Jade - Raped and beaten.

I was born in Dagenham Essex. My mum and dad divorced when I was ten years old, and together with my sister we were left with a mum who had no self worth and a string of boyfriends. We were made to grow up fast and when I was fifteen I was raped by a boy at school. It was a terrible time in my life and I hated myself because I blamed myself for it all.

I got married when I was seventeen and two years later we had a son. My life was slowly being mapped out for me, and I didn't like the route it was taking. My husband began to hit me. After two years of physical and mental abuse I plucked up courage and ran away. I was intending to take my son with me but my husband's family had taken him away. For many weeks I tried desperately to see him, and finally I decided enough was enough. To give my son stability I went away from all the rows.

I turned into a wreck. I became anorexic and I also turned to drink and marijuana. For many years I hated myself so much I tried to kill myself three times. I felt, as if my life was going nowhere, I wanted to end all the pain I was feeling.

I began to sleep around and search for love in all the wrong places, degrading myself more and more. Since the rape I had no respect for my body and I treated it as such.

This went on for three years until I met a lovely man. He was so nice to me and he loved me for who I was, not for what he could get from me. We got married and had a daughter, Leanne. And you may think that was the end of that.

Well it would have been, except for all the guilt and shame and anger of the past. When Leanne was five months old a tragedy struck our family. Our lovely little niece Jodie, died in her sleep. I instantly blamed God even thiough I didn't believe in him. For four months I grieved for my niece by starting a charity to help other grieving families.

While all this was going on my sister had started to go to church. I went along with her mocking everyone and laughing at it all. When the vicar told me that God loved me and that He sent Jesus into the world to die for our sins and if we believe in Him we will have eternal life with Him, I found it too hard to believe. My heart and mind were hardened against God.

Then one day I saw that my sister had changed. She had become so different, and she knew exactly where Jodie was and she knew that God was with her in spirit. Well I really thought ‘enough is enough’ and I stopped going to church with her.

One Sunday I was alone, apart from Leanne lying asleep on the sofa, when I switched on the TV. To my amazement there was a man on there who was saying God forgave him all his past and gave him a chance in life to live a new way without the past pulling him down. He had also been involved with drugs and sexual abuse and now he had left it all behind.

I found myself wanting this for my own life and right there and then I asked "If there is a God, come into my life and save me" I told him all the bad things I had ever done and I asked Him to come by His spirit and live in me so I could be a new person.

When I had been talking to God and sobbing my heart out for about an hour, I felt warm inside and I remember seeing, for the first time in my life, colours like I had never seen before. It felt like someone had taken the darkness away and put brightness in its place.

I know that God is real and for five years I have followed him and asked him to take away all my past and give me a life he intended for me, and he has done just that! God has done many amazing things in my life and my husband's life, and today he is still doing great things.

My prayer is that you will let him come into your life and see him doing great things in your life too. He will free you from all your past and give you back the life you should have had. I know that no matter what happens in my life, when I die I will live with God forever and He promises "never to leave me or forsake me". There are many more promises in the Bible.