Testimony of Beverly
The Story of My Life....
Outwardly, I looked like any child of seven. If you took the time to look deep into my eyes, you would soon notice something was very different about me. What you would have seen through my eyes was a hurting soul that was “far away.” Something you just couldn’t put your fingers on, but you would have known that this little girl was not quite in touch with the present. You would have been so right. My soul dwelt somewhere between the horrors of the previous night and the dread of even more to come.
You see, I had been abused by a stepdad. A man who married my mother after she had me in an unwed mothers home when she was only sixteen years old.
She gave me up for adoption after my birth. My new adoptive parents were most happy to be getting their baby girl...a bundle of joy.
But this does not last.
My mother marries a man that comes home from the service. They had known each other since child hood, but would never have thought to be together and married.
He told my mom that she would learn to love him. Does this tell you anything? The true love of my mother's life married another and so mom married my step dad. He steps in, decides that my mom should get me away from the adoptive parents and that they should raise me. And so it happens. After a month of being adopted, (I have one more month to be with my new adoptive parents and all papers will then be legal) I am taken from the adoptive parents and now I am with my mom and stepdad.
The tragic beginnings of my abuse lies in the blame that my Mother placed on me for not getting the man she wanted as her husband. Her pregnancy with me was the end of all hopes for that relationship. Sadly, she is unable to love me. She leaves me with the stepdad most of the time and takes off with their children when leaving the house.
The abuse starts...little by little ...day by day...when Mother is out with the other two children or when she is in the kitchen...or when I am upstairs with the door shut and Larry is suppose to be doing my school lessons with me, ...haha not!!! You can guess the rest.
When I start bringing home bad grades. The threats start plus the sexual abuse that had never ended. The good old G.I. belt was used to bring fear to me. A raised eyebrow meant you are going to get it...and I did. More than once. The sexual abuse keeps on until I am in fourth grade. At this point, Daddy Dearest has surgery on his back.
While he was disabled, I mustered up enough strength to go to my mother in the kitchen. I stood hidden beside the refrigerator and began to tell her of the abuse as she is fixing supper. She never looks around at me. She never stops cooking. She just says,''Go wash up for supper, I will take care of this.''
I never heard another thing. My stepdad just stopped sexually abusing me and started to beat me with a G.I. belt on bare legs. He never allowed me to do anything. All through high school all I knew was abuse..no prom...no games...no anything. I sat outside most time by myself. Depending on no one. Needing no one. Trusting no one.
I was amazed that, while in high school, I was finally allowed to date. But only one guy. I grabbed hold of that man so I could escape that dysfunctional home and walked into abuse again. And did so another time also.
Then I married my present husband, whom I feel was sent from God above. Lots happened between that time of two marriages but I will skip over that. The man I am married to now does not expect anything but love from me. He spoils me and he taught me love when I had no parents or grandparents to do so.
I also forgot to tell you all that my stepdad became a pastor when I was young. He had great power over his congregation. They all thought he was it ...a man of God.
In later years, when he could not abuse me sexually, he abused other girls. They were in his church. And some moms also had time with him I hear. Anyway, I will go on with my story.
When I was thirty-eight years old, I was tired of living in darkness. I prayed and the Lord led my husband and I to a church near where we had moved. I learned that I was not going to hell as my stepdad had told me, and I had been saved from the heart when I was nine or ten-years old.
The Lord had to have been carrying me all the way, even when I would beg him to make my stepdad stop what he was doing.
Anyway, we started going to church and the pastor there married my present husband and I in our home. We were both beaming and so happy, and I must say, we have been happy ever since, even today.
After we were married about a year, I saw in the paper that there was a class for survivors of abuse being started in the town where I lived. I was filled with fear but knew I had to get all the abuse over with. I had to heal. I prayed, "Lord please give me strength...walk me to healing Lord, no matter what I have to go through, so I can be at peace and have the joy I read about in the Bible Lord."
Know what? He did. Step by step, day by day. There was a lot of tears, fear...and panic attacks. I had dreams of hurting my stepdad. There were days when I had no counselor to talk to late at night when I felt like running or breaking something! Of course, I did not want to break anything of mine. Haha! But, if I could have placed my hands on something else, I could have broke every last thing offered.
I held on and waited on God to heal me. I knew He was with me and guiding my steps to healing. I know now that if He had given it all at once, I would have ended up in a nut house. Ha! He knows how far to go with something and when to bring rest.
In the healing process, I also had to come to confrontation when I had to write down my feelings to my abuser and be able to send the letter. This was hard to do. Letter in mailbox...letter out of mailbox, until it was left in the mailbox one day. The counselor said be ready to be rejected when you get an answer from both your mom and/or stepdad.
The fact was, I was rejected. Tossed on my face by my mother, and my stepdad said I should respect my mother. I thought respect was earned.
Anyway, to this day, she is in denial as I expected. But the truth is out and it all took me five years. Hard years...tears and tears...knowing I never really had a mom or a dad or grandparents to depend on as a child or young adult. This hurts when you face the truth.
One thing I did have though, and the most important was...I had God...my father...my mother.... my friend.... my Saviour. He took me where I had to go but only when I gave up self and I let Him have it all. I laid it all in His lap and walked away empty handed! I know He smiled.
The Lord led me to healing... to be able to face my abuser without hate and anger...Jesus filled my heart with love and took all the hate and fear, and anger I had experienced.
My cup today runs over...with love. Only the Lord could give me what I have today. I am at peace, and my husband stood by my side the whole way and held my hand...smiles...
Today the Lord has made me new in Him! He allowed me to teach in Sunday school...be in a bus ministry for six years teaching the kids as we went to church...while hubby drove the bus. He also has allowed me to sing in churches...have story time at the nursing home...have story time at housing complexes for poor little children that need love from someone...I even get to testify about my life, from darkeness to the light. Praises all to my lord and Saviour!
The Lord gave me a poem in fifteen minutes and told me that it would be published.. and it was. It is called "Dad's Way" and it is on the net now. A friend put it on her web page. It has brought many abused people to my ICQ and to my e-mail. The Lord sends whom He will. All to His glory. For who can stop our Lord...?
The Lord also called me to be a prayer warrior on the net. On ICQ all prayer warriors pray all night for people. We have seen wonders happen when we pray. The Lord is faithful...He has compassion on whom He will.
I wanted to add this addition to my testimony.
Just when I thought my healing was complete, the Lord knew better. On March 11, 2002 my stepdad, my abuser, had his head opened up in the hospital to reveal two tumors that were cancerous. There was also cancer in his lungs and most part of his body. The bad kind of cancer. None of the family members that were with him called me to let me know until two weeks later.
My stepdad asked my sister to call me and tell me that he wanted to see me if I would come. I then called my mother, who is even now in denial most of the time.
She handed the phone to him and he talked to me for the first time in years. He said, "I am so sorry for what I have done to you and I want forgiveness if you can forgive me..."
I proceeded to tell him about all the hurts he had brought to my children and myself and he agreed that he had indeed hurt us deeply.
I then said, “You are forgiven.” But he still asked if I would come to see him one last time and let him hug me and he added that I could at that time beat him up if I felt I needed to.
Long story short, my son and wife and our granddaughter and my husband and I headed to see him the next day. I knew that if I did not go I may regret it the rest of my life.
When we got to the house, we went in and my stepdad wanted me to sit on edge of the hospital bed in living room where he was. I did so. Mom ushered out all the other people to the kitchen. My husband was with me but in back of room. My stepdad broke into tears and hugged me and kept saying, “Please forgive me,” breaking down with crashes of tears.
I felt the presence of the Lord come upon me and I know the prayer warriors and friends I had on the net were praying, because the Lord's love came upon me when I spoke. I knew it was the Lord working through me.
I talked for the first time to my stepdad...as a equal...not the victim. We recited the Lord’s Prayer together. He broke down crying when we got to the part ...for you are with me...and the part...my cup runs over...
We recited together John 14 verse 6. Then I asked him, "Which of us deserves heaven?" He looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, “No one..."
I said, “You are so right, it is not what you or I have done but what the Lord did for us that matters." He agreed with this also. He also told me that when he got to heaven that he would be waiting for me to escort me to the throne of God, at which it was my time to cry again. I had broke down before this statement.... long before this.
I then got up to let him have his pain shot. He did not take the shot that morning as he always done because he wanted to be alert when I got there.
He rested...When time for us to leave, mom woke him up and said, "Bev is getting ready to leave now. Do you want to tell her goodbye?”
It took awhile to wake him up due to the medicine that usually put him under so he could rest without all the pain. He opened his eyes...I will never forget when he looked at me because he broke down again asking for forgiveness. I said, "The lord has revealed some things to you hasn't He?” To this he replied..."Yes He has."
Funny that when a person is at the door of death that is when the Lord makes Himself known right at that time. Anyway, he hugged me and held on to me so tight that my husband had to get between us so that I could get up. My stepdad had kept calling me his baby girl to which I felt nothing. I told him I was sorry, but i just did not know how to feel about him saying that after all the abuse I had suffered as a child...he cried again.
When we left, I looked back at him and he waved and smiled from his bed and said, "I will see you." My reply was, “Yes you will.” That is the last time I saw him.
After I left, he stopped taking his heart medicine. Two days later he died at 7:30 P.M. on March 25th 2002.
He was in the presence of Our Lord with a big smile on his face I am sure.
At this time, my husband and I were praying here at home that the Lord would put angels around him and that he would have no more pain and that he would be in the presence of our Lord. We had looked at the clock when we had prayed. Funny, that is when my mom said later that night that my stepdad had died... at the time we were asking the Lord to take him. Awesome, right?
Love is all that mattered when all else stayed behind and this is what will happen to us all. So focus on our Lord and His ways, for that is all that will matter when you or I am taken from this earth.
God bless you all. And I say to all that struggle "LET GO AND LET GOD" and He will have His way through you! Are you willing vessels? I hope so...He will bless your lives, as you would never believe.
P. S...I thank the Lord for making me apart of leading several children and adults to HIM. The angels in heaven rejoiced over these new babes in Christ.
May God be with you all.... And I send hugs to you all, Beverly Feb. 15, 2001
A note from the author
This testimony was written at the time I was going through my healing process. The views that I expressed about my mother were the way that I saw things through my eyes at the time and may not necessarily have been hers. At the present time, my mother and I are working on building a relationship together.
GOD Bless
Lourie and Sonya
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