God’s goodness is more important than your weakness and God’s love is more powerful than your failures.
I was six years when I asked Jesus into my heart and fell head over heels in love with Him. I loved dressing up in my pink tutu and dancing with Him in my bedroom.
Shortly after this my uncle sexually violated me and attempted to suffocate me to the point of near death in order to keep me silent. Fear, shame, and self-hatred took a deep root in my heart.
Next, our home was consumed with violence and anger. Seeing what was happening around me, I was paralyzed for most of my life with a fear of the enemy. I rarely slept well at night.
The daily violence continued in our home while I was there. As a teen, I gave up on God. I believed the lies that God did not love me nor did He care about me. I believed He had no power to heal or free anyone from sin or bondage. I believed God was powerless in the face of evil.
At school…rejection, betrayal, and never fitting in were common experiences. I became sexually active with my boyfriend at 15 …with the hopes I would be wanted, loved, and not alone anymore. I was looking for unconditional love and acceptance in all directions, and running from the very One who had it for me.
Life at college was a party. I had two abortions during those years. Then one night, my drink was laced, and I was raped by a Muslim man. When I woke, I was completely naked, he was beating me and offering me as a sexual sacrifice to his god, allah. Self-hatred and self-destruction exploded in me.
Upon graduation, I moved from Minnesota to California where I met my first husband. This marriage failed in 1995. That same year, I met another man, Mike, and within months of dating, we became pregnant. My life was completely falling apart and in absolute chaos.
I needed to run away. At least I thought I was running away. Mike and I left for a 3 week trip to Italy. While there, I picked up a book called, “The God of Surprises” written by Catholic Priest, Gerard Hughes. In Positano, Italy, with tears streaming down my face, I read about a God I had not known. A God who could love someone as lost and messed up as me. I gave my life back to Jesus Christ on that day, and I wrote a letter to this Catholic Priest. I called out for help from him and from God. I told him everything. Upon returning from our trip to Italy, there was a letter from this Catholic Priest waiting in my mail box. His words about transparency and prayer forever changed the entire course of my life. I began to pray to God from the deepest part within me. He wrote:
Dear Lori,
Thank you for your letter from Italy and for your great trust in writing it. God creates out of chaos and God loves you unconditionally. We can know this with our heads… but it takes a lifetime… and many personally crises – like your own to know this with our hearts.
From your letter, you feel such guilt over the failure of your marriage and over your present pregnancy that you can’t face praying to God. God’s goodness is more important than your weakness and God’s love is more powerful than your failures.
So, however rotten and guilty you feel, show it all to God and pray to Him out of the deepest part of yourself, the part that wants to be at one with Him, the “sheep-dog” part of yourself. When you do this, you are letting God’s Spirit hover over your chaos, bringing order and life out of it for you, for your child, and for others.
So don’t let those guilty feelings prevent you from praying!
God Bless You with Love & Peace,
Gerard Hughes
In 1996, Mike and I had our first child. In 1997, Mike and I were married, and baptized together. I fell deeply in love with Jesus again. The Lord, through this letter, pulled me into a intense life of contemplative prayer. The Word of God came alive for me, and to know Jesus became the sole desire of my heart (Phil 3:7-11). The Lord called me into full time ministry. I knew my life was no longer my own. He divinely planted me within an amazing, growing and thriving church.
I wrote it across my heart, “the old is dead, the new is here - forget the past and press on with Jesus”. I was determined to never look back at my past. I closed up the places of pain, and kept my eyes towards Jesus and the future.
Although Jesus’ love and dreams for me entailed even more than this. His desire was not only to see me come back to Him; it was to fully restore me and make me whole in Him, so I could walk into the fullness of His plan and calling for my life.
In 2002, I began having paralyzing panic attacks and struggled with intense fear. One night, the Lord said very audibly to me, “Lori, it’s time to look back”. I was so afraid if I showed God the hidden places of my heart, He, too, would not want me anymore. I was terrified of being abandoned again… for me, I would rather die than to lose Jesus again, and the love I was finding in Him.
Finally one night I surrendered, “Lord, I cried out, whatever it takes, I give you COMPLETE access to ALL of my heart”. Immediately God set into motion His plan to RESCUE, HEAL and RESTORE me. The Lord said to me, “Lori, your heart is like a room with many hidden closets; we’re going in, and one by one I WILL REDEEM THEM all!”.
The first closet door to open was my abortions. In PACE, the Post Abortion Counseling & Education Bible study, the Lord began to remove layers of anger, shame, grief, un-forgiveness (towards myself and others), and fear. I was often overcome with a gripping fear that my children would be taken away or die. I was so controlling over them, and so fearful that something bad was going to happen to them. I never linked this fear with being post-abortive. Jesus healed me of this, and began to unravel the deep self-hatred……..He removed the shame and guilt I carried for taking the lives of two of my children – Abigail and Matthew.
Following the PACE Bible study, the Lord led me to a prayer ministry where I began to walk through the steps to freedom. Here the Lord continued to walk me through the closets of my heart and all the trauma that piled up through my life time. It was not a journey of a one time healing, it took years to begin to unravel all that Satan did to try to seek, kill, and destroy me (John 10:10). Jesus held me close and began healing each area of trauma, unraveling the fear of the enemy and the deep self-hatred.
I learned, Jesus has the power to restore even the deepest of pain, if we are willing to allow Him the access to our hearts. I learned He did come to give life, and to give it abundantly (John 10:10b).
God restored me to the TRUTH: He is GOOD. He is LOVE. He does CARE. He is always there with me. I am never alone. And He does have the power to heal us and to free us from sin and bondage.
He is the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords. He is the Almighty One. He is a Mighty God, and He is Mighty to save! Psalm 18 and Psalm 91 became the living Scripture passages of my life.
I know now that I am a beloved daughter of the Most High God. A daughter of the One who sits above the heavens and the earth, and all things are under His feet. A daughter of my Heavenly Father; my Daddy.
I am His delight, His princess and like Gideon, His warrior.
I know God really likes me....
Although I am still in process with God and He still tests with these truths daily, I know I have come full circle with Him.
I live transparently with Jesus and I am learning how to open my heart to others again: to trust and to love freely and deeply.
Jesus has made my heart alive again in Him. He has brought me back to the heart of the little girl who loves dancing intimately, expressively, and joyfully with Him.
A painting of me,
painted from my dear friend, Carolyn Warner.
