Silencing the Screams

‘“I would get in my car and just drive, and I would end up places I didn't even know how I got there. This voice would say, ‘Just ram your car into this tree. Your family would be so much better off if you're just gone.’"

At 46, Lorena Saylor had been dealing with depression—and pain-- for decades. Lorena was only five years old when she was molested by a relative. Growing up in Kentucky in a strict religious home, she felt her father blamed her for the abuse.

“I was the one that got in trouble; I was the one that got spanked for it. I felt like it was my fault because it was made to feel like it was my fault.”

She says about that time the migraines started. Then, something else came to the surface. An undiagnosed dyslexic, Lorena couldn’t read. Not only did she struggle in school, she battled social anxiety constantly.

“I don't think I really had that much self-esteem--just being really, really shy, backwards about things, not really having a lot of friends.”

Lorena somehow managed. By age 25, she was married to an enlisted airman in the Air Force and raising two children, often alone.

“He was deployed quite often. It was very difficult. You learn to adapt, and you learn to deal with things.”

By then, she had left her church upbringing behind...a place she rarely felt accepted or loved.

“The backstabbing of people talking about people, just the things I had heard and seen within the church; I really didn't want anything to do with it.”

Then in 1996, at age 33, after injuring her back and hip at work, Lorena started taking prescription pain medication for relief.  

“Anytime that I wanted to go do something I had to have the medication in me. My body just craved more and more the more I took. It was horrible. I become a functioning addict.”

That relief came at a cost, as Lorena slipped into depression.

“I just shut down. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to go outside. The majority of the time I didn't want to get up and get dressed. I just basically wanted to be alone. There was times I wanted to commit suicide. I wanted to die. I, many times, had put pills in my hands ready to take it. This voice would say, ‘Just take it. Your family would be so much better off if you're just gone.’ And on the other hand, I would hear, 'Who will love your children like you? Who will raise your children the way you would?'"

It would only get worse. In 2004, her husband was deployed to North Dakota while Lorena and their children stayed in North Carolina. What was expected to be a short assignment lasted five years. By the time he came home, both had hit bottom.

“He was depressed; I was depressed. I was on ten medications; he was drinking; I was ready for a divorce. My family was falling apart, and I didn't know where to turn. I didn't know what to do. All I knew was I was in this deep, dark place.”

Exhausted and miserable, Lorena reached out to her family and the God she had drifted away from as a child.

‘“I called my mom; I called my aunts. I just started reaching out to people that I knew, and I never even gave them an explanation, I just said, ‘I need prayer.’"

About that time, a coworker invited her to church.

“Two weeks later, I found myself getting up on a Sunday morning and going to church. I had no idea that night before I went what I was going to do. And as I'm in church and they're playing the praise and worship music, I feel the presence of the Lord. I couldn't stop crying. And after the service was over and everybody was leaving, I found myself in the foyer. I'd hit a point to where I was just done. I was finished. And this lady that worked with me had invited me to church was standing there with me and she says, ‘Do you want to go pray?’ and I said, 'Yes.' So, that day I gave my life to Jesus. There was just something in that moment that had changed tremendously inside me, and I knew that. All through my life I never knew who He was. I knew of Him, but I didn't know Him. And when it come to the point to me knowing Him, it became a different dynamic in my life, the relationship that I started building.”

Lorena says a year later at a church service, God gave her relief from the years of pain and addiction.

“He didn't only heal me; He delivered me of everything. And I did not realize it till five days later; I had not taken not one pill. From that day I've not had not one migraine, no back pain.”

In the days that followed…

"There was something inside that was like a thirst and a hunger that I'd never experienced before. So, I said, ‘Holy Spirit, teach me to read. I want to know God's Word.’ And from that moment on, He started teaching me to read.’”

Soon, Lorena’s husband, Raymond, and their children also gave their lives to Christ. In 2015, Lorena and Raymond founded Outside the Walls International Ministries, where they see others healed and delivered daily. 

Lorena now leads a full life and delights in serving God—and others-- wholeheartedly.

“He always knew where I was, I just had to reach out to Him, and He was there with open arms. Jesus loves you and He has a purpose. He says, ‘I know the plan that I have for you and that it is good.'"