AMAZING STORY
Charlotte Hunt: Damaged Goods
By Audra Smith
The 700 Club
CBN.com
–Charlotte Hunt shares her testimony with 700 Club producer, Audra Smith.
“I’ve kind of always had that feeling like I was damaged goods; that I was worthless.”
“My childhood started out pretty rough. I was sexually abused by 5 members of my family and 2 neighborhood boys. I was physically abused by my mother and emotionally abused. I still had that feeling that something is wrong with me.”
“We went to church, but I knew the family that I saw at church wasn’t the family that I was living with at home. It was just the place that you go and you pretend. I learned that I and I carried that on through most of my life.”
“I got into theatre, the arts, and music really early. For me, it gave me an opportunity to escape. I could pretend. On stage I could be anybody that I wanted to be. I could act and then I found out, I could be somebody that I wanted to be offstage. I could pretend to be a good girl. I could pretend to be strong. By performing, I could be loved.”
“Before I got into college, I was in jazz. I was doing jazz clubs. I got into musical theater, talent shows and community theatre. I got discovered with modeling and got into that very early. I was doing all these things. I was getting worth. I was getting acceptance. But the problem was… it wasn’t enough. It was like this drug, but I kept needing more.”
“And so, I got into the men – a lot of men – to try to find love. But then I was finding that there weren’t enough men that were filling that up. There was still that emptiness.”
“I remember going to a pastor and I just had some questions. His reply to me was, ‘Charlotte, I know a little bit about your family and I’m sorry to tell you, but you are damaged goods. God’s never going to use you.’”
“I remember that I had two separate feelings. One was relief. It was relief that finally I had an answer. ‘That’s what I am. I’m damaged goods.’ The other feeling was, ‘I’m furious.’ Not at that pastor. I was furious with God. I was furious because it was once again, ‘You, God just like everybody else. All You are about is my performance.’”
“At that point, there was a prison wall up. At that point, it was BLAM! ‘Nobody will get to my heart, not you, not anybody, and especially not God.’”
“I started having feelings of suicide. After seven times of trying to commit suicide, I was so angry at God. I blamed Him for the abuse. I blamed Him for why my life wasn’t working. On top of all that, He wasn’t letting me die. The least, if He was a loving God, at least He could let me die.”
“The morning that I woke up after a seventh failed suicide attempt, after of taking a bottle of sleeping pills with a Nyquil chaser, not only did I wake up, but I didn’t even get a good night’s sleep. I was mad because I remember waking up going, ‘GOD! Either You have got to let me die or You’ve got to show me how to live because this is just not working.’”
“That wasn’t the wakeup call for God, but that was the wakeup call for me.”
“I can’t explain it, I don’t know if anybody can explain what happens, but something had changed in me. It was the beginning of a road of redemption for me. In that road of redemption, I found that the only place I was able to find my identity, my hope, my worth, my acceptance, and my love was in Christ. It wasn’t until I realized that is where my only hope lay that I found my wholeness.”
“I learned how to dream again, to learn about loving again, opening my heart again, learning how to receive again and to take down those walls again. Praise God that He has allowed those damaged goods to be placed in my life for His glory.”
“None of those things were ever exclusions to His potential, to His love, and to His purpose in my life. My story is not about the damage or the damaged goods in my life. My story is about how He has used the damaged things in my life to bring about hope.”
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