Lisa’s Story

The Beginning

My experiences with sin and rebellion against God and my parents began in high school.  Being raised in a strict Christian home with many rules and restrictions, I began seeking independence and freedom away from following rules in my senior year - away from the “Christian girl” choices of obedience. 

Meeting a boy I liked very much, I became pregnant my last four months before graduation.  We stayed together for six years – working together and living together, until I became a very jealous and insecure person.

These infectious emotions stayed with me to haunt and destroy me as a person.  I was physically abused on several occasions only to find out he had cheated on me.  We were both very young and naïve.  I left the relationship and moved back home with my father and sister.

There, I would start over and begin my life as a single mom hoping to raise my son in a Christian environment.  I found myself back to the roots of Christianity.

Seeking For Love

After several years of growing in the Lord, I was still seeking a Christian man for love in all the wrong places.  I became naïve and gullible becoming interested in a Christian man, who was going to church, becoming friends with his mother and two sisters.  Little did I know I would fall back into temptation, and the thought of getting pregnant again never crossed my mind.

I repented every time we slept together.  He told me he was careful and not to worry.  Well, sure enough, after only a few months of dating, I was back at the doctor’s for regular checkups only to find out I was pregnant.

I stepped down from the choir, feeling shameful and embarrassed, but staying in church and continuing to serve the Lord.  Never did I imagine that he would leave me to take care of this child on my own.  He didn’t want to be a full-time dad.

Nine months later, I gave birth to a beautiful girl.  He did not want anything to do with her.  His words to me on the phone were “she’s not a boy”.  What?

At this point, I have faced both physical and emotional abuse. 

On My Own

Raising two children, working two jobs and going to college off and on, I’m thankful I had my parents who supported me and helped me every step of the way.

My mom was a rock.  She never judged me or looked down on me.  She was always giving and loving.  This encouraged me to fight harder and stand on my own feet.

As the years went by, I began to attend a church in downtown Flint where my mother and step-father attended.  I sang specials in my new-found church enjoying every moment.  Singing was where I felt close to Jesus.  I felt healing and deliverance.  When I sang, all my pain, guilt and shame would just vanish and melt away. 

After a year of attending my church, I was asked to be the praise and worship leader and begin a choir.  I accepted the position.  During this time, I had only a pianist, a guitarist and a drummer.  Needless to say, the drummer and I began seeing each other.

We began talking and hanging out.  I thought my life was coming to a completion thinking “could he be the one?” Deep down something didn’t feel right.  I ignored all the possible signs that the Holy Spirit was tugging on my “love strings”.  I went along with this man.  After finding out I was pregnant for the third time, he convinced me to leave this church and attend the church he was originally from.  I wanted to make things right and hopefully things would work out in my favor.

I left leading worship and directing the choir, which was God’s calling on my life, for a man I barely knew.  Once our son was born, we decided to move in together.  From then on my life was changed, and not for the better.

I decided to get on birth control to prevent another pregnancy.  What was I doing?  What was I thinking?  I was foolish and naïve.  Why does this word follow me with every decision I make?

Struggling Again

I struggled with jealously and insecurity with every relationship I was involved in.

During my pregnancy with our first, the physical abuse started.  This man that I only began to wish I could actually feel some form of love for thought he would handle my jealousy with abusive behavior.  I was choked to becoming unconscious on the kitchen floor, only to be coughing up blood.  At one visit to my brother and sister-in-law’s house, he pushed me down a flight of stairs while I was carrying his baby, but I stayed with him.

He repeatedly told me he was sorry and that it would never happen again.  There were nights he would leave and be gone for three days.  I had no clue what he was up to.  Jewelry, a microwave, and different items from the house were coming up missing. The neighbors were trying to tell me he was using drugs.  “No! Not him”, I thought.  I didn’t want to hear or believe this was going on.  He forced me to drive him into bad areas of Flint, only to tell me to stay in the car and wait for him.  I had my children in the car sitting in the roughest parts of Flint.  I was terrified; more terrified though if I left him there because of the beating I would receive.

We went together to counsel with our pastor.  Every time we met he was remorseful.  Later, I found out I was pregnant with our second child.  I thought “how could this happen? I was on birth control.” 

During this pregnancy, the lying, cheating, stealing, controlling, manipulative and physical abuse escalated.

One afternoon, I was in the bedroom with my oldest daughter.  Pregnant with my last child, he came walking into the room yelling at me, grabbed chunks of my hair, forcing my face into the floor making my face hit the floor repeatedly.  Pieces of my hair were being pulled from my scalp and into the air.

My daughter witnessed the abuse.  I remember one evening my oldest son, who was no more than 10, helped me move all the furniture in front of the door to block this man from coming in.  We bolted and boarded the back door.  After several attempts of him begging and pleading to come in and apologize, I let him in, only for more abuse.

He did not allow me to have a telephone.  On one occasion, after I confronted him about having three numbers of one woman, I came near to death.  In front of my three children, he beat me and took his open fist and thrust the palm of his hand into my nose.  The force led me to the ground where I laid hearing him screaming at me.  I literally looked like a piece of pulverized meat. 

After several of my family members, co-workers and his parents saw my face, they begged me to leave.  It was the doctor who told me if my nose would have shifted two more centimeters, I would not be alive.  I stayed.

Enough

What motivated me the most was the fact that my daughter was just born and I walked in on this man seeing him smoking crack.  He was, in fact, this whole time using drugs.

Enough!  No more abuse, no more lies, no more stealing, and no more defeat.  I was determined to get my four children and myself out of this dangerous, unhealthy and toxic stressful lifestyle.

With much humility and shame, I called my father, who was there for me.  He never stopped praying for me. It was only by the love and grace of God that today I am living and breathing. 

I never once looked back or turned back for what had almost ended my life:  self-absorbed, naïve, gullible and looking for love in all the wrong places.  The only true love is that of the Father in heaven.  He brought me through this.  My struggle, my shame, my sins, my selfishness, only by the blood of Jesus I have been saved.

Another Chance

God gave me another chance to be a loving, nurturing and caring mother.  He led me straight back to Him.  I was in the lowest and weakest times that Jesus was reaching for me the whole time and I was rejecting Him.

He never let go of me.  He loved me all the way back to victory.  I live with a red mark on my nose, but it reminds me every day that Jesus loved me enough to spare my life, to help others.

My heart’s desire is to tell Christian women in this situation that there is hope.  You can’t turn back your life but you can control it.  Please get help.