Imagine having your innocence taken away from you at only two years of age. Imagine being forced onto the wrong path before your life had hardly begun. It may be hard to fathom such horror, but that’s exactly what happened to me. I can’t remember a time when sex and perversion was not a part of my life. By the time I became a teenager sex is all that I knew. My spirit was shattered and my soul was scattered. Certainly there was no hope left for me to realize my childhood dream of marriage, a happy family and being a successful author. After all, I had committed almost every act imaginable, with more people than I could stomach to recall – Ok, I can recall, it was over 200. Homosexuality, prostitution, STDs – not to mention drug and alcohol abuse, jail time, being committed to mental institutions, and a teenage pregnancy.
What man would take this single mother and her young son and make us into an honorable family? How could this prostitute make a success out of her misdirected, dysfunctional life? After giving up hope, I decided that the best out was death. I was planning to do the unthinkable – murder my son and then kill myself. Thinking about the innocence of my two year old son, I was unable to go through with my plan. I then decided to do something that was, in my mind, as equally desperate. I decided to cry out to God.
You see, reaching out to God was a long shot. After all, people in the church who were supposed to represent God had been rejecting me for years, so I figured He wouldn’t be any different. ‘Church folk’ were too concerned about the measure of my dress to notice the measure of my need. Yet in that dark moment, sobbing uncontrollably on my living room floor I cried out,
“God, if you will just be real to me I will serve you! I am tired of the testimony of others about how good You are. I want You to be real to ME. I don’t need religion; I need a friend who loves me.”
God responded to my broken plea in a very real way. I literally felt arms from Heaven reach down and hug me. I immediately stopped crying and looked to the hills where my help came from. I looked up to Jesus and knew my life would never be the same…
Jesus did indeed save me and become a real friend to me, but my life was still in shambles. There was a long season of struggling after becoming born again. I knew no other way to live except the life that I had always lived. There was no one to teach me and few who cared to understand my struggle with sexual perversion. I tried to get help from others in church, but my seek was always met with condescending judgment, ignorant discomfort or sexual escapades with others that were secretly in the same struggle as I was. Yet over the course of 18 months, God brought me out of many challenges.
There was one incident in particular that the Lord allowed that really set me on the path of my destiny. It started when the assistant pastor of my church asked me for my phone number. He said that he was going to give it to his wife because he saw that I really needed some help. The filth of my spirit was way beyond obvious, but I didn’t really want his help. I was distrustful of him and reluctant to fulfill his request, but his persistence won out and I did give him my number.
Unfortunately, his wife never saw that number. That very same day he called me six times. He called me every day thereafter – at my house, on my cell phone, at my job – he would not stop calling me. What he was up to was apparent to me. He wasn’t the first “man of the cloth” to run after me. I knew these things never ended well, but this lustful pastor was my only Christian friend at that time. After a while, friendly phone calls turned into visits and visits turned into a desire for more. I was feeling uncomfortable with the relationship because he was married to a beautiful and anointed sister at the church who happened to be pregnant at the time.
I asked and even pleaded on numerous occasions for him to end his “friendship” with me. He insisted though that it was OK and said that “preachers need friends too.” I could see where this whole thing was going, but how was I supposed to handle him sitting outside of my house crying when I refused to let him come in? It seemed like he really needed me in his life, and I so needed to be needed. I was young in age and young in the Lord. I just did not have the strength to withstand his pursuit of me.
After much begging and pleading with God that He would make this man stop coming to my house; after tearfully praying that He would not let me fall into sexual sin again – it seemed that my prayers had fallen on deaf ears. Six months into our “friendship” there I was on my bed crying. We had committed adultery. He had to go home to his wife, and I was left alone in my room to deal with the shame and consequent self-hatred. We were together only a short while longer, but I was sure after this affair that I would never be anything more than the prostitute I had always been.
I had it in my mind to go back to the world, but My Heavenly Father stopped me. Through that incident, God allowed me to experience the deepest depths of His love and mercy by not only forgiving me for my sins but also showing me how to use them to overcome satan in my life and the lives of others. Little did I realize it at that time, but God allowed me to fall so He could elevate not only me, but also The Body of Christ through me. He allowed me to be brought low, so He could later take me high. God delivered me out of that relationship and equipped me for my call.
At last, I was ready to serve Him with all my heart, soul, body and strength. It’s amazing what can happen when you really make up in your mind to give God your all! I began to devour the Word of God. I prayed and fasted diligently. I cut off every negative associate in my life. I didn’t carry a ministry title at the time, but no one could tell me that I wasn’t an Evangelist because I shared the Good News of the Gospel everywhere, with everyone!
Even with my new found freedom in Christ and passion for righteousness there was one more hurdle I had to jump. Shortly after my affair ended with the pastor — at the pastor’s request — I began dating one of his brothers. The brother proposed to me and I became his fiancée. But, our relationship quickly led to fornication. As badly as I wanted the honor of becoming a wife, I knew that he was not the man that would shape and encourage my destiny in Christ. Thus, I ended the relationship, gave him his ring back and prepared myself for the reality of living as a single mother for the rest of my Christian days. I was certain that no sanctified Christian man would ever marry me. Nonetheless, I was determined to not settle for less. That was the last time I ever committed fornication.
Within two months of my decision to not just be born again, but to be victoriously born again: After finally determining in my heart to let God be my Truest and Dearest Love – I met my knight Emmanuel. Emmanuel was a true man of God and a Prophet. He had been waiting in celibacy nearly six years for God to send him a wife and I was the woman sent. On just our second date the Man of God told me that I was his wife and that my son was his son. But I wondered, “What will he say when he finds out about my past: Will he still want me”?
I eventually gathered up the courage to tell him of my past. I spent two hours bearing all because I couldn’t enter into a marriage covenant in deception. After I finished speaking, I trembled as silence pierced the room. I wondered what he would say. Emmanuel told me to come to him. I knelt before him, my head hung in shame. He gently lifted up my face, looked me in the eyes and said, “I am so sorry for what they did to you. You are my Queen Esther and you are a virgin to me.” Within five weeks we were married!
Since that time I have gone on to make waves in the Body of Christ as God’s chosen vessel. God used something foolish to confound the minds of the wise. No one ever thought that this pitfall for preachers; this home-wrecking Delilah; this former prostitute would one day be a Prophetess. But a Prophetess I am indeed, with the preaching ministry and fruit by which God approves me. The message that God has given me about the spirits of sexual perversion and true intimacy with Him is a radical but timely Word for the end-time, remnant people of The Body of Christ. It has changed and rearranged lives in the same way that God’s love changed and rearranged my own life. All of my trials were turned into triumph: My misery became my ministry: My mess became my message: My test became my testimony.
Today, my husband and I have been married for almost ten years. A childhood illness had supposedly left me barren, but I guess God didn’t know that because He has blessed us with six additional children! We successfully oversee a unique ministry called “THE CHURCH on the phone”. I have written three powerful books, maintain a notable presence on the internet through my blog and have an arsenal of CDs and DVDs. Our seven children – our marriage – our lives – are the admiration (or envy) of everyone. It is often hard for even me myself to believe that I am who I am today. When my husband says to someone, “This is my wife”; when my seven children say “Mommy, I love you”; when people greet me and say, “Prophetess you have blessed me so much” sometimes I think to myself, “Are they really talking about me?”
But I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. Isn’t God the same yesterday, today and forever? I now join the ranks of other graced and inspirational women in the Bible that were once known only as prostitutes: Tamar, Rahab, Mary Magdalene, the promiscuous woman at the well, and now… Laneen Haniah. From prostitute to Prophetess – that’s my TESTimony.
Do you want to encourage someone else with this testimony? You can purchase it on CD from my website. The CD is entitled: “Her Husband Was in My Bed”. Here is the link:
http://www.laneenhaniah.com/My_Products.html
In His Power,
Prophetess Laneen A. Haniah
AKA – Dr. Intimacy
Have a question about relationships, sex or related issues? Leave a comment on the advice page. Send me an e-mail through my website www.laneenhaniah.com; send me a text message at 347-495-4555, or snail mail me at PO Box 151416; Dallas, TX; 75315. I might publish and respond to your comment or question in the next issue of my magazine column or here on the blog!
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