After Suffering Years of Abuse, She Chooses Forgiveness

"My whole DNA had been transformed into just being angry at the world, at everyone," says Jennifer.

That transformation started early in Jennifer Beagle's life. The youngest of seven kids with an alcholic father and an abusive mother, her only thought was to survive.

"I never knew my parents loved me at all. Ever. I don't remember one time ever being held by my parents."

The only adult who showed Jennifer attention was her uncle--a man who molested her when she was seven.  

"After that happened, I felt like a piece of that survival was ripped away from me and there was just this major void in my life. And I just existed," says Jennifer.

Jennifer found alcohol, drugs, and later sex helped to get her through. She was so out of control and her environment so unstable that at 14 she was taken by the state and sent into foster care.

Jenniffer says, "Being high gave me life. It numbed the pain of being molested and neglected and abandoned and abused and rejected."

Life only got worse with her "new" family. Her foster dad raped her and soon after started giving her drugs for sex.

"The view of myself at that point was, 'I'm the whore, I'm the whore, I'm the problem. And I hated myself for it,'" says Jennifer.

By her mid-20's, Jennifer was addicted to crack and had married and divorced twice. Then, she lost custody of her son and ended up homeless, prostituting herself to support her habit. Jennifer's uncle became one of her regular customers.

She says, "I knew what he had done to me at seven was wrong and I knew what he was doing to me now is wrong. I hated him, but I could not stop."

Jennifer tried rehab, but always went back to the drugs and life on the street. Fueling her was a growing rage toward the people who had done her so much harm.

"I just hated them. I thought I was equipped to be able to handle this. But I was just broken. I was bitter. I was hateful. I was empty," she says.

Then, in her early 30's, Jennifer got in over her head with a new pimp--a dangerous man who constantly threatened to kill her. One day, she decided she would no longer bow to his demands and locked herself in a closet.

Jennifer says, "I did not want to die that death. He's beating on the door, 'Come out or you're dead.' And I'm like, 'Go away. I'm not coming out.'
And I cry out to God, 'Okay God, I'm done. I'm so done with this lifestyle. I'm so done living. You take my life.' And in the closet, I heard an audible voice, but it was different. It brought peace to me. It brought a sense of, this is safe. I'm going to be okay. And He said, 'Finally, Jennifer, finally, now I can do something with your life.'"

The next thing Jennifer remembers is waking up and finding her captor was gone. She left the house and went to a nearby church.

"I asked this church for help. And a group of women embraced me, loved me, nurtured me and counseled me," she says.

Not only did Jennifer stop using drugs, she got the courage to leave the man who'd been controlling her. Two months later at a church service, she fully surrendered her life to Christ.

"January 27th, I ran to an altar. I laid my life down at a altar, and-and I wanted it. I wanted everything to be different. And I prayed, 'Jesus, you're real, you're real to me. And I want that.'"

Jennifer says as she drew closer to God, He showed her some things hadn't changed. "I had so much unforgiveness. I had so much bitterness. And it ate me up every single day of my life. And He's saying, 'that unless you forgive those, I can't forgive you.' And that scared me because I wasn’t always innocent on the streets. So if God could forgive me, who was I not to forgive others? And I knew that I had to do that."

As Jennifer moved forward in her new life with Christ, she began the long, often difficult process of forgiving those in her past who had hurt her.

"I went through an entire list of people I wanted to forgive. I needed to forgive, because every time I did, like a piece of this heaviness would come off of me and I would feel lighter. I would feel peace, I would feel joy. This forgiveness was for me to be free. It was going to take some work, but freedom was there for me to take."

And then, the hardest of all...

"He finally convinced me to go to my uncle and I did. We prayed and he received Christ that day."

Jennifer also reconciled with the rest of her family, including her son. These days, she works with victims of trafficking and shares the love of Jesus with everyone she meets. Her lighthearted joy is contagious.

"Jesus has changed my heart in every way. I have a new normal. I like loving people. I want people to know that the love of Jesus is unstoppable, remarkable, safe. You are safe with Jesus. He loves you. I know what it means to have an everlasting love today. It's fun, it's exciting, and it's beautiful."