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Testimonies
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He Has Redeemed Me
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Sandra
Virginia,
United States
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In June of 1989 I was 19 years old, and I found out that I was pregnant.
I want to give you just a quick bit of my past, so that you'll understand more about my story. I grew up with two very religious grandmothers, both of which told me from a very young age that if I were to ever have sex outside of marriage, then I was married to that man (Old Testament belief), and there was no getting out of it. I would be in that relationship for good, and I had to make the best of it. It did not matter what man's law was; it mattered what God's law was.
Growing up, I was made to feel like God was this big dictator who only told me what to do. Even though my grandmothers tried to explain Jesus to me, it never registered. As a young child, I had a very sheltered life. Sex was not something that was ever talked about or explained in a way that made me understand what I needed to know as a woman, or the beauty of what God had made it to be. It was looked upon as ugly and horrible, something that was done because it what was God ordained.
So fast forward back to being seventeen. I thought that I had found the man of my dreams. He was attentive, thoughtful, wanted to be with me wherever I went and he kept telling me that he just couldn't be without me. He said he couldn't live without me, and he would kill himself if I ever left. I never saw the pattern. As a young woman who had never really dated before, I couldn't recognize the signs. As time went on, I grew to realize the meaning of these statements, and also the alcoholic state of my boyfriend.
He was 22 and I was 17 when we started dating. My introduction to sex was through pornographic films. I was extremely grossed out by them, but he said that it was a way to teach me the way he liked sex. I wasn't ready for it, and I was being pressured constantly to have sex with him. (Dads, please, whatever you do, do not let your daughters hear the conversations that you have with her boyfriends. My dad told my boyfriend in front of me that if he ever hurt me, he would kill him. My dad wasn’t joking. This caused me to never talk to my parents about my relationship with my boyfriend.)
In March before my 18th birthday, I gave myself to him. I didn't feel as though I had a choice. I felt that he would have moved off of me unless I had consented. After this, we started having unprotected sex regularly. It was never when or what I wanted, it was all about what he wanted, and he constantly told me how much he loved me. When I turned 18 and graduated from high school, I moved into my own apartment with the intentions of attending college and getting my degree in music. He said that he was moving in with me and that I had no choice because I couldn't make it financially without him. By the time he moved in, he had me convinced that I couldn't make it on my own.
The drinking with him grew worse and so did the parties that we would go to. He would end up completely intoxicated, and I would be the one driving home. I used to think it was funny at first, until one night when we got back to the apartment and some friends had to help him into the apartment. When they left, I was going to leave because I was disgusted with how he had acted. He threw me up against the wall and held me by my throat and told me if I ever left, he would kill me. At that point, I was called every name under the sun that a woman could be called by a man who had no love or respect for her. I knew he meant it, and I knew that I was scared to death.
At the age of 19, I became pregnant, and there was no talking about me keeping it. He told me that I had to have an abortion because I loved him and that it wasn't good for us to have it right now. He said that we couldn't afford it and that if I didn't go through with the abortion, he would leave me. I was devastated. So, in June of 1989, I went to the abortion clinic in the city and waited inside alone. He stayed out in the car and wouldn't come in with me. He said that I had to be a big girl, and to do this for US. When I walked in, the clinic felt cold and not very friendly at all. The nurses were all very nonchalant and cold. There didn't seem to be any love or concern in their attitudes. Everything felt like business. I was taken to a room upstairs where they did the procedures. I was put into a waiting room where another nurse came in and explained that this "thing" that was growing inside of me was nothing more than a "clump of cells" that had "no life" in it. From what they could tell, I was about 8 weeks along. She gave me a pill to take to help me relax and to help start dilation. She gave me a dressing gown and told me that I needed to change and prepare for the procedure. I was asked if I needed anything, and I said no. She left.
About 15 minutes later, I was in the room with the doctor and, I was put onto this table that had stirrups on it in which to place your feet. They hooked an IV up to me and gave me something in the IV to help me to relax again and not feel pain. I remember going in and out of consciousness, but I remember hearing something that sounded like a vacuum. I felt a lot of pressure in my abdomen and I remember hearing the doctor say, “It's too big. I'm going to have to crush it to get it to suction out.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but all I remember was the pain that I suddenly felt. Then it was over. They took me into a recovery room and told me to lie down because I would still be very weak from the drugs, and they needed my bleeding to slow down before I could leave. They gave me some juice because I felt extremely dizzy. She came in to check on me and said that my bleeding hadn't slowed down enough to what they had liked, but if I had someone with me, they would send me home and I could recover there. So, I walked out of the clinic by myself. When I got into my boyfriend’s car, we drove home without saying anything. He didn't even look at me the whole drive back to the apartment. When we got there, I went straight to bed, and he came in and told me that he had to go to work, and that I did the right thing for US. At that moment, I didn't feel like I had done the right thing. I grieved and felt such a loss for the next several days. I felt like something tremendous had been taken away from me. The bleeding that they said was supposed to stop never did. I ended up back in the hospital for a D and C. Apparently during my procedure, there were areas in my uterus that were bleeding from the instruments that had been used. The doctor said that if I hadn't come in, I could have bled to death. He asked me what I had done, and I told him that I had an abortion. He looked at me and just shook his head. In that moment I felt so much shame and guilt from the looks that he gave me. He gave me a prescription for pain and one to help fight infection and sent me home. There was no compassion there. After a day or so, the bleeding stopped and I was left feeling empty.
The days went on with me feeling more and more of a hatred for this man that I called my boyfriend. But the abuse never stopped. It got worse the more he drank. When he was sober, he would cry and tell me how sorry he was for all that he had done to me and put me through. I kept hating and loving and hating and loving him. By the time that I was 21 years old, I felt trapped and no way out because I believed what my grandmothers had told me. I had to stick it out, no matter what. They dealt with it, so should I. We were married in September of that year and the horror that was my life got worse. The abuse got worse, the degradation got worse, and I totally lost who I was. I lived for him, I worked for him, and everything that I did was NEVER good enough. But he LOVED me. It was in this year at one of my womanly yearly checkups that my doctor told me I would never have children. The botched job from the abortion had left my uterine wall so scared that pregnancy would be impossible. To a 21 year old girl, who as a young child loved kids and all her life wanted children, the hurt from this, knowing that it was my fault, caused me to hurl myself into a great depression.
When I was 23, I met my first real boss who helped me to see that I was worth far more than my husband had ever made me out to be. I worked twelve hours a night as a shift manager at the local convenience store and we stayed busy. My boss helped me to grow into an independent person and showed me that I could do anything. He was a father figure to me and his daughter was a friend. She also helped me to see the potential in myself that I never saw. One afternoon I was due in for work at noon. I was on the evening shift until midnight. I did everything that I could to work these hours so that I didn't have to be at home where my husband was. My job to him, however, was nothing more than a lowly cashier. It didn't matter what I ever became, because I would never amount to anything.
When my boss saw the bruise on my arm that my husband had left on me, he called me into his office. He asked me to explain how I got it. I lied and told him that I had fallen in the cooler the night before and landed on one of the racks. You see, I used to dress so that you couldn’t see the bruises that he left. My boss turned and looked at me and said in a calm yet stern voice, “I'm not stupid, I want you to know that I used to be a homicide detective, and I know what abuse bruising looks like. Do you want to tell me what's going on?” It was then that I broke into tears. The pain and the anguish from the last 6 years with my husband came flooding out, and I told him everything. When I had finally calmed down, he asked me if I was ready to die today. That question rocked me to my very core and I was shocked that I had never thought that I could die at the hands of this man that had done and said so many wretched things to me.
Please understand that before my job I had become reclusive and stayed home a lot because I was afraid to go anywhere, even to my parents, unless it was for someone's birthday or holiday. I barely saw his family at all, because he said he just couldn't stand to be around them, so we didn't do much of anything. Any time I went anywhere, he went with me or would follow me. When I started working, he had people that were friends of his come in to see if I was there and when I would leave. I tried to be on midnight's more than I wanted to be to be away from him. There would be people that would randomly show up at my house while I was trying to sleep. Some of them would just drop by and not even stay. Others would come to the door and knock. When I answered they would say, “Hi, I just needed to make sure that you were alright” and then leave. I never understood why they would do this until after the relationship was over. I found out from one of the guys at his work that he had been telling them that I was going to kill myself, and he wanted to make sure that I was ok.
I made new friends of my own while working at this convenience store. (I wasn't allowed to have friends unless they were his friends.) These new friends had places of their own, and on some nights I would leave work and go to their houses.
On my 25th birthday, I grew some guts and decided to permanently separate. One of my girlfriends at the time offered me a place to live, and I stayed with her on and off for four months. It was during this time that I grew into self-loathing, and I started down the path of self-abuse with alcohol, drugs and sex. I started stripping privately for money whenever I was on my days off, and then these men would try to have sex with me. I didn't realize just how unsafe this really was, and I really didn’t care. I wanted so badly to hurt men that I never stopped to think that I was only hurting myself. I ended up involved with some law enforcement guys and pregnant again by one of them. He wanted me to have it, and I didn't want it. So, I decided that I had to get rid of it, especially since I was still married. I didn't know if my husband would find out. I hadn't seen him in months because of my schedule. Because I still had my stuff at the house, I would go back there when I knew he wasn’t there to get clothes. I knew that he still had people who were following me or checking up on where I was.
My girlfriend drove me back to the same clinic. She went in with me, but stayed in the lobby. I got the same talk, the same explanations, just a different doctor. This time, I didn't care. I was dead inside anyway. After being told at the age of 21 that I would never be able to have children because of the botched up abortion, I never thought that I would get to 10 weeks. At least this is what I was told based on my cycle. After the abortion was over, the nurse came in and said that they didn’t normally do abortions at this clinic past 10 weeks. They would have sent me somewhere else this time had they thought that I could be further along. I passed out while I was on the table. When they finally brought me back around and I had been put in a room to recover, I didn't realize that they had helped me to walk into the room. I didn't know that I was done. I only remembered walking in and walking out.
My counselor later told me that my body had gone into shock, and that I probably would never remember that part of my life again. At this point, I was so numb and cold hearted that I went into a deep depression. That was in January of 1996.
I had already lost other children with my husband because of miscarriages and abuse. By this time I hated everything about myself, who I had become and who my husband had made me into. I filed for divorce in March of 1996.
I moved in with my mom and dad. It was after moving back home that I was able to start healing, but not fully. The pain of my abortions hadn't finished with me just yet. You see, I met my second husband, who at that time was only my new boyfriend. I ended up getting pregnant again and I was extremely scared. I really didn't want to be pregnant again, but he wouldn't let me get another abortion. So, I said ok. I lost the baby in March of 1997 and blamed myself for the loss again. I just knew that God hated me because I was having adulterous affairs.
After the loss of this child, I didn’t do what the doctors had told me and went right back in to my promiscuous behavior. And again, in June, I found myself pregnant again. I went to my first doctor's appointment at eight weeks. It was then that I was able to see my son, my BABY, for the first time. It was here that I found out everything that the clinic had told me was a lie! This was not a mass of cells; this was a REAL baby and I got to hear his heartbeat.
Now please understand that for someone of 27 years, I was mentally 17 because I never got to live, being completed sheltered again by my ex-husband. When I first got to see that this was a real baby, I cried my eyes out because it was then that I realized what I had truly done. I was a murderer and I had committed murder. I explained to my new OB/GYN what I had done and how many abortions that I had had because I didn't believe that this was a real baby. She cried with me and she said something to me that was so profound that I couldn't believe it. She said, “Do you believe in God?” I said, “I didn't think that there could really be a God who would let a woman face all that I had.” She looked at me with such caring eyes and told me, “There is a God who loves you very much and if you allow Him, He will help you get through this. You have to ask Him to forgive you for what you now know you have done.” She stopped and prayed with me right there, just the two of us, in the sonogram room. She told me that I needed to seek counseling and that I should try to start getting into a church where I could learn more about God's grace. But she promised me that she would help me get through this pregnancy and that my child would be just fine.
I wanted so much to believe what she was saying, but I knew my track record with miscarriages. I wanted so much to believe that the God that she was talking about wasn't the same God that I had heard about all my life. I knew that I was rebellious, and I just knew that there was no way that He could love me after committing murder.
For the next 7 and 1/2 months, I carried my son. My oldest was born 6 weeks early. I had no choice; my water had broken. I was so scared that he wasn’t going to live and that I had to get to the hospital. I ran down the hall and into the bathroom where I sat on the potty, waiting for my mom to get up and help me. The EMT told her that this was not a good place for me to be and that I needed to be lying down. She put me in the kitchen floor and there I waited for the ambulance. He was born in January of 1998. When I held my son for the first time, I cried so hard. They had to take him because he was still so small, but they said that he was going to be just fine. It was after carrying my son and feeling him move and kick and turn inside me, that I realized the beauty and grace that God was giving to me. After my son was born, I started going to church. I went to one that I had gone to as a child with a friend of mine. I didn't stay. I then got pregnant again with my daughter and had her in 2000. Again, I started to try to find a church that would fit, and I just didn't feel right in any of them. It was during this time that my doctor suggested that I start reading the Bible to find out who God really was.
So I did. I started reading in John and how John 3:16 talks about how He loved me and sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to save me from my sins. I read that if I asked Him to forgive me that He would and that He would send the Wonderful Counselor, the Holy Spirit, to live in me. That first day in the doctor’s office when I found out that Weseley was a real baby, I asked Him to forgive me for everything. But it wasn’t until now, being pregnant with my daughter, that I made the decision to follow Him for the rest of my life. In my little two bedroom apartment, I knelt down by my bed and I committed my life to Jesus Christ, to be a follower of Him and to do whatever it was that He wanted of me. Who knew that it would be so hard and who knew that even when I started attending church regularly, that I would still fall and stumble and have so many things to continue to repent from? Then I read Ephesians 1:7 and it says, “In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, (and I emphasize His Grace) which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, in Heaven and things on Earth.” 2 Corinthians says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” I had no idea that all the things that I had been through, my weaknesses and my suffering, were to glorify Him. That His power would be made perfect through my weaknesses, completely!
It was in my counseling and now through my testimony that I have been able to wrap myself in God’s grace and mercy. He is helping me through His Word to heal from the pain and anguish that I have felt over the losses of my children. I have lost five, but He has redeemed me by grace with the gifts of five beautiful children. I also know that when I reach heaven, I will get to see those children that I have lost.
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