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I was born in Yokohama, Japan, my mother Japanese, my Father African American - West Indian by heritage. My parents weren't married until I was about 3 years old and my father was already married when they met and had kids by 2 previous relationships. He was in the Navy and my mother raised us alone but had financial help from my dad until I was about 5 years old, then we came to the U.S. and lived as a family unit. Apparently there would have been a 3rd child, but my mother had an abortion.My dad was physically abusive to my mother from the start and was alcoholic. I remember a story told to me by my mother where my uncle (her brother)and father fought and I can only guess it was because it was because he had hurt my mother, but suffered brutally. My first language was Japanese so I came to the States unable to communicate in English. I never fit in. I do remember translating things for my mother at a young age from Japanese to English. She depended on me to do that. It was a pattern that existed at different times throughout my life time, taking care of my mother, yet being dependant on her at the same time. I became a very good reader as a result. From Japan, the first place I lived in was an all black neighborhood. I learned to speak very proper english. Then I grew up in a middle class diverse neighborhood, but predominately white. My mother came from a large family of 12 brothers and sisters. I know my mother as petite, quiet, gentle and quite submissive.My dad was large and powerful in my eyes. I believe he really didn't understand the concept of development and expected me to understand what was right from wrong without instruction or direction, so I was subject to constant surprise beatings for mistakes accidentally made. Thus unpredictability and chaos. And with that unpredictability and violence I learned to walk very carefully, I learned to not speak. I felt that if I was good enough, I could control the violence or I could stop my mother's tears.Her kids were her outlet for her pain and loneliness, but she couldn't hold back tears and we were her comfort, at least as small children we were. I know my dad would see other women and she had no way of leaving her situation, unemployed. I'm so sorry you suffered mother, you were the most beautiful woman to me and your beauty was taken from you.
I began to resent my father for hurting her. Once I remember hearing her scream as he dragged her out of bed when she was battling TB and made her clean the floors on her hands and knees.The words I love you were missing from our vocabulary. No sitting down to dinner together and being tucked into bed..…just dysfunction.So much self sacrifice, she placed on herself for us, but she loved us, without words....she could have left, but she didn't. She didn't have a voice and I also learned to not be heard. It never occurred to her to leave, why?So there is tyranny, unpredictability, severe emotional damage, distrust, anger, lack of communication and violence and I am 100% sure that I was loved by both parents. The ties were so intense, so strong - this kind of love - because the emotional chaos is always very intense, almost like an adrenaline addiction. That was love. I longed for a hold, a hug from either one of my parents, a kind touch.The rule my dad set for me growing up, after about 10 or 11 years of age was that I wasn't allowed friends and I wasn't allowed to leave the house unless it was to go to school. It was always turbulent.The isolation grew in our home as well as the violence and alcoholism and by the time I was 14 years old I ran away from home and hit the streets of San Francisco. I never understood how my brother survived. I guess he stuck it out like my mom, the severe violence, brawling with my dad. My mom eventually began to tell me how brave my brother was because he stood up to him. I heard stories like my dad breaking my brothers arm as a result of a fight. I realize now that she was trying to make amends for letting me face my situation by running. The consequences of standing up to my dad and not cowering was better than losing me to the streets again.I had lived on the streets or in juvenile detention centers for a good part of my teen years. Since I was too young to hold a job, drugs and men were my ticket to survival and money. There were times when I would ban up with a group of homeless, street musicians, con artists and we would just be together in bad hotels and I'd pay. These were all adult men (think about the sex industry and all the underaged girls on the streets - - - it's called pediphilia). I wound up providing for them either by giving them money because that was my job or by paying for the food and room because I was too lonely.But for the first time in my life I had human contact, friends and fun – so I thought. I met Johnny Masterson. I didn't even know his real name. He was the one that introduced me to prostitution and I masked the loneliness and abuse with the warmth drugs and alcohol. My lovers were lonely married men. I learned the only thing I had to offer was my body, sex; they'd get what they wanted and leave - abandon me. But it meant safety and survival. I was already too numb from the abuse from my childhood to know this was abusive.The thread of love that I could hold onto was my mother's. I would call her from time to time but would struggle with guilt when I heard her plea for me to come home. It killed her not knowing where I was for months at a time. I lied about my age and would frequently wind up in jail. I also dance the strip clubs in San Francisco. I had all the alcohol I wanted, one of the rewards for convincing customers into spending money was more of that warm liquid sunshine, soothing to my soul, I thought.I was gang raped in front of one of my 'girlfriends' and was left on a beach by her, her boy friend and the group of men there. It took two days before I actually heard the sounds of cars and the ocean - before I 'retuned' to my body'. I couldn't feel betrayal and rejection because I was already so empty and numb. By the time I was 16 I had been raped several times.My life was compartmentalized and the good girl returned home and at the age of 17 I returned to school and by the time I was 19 I had entered College. I studied dance, got a degree in dance and psychology and made my mother happy, giving her a false hope that finally my life had changed. But these were external, just bandages.After I graduated I still had that emptiness and loneliness and pain. I had no sense of purpose or direction. I went back to dance in the strip clubs and danced, driven by fear and I knew I could always survive there. That's where I found cocaine and met Lloyd, a heroin junkie. He loved to shoot up anything and was as violent as my dad was. I became addicted to shooting up cocaine and that was my journey to the bottom of my drug use. I wound up in places I never thought I would go.All of my life really was about self destruction and self hatred ....no matter where I was. I never fit in and the emptiness and loneliness only intensified. I surrendered my life to so many different people, places and things but never found lasting fulfillment.My life was always compartmentalized. I had these secrets, but the good girl tried hard to hold my life like a thread holding a garment together.Dancing was my God given gift, I believe everyone has one. I used it to dance red light districts in San Fransisco. I also danced professionally in a Broadway musical and local professional dance companies for 'real' art.I tried to save myself by doing the right thing. I eventually married and tried different types of spiritual paths briefly. I still never felt satisfied.My concept of God the father was my earthly father, the one that punished me, the one that wouldn't listen to my cries, the one that was unpredictable and that I couldn't trust. The one that didn't protect me, the one that couldn't say those words - I LOVE YOU. I would tell myself God loves me – like a mantra and I worked hard at tryng to do the right thing.Galatians 2:16 Yet we know that a person is put right with God only through faith in Jesus Christ, never by doing what the Law requires.
2:20 so that it is no longer I who lives, but it is Christ who lives in me. This life that I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.2:21 I refuse to reject the grace of God. But if a person is put right with God through the Law, it means that Christ died for nothing!Jesus did a miraculous thing saving me from drugs and alcohol and I was so grateful for his mercies, always thinking about Him and thanking Him every moment of the day. Then a short time after my salvation I married a man that loved God - right the bible say no sex outside of marriage? I'm sorry if I am not giving this a glorious ending at this point, but I made so many mistakes. But God's hand has always been on me; as you can see I'm hard of hearing. So if I had truly become a christian, why was I so empty? God delivered me from drugs, alcohol and sexual sin. I was doing everything right, I married, I lived the 'other' life, went to church - everything looked so good, from the outside in. I really thought that what I did, those things that I worked at would fix things. I didn't understand that I still needed God's help after I became clean and sober because I became a Christian. I was working really hard to hide my secrets from my past, I went back to school and became a registered nurse (I prayed about that and believe it was God's will) but these moments where I would allow God in were far and few between. I worked at it.... I volunteered, I worked with children teaching dance classes. I worked really hard at my relationship with my husband but that had failed too and I was in so much pain. So I entered into self-help and brief stints of therapy (more work - it is funny - I'm still not getting it).Nowhere did Jesus ask me to carry the burden, nor did he ask me to clean myself up. The stain of shame held me captive and the faulty concept I had of God kept me from RELATIONSHIP with a loving God as it was meant it to be- by the power of the HOLY SPIRIT. I had only surrendered one part of my life to Him. You see there were obvious sins that I needed forgiveness from, the sexual sin, the drug abuse. I didnt know that sin simply meant sepration so when I only gave God parts of me, I was still separated. And as for sin - they are all equal in God's eyes .... I still had pride, doubt, self centeredness, self sufficiency, distrust, struggles with abandonment chaos and depression and I didn't know how to love or give - where was this fruit? I hated men but mostly I hated my feminity, I despised being a woman and I wanted to die. I was so fearful of trusting God, so how could I be victorious? I used to seek God to work in my life AFTER I decided what the plans were going to be. One thing I know in reflecting back, anything good that was given to me was given to me by God, during those times I had no where else to go and I would look to HIM.
Ever see the Mel Gibson movie the Passion of Christ? There was so much grumbling about the violence - better to watch a really good movie like Gothika - right? But it was during the movie Passion that the Holy spirit gave me the foundational John 3:16 revelation and I saw Jesus take the beating and they kept hurting him and they wouldn't stop and then I realized that HE LOVED ME so much - I had to give, I surrendered ALL, I quit beating myself up, otherwise everything he did for me was in vain, what an insult to God. HE did it all, he was wounded for our transgressions...in this beautiful, beautiful vision I saw what my wrists would look like with razor marks on them being transfered to a vision of his hands shedding blood.... in my place - so I didn't have to and by HIS stripes I was healed.God is merciful to cover all failures and brokenness – but for the Grace of God - HE never ever left me, I left HIM many times, but He never forsake me and He alway received me with his outstretched arms.God forgave me, I forgave myself and I have been able to forgive my earthly father. I have been able to forgive the men that raped me and used me, but more than that I understand, I have been able to see inside of their hearts, their lives, I've seen the prisons that they are bound to and I have compassion.Fear not, you will no longer live in shame. The shame of your youth and sorrows of widowhood will be remembered no more, for your Creator will be your husband....The Lord Almighty is His NAME..He is your Redeemer, the Holy One of Isreal, the God of all the earth (Isaish 54:4,5. God today is my loving Father, my best Friend, My Beloved, my Provider, my Healer,and I love HIM more than life itself.....HE is the kindest, gentlest, most consistent, loyal, caring person you will ever know.An estimted 27 million people are held in slavery worldwide, meaning there are more slaves in the world than were taken from Africa during 300 years of the trans-atlantic slave trade.//Annually between 700,000 and 4 million people are bought and sold as prostitutes, sex slaves, domestic workers, child laborers and child soldiers. This includes children as young as 4.//Each year, more than 1 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade.//At any given time, more than 300,000 child soldiers are exploited in armed conflicts in more than 30 nations. More than 2 million have died in the last decade or seiously injured.//In the U.S., estimates of people trafficked annually range from 14,000 to 20,000.//Every 10 minutes, one person is trafficked into the U.S. Worldwide, a victim is exploited every 10 minutes.// In India, 45,000 children go missing every year./From 2001 - 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice's Civel Right Division secured 238 convictions and guilty pleas and opened 639 new investigations.//In the first half of fiscal 2007, the Civil Rights Division obtained 36 convictions involving human trafficking, charged 26 other defendants and opened 60 investigations.VIEW CLIP BELOW:STOP THE HURTING AND INJUSTICE - GOD CALLS US TO TAKE A STAND...IF WE DON'T SPEAK UP FOR THE VICTIMS, WHO WILL?'SEEK JUSTICE, ENCOURAGE THE OPPRESSED. DEFEND THE CAUSE OF THE FATHERLESS, PLEAD THE CASE OF THE WIDOW'....Isaiah 1:17
GOD IS CALLING HIS PEOPLE TO PRAY:AND TO PRAY HARD:FOR HEALING IN THE LAND
for leaders who will help put an end to trafficking,
for people who will write letters to congress, state legislators and news media, to educate, for orphanges and shelters for the children to feel safe in and for healing from thier brokeness by meeting the loving Father.....
