We were stopped in our tracks as we were going into shop. The electricity was out at the store. As I walked back to my car, I heard a lady say that she was not going to wait around either. I glanced in her direction and kept walking.
I took a few steps more and sensed that the Holy Spirit was leading me to ask that lady if she had a story that she would like to share. What she shared took me by surprise. What I heard over the next 40 minutes was not recorded. I listened as she shared horrific encounters and occasionally asked her brother to confirm them, which he did.
The first words she said to me were yes, she wanted to share about Jesus. Her second words were that she had been beaten, raped, and almost or did die more times that she could count. It was during one of those times that she rose above her body, over the city, and toward the kind faces she saw in the sky. She heard music that was so beautiful and felt like we each have a song written just for us. If she had that song with her now, it would be the only one that she would want to listen to. It was that beautiful.
As I gleaned from Ms. Niki’s story and saw pictures of her beaten face, I gathered that there were many nights where men would come into her apartment as she slept, drug, beat, and rape her. She would wake up the next morning with her brain boiling as she put it. She would go to the doctor with broken bones, and during this time, she had no memory of what was going on. It was not until several months into it, and she was out of the situation, that her memories started to come forward. She is in pain every day, but she said that when she wakes up, she thanks Jesus for the pain. She is glad to be alive.
She recalled that occasionally she would awaken during these assaults. It was one of these instances that she felt a stirring deep inside her, and she said that it was an angel helping her to stand. The words that came out of her told the one(s) assaulting her that they think they are doing those things to her, but they are not. I gathered that she meant that they were doing it to her Savior, Jesus, whom she relies on for all her strength. She said that there have been many times when she wanted to give up on living, but the Lord inside her, in an inaudible knowing, let her know to keep going. She said that there is nothing and no one that can separate the bond between Christ and her.
She showed me pictures of how she looked before those dark times. She talked about how she was vibrant and a different person before. The thing that Ms. Niki wants most is for her story to be heard and for nothing like this to happen to anyone else. She asks for prayer and a listening ear. Ms. Niki is beautiful. She is vibrant. She has not let anything or anyone keep her from sharing who Jesus is in her life. Jesus is her strength.
Ms. Niki’s heart was broken when she was growing up. Before her mom passed away, she went to visit Ms. Niki. Her mother said that the Lord had shown her all that happened to her in those dark times. She said that she was sorry. That was a moment of love and forgiveness.
Shared by Ms. Niki
photo courtesy of Unsplash
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