Ada Betsabe
“God showed me that my abuse didn’t define me, my trauma didn’t define me, and my past didn’t have the final word. He healed the numbness I had carried for years and showed me what it feels like to be loved without having earned it.”
Sexuality was never a word that meant safety to me. It meant pain.
By the time I was 18, I had been sexually assaulted by four different people. I carried that alone because I was convinced it was somehow my fault and that I had to earn love by giving pieces of myself away. My mom was surviving her own storm and couldn't nurture me the way I needed. My dad was a pastor who punished emotional expression and modeled control rather than safety. Without realizing it, I connected my understanding of God to him: a distant, hard-to-please leader who was watching for what you'd do wrong.
The church-hurt and abuse I experienced pushed me further from God rather than toward Him. I spent years searching, not really for my identity, but for someone to tell me I was worth loving and that my voice mattered.
In my early twenties, I went to Los Angeles to network there and chase my dream of becoming a recording artist. I ended up in a studio with people who were deep into witchcraft and occult practices, and I was offered a place at their table. One evening, I became aware of a darkness I had never encountered before, and I felt deep fear but simultaneously the unmistakable presence of God. I somehow knew I wasn't alone and that I didn't belong there. Everything that looked glamorous, in an instant, felt hollow. I walked out and went back to my Airbnb. That night, I tossed and turned, and the weight of all the pain I had ever carried came crashing in on me. The fear, the panic, and the years of pain and trauma hit me at once. I found myself at the edge of myself, not because I wanted to die, but because I didn't know how to survive what I was feeling. In that desperate moment, I prayed the only thing I could muster:
God, if You're real — I want to know if this is how my story ends. Are You even real?
He answered. I felt extreme peace take over my bedroom. The anxiety went quiet, the panic and tension bowed down to Him. I don't have the words to fully explain that experience, but it marked me and created in me a desire to seek God and learn more about Him.
When I came home, I told my girlfriend about the darkness I had encountered in L.A. I told her it had convinced me that there must be a God and that I had prayed and now believe He heard me. Within days, God breathed on our home, and she gave her life to Jesus, too. Here's what wrecked me about that: I was raised in church. She was not. I didn't force anything on her—I simply said "I'm going to walk toward God now." That witness was enough. God let Himself be found by her, too. That broke something open in me because the God I grew up hearing about felt exclusive, like He valued only the people who did the right things. Watching Him show up for her told me something different: I'm not for a select group; I have love and salvation for everyone who cries out to Me. That challenged everything I had been taught and changed the way I approached God.
As I delved deeper into discipleship and healing, I made the decision to end that relationship and devote myself fully to God and to the restoration of my soul.
Jesus didn't just forgive me, He restored me. He showed me that my abuse didn't define me, my trauma didn't define me, and my past didn't have the final word. He healed the numbness I had carried for years and showed me what it feels like to be loved without having earned it. I watched Him restore relationships with my family that I thought were beyond repair. I sought Him as a healer, asked Him to help me forgive those who had wronged me, and watched beautiful color replace what once looked like a black-and-white world.
Today, I go into prisons and share that same message with the people that society has written off—I know what it feels like to be "too far gone." I write and record music that shares truth and hope, and I mentor others who are burdened down by the heaviness I once carried. One of the most beautiful things God has done for me is to restore my desire for a husband and children, desires I had as a little girl that got buried under years of pain. I can see that future now.
Though I continue to learn and unlearn, one thing my journey has made undeniable: you don't have to fix yourself before you come to Him. I walked in broken, scared, and carrying years of pain, and He met me anyway. He's not standing at the door with a checklist. He's there with open arms, ready to kiss every scar and heal every crack in our hearts. If He did it for me, He'll do it for you.
Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. — Jeremiah 1:5
