As a child I was subjected to daily physical, mental and sexual abuse from numerous family members. Even the spiritual world was frightening to me because my relatives practiced witchcraft within their religion. I knew that we were different, but there was nothing I could do about it, and so I inhabited a lonely and bewildering world. Our move to America from Costa Rica only deepened that loneliness. I felt as if I was destined to always be an outsider; my inability to speak or understand English was like a high wall cutting me off from the rest of the world. Even as a child I would wonder why everybody in my life seemed to want to hurt and use me. I would wonder, too, if I would ever break free, ever find someplace safe.

In my search for love and security, I made a lot of bad choices. Hoping to escape a painful family situation and thinking that I had finally found that "safe place" I had longed for, I got married at the age of sixteen to a man who proved to be every bit as cruel and abusive as my own family had been. More troubling still, I became pregnant almost immediately. Certain I wasn't yet ready to love and care for a child, I planned to get an abortion. Looking back, I can see now that it was God who stopped me from destroying my unborn baby. I did not know it then, but this child would be one of only two children who would survive my six pregnancies. Over the years I would lose four babies because of the physical abuse of the men in my life.

My marriage came to a bitter end, and I was left alone as a desperate, struggling single mother. I wanted to die and I even tried to commit suicide. Yet God did not give up on me and He graciously sent a woman into my life who understood my background and yet who did not judge me for my past sins. This woman invited me to her church, where I met Jesus in 1968. Life still wasn't easy, but I no longer felt like I was all alone.

I soon remarried, thinking I had found safety with a man who was a leader in his church. When he, too, began to physically abuse me, I turned to the church leaders for help. They didn't believe me and instead insisted that I learn how to be a "submissive wife." That marriage, too, came to a messy, painful end. Once again I was a homeless, single mother with no place to go. Hopeless and desperate, I again considered suicide my only option. But God was holding me tightly in His grip, and He reminded me of that friend who had loved me before so unconditionally. I got in touch with her, and she helped me get back on my feet. God led me to a church that taught me how to respond biblically to my past and how to trust His people again.

Even though I had asked Jesus to forgive my sins, it was long time before I could fully understand just how special I am to God, how much He loves me. I also still struggle to believe that other people really do care about me. It is God's love and forgiveness that gives me the courage to honestly tell my story today. His great power has changed me from wanting to end my life to wanting to live – for Him. He is the reason I am alive today, and I know now where I belong. The Lord is giving me the confidence and strength I need to reach out to others with His love – to the women in my church, to teenagers who feel like misfits, and to women at several nearby prisons.

All of my life I had hoped to find someone to love me as I truly am, in spite of all the wrong things I had done and the things that had been done to me, someone who would treat me kindly and lovingly, someone who would really care for me. Then, one wonderful day, my Father found me at last. When I repented of my sins, and His Son's precious blood washed them all away. I felt clean and new for the first time in my life. I learned who I truly was, the daughter of a wise, loving, and mighty King.

No matter what challenges come my way now, I know I can trust Him to see me through them all.

Excerpted from Treasures of Faith, Living Boldly in View of God’s Promises, pages 199-201.