AMAZING STORY
Melissa Hustead Finds True Love
By Shannon Woodland
The 700 Club
CBN.com -Melissa Hustead learned early that a smile can hide the pain, or the truth. The truth was, she was molested when she was six by someone she trusted. Threats kept her quiet. She was violated three more times by the time she was eleven - and again, kept silent. “I felt not normal, not good. I wasn’t lovable because the people that were supposed to love me hurt me.”
As a teen, Melissa discovered that drinking gave some relief. She also had numerous boyfriends, even though she refused to have sex with them. “I think because of being molested, I was scared to death of any kind of sexual anything. I didn’t want that kind of experience, I wanted to be loved and I knew that wasn’t love.”
Melissa went through counseling and looked for answers in church. But, she was still unable to talk to anyone about the abuse. Even though she had become a Christian she still looked to men to make the pain go away. So when she was out of high school, she thought the only solution was to marry.
Melissa remembers, “I looked for a husband. I found husband number one that didn’t know anything about God and couldn’t love me the way I should be loved - the way I wanted to be loved. So those were my destructive choices, ‘OK, so this one didn’t work, let’s try again. This one didn’t work, let’s try again,’ - three times.”
When Melissa’s third husband left, she lost all interest in finding another man. She was overwhelmed with fear for her two kids because soon they would have nowhere to live. Melissa called out to God for help. I felt like, ‘This is it. There’s nothing redeemable left of this life. There’s nothing to fix and now I have two kids I’ve brought into this.’ I felt like, I can’t even make choices for myself. So, I prayed and I said, ‘God, I don’t even know if You can do anything with this life. I don’t even know if You want this life, but if You do I’ll give myself to You.”
A couple of days later, her mother called and said she was coming for a visit. Seeing her mom didn’t excite Melissa because their relationship had been strained for years. But her mom had since become a Christian, and Melissa was in for a big surprise. “When she came, she was entirely different. She just glowed with this love. She sat with me for that whole two weeks time and read the Bible with me and told me how much God loved me and even through all the choices that He wanted to redeem my life and help me live differently. I was afraid for her to leave. I remember saying to her, ‘I don’t want you to take Jesus with you.’ And she said, ‘Melissa, He lives in you.’”
Melissa has gone through her ups and downs as a single mom. But she’s found healing through counseling and the love of her Christian friends. She’s forgiven those who hurt her and knows that ultimately she had to make a decision – to believe the old lies or believe God. “He’s been going in and exposing the wounds and exposing the sin and showing me who I am and who He is. Just undoing all these lies in my mind that say that I’m not worthy, that I’m not redeemable, that I’m not lovable, that I’m not good. He has twisted that all around and says, No, no this is what My word says about you.’ And then came the choice, ‘You have to believe this. Now walk with Me or go back to this.’ And ‘this’ was never an option once I said, ‘I’m with you God,’ that’s what I meant.”
Melissa moved her family to be close to her mom and stepdad. She went on to become a hairdresser and now has her own business. Every day she reminds herself of God’s love and shares it with others. “He says that He knew me before He formed me, and He chose me and He knows everything about me, and still went to the cross with me in His heart. That’s the whole reason I wanted to share. I want people to have hope in Him.”
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