Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Charley Romani, Sarai Romani
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR000048A
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00:10 Welcome to Celebrating Life in Recovery,
00:11 my name is Cheri your host. 00:12 Sometimes we have issues that are so big we think 00:15 that God can even reach that area and 00:17 I'm telling you He can. 00:19 Come in and join us it is way cool. 00:49 Welcome back! 00:50 You know I was reading in Psalms 51 where God says, 00:54 according to your loving kindness, according to your 00:58 mercies, according to all that kind of stuff, please, 01:01 please wash me clean. 01:03 And I love that because when I came to Christ 01:06 I was such a mess and I thought, how are You ever 01:08 going to ever do this. 01:09 And it goes on to read, and I'm not going to read the 01:11 whole thing because I'm not good at that, 01:13 but I went on to read in that Psalms about all this 01:15 stuff that had happened in David's life, 01:18 and I was of course thinking about my own life. 01:20 It got to the part where it says whatever you decide 01:23 about Me, what ever Your judgments are about Me, 01:25 they are 100% right on. 01:28 Then I read that He decides that I'm not guilty. 01:33 Then he laid all that on Christ, Christ took it all. 01:36 He said I just want to wash you clean and want to 01:38 restore in you all the stuff. 01:40 I want to give you a new heart, and a new mind, 01:42 and all those kind of things. 01:44 And by the time I get to that part I'm just delighted. 01:46 I'm thinking are you kidding me, with everything in my 01:49 background you are going to restore all that back to me? 01:52 You are going to not only just fix the heart inside me, 01:56 you're going to actually give me a new one 01:58 and I'm so grateful. 01:59 Then I read this part where it says, the reason I'm 02:02 going to do that is because I want you to turn around 02:04 and help someone else, bring someone else out of the 02:08 very thing that you came out of. 02:10 Please let them know that I'm bigger than that, 02:12 let them know that I can restore you. 02:13 So right now I'm letting you know, God is bigger 02:15 than that and He can restore you. 02:17 A want to introduce you to some friends of mine 02:19 who have come from some pretty intense places, 02:22 but God is bigger. 02:25 So I wanted to say that I'm so glad Sarai you are 02:28 on the program and Charlie. 02:29 I have heard your testimony, and I have heard where 02:31 you come from, I've heard where you are, and I have 02:35 been in your place of Ministry, and been blessed by you. 02:38 but I'm going to take you all the way back, 02:40 Sarai and ask you where did you first start turning toward God? 02:45 I actually first started turning toward God at a 02:49 brothel called the Chicken Ranch, where I was an 02:51 employed prostitute, a legal prostitute 02:53 near Nevada, near Las Vegas. 02:56 But that's not really, I would have to back up because 03:00 if I just start here it will be a little confusing. 03:03 Cheri: right, and you were young at that point? 03:05 I was 21 years of age when I came to know Jesus. 03:09 Cheri: prostitute working in Vegas and so when you 03:13 say I have to go back, take us back how do you get 03:16 to that point at 21 years old? 03:18 For me how I got to that point, my mom raised me 03:23 as an Orthodox Jew. 03:25 My dad had a form of Satanism as his religion and 03:28 his lifestyle and he was also an alcoholic. 03:31 So I grew up all one side of my family, strict rules 03:37 according to the Old Testament by the book. 03:40 My mom was a severely hurt woman, had schizophrenia, 03:45 have a lot of issues that she was dealing with. 03:48 That obviously when you have a dad - so let me, 03:52 when you just say, a cause a lot of people. 03:54 Because I have a lot of junk in my own life so when 03:57 someone says my mom was schizophrenic, 04:00 are you talking about diagnosed schizophrenic and 04:02 if you are, what does that mean for somebody that 04:04 doesn't know, what does that look like in your home? 04:07 Would it look like my home is a lady who goes in 04:12 fits of severe depression were she can't get out 04:14 of bed for 3 or 4 days at a time. 04:16 When she comes out of that depression she begins 04:22 to hallucinate and she is paranoid and thinks that 04:24 people are trying to get her. 04:27 Cheri: even her children at times. 04:29 Even her children are trying to get her, her husband, 04:31 outside people from the synagogue whatever 04:34 are trying to get her. 04:35 Now that is what she was diagnosed, I don't know 04:39 that she was all that paranoid or schizophrenic in 04:43 reality knowing what I know now. 04:46 But it took some time to get to what I know now. 04:49 With my dad having a form of Satanism I was used 04:54 in several rituals that would cause him to have more 05:00 power in his group of people that he belonged to. 05:04 In these rituals he would do things like hit me 05:10 over the head on a weekly basis and crack my head 05:14 open and wait for the blood to let out. 05:16 He would take me to a graveyard and there were be a 05:20 group of people and it would take several of us young 05:24 girls, I was probably 3 or 4 years old at the time, 05:27 and they would bury us alive. 05:29 They would have a small pipe sticking out of the 05:32 coffin and they would literally go through the whole 05:34 thing of burying us and we did not realize there 05:37 was a pipe sticking through it. 05:39 It was all a part of, in their twisted little covenant, 05:43 it was more of a scare tactic type of thing to go 05:47 through the mock ritualistic things. 05:51 What is really interesting to me and I didn't know 05:53 this for a while, is that in some of those satanic 05:56 cults is that energy, that fear comes off people and 06:00 they suck it into their own person. 06:03 There is a belief that they get energy from that fear. 06:06 So the fear can't be token, it has to be realized 06:10 Sarai: it has to be real for it to count, - exactly. 06:12 You know when you said that,3 and 4 years old my heart 06:15 just went oh man, because for some reason you see it 06:19 in the movies and you don't think it is actually real. 06:22 You want to block that and say that couldn't possibly 06:25 happen and yet I'm looking at you and saying, I'm sorry. 06:29 So how did, what happened from that point? 06:32 Well I would like to explain the rituals and what got 06:36 me to the point of prostitution is there were those 06:41 type of issues, those type of things running through a 06:44 graveyard thinking there were dead bodies hanging from 06:46 trees and I am trying to escape. 06:47 and there are several children, and it's these types of 06:52 issues, having a goats inners cut out and being 06:55 placed inside of a goat with different incantations 06:59 spoken over you, things to those affects. 07:01 So on one hand I am going through this stuff and then 07:06 on the other hand with my mom, it's rigid Judaism. 07:10 It is following the ten Commandments, it is sacrifices. 07:15 Having my pet pigeons in the backyard and having them 07:18 sacrificed every time I committed a sin come every time 07:21 I spoke back to my parents - because she literally 07:24 - she literally went according to the law. 07:27 She would take my sister and I and ties to a pepper tree 07:31 out our backyard and lash us 39 times according to law. 07:35 Just things like this, she would put us in potatoes 07:39 sacks and put fireplace ashes inside of the potato 07:44 sack, and place us inside of it, and put us in a large 07:47 outdoor barbecue that is about 3 or 4 times the size of 07:50 this table, and leave us out there for days at a time. 07:53 To repent in sack cloth and ashes - wow! 07:57 Life has to appear normal, I'm sorry did you 08:01 want to say something? 08:02 Life at the same time, going to Temple would have 08:06 to appear normal. 08:07 So for me what I was able to do without knowing it, 08:13 I was able to disassociate. 08:17 When I say disassociate, I mean - God bless you for that. 08:21 - Praise God for that. 08:23 Cheri: you know a lot of people do not understand that. 08:25 You know a child coming from that much junk, if you 08:28 don't find something that is going to work for you, 08:30 you will literally die. 08:32 Because it's how can I survive this, and you said I 08:35 survive this by dissociation, but explain to us 08:38 what does that mean? 08:39 It means, look at this glass of water. 08:42 If I am going through such terrible trauma that I 08:46 can't bear it and you just think of this little 08:49 girl saying I can't believe this is happening to me. 08:50 It can't be happening, this is not real, this isn't 08:52 happening and you are just looking into this glass 08:55 and it literally can go way. 08:57 You just I would look at the light, or I would look 09:02 at something and I will go away in this other part of 09:05 me, the other part of myself would take up and 09:09 imagine itself to be strong enough to handle 09:11 whatever the pain was that was going on. 09:16 Whether it was sexual abuse at the time, the fear, 09:19 the panic, what ever it was. 09:22 At the time of my first suicide attempt where it 09:27 finally became known to other people, 09:29 I was 4 years old. 09:30 I had my first suicide attempt, I had slit my arms 09:33 from my wrist all the way up to my elbows with a steak knife. 09:37 They had to end up taking me in to a hospital to get 09:42 stitched up and that was the first time anything. 09:45 Cheri: let me just say something, before I ended up 09:48 going into nursing program and worked Psyche for awhile 09:53 I worked a children's unit and I couldn't believe when 09:56 3 and 4-year-old come into the hospital with suicide attempts. 09:59 So the only reason I want to say that is for a lot of 10:01 people they'll say no way not that young. 10:04 I'm just here to validate you, yes that young. 10:08 Kids sometimes don't even know what it means, I just 10:11 can't do this anymore. 10:13 You just said as a child I can't do this, I can't 10:17 survive one more day. 10:18 Right, and it was severe, I don't know for was on a 10:22 daily basis or every week or every few months, but it 10:26 but it was continuous enough 10:27 and it was one thing after another. 10:31 The Judaism stuff going on with my mom. 10:33 He was the Satanism stuff going on with my dad. 10:35 I had two older brothers that were sexually abusive to my 10:40 sister and I and then they would involve their friends. 10:43 We were gang raped on the way to school. 10:45 On a normal school day you would get up, make your 10:47 breakfast and get out the door. 10:49 You would walk three blocks to the school and a block 10:52 away from school there we are with five guys that are 10:56 my brothers friends coming and gang raping us and 10:59 dumping us in the large green garbage dumpsters and 11:02 piling rocks on top so we couldn't get out. 11:04 Then a garbage truck would come by and find us there. 11:08 This was a daily life type of thing, so at the age, 11:13 I could go back into a lot of different stuff but I 11:17 won't go into it were sake of time for the show. 11:19 But that is just to give you an idea. 11:21 My mom had been an actress before she was a big 11:28 movie star, singer, dancer in Spain before coming 11:31 to the United States. 11:33 It was all about performance, it was all about you 11:37 are here to please your man. 11:39 All woman is good for is having sex and you need 11:42 to be good at it, so we were trained. 11:44 My sister and I were trained that you need to 11:47 look good, you need to sound good, 11:48 this is what it was about. 11:51 That along with all of the sexual abuse stuff 11:54 going on, later getting into pornography by the 11:58 time it was 8 years old, I was in full-time 12:00 pornography with my brothers. 12:03 I finally got placed in a home for abused kids 12:09 this is after about 30 different foster placements 12:12 when it started showing in school, not being able to 12:17 concentrate, not being able to - so someone 12:21 stepped in at one time. 12:23 Sarai: Several times, at the first foster place I 12:27 was about 9 years old at the first foster placement. 12:32 It was where my parents ended up divorcing when 12:35 I was 6, but the custody battle went on all the 12:39 way until I was 15, but neither one of 12:43 them really wanted us. 12:44 In all fairness I need to say this, my mom was a 12:47 sick lady, but she loved me with a passion which is 12:52 really hard for some people to understand. 12:54 She loved me more than anyone could ever imagine 13:01 and there is something about who I am now that came 13:05 from what ever lovingness I have in me, 13:08 that has stayed with me came from her. 13:11 She is dead now, she committed suicide when 13:14 I was 21, but I wanted to put that in there 13:17 as part of my testimony. 13:18 Your mom, it sounds like she tried to do the best she could 13:23 through this schizophrenia, through the mental 13:25 illness and I just want to say thank you for saying 13:27 that because a lot of people really struggle with that. 13:31 A lot of people really want to do the right thing, 13:33 want to say the right thing, want to love their kids. 13:35 They are twisted with generational mental illness. 13:39 See this is how I see it, I think that my mom's heart 13:42 was that she wanted so much for us not to suffer 13:45 the way that she did. 13:46 That she wanted us to have a strong biblical foundation 13:48 and she did the best she could, but she was functioning, Her 13:53 idea of Judaism, was functioning through schizophrenia. 13:55 It was a major dysfunction, it wasn't true Orthodox Judaism. 14:00 True Orthodox Judaism is nothing like that, 14:04 for those that practice it today, but in her heart 14:07 and her mind she really believed that she was doing us a favor. 14:12 She thought she was training us, and there's all 14:14 different religions do that, but when ever you 14:17 have rules without relationship it's going 14:21 to be a problem right? 14:22 Whenever you have law without mercy it is not going 14:26 to work, it's going to breed resentment, it will breed 14:29 something that isn't what God is all about. 14:35 True Judaism is about God, so that being said 14:42 I have to get back on track. 14:43 Cheri: and you know I'm glad, just glad you said that. 14:46 Especially you get that reality on top of that 14:50 a lot of us deal with, we are a little tweaked, 14:53 we're bipolar, we've got a little bit of depression from 14:56 family generations and then you add religious 14:58 into the mix of that and you haven't brought 15:01 that just said God help me and got into a true 15:05 relationship that everything gets tweaked. 15:08 That sounds like that happen with your mom and 15:10 definitely with your dad the whole Satanism, you 15:13 were just in the middle of all that. 15:15 So I ended up being placed in, I don't know keeping 15:18 track, but somewhere between 20 and 30 foster homes. 15:21 It didn't work out, I was shut down and just 15:26 rock on a bed back-and-forth and not speak. 15:29 I was a self-elected mute for a very long time, 15:32 things to that affect. 15:34 The last placement I was back with my mom, 15:38 and I don't know what the surrounding situation was. 15:41 She had tried to kill me, to smother me with pillows and 15:45 stuff and my sister got involved and called the police. 15:48 That was the last time I was ever at home. 15:51 From there I got placed in home for abused kids, 15:54 and in this home I was in it turned out to be a 16:00 cover, also, for a Satanic occult. 16:02 But it was more on the New Age level of stuff. 16:06 So what do you mean by that? What did that look like? 16:09 That look like the officer of the day, which is the one 16:12 who kept rounds of the premises, he came to me whenever 16:21 somebody was being disciplined, for something or watched, 16:28 suicide watch, any of these things you are put in a room 16:30 with a counselor, house parent, an officer of the day. 16:33 A moment took place where the officer of the day and I 16:38 were in the room at the same time, where we shouldn't 16:40 have been there by ourselves. 16:42 He very quickly made comments to me, and he said, 16:47 you're my princess and you are not of this world, 16:52 but I'm going to show you who your real family is, 16:56 and if you really want to meet them you will have 16:59 to go through me. 17:00 Then that was it, it was that quick of a interview 17:06 type of thing that he had with me. 17:07 That was the very start. 17:09 After a long period of a couple years, I had learned 17:13 Astra Body Projection and all this other stuff. 17:17 At least part of me had. 17:18 So there is the main Satanism and there is that also 17:24 so I was one confused puppy, but the thing is 17:28 I'm so compartmentalized. 17:32 When you and I were talking that I'm very controlling. 17:34 Well I'm a very controlling person but you have to 17:41 understand in my mind this part of me deals with 17:46 physical pain, this part of me deals with emotional 17:48 pain, this part of me deals with religious aspects, 17:50 this part of me, it is all compartmentalized and 17:54 that is what makes up a multiple personality. 17:57 That's how you survived - that's how I survived 17:59 what I was going through. 18:01 The bad part about that is that you don't know, 18:04 I could be talking to you and have a conversation, 18:09 but the next minute I am not me anymore. 18:12 I'm somebody else and having a conversation with him 18:15 and I have no recollection of who you are, 18:18 or who I was five minutes ago. 18:20 So my life from my earliest memories is what I call 18:26 waking up and then you have to just cover up for 18:29 why you weren't there. 18:31 I could be in school and I'm trying to play catch-up, 18:34 because as far as I know I just got there. 18:36 Something triggered me, somebody walked up behind me, 18:41 scared me and made another part of my mind switch over. 18:45 And now I'm somebody else trying to say okay I recognize 18:50 this room, I don't know what day it is, I don't know 18:54 don't know what we're talking about, but it went like 18:58 that my whole life. 18:59 Okay, at the age of 21, well let me just back up 19:05 a little bit more. 19:07 This was my life and an issue happened at the home 19:15 I was in, okay, for abused kids. 19:17 For whatever reasons I believe that I was about to be 19:24 made to disappear, because I was catching on to some things. 19:27 I was starting to talk to God for the first time and 19:32 I was starting to realize... 19:34 Cheri: let me just ask you Sarai, when you say 19:37 starting to talk to God, where do you think that 19:40 God was in any sense a part of the picture, 19:44 or did your mom give you enough of the face of God 19:46 that you can move in and say God. 19:49 Sarai: I don't know she gave me a face of God, 19:51 I think my mom, I think between my mom and my dad both 19:58 I got the gist that God was there and Satan was there, 20:02 and both were very powerful. 20:04 I didn't know which side was which. 20:06 Okay, it was the typical view of the sacrifice, 20:16 you must sacrifice yourself type of view of God, 20:20 but there was some sane part in me still 20:24 that I believe God put there. 20:26 A part that cries out to Him, you know how the 20:28 Bible says that God has given everybody 20:29 a measure of faith, okay. 20:32 With that little measure that I had in me at about the 20:37 age of 16 or 17, I would be sitting outside smoking a 20:41 cigarette and looking at the heavens and seeing those 20:44 stars and saying why am I like this, why? 20:48 It was just the beginning, I never stayed for an answer. 20:51 It was the questioning began, okay - Amen. 20:54 I think that is the first time I remember looking back 20:59 now that I can say God started my recovery at that point. 21:04 He started interjecting in my life and it was at the 21:08 very first time I started asking. 21:10 Cheri: you know I'm going to be brazen enough to say you 21:14 recognized Him at that point, because I think that I 21:17 look back and I think He was there so long before that. 21:21 Sarai: oh He was, I didn't mean it to be like that it 21:23 just was where I could physically see issues were God 21:26 was really intervening, there have been other things 21:29 that He was doing all along which I will bring up later, 21:32 but if I can say that's where it actually started 21:36 just a little bit. 21:37 In a foster home, smoking cigarettes 21:39 - in a home for abused kids, it's an institution. 21:41 I didn't get any help anyway I was fearing for my life. 21:46 I started to realize that a whole occult thing was 21:50 going on and I was starting to pull away. 21:53 I was saying I don't want this, I don't want to be 21:55 like this and I started to pull away. 21:59 I needed to run away, I was fearing for my life. 22:02 I got married to a kid from school, first guy I could 22:07 find it would run away with me physically and marry me. 22:11 During that time, the first year we were together, 22:15 right after we're married he went to boot camp and 22:19 decided to drop out of school, his mom was going 22:21 to sign him into the Army. 22:22 He goes, during the first three months he was 22:26 in boot camp, his mother was murdered. 22:28 She was stabbed over 70 times and his little 12-year-old 22:33 brother was almost completely decapitated. 22:36 He blamed me and said if it hadn't been for me 22:39 he would have been there to protect his mom. 22:41 It just seen my life seem to go from 22:44 one trauma to another. 22:46 Cheri: I just have to say that there are people 22:51 in the café and watching is that what I have seen 22:55 happen in my own life in other people's lives is 22:58 that where are so traumatized and so chaotic and so 23:00 dysfunctional that the only people I draw into my life 23:06 are people that are chaotic and 23:07 dysfunctional and traumatized. 23:09 So when somebody says my life went from one trauma 23:11 to the next is because of that. 23:13 Because as soon as God pulls us out and we become 23:16 healthier it's almost like we pull in people that 23:18 are healthier and the trauma decreases some. 23:21 So if you feel, if you're watching and you feel that 23:24 your life goes from one trauma to the other, 23:26 one chaos to the other just know that that 23:29 is common for all of 23:30 us and God says I promise you, I promise you that 23:34 I want to bring you out of that. 23:36 So I just wanted to say for a lot of us we think 23:39 what is wrong with me? 23:41 And I am sure Sarai you were sitting there and 23:43 saying what is wrong with me, why is it that there is 23:46 one more thing and one more thing and one more thing. 23:48 Actually to me it was normal life, to me and I hate 23:54 to say but it's true, I can look back now and say 23:57 wow I can't believe my life was like that. 23:58 But at the time from where I come from has 24:01 followed suit for where I was at. 24:03 But I went through that, we stayed together, he wanted to 24:11 have a baby really badly, and I wanted to have a baby. 24:14 Turned out I couldn't have children. 24:16 He got one of my best friends pregnant, let me just 24:21 stop here and say, every man that I had ever known in 24:25 my life, every woman I had ever known in my life was 24:28 sexually dysfunctional. 24:30 There was not one person that I know of that wasn't 24:34 perverted sexually in one form or another. 24:37 This was huge to me, alright, because my mother had 24:43 instilled in me that all woman is made for is to 24:46 sexually please her husband and keep him there, okay. 24:50 And it is all about what she looks like and how she can 24:52 perform, so not been able to have children was huge. 24:55 That was a real even trying to make it in a 24:59 non-abusive world, trying to get out of that 25:03 seemed impossible to me because of my view how people are. 25:08 So I went from that husband and ended up getting a 25:14 divorce from him and with it a few weeks as married 25:16 again to my second husband. 25:18 He ended up seeking, he was in the Army, 25:23 we got stationed in Las Vegas. 25:25 He started seeing prostitutes, and my way of 25:28 vindicating myself is well if you'd rather pay money 25:33 to see a prostitute, then I'll just become one. 25:35 If that's what you want, if that's what it takes then 25:39 that is what I need to become. 25:41 I was so used to trying to become perfect, what ever I 25:45 needed to be too pleased whoever I was with, 25:47 that's what I did. 25:48 So that is how I ended up in a brothel. 25:51 Cheri: can I say can I say little bit about this 25:54 disassociate disorder now are people are not going to 25:56 understand this, and I understand you too well. 25:59 But a disassociate disorder is when you disassociate 26:03 and become the prostitute, or the dancer, or the church 26:09 secretary, what ever it is your personality takes on, 26:12 you take that on with absolutely no moral questions. 26:15 You know what I mean, so it is like as you step in you 26:19 don't step in with a right or wrong, you step in as 26:21 this is what a prostitute is and this is how it is 26:23 and how you look and how you perform. 26:26 Should dissociate became that, it added that to your 26:30 group, then I just wanted people to know that this is not 26:33 a right or wrong decision, 26:34 this is you are this and you are good. 26:37 So here I am in the brothel and here's the next big 26:46 phase, or big thing that happened. 26:48 Over the years, I believe that all the demonic 26:56 activity that was going on in my life had so attached 26:59 itself to me that I was demon possessed. 27:03 In that demon possession, because it seem like 27:06 something beyond myself, okay there was an anger and 27:09 rage that was beyond me and I don't know 27:11 how else to explain that. 27:13 But it's like being a multiple, you're one altar behind, 27:17 you are one step back from whoever is at the surface 27:20 doing life, okay. 27:21 But there felt like there was something else 27:23 guiding you or pushing you. 27:25 I knew that it was demonic. 27:28 one night I went out to the pool area at the brothel 27:32 and I talked to God probably for the first time that I 27:38 had actually had a real prayer, a real hitting the 27:42 breaking point for me. 27:43 I had been planning to commit mass murder of all the 27:50 people that I felt ever hurt me in my life, 27:52 or who had failed me. 27:53 I have been collecting an arsenal of weapons I kept in the 27:57 trunk of my car, but there was a part of me that 28:01 didn't want to do that, but I felt so pushed, so 28:05 compelled constantly. 28:07 Whether it was through nightmares, or the voices, 28:09 or whatever, but they were not voices on the outside, 28:11 like schizophrenic voices on the inside. 28:14 So with whatever sanity I felt like I had left, 28:19 I think of the demoniac, you know that he's somehow 28:23 communicated this to the Lord too, but he wanted help. 28:27 Cheri: That little tiny particle - that little tiny 28:29 particle, that little seed of faith knowing that God gave 28:33 that little measure as small as a mustard seed is all it took. 28:36 But I cried out every God's name that I had ever 28:40 heard and said this is my plan. 28:41 I do not know what I do with my life, I don't know how I got 28:46 myself to this place. 28:47 I don't understand anything but I need the real God to 28:51 please stand up, if You can do something with my life, 28:54 I'll serve you forever. 28:56 I cried out Satan's name, Allah, Buddha, everything 29:02 that I could think of and I didn't cry out Jesus 29:05 because I had been raised to believe that Jesus was 29:07 just a false prophet and that He was the enemy. 29:11 And that He had no power and somewhere in me knew 29:15 that Satan had more power than Jesus, at least 29:18 in my opinion at that time. 29:20 Cheri: isn't that weird how the devil does that? 29:23 It really is but look what God did! 29:25 It was like a movie screen flashed in front of my face. 29:29 I don't know if that was a trance or what anybody wants 29:31 to call it, I don't care but it was a movie screen in 29:34 front of my face and I saw those little yellow VW bug, 29:37 car and it had a bumper sticker on the back that says 29:40 smile Jesus loves you. 29:42 Well you know I'm a bumper sticker girl... 29:46 Cheri: how funny is that? 29:48 Because God use that of all things, of all the things that 29:53 God could use, God used that for me and it was incredible. 29:57 And I said okay Jesus too, what ever or whoever the real 30:01 God is please stand up I'm going to give you 3 days 30:03 and then I am going to go out and commit this act. 30:06 I was going to commit the murders and then suicide. 30:08 So my heart and mind were made up, I threw out my 30:12 cigarette and went back inside and went to work. 30:15 Got a couple hours sleep, got up for the morning 30:18 shift and the working girls had their own kitchen 30:22 and in our kitchen we have a phone booth. 30:24 In that phone booth there was a number that only 30:28 the working girls knew, you personally had to give 30:31 out that phone number. 30:32 I had been in Alabama with the military in my 30:36 ex-husband and stuff and so I had a real strong 30:39 Alabama accent at the time when I begin working. 30:42 The name Bammer kind of stuck as my working name, 30:46 so only people that really knew me knew to call me 30:50 Bammer and knew that phone number. 30:52 Well that next morning, that was 3 hours after I had 30:55 prayed that prayer, I went in to breakfast and the 30:58 phone rang and one of the other girls answered the 31:00 phone and said, Bammer the phone is for you. 31:03 I'm thinking who's calling me, my husband isn't going to 31:06 call me, it's not his time to call. 31:09 So I went to the phone, the voice on the phone says 31:13 you don't know me and I can't believe I am calling you, 31:17 I can't even believe there's a Bammer, the person was 31:20 just tweaked mentally over the fact that there 31:24 was this person, she says all I know is that I became 31:28 a Christian a year ago and I have been praying for a 31:31 year that God would use me and God gave me this name 31:35 and this phone number and told me to tell you that 31:36 Jesus heard your prayer. 31:38 And I said who is this? 31:42 And they were not the words that I used 31:45 - and you know even as I'm saying that I just want 31:48 to say I so have a crush on God, how could you not 31:50 love Him for that? 31:52 Oh you can, but she said, after I said who is this, 32:01 she said my name is Lisa and when she said that I hit 32:09 the floor because I knew from her saying her own name, 32:13 if you ever have a sister or brother that says your name 32:15 all the time and they have a special way of saying your 32:18 name that you know it is them. 32:20 That person turned out to be my sister who I had not seen for 32:24 years, because she had run away and left me behind. 32:29 She had been my protector for so many years through 32:32 all the abuse, but she saw her moment when she hit 32:35 13 and she bailed. 32:36 She became a Christian a year earlier and had been 32:41 praying for me, - not knowing it was you 32:44 - praying for me not knowing it was me. 32:45 And she called that payphone and God had given it 32:48 to her prophetically, and she called that payphone 32:50 and said Jesus heard your prayer. 32:52 When I finally stood up and realized this is Lisa isn't it? 32:58 And she said, shut up, long story short she was in 33:05 Ridgecrest California and it was my week off that was coming up 33:11 from the brothel and I flew out there and went to see her. 33:15 One of the first thing she did was take me through 33:17 the prophecies in Isaiah, because when we were raised 33:21 as Jews right, we had to memorize a quarter of the book 33:24 of Isaiah in Hebrew for our Bat Mitzvah. 33:28 So they left out much of the prophecies of Jesus. 33:33 We weren't giving that version - exactly. 33:36 So she took me through and she said look what they 33:39 left out, because that were somewhere my mind still had 33:40 it memorized, because you have to do the chanting thing 33:44 word is called cantering and you have to learn all that. 33:47 So she took me through Isaiah and showed me the 33:50 prophecies, and she took me through the road to Romans 33:52 and showed me what my salvation was going to depend on 33:57 me looking at what Jesus had done for me. 34:00 Then she took me through the book of Revelation and 34:03 scared the daylights out of me. 34:06 According to what I had believed and she had believed at 34:10 the time about Hell being a place and not an event. 34:17 The next day she said would you please come to church 34:20 with us, that was a Saturday that I was there and Sunday 34:24 we went to Little Pentecostal Holiness Church and I 34:26 ended up giving my life over to Lord at that time, 34:30 I literally crawled up the aisle of her small little church. 34:35 I had like 3,000 dollars in the back of my pants 34:38 pockets and I don't know much about little churches 34:42 but they really struggle for money. 34:44 This pastor was incredible because he said, 34:48 he took an offering at the end 34:51 I'm already up there crying and 34:52 said the sinner's prayer. 34:53 You know I'm wanting Jesus and I pull out 3,000 out of 34:58 my back pocket and his hand goes, honey, and his hands 35:00 shaking and he's going I can't take this. 35:02 He's saying, because you know what Jesus will never ever 35:08 forgive me if I ever give Satan a foothold to think 35:11 that you purchased your salvation. 35:13 That stayed with me all through my Christian life. 35:18 Cheri: we are going on a break just because I wanted 35:22 to say that I want to come back and get into exactly how did 35:27 God take this child, that is fragmented, 35:31 that is disassociated, just so damaged and 35:35 how did integration happen, and how did healing happen. 35:38 That is my favorite part about God because I just think 35:40 that each one of us has this junk. 35:43 You definitely have more junk than the average bear you know 35:46 that so I'm just going to - I got more joy too so it's 35:50 okay - I love that, I love that. 35:52 You know I just wanted to say we're going to take a 35:54 break right now I feel like I need to take a breath, to 35:59 take a breath and come back and hear what God does with 36:02 all this, it's incredible it's incredible. |
Revised 2014-12-17