I met a woman last night that just haunts me; her name is Shawn, she is 47 but looks very young, maybe 39 at the most; she is in fit condition, maybe 5'2" and has a pleasing face. There were three women in a corner after the service so I went up and said, "I know there is someone here that needs prayer; the gal I was looking at pointed to someone in the room but then Shawn walked right up and said she is the one. We stepped aside and sat down and she began to tell me that she has been addicted to meth since she was sixteen. I asked her how many times she had been clean since she was sixteen and she proudly said, "I've been clean for five months." I asked her age and when she said 47 I knew that this girl has experienced some horrid childhood trauma. She told me she became addicted at 16, so that meant she has been addicted for 31 continual years! I said, "I know you have experienced some terrible abuse." She nodded her head and I said, " It must have been brutal." She said yes it was and then began to tell me her story. She and her best friend were kidnapped by a group of eight thugs, handcuffed and taken to a basement where for the next two weeks they were brutally raped over and over, beaten and finally left for dead. As my mind raced to absorbed what she said she went on to tell me how her brother committed suicide, how her granddaughter, when just an infant, was smothered by her daughter-in-laws boyfriend because the child was continually crying. Her oldest son is a heroin addict and other details that my spinning head couldn't retain. I always think that I have heard the worst story there is and then comes someone like Shawn, with a story so dreadful that I wonder how she could endure it without taking  her life. As bad as drugs are, and I cannot think of a worse epidemic ravaging our culture, their pain taking effects may have spared her life. Does that seem bizarre? I wonder?

 Somehow in this battered and broken soul Christ has reached out and saved her and there was no denying His presence in her. By now my heart was, and still is, gushing with the love and compassion of Christ for this phoenix rising. We prayed, wept, hugged: I gave her an easy to read Bible, material on understanding trauma and anything else I could find. But most of all, my promise to pray for her and ask others as well. I have attached her prayer request that she filled out during the meeting.

  The last request at the bottom says, "I lost everything, personal items and my most prized belonging, the photo of my Grand Daughter that past away, I would love to have it back.