amazing story
Meleah Jones: A Stripper Comes Clean
By Audra Smith
The 700 Club
CBN.com
– Meleah Jones’ parents divorced when she was five-years-old. By the time she was ten, her mother had remarried. Then Meleah’s stepfather began to sexually abuse her.
In the words of Meleah Jones:
“I knew it wasn’t right but I kind of just pushed it aside. I thought maybe there is something wrong with me for him to do this. I thought, maybe it is just me.”
I was just very lonely and very depressed…I didn’t really know it at the time, but I was very sad…
“I ended up running away when I was 12. I just knew I didn’t want to go home, I didn’t want to go home. I hated it. I began to drink and use drugs, hanging out with the wrong people.”
“I later on got put into a girls’ home for running away and using drugs. I stayed in the home for about eight months and when I got out, I went from house to house living with different people. I pretty much had nowhere to go.”
“Earlier, I had lost contact with my real dad and then at the age of 15 I found him. He just happened to live in Nashville. So I moved to Nashville and things just started getting worse in my life.”
It wasn’t long before she moved out of her father’s house. She drifted from relationship to relationship. When she became pregnant she quit school.
“I had my daughter at the age of 17 and I raised her by myself. I didn’t have any help. She has never met her real dad. I was trying to be both the mother and the father, which was very hard.”
“I felt that because I quit school I was helpless and worthless. I couldn’t find a job. I couldn’t make enough money to ever have anything. I thought, this was my life and nothing was ever going to change.”
Then a friend told Meleah a way to make big money, at night.
“It was at a strip club. So I decided to try it and I believe I was 17 when I first started. So I went from one club where I could make $200 a night to the next place where I could make $1000 a night. I was getting deeper into drugs and I was getting caught up in the money. It was awful.”
Meleah went to jail twice; the first time after a drug bust, the second time after a fight broke out in the club.
“After that, I had hit rock bottom. I knew deep down that there was something else out there for me; like, this can’t be my life. I was a stripper and a single mom. I was tired of it.”
“I drank all the time. Then I got introduced to pills. There were ways to get prescriptions. People knew people. I decided to go to the doctor and fake my pain.”
“I went to a new doctor and this doctor was very different. When I went back there and told him that I was in pain and all this stuff was going on, I believe that he could see right through me. He told me that there were a closet full of drugs that he could give me, but he couldn’t guarantee that would work; but that he could guarantee that Jesus Christ would work for me.”
“I had never heard that. Nobody had ever told me that before. I just sat there and I thought about it. He said, ‘can I pray with you?’ and I said yes. He began to praying and I really don’t know what he was praying about, but I just started crying and crying and crying.”
A few months later she went to church with her mother, who had become a Christian. Her mother had recently divorced Meleah’s stepfather and moved to Nashville.
“The preacher said if there is anybody here that had never accepted Jesus Christ in your life as Lord and Savior I want you to pray with me right now. I prayed that prayer and the peace of God just came over me. I just remember feeling relief like burdens had been lifted; something happened to me that day.”
“I went through my whole house and I decided to get rid of all the high heels, all the stripper outfits, everything. I just cleaned house. Anything that I felt that God did not want in my house I got rid of. I just made the decision that day and said I’m never doing back.”
“I just got on my knees in the middle of the living room floor, and I said, ‘God, just come into my life and take over; just come in and take over.”
“After I prayed the prayer and accepted Jesus into my life, I met Brian two weeks later. I just knew as soon as I met him; I just knew he was from God. He was the first person I met that was flat out in love with Jesus. He just kept saying, ‘I love Jesus.’ I just knew he was for me.”
“I’ve got the best husband in the world, in my opinion. I’ve got a daughter and a son, two beautiful healthy children. We teach a Sunday school class. God has been using us and it is just amazing that he would even want to use someone like me that has done such horrible things and all the guilt and shame and the embarrassment of things that I have done.”
“He is the healer. He’s the God of restoration. If he will do it for me, I know He will do it for whoever else is out there hurting that has been in my shoes.”
“Once you surrender your life to Him, it’s just blessing after blessing. He will give you the desires of your heart.”
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.
CBN IS HERE FOR YOU!
Are you seeking answers in life? Are you hurting?
Are you facing a difficult situation?
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
