Rachel Martin: Detour to Playmate
CBN.com Being in the spotlight was something Rachel Martin knew she was destined to do.
In the words of Rachel Martin:
“I wanted to work on-air, like an anchor woman. And then also I love to dance, and I love to sing, and I loved anything with theatre.”
As a teen Rachel jumped at the chance to model for an upscale salon. But she never imagined where it would eventually lead.
“I don’t think I had really thought about the ramifications of it how it would of affect my life the next fifteen years, my family, my relationship with the Lord.”
Rachel grew up in a Christian home in rural Georgia. At the age of ten she gave her heart to Christ.
“I remember just weeping, I mean weeping on my knees probably for 20 or 30 minutes and just praying and weeping and just the realization of sin.”
While Rachel’s commitment was sincere, after high school she began to turn to other things.
“I want to get a good education, I want to make great money - like my focus was wrong, but it was so about making money.”
While she was in college, Rachel met a man who swept her off her feet.
“He was my doctor, my eye doctor, and he actually asked me out on a date when I had my second follow up. Within six months he had asked me to marry him and about eight months later we were married.
Rachel was ready to put her dreams on hold to be a full time wife, but her husband didn’t want her to lose sight of her aspirations.
“He was really encouraging me to finish school, get back into modeling and to pursue that, and so I did.”
Rachel’s husband introduced her to a photographer friend that would change her life. Rachel and the photographer needed to build up their portfolios. Playboy magazine was ready to launch both of their careers.
“They were actually hiring house photographers and they saw a picture of me there and they were like, who is this girl?”
“They called and they were like, ‘Hi, this is so and so from Playboy magazine.’ And I’m like, who?”
“I remember my husband coming home and I shared it with him, and to my shock he said, ‘I think it is a great idea. I think you should do it.”
“And I was like, ‘Absolutely not!’ I was like, ‘That’s just wrong’ you know.”
“He was like, ‘I think it's great. If you look at the Sistine Chapel - it's artwork, and that's the house of God.’”
“And he really just brought all these different viewpoints on posing nude is okay.”
After six months of pressure from the Playboy executives, Rachel finally agreed to pose. She remembers her first photo shoot.
“It hurt deep down, in those core places it hurt, and yet there was a part that I wanted. I was like, this is what I am going to do.”
Rachel's pictures made an impression on the Playboy executives.
“Hugh, Mr. Hefner, had seen my work, and I think some other people, and they said, ‘We want her to be a playmate.’ Being a playmate is considered to be an elite thing, to be chosen to be one of the girls out of the 12 months.”
Over the next 3 years, Rachel appeared in numerous projects for the company.
“I began to do a lot as a spokesperson - literary parties, going to art galleries, and openings in New York and New Orleans. They flew me to Buenos Aires, had me on television shows, flew me to Japan - I mean they had me all over.”
Soon all the traveling and time apart took a toll on Rachel’s marriage.
“We were in completely different places in our life. We were wanting completely different things.”
After her divorce Rachel questioned her decision to become a playmate.
“I remember just feeling, ‘This is so wrong, I cannot do this.’ God really began to work on my heart.”
“I eventually said, ‘Okay, I’m not going to do it,’ and I told them why. And I know they thought I was crazy.”
Rachel decided to move to New York to try acting. She landed a small part on a TV show and met a man who was a Christian.
“He ended up sharing his story with me and telling about his walk, becoming and rededicating his life as a Christian - where God pulled him out of and where he is now.”
“And he invited me to a church. I started going to this church and that’s when I realized, my eyes were just opened, like scales fell off and I began to see He is a loving God. But I would just weep, realizing that I heard his voice a long time ago as a little girl and that’s when I finally relinquished and said, ‘I’m yours God.”
Rachel’s life changed, but she struggled to deal with her past.
“There was so much shame and guilt, and learning how to take that before him - it was a slow process over the seven years, but a beautiful one, in that because God was making me into his image and not my image.”
Today Rachel still models but in a very different industry.
“God’s adorned me to be on the cover on Today’s Christian Woman when I’ve been on the cover of Playboy.”
Now wherever she goes, Rachel shares her story hoping to help others find the forgiveness she knows.
“There isn’t any more shame, there isn’t guilt. I can walk my head held high when I go back to my small town and wherever I go. I know that I am the fragrance, the aroma of Christ, I am the righteousness of God through Jesus, and there is no shame with speaking about Playboy. I am free in Him, the blood of Jesus, it absolutely covered."Can God change your life?
God has made it possible for you to know Him and experience an amazing change in your own life. Discover how you can find peace with God.
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