When Hope Wins . . . There is Redemption!
Marlene’s story is an excerpt from Chapter Eight of founder Marli Spieker’s book, “When Hope Wins”
“. . . they will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.” Isaiah 61:3
“I hated my mother’s promiscuity [working in a bar, then as both pimp and prostitute], yet I soon found myself following her footsteps. I started a job as a crooner, singing at bars and nightclubs, and wore sensual clothes to attract the attention I craved. I paid dearly for that attention—often suffering sexual violence. I recall at least four times when God freed me from the powerful grip of dangerous men. Each time I thought I was going to die, but now I know it was God’s hand of love that reached down into the pit and rescued me.
My sensitive little eight-year-old sister, Adalgiza, was very traumatized by the events happening in our family. Every day she would look at a poster of Jesus I had bought and hung next to my bed, kneel down and in tears she would pray for that man in the picture to bring my parents together again. She did not know who she was praying to, but Jesus heard my little sister’s prayer!
At the end of that year, I received a letter from my father [who had moved away without his family] telling me how much he missed my mother and his four girls and how he still loved all of us. He also wrote to my mother and to my second sister. He wanted all of us to come back home again. So, we did. We were all living under one roof again, but in reality we were worlds apart—my mother an alcoholic, my sister and I drug addicts, and my younger sisters were severely-damaged emotionally. My father suffered much seeing his beautiful daughters in that miserable state and his wife a total stranger. Nonetheless, we pretended everything was all right and that we were a big, happy family again. But we were broken; our souls were desperately sick. Only God could heal us now.
And healing came in the most unexpected way.”
In Project Hannah founder Marli Spieker’s book “When Hope Wins,” you can read more about Marlene’s early family life and the story God has written for her over the past several decades as a child in His eternal family.
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