from time to time and I really liked it.

Soon we got jobs and saved enough money to get a sleezy hotel room for $40 a week. There was a lot of prostitution in that place, and I could hear girls getting beat up, but it didn’t scare me because my boyfriend was very abusive to me as well.

We saved money and got a furnished apartment. One day I came home from work and there were a lot of people in the house, including a girl from Boston. I went to sleep, but I woke up to find the girl not looking good. I started asking questions. It turns out they took advantage of her and raped her! When I confronted my boyfriend about what happened to her, things got worse. He got angry and began to hit me. I ran but he chased after me, giving me two black eyes.

I didn’t want to be in California alone, and I didn’t want to go back to New York to the house of terror. So, I gave my boyfriend another chance. We hitchhiked north to a little town in Oregon.

My boyfriend got drunk and was beating me up in the hotel. I tricked him and ran out the door down to the lobby where I saw a sticker over the pay phone that read: HELPLINE. I called it, and I don’t know who it was, but they said, “We are sending someone to pick you up.” While I was waiting my boyfriend came down begging me to stay with him and saying he was sorry.

The people pulled up. It was a Christian family with four kids in a station wagon. They took us both in and let us stay in a trailer in their backyard. The first thing I noticed was that when we sat down to eat at the table (which we never did in my house), they prayed to God! I was shocked and so touched by that. I wanted a family like that. They took us to church, but I don’t remember anything the preacher said. All I remember is how much this family loved each other.

They spent time with us and talked with us. I would help with the kids and do laundry sometimes. But we still brought our ways with us from the Bronx and would buy a quart of beer and cigarettes and bring it into the trailer.

One day I was sitting at the table in the trailer still feeling empty and broken with no family and an abusive boyfriend. I saw the little green Bible I had picked up from the naval base. I opened it to a place in the back that said, “My decision to receive Christ as my Savior.” I bowed my head and said everything it told me to pray and really meant it from my heart. I looked up, saw the beer and cigarettes in front of me, and pushed them away.

I was born again! I knew it because the desires inside me started changing! I didn’t want to be with people who smoked and drank. I started baking bread and handing it out to the neighbors. I started serving the children in the family more. And I read the Bible every day. I couldn’t put it down. I started falling in love with Jesus as I read it.

One day my boyfriend tried to rip the Bible in half because I was reading it so much, but he couldn’t! He got even more angry when I came out of the doctor’s office one day and told him, “I’m pregnant.”

He started screaming in the street, “Get an abortion!”

I yelled, “NO!”

“How are we going to take care of this baby?!” He was angry.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, “Jesus is going to take care of this baby!”

Those words came out of my heart, and I really believed them. And guess what? It wasn’t always easy, but Jesus did take care of my baby — and me!

Jesus helped me get away from that abusive boyfriend and start a new life. Since then, I have gotten married, raised three wonderful kids, earned my nursing degree, and owned two successful businesses.

My passion is helping kids and teens know God their Father and fulfill their destinies, so God and I started Dad’s Love Ministry. Do you know what? I make sure each person has a Bible. It’s not crazy to want a Bible and to want God. It actually makes the most sense in this sometimes-harsh world!

Her.BIBLE
is a free app you can download on your phone. It’s the Bible, read by women of different ethnicities. Just listen or read along.