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Wanting More Than An Empty Lifestyle

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As little girl, Fetima wondered what her life was worth.  Her father was killed when she was one year old.  At age four, a family member began molesting her. The abuse continued for three years.  And, when she was 7, she lost her mother to breast cancer.  “I felt insecure because I felt like I didn't know who I was, where I belonged. I felt depressed because of what I had experienced and I felt fearful that my life would always be how it was.”

She moved in with relatives but didn’t feel loved or welcome there.  Meanwhile, she was still haunted by the trauma of molestation.  “As a result of me being molested, when I was 10 years old I began to have sexual dreams about women. They were like lucid dreams and they made me question who I was.”

Over time, she developed an attraction to the same-sex.  “When I was 14, a young lady actually approached me, and she said, you know, ‘I've seen you around school and…do you want to be my girlfriend? I think you're attractive, do you want to be my girlfriend?’  And I thought, "Well, now is the time to act on everything that I've already been feeling.”

Fetima embraced a bi-sexual lifestyle and also began hanging out late, drinking, using drugs.  After graduating high school, she joined the Marine Corps and hoped for a fresh start.  “While I was still struggling with who I was. While I was still struggling with self-worth, I reached a breaking point in the Marine Corps.  I became a functioning alcoholic…drinking full party-sized bottles of wine on a Wednesday night, cup-for-cup, and then going to work the next day.  And it was so crazy because everyone thought that I was the party girl and that I loved life,  but those people are usually the most broken.  It's a compensation thing. And then when they're by themselves they can't even stand the sight of themselves in the mirror, and that's how I was.

After several injuries, Fetima received an honorable discharge. No longer a marine, she thought her life had hit rock bottom.  She was hopeless, and her cousin invited her to church.

“And he said, ‘Fetima, don't you want more?’ And little did he know, that's exactly what I had been looking for, was more. More of life. More. So, I went to the young people's service and I went in there wreaking of Vodka from the night before. So, I can't even remember the message that they preached but I remember the feeling that I had and I felt the presence of God. And for me, that presence made me feel like – it felt like home. It made me feel like I’m-I’m supposed to be here.”

During the next service, Fetima heard a message that changed her life.

“Through the new birth experience, you become a new creature through Christ. Old things are passed away and behold all things have become new.  So when I heard that in the Word of God, I said, Okay…If it comes to being baptized in Jesus' name to wash away the things that I've done and to even arise in the newness of life so that I don't have to be the person that I used to be, I don't have to be bound by what I used to be bound by, I'll do it.”

Fetima realized she can be victorious over addiction and temptation.

“Asking the Lord to be a part of my life, to be in my heart, to be the ruler over my mind, is a continual walk. It started at baptism, it started at receiving the Holy Ghost, but it's a continual walk, day by day. Because things are going to continue to come up.  Keep the flesh under subjection. Though I may be tempted, I can overcome that temptation. So, the same-sex attraction isn't completely gone because we're going to be tempted, but I have power over it now.”

In Sunday School, Fetima became friends with Ronald. He also left the homosexual lifestyle.
“She was the main person who spoke into me and reaffirmed me as a man when I was questioning whether or not I could do this walk with Christ, you know, and be transformed. And she saw a leader in me before I even did.”

Their relationship blossomed into romance and they married in 2015. And in 2019, Fetima gave birth to their son, Alexander.

In moments like this, she is simply amazed.      

“I never thought that I would be here. You know, I never thought that I could have someone who can really empathize with me, someone who would really love me.  After all that I experienced, I didn't even love myself, but God gave me someone who sees all that I've experienced, the things that I felt would bar me from being a candidate for marriage. He saw and He said, I want to help you heal there. I don't think I would have ever been here had it not been for the grace and mercy of God. I'm grateful that God saw fit to not only die for me, but to show me a life that I never thought that I would be able to have.”

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