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Safe Haven For Teens
Safe Haven for Teens is a organization that focuses at this time on providing teens with a safe place to hang before school, where they get a free breakfast and a place to talk. In the summer we will be moving into providing a afternoon place for the teens to hang where they can do art, skate board, music and hang out.
The
Healing Journey
of a Messenger
I share my journey with you because it is a story of hope. I was once a victim of fear by the "father of lies" (John 8:44); now I am beginning to believe in the awesome victory of the redemptive work of the cross. By the saving grace of the Almighty Father, I have been set free to speak the truth. My story is not only encouragement for a survivor of abuse, but for anyone who struggles to grasp the healing power of God.
I learned to escape from the devastation of my past by building huge walls of self-protection and by dissociation. Dissociation is a coping mechanism that people learn to use in order to emotionally remove themselves from the traumatic events happening around them. I used the power of dissociation to block out most of the painful memories of my past. I believe that God supplies us as little children with ways to survive and without them the outcome might be tragic. I did not begin to remember my childhood until I was in my mid-twenties. I was able to piece together most of the events but there were still large gaps. One of the awesome qualities about God is that He does not give us more than we can handle at one time. It wasn’t until this past year, some fifteen years after my initial beginning on this journey, that the next chapter of memories began to surface. The most recent memories have been far more difficult and painful than I could have ever imagined. However, I have learned that the only way to total emotional and spiritual wholeness is working through the memories to freedom. The Lord waited until I was in a very stable, healthy environment with a strong spiritual family at Vineyard Central. At times I feel like I am on an emotional roller coaster, I am very thankful for the love and support I receive on a daily basis from the people around me.
The best place to begin is when I was one, I was adopted into an extremely abusive home, with alcoholic parents and two brothers. My adoptive mother, the primary abuser, mistreated me verbally, physically, emotionally, sexually, and spiritually. My adoptive father was emotionally abusive, distant, and unloving; he did not protect me from my mother.
Even though the Adoption Agency monitored our home until I was four years old, they never intervened to stop the abuse. I hated living with my adopted family but I did not know how to communicate that to the Adoption Agency. The period between four and eight years old was the most difficult period of my life. My mother became highly involved with other men and she included me in these sexual excursions. Also, during this time she involved me in a satanic cult.
The environment in our home was always unpredictable, with no true defined rules or boundaries. I was the scapegoat, blamed for family problems. So, I developed the faulty belief that if I could figure out the right thing to do, then everything wrong in our family would get fixed. My family was not active in church, except for a brief period in high school when my mom was having an affair with the minister. The whole concept of God was very confusing to me; I never understood how a loving God would allow things to happen like they did.
I found a safe haven in alcohol, starting in grade school. My parents never made an issue about my behavior. By junior high, I was out of control with my drinking, attempting to black out and forget my life. I tried to kill myself for the first time when I was fifteen. As a child, I lost hope of anything good ever happening to me; I’ve struggled with suicidal thoughts, low self-esteem, intense self-hate, and self-mutilation. My fear of men and of intimacy kept me from dating and relationships. Because of the sexual abuse in my past, I struggled with sexual identification issues.
The psychiatrists and psychologists told me that the emotional trauma I suffered as a child was too severe for me ever to expect to live a normal life. They diagnosed me with many different personality disorders and put me in inpatient psychiatric treatment frequently. I was also an absent-minded member of Alcoholics Anonymous for fifteen years; it took me that long to understand that I would need to surrender alcohol completely in order to quit drinking.
In senior high a few cousins shared the Gospel message with me for the first time, and I accepted Christ. I tried to change the direction of my life, and involved myself in a local high-school youth ministry for two years. A year after I graduated from college, my cousin (who led me to the Lord) killed himself. Devastated by his death, I tried again to commit suicide. For the next twenty-two years I struggled to overcome my devastating past and find freedom. I wanted to shrug off the past and get on with my life, but it never worked. My relationship with the Lord during this time bounced from one extreme of desiring to live for God to struggling with anger at God for the circumstances of my life. I didn’t know how to break free from my past.
The process of healing finally started as I learned how to relinquish my rights for revenge and retaliation. This was a very difficult and painful process to begin to practice and believe the truth. I became willing to let go of the harmful things done to me and embrace the hope that God had to offer. In the last year, I have experienced a tremendous amount of healing and freedom. Not one area of my life has been left untouched. I have learned that the more I abandon my rights and my control to God, the more He is able to restore me. I have been set free from all my addictions to alcohol, food, sex, drugs and cigarettes.
As I have embraced my healing it has completely changed my relationships. In order for me to embrace my healing, I needed a God with "skin" on Him. I needed people who could visibly demonstrate to me the kind of love and compassion that God had for me. He has brought me to Vineyard Central to be placed around a spiritual family to guide, direct, and keep me safe. They believe in me and encourage me, especially when I tend to lose sight of the truth. I have been learning the important role of developing healthy friendships with these people. I have learned that I am lovable regardless of my past and my present daily mistakes. Through these people I am also learning how to express my emotions in positive healthy ways, especially my anger. It is quite an experience to go for over 40 years of emotional numbness to experiencing feelings. My initial reaction has been "Oh my God, what do I do with all these feelings"? I am also learning what forgiveness means and not to just say, "I am sorry," but to learn how to correct the mistakes and learn new ways to express how I feel. The exciting thing about feeling emotions is being able to feel the positive emotions, such as love and joy.
Despite the way hate and fear filled my life in the past, I love my life today, even in the difficult and hard times. I am very thankful that I am alive; I look forward to each new day. I arise each morning with anticipation to see what the Lord will teach me during that day. I am so thankful for a loving, kind and redeeming God who will never leave or abandon me!
The past few years have been very exciting for me. In the fall of 1999, I believed the Lord was calling me to go to Seminary. This has been a life time dream for me, and finally here I am in my forties getting my heart’s desire. I started attending Cincinnati Bible Seminary in the winter of 2000, and it has been the best adventure of my life, so far. I found not only that I thoroughly enjoy school but also academically I am doing very well. I decided to leave my full-time employment in July 2000, to devote myself to school and to ministry at church. In the winter of 2001 I became a prospective member of the Community House. I always admired people who were able to live in community but I felt that it was something that I would never dare to try because of my family history. But thanks to the people in the Community House and my house church, I have been learning, a day at a time, the very difficult assignment of communing with a group of people. I thoroughly love living here, I feel for the first time in my life that I have found a place where I am truly loved. The greatest joy of experiencing this love is learning how to extend it to my brothers and sisters around me.
I am not exactly sure where the road is leading me, if all goes as planned I should graduate in the winter of 2003. I hope to be able to continue developing my teaching and writing skills here at Vineyard Central. I am open to go and follow wherever the Lord leads me, however I know it will always be in direct connection with this church. The dream that I have is for me to begin a Recovery Ministry here in Cincinnati sometime in the next few years. I am planning on this ministry to be able to reach all kinds of people who are struggling with addictions or recovering from an abusive background.