AMAZING STORY
How Leah Found Her True Worth
By Robert Hull
The 700 Club
CBN.com -“Nobody was worthless more than me. I was worthless. I was nothing,” says Leah.
When she was a little girl, Leah Smith got her identity from the abusive hands of her father.
Leah remembers, “We were all scared of him. Mama was scared of him… When he whipped us, he would really get out of control. So I took all the whippings. And I said it was me so my sisters wouldn’t get hurt.”
By the age of fifteen she had married a man who took the abuse to new levels.
“Every man that I married was like my father. I thought that they loved me. I thought it would be it, the love of my life,” says Leah. “They would save me from everything – and that’s not how it happened at all. I got abused. I got beaten. I’m lucky I’m alive. I just was hurt – physically, all the time. I always expected to get hurt. I was looking, trying to fill this void. I had emptiness. Yet I –I wanted love.”
Leah eventually married seven times. With each marriage came more abuse. The mental and physical torture got so bad with one husband she wanted to die.
Leah shares, “I was played Russian Roulette with, and I would cry and beg him not to kill me. I’d be on the floor hugging his leg, ‘please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.’ It gave him pleasure to watch me beg for my life. I felt just like all the beatings I got – worthless. I thought that was my life.”
She turned to heroin and other drugs for temporary escape from the misery that was her life
“After a while, I got addicted. I got addicted. And just wanted it. I had to have it. And then I couldn’t get off of it,” says Leah.
Leah went into prostitution to get money for drugs. Any sense of normal life crumbled and before long, she had nothing.
“I was homeless. I was in 20 below zero,” Leah remembers. “I couldn’t even stay in somebody’s garage to keep warm. I couldn’t get washed clean. I mean, I’ve gone in a dumpster to dig for food because I was hungry. I was skin and bones. I looked very bad. I looked like death walking.”
After years of drug abuse and living on the streets, she promised her dying mother she would get clean. With the help of her sister she entered a rehab facility. During that time a friend brought her a Bible that Leah had given away years earlier. Leah saw this as a gift from God.
“God brought it to me in the rehab. He sure did,” says Leah. “And I started reading it and I never put it down. And I finally got it. At first it was hard for me to understand because I was so high. And that food, that spiritual food, came in me. And I started living it; I started believing it. I got empowered by His word because it says His word is alive. I was filled with God’s word. The food for the life that you need for your soul – I had that.”
She was set free from drug addiction and says light and hope entered her life like it never had before.
Leah shares, “I had to do a lot of forgiving. I forgave everyone that ever hurt me. I made sure of it. Every one of the husbands that almost killed me – I forgave them. My father, I forgave. It took everything off of me. I had no burdens. I don’t worry. I don’t think about travels. I praise God in the storm. You can love everything when you’ve got Christ in your life.”
The Bible that she received in rehab continues to speak God’s love to her today.
“I have taped it together. I have wrote all over it. I studied it. I’m still studying it. I don’t let it out of my sight,” says Leah.
Leah concludes, “He is so good to me. He loves me so much and I know He loves everybody like He loves me. He’s waiting patiently for everyone that calls on His name. He wants you. He wants us.”
CBN IS HERE FOR YOU!
Are you seeking answers in life? Are you hurting?
Are you facing a difficult situation?
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
