Sexual Assault Survivor Believed She Was 'Dirty, Unclean, Irredeemable' - God Asked Her To Pray Anyway
In 2016, driving home after leaving a Bible study God told me to pray.
To pray, more specifically, for my future husband.
I had just gone through a horrible break up. My identity was wrapped up in that guy. A guy that proved he never wanted me in the first place.
It’s safe to say I was in a fragile place. I was broken. But in his grace, day by day, God helped me pick up the pieces.
There was only one catch: I had to do it his way.
So when I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to pray, I immediately did what he asked of me.
Half way through, while praying for my future husband, he called me to do something absurd. To pray for his purity.
Immediately I argued. “You know my life. You know I don’t deserve a man like that. Do you not see me?” Many of you know I’m a sexual assault survivor.
But many probably don’t know how Satan used a situation where I had been sinned against to fuel a shame-fueled life that brought me into a life where I believed the lie and fell into my own sexual sin.
The lie I believed was that I was dirty, unclean, irredeemable.
But the Holy Spirit persisted. Pray for your future husband’s purity. I continued to hesitate. Feeling unworthy of such an ask.
But after a few minutes with wrestling w/ God I gave in.
I prayed for a man that trusted God and his plan. In a world that tells men to be a certain way. To treat women accordingly.
Two years later I met my husband.
A man that has been faithful to God’s call on his life. And faithful to how God has called men to treat women.
The thing is it’s true. I don’t deserve him. I don’t deserve anything really.
God gives gifts despite who we are or what we do or have done. In the end, Jesus does it all for his glory.
When we trust him and his plan he is able and willing to give us way more than we could ever know or imagine.
After all, he is God. And after all, we are children.
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Matt 7:11.
Antonia Okafor Cover is a newlywed, wife to soon-to-be pastor Travis Cover. She’s very passionate about empowering women through God’s word. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram: @antonia_okafor
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