True Freedom Fellowship

Norma

Most people wouldn’t look forward to the opportunity to share a story about a life of being hurt and hurting others.  Well that’sbeen my story, but the end of the story is worth the wait.  As a child I was abused at a young age, sexually, physically and emotionally…and to make things worse…it was by my own family.  During that time when my innocence was taken from me, my identity was being stolen as well.  I was made to feel like I was an alien in my own skin.  I knew I was a girl, but after a while, after being told time and time again you aren’t and being dressed like you are not…you believe you are not.  I began to believe I wasn’t really a girl and I should have been born a boy.  In a way this was the worst form of abuse I had experienced, it changed me to my very core.

Something else changed in me as well.  Hate took root in my heart…I wanted to hurt everyone who had hurt me.  I wanted the rest of the world to experience the torture, pain and suffering that I had become so accustomed to.  As a result of abuse, a lack of identity and a deep rooted hate of men…I chose a lesbian lifestyle.  I plunged head long in to relationships with women and began to do everything in my power to make my appearance as masculine as possible with the hopes of one day making a permanent gender change. 

As my career developed in law enforcement I experienced sexual abuse again, adding fuel to the flames of hate.  I continued down a path of destruction and pain and I began to develop my arsenal, real and emotional, ready to take out all in my path. 

From relationship to relationship and wound to wound, I found myself on a beach one night, with a gun ready to end my life.  However, God had different plans, He sent me to someone who told me that there truly is freedom in this life…freedom through Him.  It has not all been cherries and roses since then, the pains and torments from my past came knocking once again and I chose a relationship with a woman and I gave in to that which has wanted to hold me captive my entire life.  So I walked away from God, the very One who extended hope through His Son Jesus Christ. 

The times I chose to walk away after He called me out resulted in my hate and anger trying to get the best of me and my actions.  I hurt people and came very close to hurting others, all in an effort to try and make someone pay for the crimes that had been done to my very being; the scars in the depths of my soul were ripping open. 

In my last lesbian relationship I knew that I was not where I needed to be.  I knew that I was walking in sin and shame and I knew that the Lord had other plans for me; I just needed to be obedient and lay down my life.  So I chose life, I walked away from the past and chose hope for my future.  Each day I get grace enough from the Lord to sustain me.  Temptations may come and my past may try to tell me I am not who I know God made me to be but through my relationship with Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit I am free, I am a woman of God, chosen and called out.  I have victory, victory for each moment when need be.  That night on the beach I realized that the God of the universe cared about me…He sacrificed everything through His Son so that I could have life…and life abundant.