Healing Deep Wounds

by Cheryl
(Georgia, U.S.)

As a child I was sexually abused, and abused in every other way you can think of, and my mother abused me, she also had affairs with other men outside of hers and my dads marriage, she took me with her and made me lie to my dad about where we were going. My dad on the other hand was a racist, and drilled in mine and my three brothers head to hate anyone who wasn't the same race as we were. My dad also would beat my brother that was two years younger than me for no reason, and in the process of trying to make my dad stop hitting him, I would get hit. This is just some of the things I suffered on a daily basis, my home life was absolute chaos.
All of my life I have struggled to be free from all the effects of the abuse, hypocrisy, hate, bitterness, and all the other things that this abuse caused.
Amazingly though, I always felt like God was there, I would look out my window at night to see if He was coming back whenever I heard a loud noise. As an adult, needless to say, I put myself through more abuse because I didn't know that I wasn't suppose to be abused, therefore, I found myself constantly in abusive relationships, adding to the damage that was already done. When I was 23 I was saved, but I did not completely trust the Lord Jesus or believe He loved me or even really cared for me. At the time, I needed a miracle for my baby girl who was born with only one-half of a kidney that functioned, He did give me a miracle and gave my baby a whole kidney she was not born with. Over the next few years I struggled to walk with the Lord, fearing that if I strayed He might take my baby from me. Eventually I backslid and did things my own way. By the time I was 31 I was on my forth marriage, again being hit, cursed, and severe verbal abuse. Through the years I would come back to the Lord, wanting to do what was right, but I just could not seem to break free from the need to a man, feeling that somebody loved me. So I would fall away again feeling like it was impossible for me to understand God and what He wanted me to do, and then to be able to do it. During the times I was walking with the Lord, He would heal some of the hurt, but then I would go back and and add to the pain. Finally in 2004, I married for the sixth time, this was a man I had met a church and assumed that since he went to church he was a christian and that he truly loved me. But he did a lot of things to hurt me deeply and I realized he had only married me to use me as a meal ticket. At the time I worked with the state taking care of people who had developmental disabilities. The day we were married he "came down with a sore throat", and didn't go to work, the second week he didn't go to work, his boss man told him not to come back. After that several people told me he had never held a job including his own dad, other people I did know and hadn't known before. Then other people told me that he was a drug abuser, after a little while, I noticed that he was popping pills and was "high" quite a bit. He refused to work, mow our grass, take care of his children, or even walk to the mailbox. After several months, I myself became very sick, and struggled to go to work, once I was there, sometimes my body would hurt so bad I couldn't even walk or lift my arms so I would have to leave. Finally I had to quit work, it was impossible to get there, and my boss was quite tired of me calling in sick. Later I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, arthritis, a connective tissue disease, a rare kidney disease that occurred from being hit and had caused some trauma to my kidneys. There were several days I was not even able to get out of the bed, my husband would not help me, and finally I moved back closer to home near my family. Seven years has passed since I had to quit work, and had not been to church very much because I couldn't even sit in church.
The latter part of 2011 I began watching a Christian TV program because I was so depressed, one day the Lord touched me and my depression was healed immediately. I began seeking the Lord once again, praying daily and reading my Bible, since then the Lord has picked me up and loved me and let me know that I am forgiven and that every promise He made to me in the past will still come to pass. One day as I was praying for physical healing, He gave me Isaiah 58:8, after praying some more and telling the Lord I would do whatever He wanted me to do, He healed me. Everyone noticed the difference in my face, my eyes, skin, and my joints, or muscles no longer ached constantly. Just the other day as I was praying about having the deep pains in my heart, soul, and mind, the Lord gave me Jeremiah 30:16,17 and I feel that He has just reached down and healed the pain. Verse 16 of Jeremiah talks about God punishing those who hurt us, and I could go on about some of the things I have witnessed that has happened to some of the people that hurt me. But when I read that verse I cried out for mercy for the people who had hurt me and for their families, children and grandchildren because I don't want innocent children to suffer because of something they didn't do. This caused me to cry out to God to deal with the people who had hurt me and to draw them to salvation.