Get The Hell Out of Your Life

Kimberly's Story: Sexual Abuse

April 22, 2021 Kimberly Season 2 Episode 45
Get The Hell Out of Your Life
Kimberly's Story: Sexual Abuse
Show Notes Transcript

Kimberly's Story- "My father sexually abused me at the age of six and I lived in fear. He told me if I said anything, he would kill me. Thankfully with God's grace I have been renewed and today I help other women who have experienced a traumatic incident in their life." - Kimberly

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Living on a Prayer 

Announcer:

It's time now to Get the Hell Out of Your Life, a weekly broadcast with real people, sharing real struggles, and offering real hope. Today's show will encourage, inspire, and empower you to face life's challenges with a bold confidence and renewed hope. Now, let's join our hosts, Ron Meyers, the promoter.

Ron Meyers:
Blessings to each and every one of you. So good to be with you again. I want you to think about all your friends you have and how much you have fun with them and you like them. But did you ever think that some of those friends are probably carrying something from their past that they have never shared with anyone?

Ron Meyers:
Well, my guest today is also a friend I have known for a while. She was the creator of Natural Girl. It was health products, all naturally formulated. And I was trying to encourage her to come into Christmas City quite a few years ago. Well, she submitted her story a few months ago to share with you the listeners and as I was reading this, I said, "Oh my goodness. I never knew Kimberly was dealing with this."

Ron Meyers:
Her story is a incredible story. She's a courageous woman to share her story with you today. Let me introduce you to her. Her name is Kimberly. Hi, Kimberly.

Kimberly:
Good morning, Ron. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm great.

Ron Meyers:
How are things up in Nashville?

Kimberly:
Oh, they're pretty good. Everything, a new day, a new story on the news. But we are doing well up here and absolutely love Nashville.

Ron Meyers:
Well, Kimberly, we will start off. You grew up in a small little town. Maybe not real little, but a small town. And you had the little house and the little white picket fence, but inside your home, you had a traumatic experience at only six years old. What was that?

Kimberly:
That was sexual abuse by my father.

Ron Meyers:
Oh my goodness. Sexual abuse. And you were only six years old. When that happens, I know you're a six years old. How does it even begin?

Kimberly:
Well, in my studies of human behavior through the years in my course of healing from the trauma that I went through, one of my favorite sayings is, "Power over others is weakness disguised as strength." And perpetrators choose vulnerable people. It's been happening from the beginning of time and it's still happening.

I do everything I can to help empower women out of those situations where they're made victims. And when you're a child and especially when it's a parent it's... I don't know the psychology behind all of it. I can just tell you that it hurt my little heart. And I carried it around for so long, just the guilt and the shame. And it didn't last a long time, probably a few years because I always had a tendency to be a little sassy when I needed to. And that's how I finally got him to leave me alone. I was just verbally...

Kimberly:
I don't remember all of the details thankfully. And I think that's part of nature's protection around little hearts and little minds is you do block a lot of it out, but the damage is deep. For me, it took God to really turn my life around and to give me hope that I had worth and value.

Ron Meyers:
Well, and then you told me in your story that he tells you that if you tell anyone, he'll kill you. So you're dealing with almost two traumas. You have somebody that's taking advantage of you as a young little girl. And then if you say anything to your mom, that you're afraid that he's going to hurt you. So I can't even imagine. How many times did you just really just want to go tell your mom but you were afraid to?

Kimberly:
Oh, absolutely. And I mean, it was such a bizarre situation to grow up in because my mom is an angel and she's the one person who's been there for me my whole life. And I just love her dearly. And he was just really good at manipulating the situation and hiding things. And that was just something he was good at because of who he was and the things that he chose to do unfortunately.

Ron Meyers:
So with that kind of experience, Kimberly, growing up... Now you're growing into your teenage years and then young college years, how are you beginning to shape as a person? How are you with your confidence? And what do you think about yourself, and are you a shy little girl, kind of keep to yourself?

Kimberly:
Absolutely not. Anybody that has known me over the years, I was always popular and outgoing and always also have always had a core value that's really important to me that all people are valuable. And I actually identify that in my company that I own today. Just growing up in that environment, that a certain class of people and certainly that men can take advantage of women. And I just to my very core of my being, I think every person on this earth is valuable.

Kimberly:
I was also a perfectionist I admit and was, I still am. And I think that's pretty common for abuse survivors because you really dive into what you can control because there's so much that you can't control. So I was a straight A student, chose my career and dove into that. But underneath all of that I was hurting and very, very afraid and just didn't know my worth and my value and felt pretty aimless from a spiritual standpoint.

Kimberly:
I remember as a young adult not even knowing how to pray, and I went to church growing up. It just didn't wasn't anything that really got a hold of my heart until I was about age 37. What a game changer. When you develop a personal relationship with God, it just changes everything.

Ron Meyers:
Amen to that. At age 37, you were diagnosed with cancer. Tell us how your relationship with God developed because of this diagnosis.

Kimberly:
Yeah, it was just bizarre. I have the coolest things that have happened to me in my life. I mean, it just one after another, and in this situation, I was married at the time and I have one daughter. So we had one child and had been trying to get pregnant again. And it just wasn't happening. And it took fertility treatment and still didn't produce a pregnancy. So I literally woke up one day and had a very strong knowing that my long-term health was more important than trying to have another child and went to my doctor. And I said, "I want you to go ahead and do a hysterectomy." And he said, "Well, are you sure about that? For sure you won't be able to have more children then." And I said, "No, I just feel really strongly about it."

Kimberly:
And later I realized that was God tapping me on the shoulder basically saying, "Kimber, I'm not done with you yet." And there was no other there was no other explanation for it. I definitely heard the voice, his voice. And it was just bizarre. And so the pathologist that whenever you have surgery, they send your organs or whatever, off to the pathologist. And he found the tumor and it was not in a place that would have ever been diagnosed and it was aggressive. And so, I mean, it was just miraculous.

Ron Meyers:
So that decision you made basically saved your life.

Kimberly:
Absolutely.

Ron Meyers:
Wow. I like on this, you have a statement. In fact, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, you had a statement that says, "The transformation that took place in me following the crisis was unbelievable. I went from living my life in gray scale, small and afraid, to living boldly and in full color." Well, right after the break, Kimberly, I want you to tell me and the listeners how we can begin to live our life in full color. Okay?

Kimberly:
Okay.

Speaker 4:
What's your story? We're looking for stories of hope and overcoming life struggles with God's grace. Your story validates God's love, mercy, restoration, and forgiveness. We want to help you share your story with the world. Visit our website thepromoter.org and click on the Share Your Story link and submit your story. Your testimony of God's amazing grace will change a person's destiny for eternity.

Ron Meyers:
This is Ron Meyers. It is finished, my book The Promoter. It took me three years, and well, my story, it is a wild story. I will share things that I have never shared with anyone from my childhood to my days as a promoter. I did anything to make a buck. I was hungry for attention and publicity. I really wasn't a good person. Sex, drugs, and money was driving me. But something happened on the road to become a millionaire. I ran into God.

Ron Meyers:
My story is written for you. As you read the book, God will speak to you through the pages, and your dreams will come alive and hope will be restored. Check out my book The Promoter. It's available on my website thepromoter.org or online at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and iTunes.

Ron Meyers:
Welcome back listeners. My guest today, Kimberly. Boy, what a courageous young lady she is. She's sharing her story. At six years old, she was sexually abused by her father and then just grew up in the life of not really knowing her self worth and that God really had a plan for her.

Ron Meyers:
And Kimberly, before the break, you had said that you felt something tell you to get a hysterectomy. But during the hysterectomy, they found a tumor and the pathology report found that it was a cancerous tumor. So if you wouldn't have had the hysterectomy, you could have died, correct?

Kimberly:
Correct. It was God tapping me on the shoulder for sure. I just had a knowing that I needed that surgery. And it was proven with the diagnosis.

Ron Meyers:
This is the part that I love when you wrote to me that the transformation following that crisis was unbelievable. You went from living life in gray scale, small and afraid, to living boldly and in full color. Tell us what you mean by that.

Kimberly:
Building that relationship with God, that was the start of me really knowing that he was there and he was there for me. And it opened up a whole new world because it's salvation. I mean, that's why it's called salvation is because we're not meant to do this on our own, live life. And the courage that I developed absolutely came from him and knowing that there was more. Thank God. There was more to life than what there seemed to be on the surface.

Kimberly:
And I remember I had to go through radiation treatment and that was just awful too. It took me about a year to recover from that. And I remember when I got out of the hospital and literally, I was gray. My coloring was gray and I just walked down my street with my dogs. And it was a beautiful day in May. And from that point forward, I found God in nature a lot. It was after that, that I created a character, the Natural Girl that you were referring to. And I just started seeing beauty everywhere I stepped. It was the sun and the flowers. And I felt myself like I was a beautiful flower that was just starting to open up for the first time in my life. And I just really appreciated everything, just everything around me and everything took on this depth and this meaning that it had not before. So that's why I compare it to just living life kind of superficially and in gray scale to truly, it was like technicolor, everything was just vibrant in my world.

Ron Meyers:
Amen. I love that. Anybody listening right now that has had trauma in their past, are you saying that with God, they too could experience the colorful life and the appreciation for life that you are experiencing now?

Kimberly:
I am saying that yes, absolutely.

Ron Meyers:
A lot of us think that, "Well, I am who I am and I can't change." But that's not true, is it?

Kimberly:
No. Here's what I've learned. When you have those feelings of feeling small and feeling bad or ashamed or fill in the blank, something that is not the way God sees you, then that might be your logical mind and paying too much attention to what everyone else is saying and doing. God is supernatural. And I've seen it firsthand. When you have a relationship with him, miracles happen.

Kimberly:
I have a little story when I was recovering from the cancer treatment and this new world had opened up to me. My mom and I were going to go have dinner one night. And I was cooking a casserole for my husband and my daughter. And I reached in the oven to pull the casserole out, and the inside of my forearm made contact with the oven coil. It was a pretty bad burn. It was a couple of inches across and I doctored it and covered it up. And it took like two weeks before I could even take the bandage off and let it start healing. Talk about miracles. This scar, this burn healed into the perfect shape of a heart.

Ron Meyers:
Wow.

Kimberly:
I couldn't believe it. This was God speaking to me again. And I just want to encourage your listeners, he will speak to you and send you signs and signals and lift your spirits and put that courage in your heart, in your mind so that you can pick yourself up and dust yourself off and go live the beautiful life that he's gifted you with. And this part on my arm lasted for a few months. And I just thought it was the coolest.

Kimberly:
It's like this is a tattoo from God. This is way cooler than a real tattoo. Eventually it faded. And I was so sad to see it go because what a great reminder. So I ended up buying temporary tattoos from the company and I still use them with my clients. And they look just like my scar did.

Ron Meyers:
I love it.

Kimberly:
And what I knew from that experience was that God was telling me to start seeing myself and to start loving myself as he loves me. And that was huge.

Ron Meyers:
Yeah. That's real huge. I'll stop people on the street and give them a Jesus loves you bracelet, and you would think that they just won the lottery because someone told them that God loves them. We don't tell people enough how much we love them. And most of the time we don't tell ourselves how much God loves us.

Kimberly:
Oh, I totally agree. And I love it that you do that. And what a blessing you are to other people. Life is tough.

Ron Meyers:
It is.

Kimberly:
There's a lot of really hard stuff that goes on out there. And I'm still faced with things on a regular basis. And it takes cultivating that relationship with God, but just remind... That's why I love my heart scar tattoos because I wear them and it's a good reminder that God loves you. And when you're having thoughts of inferiority and like I said before, any negative thoughts, fill in the blank, that is not the way God sees you and that is not God's thought about you. And thank goodness that there are people like you out there and others who encourage other people because we need that.

Ron Meyers:
Kimberly, right now you have an audience of thousands of people. There are people listening that can relate to everything you just said. So I want you to send them a spiritual tattoo, that heart of God. What would you say to them?

Kimberly:
Suffering is optional. We're all going to go through things. And the worst thing you can do is turn to the ways of the world and your supply doesn't come from social media. It doesn't come from those in your environment. It comes from God. And the more you focus on him and cultivate that relationship, the stronger you are. You do begin to see miracles in your life. And I'm living proof of that over and over again.

Kimberly:
So don't lose hope. And if you are in a place where you've already lost hope, there is help available and commune with people who will guide you to God and help you on your path and your journey. And that's the other thing I've noticed over and over in my life, God always makes a way where there is no way. Always. He always does. Just when I think things are hopeless or helpless, or gosh, I can't do this. Well, no, we're not supposed to do it on our own. We're supposed to reach out to him and he has supernatural miracles and they're there for you.

Ron Meyers:
I always say God's never early. He's never late, but he will always be on time. So what's the name of your company if people want to get some of your material or maybe ask you some questions? And how do they get in touch with you?

Kimberly:
Yeah, absolutely. So my company is Tools for Empowering Women and the website is toolsforempoweringwomen.com. And my email address is kimberly@toolsforempoweringwomen.com.

Ron Meyers:
Toolsforempoweringwomen.com. All right.

Kimberly:
You got it.

Ron Meyers:
Well, you're doing a good thing out there. And one thing I do like to ask a guest is why did you decide to share your story?

Kimberly:
Well, it wasn't an easy decision, but it was God calling me to share my story. I've really struggled with it this past year. I have a mastermind group that I'm a part of, and we leaned on each other heavily this year. It was kind of talking about that some pieces of my story, and God just kept putting it on my heart. Like you can help people and you've got to be strong and tell your story. So I don't always want to be strong. But I do look to God when he talks to me. So that's why I'm here as your guest and that's why it matters to me to help other people.

Ron Meyers:
Sometimes we think that we are all alone in life. And then when somebody else shares a similar story, all of a sudden there's a connection and it helps build our faith.

Kimberly:
Absolutely. And if you haven't done it before, it's very scary. I mean, I did a meditation not too long ago. I have created a year's worth of these guided meditations. And one was about engaging your faith. I know a time in my life that faith was just more of a spiritual word and I didn't really understand what was behind it. "Oh, have faith. Have faith." Well, that's easier said than done. And you're absolutely right. You can say it all day long, but until you engage your faith, it's a risk. It's trusting. It's actually surrendering to God. And I find myself frequently saying, "I will, father, not mine be done," because I've tried to do it on my own and it didn't work.

Ron Meyers:
Yeah. Wow. So I'll put, Kimberly. What an awesome story. Thank you so much for sharing.

Kimberly:
Thank you for having me, Ron.

Ron Meyers:
Listeners, when I return, my monologue Living on a Prayer.

Speaker 2:
We all need encouragement. Encouragement does one of two things. It either frees us from the trouble we fear or gives us the strength and courage to meet the trouble when it comes. If you would like to receive a weekly text message of encouragement, simply text the word inspire to 51660. That's inspire to 51660. Our messages will encourage, inspire, and empower you on your journey through life. Life is tough. Be encouraged.

Ron Meyers:
I love that song by Bon Jovi. Every time I hear it, it takes me back to the age of 18. Young and foolish. I was married, a baby on the way. We were so poor that we couldn't pay attention. But our attitude was just like the song says, "We've got to hold onto what we've got. It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not. We've got each other and that's a lot for love." Well, it all worked out. Until she fell in love with the next door neighbor.

Ron Meyers:
How many times you thought, "I don't know if I'll make it. This love it's not enough anymore to get us through to the next day. I can't pay all my bills this month, or I just can't seem to get a break." Well, those thoughts are silent prayers. Oh, I know they're not your conventional prayers, but those thoughts trouble your soul and cause worry and fear. Your thoughts are on the mind and heart of your creator. After all, you are a child of God and everything about what you're going through is his concern.

Ron Meyers:
The first time I felt the hope of God speak to my heart was at age 11. Even though I didn't know about God, that quiet voice, the positive hope in my soul. I was living on an unknown prayer at that time. It got me through another day and another day.

Ron Meyers:
Thoughts of doom and gloom may crush us, but not destroy us. You may not even believe in God, but that will never stop him from depositing hope in your life so you can live another day.

Ron Meyers:
Are you doing all the right things, but you find yourself living on a prayer? Your faith isn't strong enough to surrender your weaknesses to God. So you keep trotting through life with a smile on your face but a hole in your heart. You can't tell anyone because one wrong word could send you over the edge. So you're at a point in life where you have constant thoughts about your future, your children, your life, your job. Will you make it? And the constant defeating thought is you're thinking of running away.

Ron Meyers:
Here's the good news. Your thoughts are heard by God. And he is saying to you today, it's time. He wants to move in your life. God's greatest desire is for you to give him you by taking his hand. Don't fear God. When you are in a relationship with God, he turns on the spigot of hope and pours into your soul. His spark of optimism brings a smile to your face. You see, God is not finished with you and for you to reach your full potential, to bloom into a beautiful flower, you must hold onto his hand and let him love the hell out of your life.

Ron Meyers:
It's time for you to laugh again. It's time for you to dream again. It's time to hope again. It's time for healing. It's time for you to go from living on a prayer to living in relationship with God. When you have each other, that is all a whole lot of love.

Ron Meyers:
Well friends, my time is up and I have been so blessed to have a conversation with Kimberly and with you. I'm praying for you. I believe in you. And I know that God has an unbelievable plan just for you. So take his hand and let him lead you into the land of your destiny and to never forget this, that God loves you. God has a plan for you, and he will take all the hell in your life and turn it into good. This is your time.

Speaker 2:
Today's show was produced by Ron Meyer's Ministries, a listener supported ministry. For a copy of today's broadcast, please visit our website thepromoter.org. And would you prayerfully consider making a tax deductible donation so that we may continue to share stories of God's amazing grace with the world and join us next week for another broadcast of Get the Hell Out of Your Life. Real people sharing real struggles and offering real hope.