by Rebekah Baeder-Johnston

In November 1983, I was sitting in a lesbian bar in Seattle. My lover was dancing with another woman. As I painfully watched her flirting with the other woman, I heard an audible voice. 

When I looked up, there was powerful presence standing next to the table where I was sitting. Jesus spoke, "My child what are you doing here?" The voice was so real. "I have so much better planned for you than the false security and identity that you live in now." 

As I looked out onto the dance floor, I saw the most incredible vision: all the smiling faces turned to wax and started to melt. The laughter stopped. The Holy Spirit revealed to me that the broken hearts behind the smiling masks were not really laughing at all. More important was the reality that my heart was also scarred and broken. 

Years ago I saw a card that reminded me of the emotional secrets I hid behind a well-constructed mask while I was growing up. It pictured a little girl, with golden braids in a pretty pink dress, hanging up laundry on a clothesline. Once I was that innocent little girl, happy to be a "mommy" to my younger brother, a nurse to my dolls, and a little helper to my mother. 

Then a chain of events occurred that changed the course of my life. At age three, I learned from my aunt that I had an older sister who died at birth. "She was so beautiful," my aunt told me. "She was just perfect." 

I asked my aunt many questions and became obsessed with this sister that I never knew. As I grew older, I knew secretly that I could never attain the same perfection that this little girl would have attained if she had lived. 

My younger brother also shaped my poor self-image. Everything seemed to come so easily to him. I always tried to be just like him, but failed continually. 

When I was eight years old, my family was involved in a serious car accident. My brother and I were separated from our parents for three months. This separation created a great sense of loss and abandonment in my life. 

Then came the most devastating event of all: my grandfather molested me when I was nine. After the incest, my childhood slipped away like a thief in the night. My dolls were traded for a baseball and bat. When I played house with my girlfriends, I was always the husband. I was labeled a "tomboy" by others and secretly wished that I could be a boy. 

I became my mother's protector, admiring and idolizing her. We became emotionally enmeshed as I became her confidante, her caretaker and her surrogate husband. I withdrew emotionally and physically from my father who found refuge in his work to avoid emotional involvement or conflict related to the incest by my grandfather. I began to believe that emotional support and security could only be found in another woman. 

I was 16 when I met my future husband; we were married by the end of my senior year in high school. By the time I was 23, we had been blessed with two beautiful children. Outwardly, we looked like an ideal family. But behind closed doors, our marriage was very dysfunctional. My husband had become verbally--then physically--abusive. I was terrified of his anger and my shaky identity as a woman was crushed by his angry outbursts. I felt unloved as a woman; instead, I was filled with shame, guilt, and a deep sense of worthlessness. But, rather than confronting my feelings, I stuffed them down, pretending everything was fine. 

When I was 29, my "perfect" mask was shattered. My husband became deathly ill and was hospitalized. During this time he confessed that he had been unfaithful to me two years earlier. I was totally devastated. All my suppressed feelings came rushing to the surface, including the painful memories of my childhood. 

By the summer of 1981, all the years of suppressed emotions had broken loose. My mask fell off and my true feelings were revealed. I felt heartbroken, angry, betrayed and disillusioned. My life was soon out of control. 

Five months later, I left my 13-year marriage and entered the first of three lesbian relationships. My lover and I began to frequent the gay bars and I began a pattern of heavy drinking. 

The first year of my lesbian relationship seemed wonderful. Finally I had found that one special person who could complete my life and bring happiness--or so I thought. But gradually my lover's alcoholism grew worse, and she became physically and emotionally abusive to me. But I was addicted to the relationship and could not break away from her. 

By the fall of 1984, I was hitting bottom and feeling more pain than when my marriage broke up. I couldn't eat or sleep. I was taking tranquilizers, antidepressants and sleeping pills to get through each day and night. My health was failing and I was suicidal. 

Then God began breaking through the denial. He showed me that I was trying to cover over deep emotional wounds. Then He spoke to me in the bar and brought me face-to-face with the truth about my life. 

In January 1985, I asked my lover to move out. This decision marked the start of a long journey to healing and freedom that still continues today. It has not been easy. In 1987, I relapsed into two other unhealthy relationships, then had a one-night stand with my ex-lover. Later that year, I checked myself into an inpatient treatment center for co-dependency. After completing treatment, I started counseling at Metanoia, an Exodus affiliate ministry in Seattle. 

Through counseling, God began digging up the deeper roots of my lesbianism. I had to face the rejection, loneliness, self-hatred, confused gender identity and unforgiveness from childhood hurts. The pain of withdrawal from my emotionally-dependent and addictive behavior patterns was overwhelming at times. Sometimes I wondered if the pain would ever end. 

But God was faithful and my relationship with Him and others began to change. I found my true identity in the One who created me in His image. I became totally dependent on God for my every need, and began to experience Him as a loving Father. 

In July 1990, I moved back to the area where I had lived as a married woman. My children (16 and 18 years old) came to live with me for the first time in over nine years. We had many issues to work through. I had to ask their forgiveness for leaving them and then begin to earn back their trust. 

My son was not able to find any release until he verbalized his pain in a letter to me several years ago. "When you went away," he wrote, "it left a big hole in my heart that I am not sure will ever be filled again." His letter opened a door for more communication and healing between us. It has taken longer for my daughter to come to that place of forgiveness but today we are enjoying a new level of friendship. 

In November 1997 I faced a new challenge when I was diagnosed with Stage 4 (advanced) breast cancer. I was thrown into the "fiery furnace" like never before; at times it has been unbearably hot. 

I have suffered the pain of three surgeries; chemo treatments made me physically sick and radiation left me exhausted. The enemy wanted me to doubt God's healing of my feminine identity, but instead God has confirmed and affirmed that my identity as a woman is secure and solid in Him. My identity is not in the hair that I lost or my breast that cancer destroyed. My identity is knowing who I am in Jesus Christ. 

I would not have chosen this road but now that I've traveled it, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Even through the pain and suffering, God has been so faithful to me. His ways are higher than mine (Isaiah 55:8,9), so I can trust Him with my future. 

Today I am experiencing increased confidence in God's sovereignty and His continual presence with me. In the midst of my uncertain circumstances, I can testify to God's continual goodness. 

I no longer have to hide behind a mask, because I have overwhelming joy. God continues to work a miracle in my life. He is awesome! 

Additional Information:
Copyright 2000 by Rebekah Baeder-Johnston, (Doorway of Hope Ministries, P.O. Box 1244, Stanwood, WA 98292. Phone: 360-629-2600. Email: doorwayofhopeministries@tgi.net. Website: 
www.doorwayofhopeministries.com