She Only Knew Survival, Until She Knew His Voice

“I was living with my brother, strung out on crack cocaine. I was so tired of fighting over the drug. I was so tired of working and feening just to get high. It was horrible.”

Lucha Cabrera’s life began in brokenness. By the age of five, she had no memory of a stable home, no knowledge of a mother…only a father who abandoned her repeatedly. Left in the care of a strange woman and her grandchildren, Lucha endured unspeakable abuse, molestation, and humiliation. She was being treated like a dog—eating on the floor while others sat at the table. Lucha’s childhood innocence was destroyed. She was molested nearly every day for five years.        

By age twelve, Lucha was sexually active, addicted to cocaine, and full of rage. Life had taught her survival, not love. As she describes, “I was feeling hate towards everybody…now I'm so sexually active that I didn't even care. I’m going behind the house, having sex, I'm going to school, skipping school, going into the woods, having sex, I was all over the place.”

For the next two years, Lucha was shuffled from one family member to another. She ended up living with an aunt, who then introduced her to witchcraft. Then three years later at 17, Lucha married an older man… not out of love, but confusion and desperation. He drew her deeper into heavy drugs throughout their volatile marriage. Then, amid her drug-filled lifestyle, Lucha found out she was pregnant. Lucha says, “I remember sitting in the corner just crying like, how could this be God? I promise I will never smoke weed again if my baby comes out healthy.” Lucha’s child was born without major issues. However, her lifestyle continued and from age 22 to 43, Lucha lived in a cycle of survival—cleaning homes by day, prostituting herself by night, all to feed her addiction and her growing family, as she had another child. According to Lucha,” I got desperate. I didn't have a car. I had no education. I don't know anything. I just was in my addiction… my life was just a rollercoaster.”  But in her grief… in her isolation… came a whisper. A soft, relentless pull toward a God she didn’t trust—but couldn’t ignore.

That whisper became a voice -- that voice became a Savior. Lucha started going to church. Shortly after, she received Christ as her Savior and so began to heal what decades of pain had buried. Also in that time, she met Marcos Cabrera. He encouraged her to change her destructive lifestyle. Though he was in prison himself, the couple eventually married. 

When he was released, he had also come to faith in Christ, and they began to build a new foundation together. The Cabreras have been married for over 8 years now. Lucha is an ordained minister, and the couple participate in ministry together. They have a message for those who feel they can never be free from their past: 

“I just encourage everyone, To know that Jesus died on the cross for us, for our sins. There's no sin greater than the other. God is here to, with open arms.  All you have to do is call on him and let him in and he will hear you and he will embrace you just as you are.