I was born in Anaheim CA, but was raised most of my childhood in a small town on the Oregon coast (Waldport). I was looking for something more after I had been married at 16 yrs. old and divorced at 20 with a two year old child, so I returned home to that small town. I went back to my high school sweetheart and realized that I didn't want that either.

A year later, I started working in a live music bar in Newport, Oregon and met up with the wrong crowd. I had some fun partying with lots of drugs and alcohol; which I did almost every day of the week. Then a friend of mine started talking about getting out of that small town rut.

We looked in the help wanted adds for the Portland area, and since we both loved to dance and party, when we came across the adds for exotic dancers we first joked about doing it. Later, we we thought about it seriously and called on some of the adds. We found a person who was willing to help get us out of that small town--he even offered to reimburse us for our Greyhound Bus tickets.

When we got to Portland, they took us to do our audition and we had a lot to drink before we got on stage. I danced for 6 years after that and know all the ends and outs. I had many boyfriends, did more drugs and even started selling them.

I met this weird guy who made a deal with me, if I sold the drugs in the bars, he would front the money and supply me with what I needed. I married him, and we sold and did drugs together.

I got to the point, after we were married, that I was ready to give up the drugs because I wanted to be a mom to my son. I still danced and drank. Then my husband came to the point where he wanted to quit the drugs too. However, we both had been smoking crack, and he injected Crystal Meth (speed)--Yes he was an I.V. drug user. (I always hoped that he used his clean needle.)

Like I said, we were going to get out of the drug business. I went to Montana and danced there, and even ran my own small agency. The friend that I started dancing with, came to Mt. Helena from Portland, and we danced and had a great time. I would still use pot and some cocaine. My husband came to Montana so we could drive back to Portland together and get the rest of our stuff. The whole way back to Oregon my husband was having severe withdrawals.

We got to Portland, he got his fix, and I started packing. We got the place packed and we were ready to leave the next morning. Yeah, It was finally going to happen, we were leaving the drugs behind! We decided that I could still smoke pot, but he needed to quit because of his needle habit. He would smoke a little pot, but it wasn't his thing.

My husband wanted to do this last deal which would bring him a lot of profit. After he left, and a couple of hours passed, I was getting a little worried--then more time passed. If he was getting high he would have taken all the drugs with him, but he left all the drugs on our glass top desk. He said he would be right back.

Well, finally there was a knock at the door, and by that time I was very worried and knew that something was wrong. I opened the curtains and looked out the sliding glass door, my worst nightmare had just become a reality. My balcony was full of undercover police officers with my husband in handcuffs.

I opened the door and let them in, they started snapping pictures and wanted to take some of me, but I wouldn't let them. My son was in Montana and the last thing I needed was for my picture to end up on the front of the Oregonian for my ex-husband to see. I just knew I was going to jail and that my son was going to be taken away.

What a life I lead. . . and the story gets worse. They didn't take Dody (that is what I will call my ex-husband #2), he had made a deal with the police, and they didn't charge me (even though the cops went through my purse and knew I had a half pound of pot in it). That was another part of the deal, when we set up the legal stuff, Dody had to follow the rules and not get high.

He stayed clean for two weeks and we decided to celebrate, we went out drinking. Dody got so drunk that he was accusing me of things I didn't do and we got in a fight. He started breaking the stuff in the apartment so I went to the managers apartment and called the police. They came but didn't do anything except fuel the fire.

They had him leave on his own and five minutes after they left, he came back and then the fight was really on. He proceeded in beating me up and tried to throw me off our balcony. The next time I called the cops, I was in the emergency room.

I pressed charges and he went to jail. The next day I went to get a restraining order, fill out all the paper work, and have pictures taken of my bruised up body. When the D.A. took my statement, I felt victimized all over again.

The night that Dody broke my stuff (not his), and badly bruised my body, he also took away any means for me to make a living (I was a dancer). How could I dance after this?

I also found out that there was a 72 hour notice on the apartment, shutoff notices for our utilities, and I had no clue as to what to do. My neighbor from down stairs (that watched my son), came up and helped me clean the apartment so my son wouldn't see it so destroyed.Three days before that night, I had said that things couldn't get any worse--boy was I wrong.

I went to my old boyfriend, that was the manager of one of the bars I danced in, and asked if he would let me bartend. When he said yes, that took one thing off my mind. I then called Adult and Family Services and asked for help. They gave the electric company partial payment through emergency services, and I made arrangements to make payments for the rest. Finally, I went to the managers apartment and asked if I could stay; we agreed for me to make back payments every month along with the regular rent. Well, life did completely let me down: that was the thought of the day.

There is more to this story, but I'm trying to cut it down. Eventually, I cut all ties with him, (he went to prison for the drugs) and my plan changed again. I would just do drugs a little, keep smoking pot and dancing (after all, the people I danced with were family). I got back on my feet, no pun intended, and resumed life as usual.

I ran into an old friend of mine, one that I had met years before when I first started dancing, and I thought he was cute and responsible. We went out for the first time ever and basically, we were together from then on. He and I went house looking because we thought my two bedroom apartment was too small for his 2 kids and my son. We found a three bedroom house and became one happy family.

I was still dancing and he would come to pick me up or come in while I was dancing. Where I worked was like a hang out for him and the other dancers boyfriends; they all knew the manager, agents, bouncers, dancers, and the bartender---one big happy family, that's what we were.

One night, we wanted to get away from the kids for a while, and went to one of the bars that I danced in. While we were sitting there drinking and having a great time, I heard some noise from the dancers dressing room, and went back to see what was going on. It was a biker beating up on his dancer girlfriend.

I told the bartender, and he wouldn't do anything about it. So I went back and said something to the biker, he told me if I didn't want some of the same, then I should get out of there. I knew that if this could happen and no one would do anything about it, then I wasn't safe anymore. I thought someone could be raping me and everyone would look the other way. That is the day I quit dancing. My drug and alcohol was still a problem, but slowly, that also started to dissolve.

In the small house next door to me, a little family moved in. The lady was so sweet and they just had their 1^st baby. She and I got a little friendly before I quit dancing, then slowly, she started to share Jesus with me. I knew who Jesus was, he was the one that I would pray to when I was so high that I felt like my heart was coming out of my chest; you see I met Jesus when I was a young girl. My parents had accepted Jesus when I was a little girl and I was raised from the time I was in 2^nd grade till I quit high school. Then I chose my own path--the path to destruction, self destruction. My new friend and I had a great time as long as she didn't force her beliefs on me. God used her in a great way; he let her know when I had enough for the time being.

Well, after I decided that dancing was done, I still had struggles; my drinking was a problem and so were the drugs. I tried going to the regular bars, but they weren't much fun with out my friends, or without being the center of attention. My boyfriend and I meet friends there once in a while but I would always end up drunk, which led to wanting to do some drugs. Slowly the desire to go to the bars went away and my friend and I became closer.

Part of my story I haven't told yet, is that my sister was dying of cancer. Before she got cancer we were best friends and I missed having a really close friend. You see, when someone has terminal cancer, they slowly deteriorate and that is also what happened to our relationship.

My neighbor friend would watch the kids when I would relieve my mom from her shift of taking care of my sister (Laurie), then my live in boyfriend would come home from work and take over.

I started to become someone different--someone responsible. I had a live-in boyfriend with kids, my son, my nephew sometimes, and the shift I traded off with my mom in taking care of Laurie. I was so lucky, I could stay home while my boyfriend worked. Wow, what an overload, but somehow I was doing it without drinking and only smoking a little pot--I felt good about what I was doing (being sober). My life wasn't some joyous event day after day; my sister was dying. However, something about being clear-headed makes life a bit easier.

My sister's condition just kept getting worse; she played a large role in my decision to come back to Christ. I learned so much about life through Laurie dying, I wanted her to think about going to heaven which in turn made me think about it. I would look for scriptures for her and would talk to her about Jesus. I hadn't ever forgotten that Jesus was the only way. I was now getting a dose of reality with cancer touching so close to home. I had never been so close to death before. When I looked at my sister I couldn't see the sister that was my best friend anymore, all I could see was someone that was old and frail (she was just 29 years old when she died). When when my sister died I felt such an empty spot in my life; she had always been a big part of my life.

When I see sisters together sometimes I cry, I miss having that wonderful relationship that sisters have. I take the time once in awhile to tell others how they should cherish the sister/sisters that they have, not to take it for granted because someday they could be missing that special sis. There is a peace that I have knowing that Laurie is with Jesus.

Before my sister died I had the chance to make a full commitment to Jesus, this made it easier to talk to my sister about going to heaven. It wasn't long after my sis went to be with Jesus (April of 1989) that I got married (Sept, 2 1989). The day I got married I had a special vase of flowers in memory of my of Laurie. I married that live in boyfriend. My marriage is a whole other story.

As you know from reading above, my new husband was a guy that I met in a strip club. I thought that things were going to be great for the rest of our life; happily ever after. I was WRONG. How silly I was--how did I not know that my husband was addicted to porn and sex? Of course he was! Didn't we watch porn together? Didn't he go to strip bars for years? For some reason, I had in my head that we were fixed, healed, and done with that life. Well, that was just me dreaming

I became sexually anorexic. I went to the other side of the fence on sexual issues. My husband seemed o.k. with it, but little did I know what he did behind my back. I always wondered why he treated other women nicer than he did me. Well, what could I expect--I just kept gaining more weight? (That was my reasoning.)

He always said it didn't matter to him and that he loved me anyway. But if you love someone, don't you treat them with respect and kindness? I just figured that was the way he was and I couldn't change him. I kept praying to God that he would change and become a Christian, and maybe stop cussing so much--what a potty mouth he was--but things didn't change!

He was a truck driver and never home and I started seeing little things that didn't seem right: porn films in his truck (they were always someone else's), and he had no interest in sex anymore. This went on for quite some time and I,ll write more about it in a longer version at a later date.

When I would find out about something and ask him about it, he would deny that anything was wrong or make some excuse for whatever it was. However, I knew something was going on with him and suspected him of infidelity numerous times but didn't want to seek it out or drive my self crazy; I really didn't want to know.

Then an incident happened that no one could deny, I found out that he had sex with my 21 year old son's wife. This was the most devastating thing that had happened to my family since my sister died. WOW!

I had to face reality! At this point all of the emotions, pain, fear, guilt and SHAME came out of the nicely wrapped box that I stored the stuff that I didn't want to deal with in. In reality my marriage had been over for a long time; It is safe say it was over before it began. I had asked God for the last 13 1/2 years why he allowed me to get married to a man that wasn't a believer? Before I got married my prayer was that if God didn't want me to marry this man, then I wanted him to close the doors. I wanted to do what God wanted me to and didn't want to have any reason to try to make it happen on my own. I felt that if there was any resistance that it would clue me in. I didn't have resistance so I didn't have any reason to question. My husband had excepted Christ about the same time that I did. I had reason to question his commitment to the Lord. After about 6 months his true colors started coming to the surface.

The emotion I started feeling first was the WHY emotion (why did this happen to me). This can be a good emotion, it is a great place to start taking a look at yourself. The emotions came quickly and would pass quickly and there they were again. This was some what of a confusing time. I had planned to retire with this guy and now at my late 30s I was going to have to start over again. This was my 3rd husband. I did things right. I came to Christ, I wasn't living in sexual sin, I wasn't getting drunk, I didn't get high, I was doing a good job at not cussing, I was reading my Bible, I was praying and had great Christian fellowship.

Well, I now know many of the reasons why and why not, there are a lot of answers that haven't been revealed to me. I know that there are things that have gone on in my life that are only for Christ. I trust completely that God will take me where I need to go. I may ask questions but I don't question that my Father has my best interest at heart.

I have many fun things in my life. I have a new husband. I believe that this amazing man is who God had planned for me my whole life. We have an amazing life.

My parents are a great gift to me, I cherish every moment that I have with them; I put them through so much heartbreak and they loved me so unconditionally. I have two good boys that I love with all my heart, Steven (27 years old) and Cyrus (23 years old), and then there is my grandson Evan (he is a real gift). What a great life that God has given me with such a wonderful family, I don't deserve all the good thing that God has done in my life. But I'll take em!

I hope that I will have a chance to share more with you about God, what he has done for me, and what he can do for you. He can set you free from the fear, pain, guilt and shame that you may be feeling in your life. I would love to share in your victory and what God has done for you in your life.

This website is for the Glory of God and the Victory of what he has done in many women's lives. I pray that if you have a testimony to share and are willing to help get the message out, we don't have to be a shamed of our past We are Victorious over the Darkness. I know that writing out your story can be one of the most difficult things that you will do, but it is also healing and can help to give you freedom from the shadow you walk in.

I am available for sharing my story with you and your groups if you are interested.

Please email me and let me know how you think I'm doing on the website.