divya
Well-Known Member
Lesbian, gang leader, prison inmate, abandoned in Jamaica, sexually assaulted at age nine by a female, raped at 13 by an older man and raped again by her brother-in-law. Michelle Smith's tale is a painful and harrowing one of a life gone terribly wrong
By Renee Cummings
Saturday, October 3rd 2009
Michelle Smith has put God back in business. This is not your ordinary I-found-Jesus-Christ-and-got-saved story. If anything, it leaves you wondering whether Jesus Christ is still this good at performing miracles.
"I could feel the demonic forces leaving me," she said. "And when the spirit of lesbianism left me I saw myself as a woman again."
She had prayed for two weeks straight - begging the Holy Spirit. "God if you are real I want to know. I want to know you Lord." It was a desperate cry. "Let me know you. I want to know you." she begged.
Then, one strange Sunday, she ran up to the altar. "I started to talk in tongues. A volcano erupted from the pit of my stomach. I was thinking in English, but it wasn't coming out in English," she said. As I sat watching her and wondering to myself what was really going on here? she quickly assured me, "I'm a rational thinking woman. I'm not crazy."
"I came into the church a man and people saw me leaving as a woman."
She was dead serious when she said she used to walk like a man, talk like a man, act like a man, dress like a man, and pursue women like a man. "I used to wear boxers. I used to wear men's socks. I never wore anything feminine," she revealed. "I was the biggest lesbian in Jamaica."
In homophobic Jamaica, Smith said, "she was brazen with it."
Being female was certainly a chromosomal bore for Smith. She had other plans for her libido. "I had penis envy." For as long as she could remember, Smith believed she was a man trapped in a woman's body. "I thought I was a man. I wanted to take hormone shots."
The female body in which she was born didn't match her own inner conviction and mental image of the man she thought she was. She lived her life off the sensation of thinking she was a man. But she felt a different kind of sensation that morning when the Holy Spirit touched her. "I felt every sin I committed," she said. That same Sunday six years ago she looked deep into the mirror hoping to find answers. What she found in the mirror was even more shocking. "I didn't see the man I thought I was. I saw a confused woman. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who I was."
She was not a believer and had always questioned the Bible "up until this life transforming moment." "My body felt like a new body. I no longer saw myself as a man. I saw curves on me!" She was petrified. "I was talking to God and he was talking back to me," she said. "I was crying and sobbing."
Smith confessed that she was always very indifferent about God. She wasn't raised in a Christian home but had tried to find God once before when she was in prison, in Holland, on a drug trafficking charge. And a time before that, she had called His name a few times, in sheer panic, after smoking a deadly dose of crack cocaine that nearly, according to her, "knocked her heart out."
Over the years, she had come up with so many justifications for her illicit lifestyle.
"But what I had was an inferior mindset."
She described herself as a "sponge" soaking up everything negative in her environment. "Growing up, there was emptiness in my life, a void that I was trying to fill."
She gravitated to a criminal crowd and repeatedly broke the law to get money and respect.
Forty-one years ago, her Trinidadian mother conceived her and left her in Jamaica. Her father is Jamaican. She grew up motherless and often fatherless since her father spent most of his days asleep and nights in a small raunchy club of which he was the proprietor. Her home life was in chaos and school couldn't hold her attention. Her father tried sending her away to stay with family. Not even that worked.
Her early memories of her mother are scattered. But she does remember buying drugs for her mother and actually doing drugs with her mother on one of her few visits to Jamaica. She explained that she never knew love but she knew every dysfunction a family could possibly have. She was molested by a female cousin at nine and raped by an older man at 13. She was also raped by her brother-in-law. Fill in the blanks.
At a young age she became the breadwinner of the family. She hustled a few older men in between for some cash here and there. She got herself in all kinds of trouble. Still in her early teens, Smith was seduced by a stripper and held against her will and forced to perform sexual acts and assist the stripper in servicing her clientele.
One day she ran away, ended up on the streets, and stayed there. She became a stone cold criminal. "I lived a gang leader lifestyle," she said in a strong Jamaican accent taking me on a mind-blowing mental trip into her gruesome gangster days. "My eyes used to be like steel but they became soft again."
Her just released book From Lesbianism to Grace is about the power of change. If miracles do happen then Michelle Smith's story is living proof. Hell was where she called home and now she is speaking of heaven. From a wretched soul living life in the underbelly of society, she has made it to the pulpit preaching on the unintended consequences of "being seduced by her own lust."
She has not had any kind of sex or any sexual contact for the last six years, since the Sunday she was saved.
"I no longer need sex to survive."
For the first time in her adult life men now look appealing and interesting. "I didn't like men but with my re-birth I now find them attractive. I now feel comfortable around them."
As she strives to cultivate her femininity, Smith says her book is for "people suffering in silence who are ashamed. This books is about hope," she smiled. She also hopes to find true love, marriage, and possibly a family of her own. "I'm looking for someone on my level."
Now living in Trinidad and working as a missionary with Evangelical Outreach International, Smith, an ordained reverend, teaches religious instruction at several schools in South Trinidad. She describes her transformation as a metamorphosis "a cocoon releasing a butterfly. " "It's wonderful to be me. I no longer have an inferior mindset. I'm no longer confused. I am now very much alive." Â
From Lesbianism to Grace is available online at Book Publisher, Book Publishers, Publishing Your Book, Publishing Companies, Christian Book Publisher, Christian Book Publishers, Christian Publishing | Tate Publishing and to order the book locally call 657-0302 or 330-8009.
Renee Cummings MA, MS, MSEd, CRC is a criminologist, psychologist, rehabilitation specialist, and substance abuse therapist. She is also a television and radio personality who just cannot get journalism out of her blood.
Trinidad News, Trinidad Newspaper, Trinidad Sports, Trinidad politics, Trinidad and Tobago, Tobago News, Trinidad classifieds, Trinidad TV, Sports, Business
By Renee Cummings
Saturday, October 3rd 2009
Michelle Smith has put God back in business. This is not your ordinary I-found-Jesus-Christ-and-got-saved story. If anything, it leaves you wondering whether Jesus Christ is still this good at performing miracles.
"I could feel the demonic forces leaving me," she said. "And when the spirit of lesbianism left me I saw myself as a woman again."
She had prayed for two weeks straight - begging the Holy Spirit. "God if you are real I want to know. I want to know you Lord." It was a desperate cry. "Let me know you. I want to know you." she begged.
Then, one strange Sunday, she ran up to the altar. "I started to talk in tongues. A volcano erupted from the pit of my stomach. I was thinking in English, but it wasn't coming out in English," she said. As I sat watching her and wondering to myself what was really going on here? she quickly assured me, "I'm a rational thinking woman. I'm not crazy."
"I came into the church a man and people saw me leaving as a woman."
She was dead serious when she said she used to walk like a man, talk like a man, act like a man, dress like a man, and pursue women like a man. "I used to wear boxers. I used to wear men's socks. I never wore anything feminine," she revealed. "I was the biggest lesbian in Jamaica."
In homophobic Jamaica, Smith said, "she was brazen with it."
Being female was certainly a chromosomal bore for Smith. She had other plans for her libido. "I had penis envy." For as long as she could remember, Smith believed she was a man trapped in a woman's body. "I thought I was a man. I wanted to take hormone shots."
The female body in which she was born didn't match her own inner conviction and mental image of the man she thought she was. She lived her life off the sensation of thinking she was a man. But she felt a different kind of sensation that morning when the Holy Spirit touched her. "I felt every sin I committed," she said. That same Sunday six years ago she looked deep into the mirror hoping to find answers. What she found in the mirror was even more shocking. "I didn't see the man I thought I was. I saw a confused woman. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who I was."
She was not a believer and had always questioned the Bible "up until this life transforming moment." "My body felt like a new body. I no longer saw myself as a man. I saw curves on me!" She was petrified. "I was talking to God and he was talking back to me," she said. "I was crying and sobbing."
Smith confessed that she was always very indifferent about God. She wasn't raised in a Christian home but had tried to find God once before when she was in prison, in Holland, on a drug trafficking charge. And a time before that, she had called His name a few times, in sheer panic, after smoking a deadly dose of crack cocaine that nearly, according to her, "knocked her heart out."
Over the years, she had come up with so many justifications for her illicit lifestyle.
"But what I had was an inferior mindset."
She described herself as a "sponge" soaking up everything negative in her environment. "Growing up, there was emptiness in my life, a void that I was trying to fill."
She gravitated to a criminal crowd and repeatedly broke the law to get money and respect.
Forty-one years ago, her Trinidadian mother conceived her and left her in Jamaica. Her father is Jamaican. She grew up motherless and often fatherless since her father spent most of his days asleep and nights in a small raunchy club of which he was the proprietor. Her home life was in chaos and school couldn't hold her attention. Her father tried sending her away to stay with family. Not even that worked.
Her early memories of her mother are scattered. But she does remember buying drugs for her mother and actually doing drugs with her mother on one of her few visits to Jamaica. She explained that she never knew love but she knew every dysfunction a family could possibly have. She was molested by a female cousin at nine and raped by an older man at 13. She was also raped by her brother-in-law. Fill in the blanks.
At a young age she became the breadwinner of the family. She hustled a few older men in between for some cash here and there. She got herself in all kinds of trouble. Still in her early teens, Smith was seduced by a stripper and held against her will and forced to perform sexual acts and assist the stripper in servicing her clientele.
One day she ran away, ended up on the streets, and stayed there. She became a stone cold criminal. "I lived a gang leader lifestyle," she said in a strong Jamaican accent taking me on a mind-blowing mental trip into her gruesome gangster days. "My eyes used to be like steel but they became soft again."
Her just released book From Lesbianism to Grace is about the power of change. If miracles do happen then Michelle Smith's story is living proof. Hell was where she called home and now she is speaking of heaven. From a wretched soul living life in the underbelly of society, she has made it to the pulpit preaching on the unintended consequences of "being seduced by her own lust."
She has not had any kind of sex or any sexual contact for the last six years, since the Sunday she was saved.
"I no longer need sex to survive."
For the first time in her adult life men now look appealing and interesting. "I didn't like men but with my re-birth I now find them attractive. I now feel comfortable around them."
As she strives to cultivate her femininity, Smith says her book is for "people suffering in silence who are ashamed. This books is about hope," she smiled. She also hopes to find true love, marriage, and possibly a family of her own. "I'm looking for someone on my level."
Now living in Trinidad and working as a missionary with Evangelical Outreach International, Smith, an ordained reverend, teaches religious instruction at several schools in South Trinidad. She describes her transformation as a metamorphosis "a cocoon releasing a butterfly. " "It's wonderful to be me. I no longer have an inferior mindset. I'm no longer confused. I am now very much alive." Â
From Lesbianism to Grace is available online at Book Publisher, Book Publishers, Publishing Your Book, Publishing Companies, Christian Book Publisher, Christian Book Publishers, Christian Publishing | Tate Publishing and to order the book locally call 657-0302 or 330-8009.
Renee Cummings MA, MS, MSEd, CRC is a criminologist, psychologist, rehabilitation specialist, and substance abuse therapist. She is also a television and radio personality who just cannot get journalism out of her blood.
Trinidad News, Trinidad Newspaper, Trinidad Sports, Trinidad politics, Trinidad and Tobago, Tobago News, Trinidad classifieds, Trinidad TV, Sports, Business
