Kimberly Ray: Robbed of Innocence

CBN.com -“You don’t understand. It kills something in you. Each time something dies.

Kimberly Ray was just 3 years old the first time she was raped by her stepfather. It happened again and again for the next 6 years. "I was very depressed at that age, very sad. ‘Why did he choose me? What did I do different at that time that made him, his sick mind be attracted to a 3 year old child?’"

Her mother new about the rapes- and never said a thing. "There was one occasion where my mother was leaving for work and my stepfather had me at the top of the stairs with him, and his robe was kind of open a little bit. He was kind of messing with my hair. My mother was down the bottom of the stairs and she kind of looked at me in a look of disgust. And what I read from her eyes back then was, ‘Just do what you're going to do with her. And let it be done before I get home from work.’ That bothered me for many years.”

There was one place Kim found solace...church. And when she was nine, she gave her life to Christ. "Being in church was really wonderful. I enjoyed it very much, but I was confused. I was trying to figure out who this God the preacher was preaching about. He’s preaching about love, kindness, hope and joy, but that's not what I was hearing in my household.”

Later that year, her mother told Kim and her brothers she didn't want them anymore and sent them to live with their father, whom they had never met. "I could not believe that this woman, my mother, just dropped us off with no warning to this man. I've already slept with the men in her life, and now she doesn't want me any longer? Now she's going to give me to a man who I don't even know, and now she's going to just-just drop us off, no warning or nothing? And I remember that feeling, saying, ‘Okay, the world is going to pay now. This is it.’"

So at the very tender age of 9, sex, drugs and alcohol became Kim's obsession. She stopped going to church and started hanging out with older teens.  "I was very mature then. I had wisdom way above my age at 9½ years old, ten. I was scheming back then at that age because I started seeing things more. And I was so hurt by my mother. I didn't care."

Kim never told anyone about the abuse. Her teen years were unstable. Her actions were erratic. She lived with many different men, had 3 children, and continued to use drugs. She tried prostitution for a few months, which landed her in jail. Even in the turmoil, one thing remained constant- the emptiness she felt. "At that time, I was battling depression really bad. I was battling low self-esteem. I think I was 80 pounds. I lost so much weight there. There was no mother or father to call on. There's nobody there."

Kim decided she wanted a better life for her and her children. So after her release from jail, she took 2 jobs to provide for her family. But try as she might to move forward, drugs- and her secret past- kept their grip. The only thing keeping her going was her love for her children."They gave me something to live for. I remember thinking, ‘If I don't deal with this now, these dark secrets are going to pass on to my daughter. It's going to pass on to my son.’”

“I knew that I couldn't do this on my own. There was something in me. I knew automatically, I know I cannot raise these 3 kids on my own. It was impossible. I didn't have the wisdom how to do it. But I knew there was something greater that could help me raise these babies, and that was God."

She started going back to church. "I knew there was something that preacher was saying I wanted. I started opening more to God. I started to learn the difference between religion and relationship."

Over the next 10 years, Kim grew in her relationship with God. She quit the drugs, and a few years later married. She went to seminary and became a pastor. Yet one struggle remained. Kim was still depressed. "I didn't want to get out of  bed. I remember saying, ‘Kimberly you have to feed the kids cereal. You’ve got to get them ready for school.’ It was a fight every day to get out of bed. I still hadn't dealt with those dark secrets in my life. I was going on, ready to kill myself every single day."

One day, when her husband and children were downstairs, Kim decided to end her life. "I remember going to the bathroom, got the paper and pencil. Wrote my will and said, ‘You know, I just couldn't do it any longer. I'm just ready to check out. Had the pills ready to go. Before I left this earth I wanted to take God to every single rape, every single abuse, every single touch, every time I was abandoned. I said, ‘So God, why did you let him touch me there?’"

As she opened up to God about her past, she felt the peace she remembered as a child settle over her. The more she talked to God, the more she felt a weight lift from her. "Once I took God to those secret places in my life that I never shared with no one human on this earth. I felt a sense of peace. It was pain, but then there was peace. The peace was, I allowed the Spirit of God to come inside to heal those areas of my life. "

Kim didn't take the pills. Instead, she found a Christian psychiatrist. After lots of prayer and counseling, she overcame her depression. "It took months of therapy. I was on anti depressants still for many years. It took me months, but as I opened up to God, it became sweeter every day. It's not realistic to think that we've arrived because we're believers. That's not true. We're spiritual beings in this fleshly body.”

Kim knows that it was God who helped her overcome depression. She has written a book a bout her journey entitled, And Yet You Still Chose Me. She also travels nationally to speak about God's peace. “This faith walk works. But it only works if you open yourself up to God. It doesn't work by going to church. It doesn't work by hanging with the clique. It works by opening yourself up 100% to your Savior.”