I was sexually abused from the time I was a newborn baby until I left home at 17, by my parents, my grandparents, cousins, brothers, brothers friends, uncles, neighbors, friends of the family and so on. There were very few adults in my life that did not molest me. When I was 12 my father got me pregnant and was furious because I had gotten pregnant. My mother set me up with a phony argument so she could send me out to the fields (we lived in the country) where my father just happened to be waiting on me. He beat me severely with a tree limb, ensuring that not only did I lose the baby but that he was able to take out, on me, any anger he had. My mother then spread rumors that I had a miscarriage, just in case people would suspect them. I missed the last 3 months of the 7th grade because of the complications. They did eventually get me medical help but it messed me up internally until I finally got a hysterectomy at age 39.
By the time I left home at 17, I was already beat down so bad that I ended up getting married to someone I didn’t want to marry but I did not know how to get out of it. By my family’s actions toward me, they had invalidated “my feelings” and opinions so that I had no confidence in myself. Basically, by their abuse they had told me that I didn’t matter and was not worthy of even being called a human being. So I spent the next 30+ years in an abusive marriage that I could not get out of.
Ironically it was my husband (now my ex-husband) that got me started in the church where I would eventually find the Lord Jesus Christ and the walk I now have with Him. My husband might cuss me out on the way to church, and beat me up on the way home, but he nagged me incessantly to go to church. It took me many years to finally accept the Lord because I did not see anything in my husbands “god” that I wanted anything to do with. At 35 I finally accepted Jesus into my heart but it would still be a few more years before I got serious about my walk with Him.
When I did get serious about Him, He taught me how to step-by step, day-by-day learn how to trust Him. Believe me that took a few years, I didn’t trust anybody, let alone some God that I could not see. But for several years, He gently and persistently pursued me. He never gave up on me, and He didn’t condemn me. Yes, he disciplined me, but not like the rest of the world had done. When I would want to quit, or when hope seemed small, He talked to me through other people, to me and through His Word. He got me studying His Word and standing on His promises until one day I realized they were buried deep inside of me and no one could steal them from me.
He then begin to teach me how not to walk in fear of my husband. Eventually, while my husband was busy with pornography and other women, God brought me out. He miraculously provided me with a place to stay and with a job I was not qualified to do, but had the income I needed to be able to support myself. I had never been on my own before and here I was almost 50 years old. God taught me how to use His Word for protection, guidance and healing. God provided me with a mentor and prayer partner who helped me to learn even more about God and how to hold onto Him, trusting Him to take care of me and heal me. There is no doubt in my mind that without God, I would not have made it. There was no hope, no joy and no reason to live. I was just “existing”. It was difficult to forgive those who had abused me and many times I have had to give it over to God to help me. Today, God has taken the sting out of my past. He has given me hope and put joy in my heart. He has given me reason to live! Glory to His Name forever and ever!
God is now using me to tell my story, to tell what happened to me in my childhood and in my marriage but especially to tell what He alone has done in me and in my life. God has turned my life around and blessed me in ways I never imagined possible. He has taught me that with Him, the impossible becomes possible.
God is now helping me to set up a website to help tell my story. God provided me with the name for my ministry and website. The baby that my dad beat out of me, God took to heaven. God named my baby Ezekiel and told me Ezekiel’s job was to prepare the way for God to remove my heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh (which He is doing). May the praise go to my Lord and Savior for ever and ever. Amen!
Barbara Johnson
Ezekiel Heart of Flesh Ministries
Ezekiel 36:26… I will remove from you your heart
of stone and give you a heart of flesh
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