AMAZING STORY
A Broken Life Gets a Fresh Start
By Gorman Woodfin
The 700 Club
CBN.com -Traci Brewer was only three when her parents divorced. “I remember a lot of grief and pain. I was very rebellious, stubborn, and would not submit to authority.”
She spent her days skipping school and hanging out with older teens. When she was twelve, she slept with a 20 year old man. Traci was infatuated. “I made up my mind that ‘I’m going to be with him, and I’m going to marry that guy one day.’”
But he was a drug dealer, and not long after they met, he went to prison. Still, Traci was determined to wait for him. Meanwhile, she partied. “I didn’t care about school any more. I cared about drinking and (smoking) marijuana. So I just wanted to party. I wanted to have a good time. I wanted to stay out all night.”
After his release they married, but the marriage didn’t turn out like she expected. He didn’t work. And Traci’s small part time jobs couldn’t’ support both of them. So, he returned to selling drugs, and she started selling her body. “You get to a point where you don’t feel anything. You hate it inside when you’re doing it, but you have to do it. You’re just numb - you don’t think about it. We just got into this life of total chaos - of drug selling, bootlegging, things like that; prostitution so we would have money.”
Then, things became even worse. “He was very physically abusive, so I was very afraid of him. I didn’t feel like I could get away. He was never home at night; he was always gone, because that’s when dope dealers and hustlers do their thing is at night.”
The longer she stayed with him, the lonelier she became. By now he was sleeping with other women. One day she tried crack- cocaine. “My intention was to never get addicted to it. That was never my intent. It was just to fill the time while he was gone, because it was such a lonely feeling. I knew what he was doing when he was out. I knew he wasn’t being faithful. But it was a way for me to psych myself out- but it ended up in a full-blown addiction. A little turned into a little more, and a little more turned into quite a bit, until I got to the point where it was totally out of control and I just really didn’t care. I was just doing what I wanted to do. But there is always a day where you have to come and you have to face yourself and what’s going on in your life.”
Traci realized she needed to change and enrolled in nursing school. She also got off the drugs. She says she believes it was her parents’ prayers that helped her quit. “I had a praying mother and father. My dad had been praying very hard for me. He was a man of God. And so was my mom. They believed God for me.”
She graduated with honors. Soon after, her husband was busted and thrown in federal prison. They divorced, and Traci moved near her parents and landed a nursing job. But something was still missing. “I grew up in a Christian home. I knew about God, I just didn’t know God. I had enough knowledge to know that I needed God’s intervention.”
She began reading the Bible and going to church with her parents. One Sunday morning, she gave her life to Christ. “I just felt all the shame and guilt and everything that had happened to me - it all left. And I knew that I knew God was real at that point. He wasn’t a story in the Bible anymore. He wasn’t some character that you hear about. He was real and He was living and He was in me.”
Since that day, Traci hasn’t been the same. She quit prostituting and today, she is an RN. She is also an associate pastor with her husband Rod. She says she is grateful that God freed her from drugs and abuse.
“The biggest blessing in my life right now that I’m born again is probably the hope that I have in my heart. Before I received Christ, I had no hope. And I wake up every day knowing that it doesn’t matter if I die today or whatever; I have hope that I’m going to meet Jesus face to face.”
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