That girl Filoe

I grew up in a beautiful home, filled with laughter and Bible verses. My single mother epitomized everything I want to be when I grow up. She built a house that was a home to my siblings and I. She taught us to pray and to refuse to be sick. Life outside of home was even more interesting. Living in an upcoming urban area meant learning to succumb to patterns and lifestyle choices that made me comfortable, accepted and well, ordinary.
School has always been the highlight of my experience. From learning a language to challenging opponents right through to even familiarizing myself to even the teacher's characteristics was and still is a beautiful mystery in my eyes. To me, the virtue of growth is discovery. Been afforded countless opportunities to find something that was there long before I was, to scrutinize and evaluate it and to end up mastering it strikes me as the master of all rewards. Especially because no one is born deserving of the opportunity of learning, but by God's positioning each child gets served their portion.
I'm of the deepest conviction that from the home setup, to the classroom and even to the maternity ward, the essence of life comes in the most pleasant and most excruciatingly bitter doses. I say this now because the first 19 years of my life prepared my for a ride on a fierce and rowdy whirlwind.
I can't fathom the agony of an everlasting wound that doesn't heal even though time is moving. Hence I'm writing this post. Shortly after I turned 19 I was brutally attacked, kidnapped and gang raped by three vicious men. My wound is healing. From the home my mother built, to the eloquent speaker my English teacher brewed to the street smart urban babe my peers groomed, I found myself in an emotional, physical, psychological and spiritual cal-de-sack.
Life as I knew it changed. Totally and drastically. Hatred tasted as real as course sea salt on a sensitive pallet.
Breaking free from the pain meant killing myself. Escaping the reality of been tortured so brutally and mercilessly simply and clearly meant to end my life. It was that way or no other way. Face it to live or end it by dying I preached to myself for the first 6 months preceding that disastrous night. When your body goes through a certain amount of pain that you feel as though life itself is rejecting you, that's the very point of surrender.
Its been 4 years and 8months and I can't help but smile through the tears. I was a victim. Then a survivor. Then a patient. Then a medical experiment. Then a case study. Then a statistic. Then a student. Now an ambassador. All because of surrender. The type of surrender that benefits you.
Oftentimes I sit and recall it all, and I realize that the grander scheme of purposeful existence, is passion. For life through pain, or numbness through death. We are presented with that choice each day. Feel the tension, pressure and strain through the liveliness of your young body OR not, by seizing to feel or respond to anything. Being raped not only meant I'd hate men, it meant I couldn't escape them. I wake up everyday and CHOOSE to love, respect, honor and pray for them.
At19, life had not "begun". But mine did that night. See, its difficult. Tough. Strenuous. Really just an uphill battle. There is not a time when life makes precise sense in our own human understanding from that type of assault. A phoenix is said to rise from ashes. I grew up in a beautiful home, neighborhood, school system, church, family......
Today I am a phoenix.
I did not rise from that furnace to be a sex, rape and abuse celeb, I rose up to pull out other phoenix' still buried in ash.
My getting raped could have symbolized an unfair God to the world but it symbolized purpose to me.
A week into my quest, I am reflecting on the goodness and character of the God my mother still teaches and testifies to me about.
A week into this birth I can already see the labor of love and the fruits of sacrifice that are going to be the pillars to this building.
A week into it and I know, I was called for this battle. The call had to be as real as the pain I'd felt. The call had to be as vivid as the reality of my ordeal. The call had to be as relevant as the current statistics stand.
From a victim to an ambassador.
I am boldly confessing to the world that part of my live's purpose and another reason for my existence is to be an advocate for healing. I have been trained to empower the discouraged, to set a courageous example with my own life and to aid the corner of the world where God has strategically placed me to groom a new generation of men and women that serve each other, protect, assist and bend backwards for each other's sanity and well-being.
Is it fun or easy? Far from that. But oh so worthy. Won't I cry out and scream? Trust me, I might. This journey is in it, to win me. Yes!
You may have noticed on my social feeds. But a week into it, I can smell fresh ash, forming into healed women and a community engaging in a battle for freedom. Take notice and stay with me.
It is called WAR against Rape n Abuse @WAR_RnA #Warsp2014