AMAZING STORY
Jessica's New Identity
By Christine W. McWhorter
The 700 Club
CBN.com
–“This guy would beat me, if he would tell me to do something and I didn’t do it. I remember one night he urinated on me.”
Jessica Smith never thought her life would end up this way, but here she was - a drug addict, with no friends, no options, and no future. And to make matters worse, she was stuck in an abusive relationship.
“I would go get my hair fixed and he poured beer on me. He would pull a gun on me. He was a drunk and all I wanted was the drugs. Because I was so messed up and broken and had no get up, no motivation, because I didn’t believe in myself anymore. All I knew was drugs. All I knew was cocaine.”
Jessica can remember when her troubles began. When she was just 14, her mother passed away. She still had her stepdad, but without her mom, young Jessica felt empty and alone.
“So I was looking for love. I was looking for that affection. And I’m thinking, I’m believing in my mindset, ‘Okay, I’ll get a boyfriend.’”
It wasn’t long before she was pregnant. After she had the baby, she and her boyfriend broke up. But then, she started dating another man and became pregnant 2 more times. She would do anything for him. She even started using marijuana just to make him happy.
“I gave out more than I would allow myself to receive. I was always pouring out because I wanted that attention. I wanted that affection. So, I did everything that I could to make him happy. I started using the drugs with him.”
But that relationship didn’t last either. Soon Jessica found another boyfriend who was in the military. He was also abusive.
“It happened again and again and again. I remember if things did not go his way, he would just smack me.”
When Jessica’s boyfriend went to serve in the Gulf war, the abuse stopped, but something else started.
“I started snorting cocaine. I was using weed and I was smoking crack ‘cause I was just loose and everywhere I would go you know we would just party and get high. Not realizing I was really hurting on the inside. So I would just use the drugs to cover up that pain-to make it go away.”
When her boyfriend returned from the war, so did the abuse. Jessica left him, only to run from one abusive relationship to the next. Meanwhile, her addiction was getting worse.
“You want out. It’s miserable. You are hurting. It’s painful and you’re lost. You want out, but you don’t know which way is out.”
Jessica opened up to a friend who explained that Jesus Christ could change her life.
“She began to describe the joy, the peace, the good time, and she talked about restoration. I can’t say I never heard that word before- but I heard it. It was like, ‘Restoration?’ Restore. You know? It caught my ear. Then she started talking about deliverance. You know like ‘Deliverance?’ It caught my ear.”
So Jessica agreed to go to church with her.
“So, that Sunday I went to church and I went to the altar and I said, ‘God, Here I am. I want to be saved. I want to know You. Because all I know about You is that You created the world and there’s a heaven and a hell.’ So I gave my life to Christ.”
Later, Jessica went on a church retreat where a leader encouraged her to spend time alone with Jesus. She called it a ‘date with God.’
“I thank God for the way she used the revelation of ‘boyfriend’, because you want so much from that boy, and she replaced him with God.”
Through classes and counseling, and with God’s help, she got off the drugs.
“There were times when I wanted to go back. There were times when I wanted to get in a relationship because I had those moments. But the Bible says ‘If you love Me, you will obey Me.’
Today, Jessica has found real love, in the Lord, her husband Jefferson, and her family.
“The Bible says if you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness - if you put God first and begin to obey Him - then everything else will fall into place.”
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