What do you do when you discover mid-life that you were raised by adoptive parents? Or, more than that, what do you do when you discover even later that your birth was because of rape? Most people, even in our educated culture, think that a child born of rape must have a strain of “demon” in them. In the minds of many more, that child should have been aborted. But not so with Juda. She tells the story of her birth mother being raped by 8 men, and Juda being the product of that rape. Join us to discover what God has called Juda to be and do with her life as host Dave Schultz uncovers with Juda what many would like to hide.
Transcript
The following program is sponsored by evangelical life ministries.
Welcome to engaging truth, the manifestation of God's word and the lives of people around us. Join us each week. As we explore the impact of his message of spiritual renewal from the lesson of forgiveness, forwards them, the crucible of divorce to the message of salvation learn earned by an executioner from a condemned killer to the gift of freedom found in the rescue of victims of human trafficking. This is God's truth in action.
Welcome to engaging truth. This is Dave Schultz, your host for this evenings program with an emphasis on mothers during mother's day a month. And we've got a guest I've had before many times because of the compelling story that she has about her mom and what she did for her. So welcome Juda Myers.
Thanks so much for having me back.
We're gonna talk about something that is so important to, um, because without a loving Christian God fearing mother, you may never have been here. Would you tell me your story? So the listening audience, although they may have heard some may have heard this before, it's a compelling, loving story, and we need to hear it again.
her to abort. Now this is in:I didn't know that she was attacked by eight men. I didn't know any of this. And um, she was in a wheelchair in the nursing home. I'm kneeling next to her. When you met, when you saw her personally, when I first met her, yeah, I was 48 years old and um, I'm kneeling next to her and she's telling me the story and I just burst out crying and you know, she just tapped me on the shoulder and she says, honey, stop, you're crying. I've forgiven those men. And look what God has done. He's brought you back to me. Wow. Well, if she could forgive them, you know, I could forgive them. And then my whole attitude completely changed. She, she was a living hero for me. I wouldn't be alive today. Had she gone along with her parents? If she wouldn't have been so strong, if she wouldn't have just said, no, this is my baby. God gave me this baby. This didn't come from the rape. This is my baby part of me. And uh, obviously I'm forever indebted to her. So
You were is by, um, an adoptive parents then were they loving parents? They
Were very loving. Um, my adoptive mother had some physical, um, problems that caused, um, mental anguish, you know, she was in a lot of pain. And so, and in those days, you know, the kind of way that you raise a child wasn't necessarily seen as abuse. Whereas today, you know, you think, oh, that's abuse, but no, they, they loved me and I was a daddy's girl till the day he died.
When you think back upon just those days, um, did you ever have question to ask of your birth mother if she knew anything about where you came from or did she just kind of keep
That quiet all you mean? My adopted mom? I mean your adopted mom. No, I was, um, told from the very beginning that I was adopted. In fact, they made me feel very, very special. They said you had two sets of parents, you know, you were so special and you were so loved. And they said that my birth mom, they were told that she had died giving birth because sadly this agency that placed me for adoption, they didn't want me to ever find my birth mother. And so while I was told that I was loved, I grew up knowing that my adopted parents had sacrificed a lot. You know, it costs a lot of money to adopt a child. And I knew that they had sacrificed a lot, but yet I always wanted to know about what about my birth mom. So when I tried to find her, I had a court order, I went to the agency, they really didn't wanna tell me.
And um, I said, you're gonna be held in contempt of court if you do not give that information. So they finally agreed to gimme the information, but the lady was really ugly. She just leaned over and said, your mother was raped. And it just about destroyed me because I started, uh, I started thinking about how other people thought about me. Um, not about my mother having sacrificed so much. I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking about myself and I wanted to commit suicide. I thought I wasn't worthy of anything, which was a lie. Because at that point I was married. I had children who loved me. I had parent, I had lots of people who loved me, but yet I'm ready to believe the devil. And so fast forward when I did meet my mom, she reinstilled in me that I was a gift from God.
What I had heard all my life. But now my heroic mother is giving me a different viewpoint of that gift because she was the one who received the gift. And then she said, she gave the gift to other parents who couldn't have children. And so I'm not saying that to sound arrogant. I'm saying that it is so humbling that God will you, no matter what you think of yourself. Um, and mothers are so vital, you know, in this day and age, when mothers are attacked, forced to abort are just told that they can't do anything. I wanna tell people that they can, mothers are strong enough. Women are strong enough to be the heroes that their children need, but you have
To believe that the child is the gift of God to have that mentality. Don't you?
Yes. I mean, or at least believe that the child is part of you. This is not, you know, this is not like some groceries you don't wanna pick up, you know? Oh, I, I changed my mind. This is a living human being from the moment of, of, uh, fertilization. We have all our DNA, my mom, my mom, she knew that she knew I was a human being. She knew that God had sent me and she knew that I was hers. Nobody else's.
I bet she must have had some, some personal vision of her own that God gave her about what would happen by her, by her keeping you, did
She ever say anything about that? She never mentioned anything like that. She just said that at some point, while she was pregnant, she knew that, you know, that God had given her the baby. She knew that, um, it didn't just happen out of violence. She thought that God had seen her, her, her being harmed. He doesn't stop evil. I don't know why that that's not a answer I have. Well, I don't have it either. Yeah. So I know that he lets us do whatever we want right here. And now I can do whatever I want. I'll suffer the consequences, but he gives us a right. However, when he sees somebody who has been harmed and they're crying out to him, he's on it. And so my mom had cried out to him and it is just a special time when, you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that life begins with him. And it's not with really humanity. He's the author of all life.
So your mom then got married, uh, somewhere in her twenties. She did. And um, you you're gone, you've been adopted by another couple. Did you ever have a close relationship with, with your dad or your stepdad?
Um, I adopted dad. You adopted dad? Yeah, he was the best. Um, he lived with us, um, about four years before he died and yeah, I was a daddy's girl. So that concept of the father, I never thought about him cuz my dad supplied every need I had for a father. He was the best. I mean, you know, the kind of dad that he could fix, everything. He knew everything. He's just, he was just the best dad. And um, so I never really cared about knowing about the father. I figured maybe it was a one night stand or, you know, I just never, I don't know. I was more concerned with my mother.
Well, the beauty of this story is, uh, as I see it is that your mom had the courage to say no to your destruction. She had the courage to say yes to whatever was, was gonna happen, that God would permit hap to happen to her. Um, how about this time as a little girl, uh, you were, um, you were faced with the same thing. Your little girls were faced with all the time, but you didn't know where you, where you really came from. Did your mom, your birth mom or your stepmom? Did she kind of coddle you along the way as well?
No,
Was it she that, um, or where did you meet Jesus along the way as a little girl. Was it through your,
I don't ever remember not, I can't remember a time. I remember my, um, parents telling me that when they would go to church, if they weren't hanging onto me really tight, I was making a, as they used to say Beline for the altar. And as I grew, I would talk to the Lord. I didn't, I didn't know him know him, but I would talk to this creator of mine.
Who let you come into the world? He, yeah,
He, he made me for a purpose. So when I learned that I was conceived in rape, it almost destroyed me. And I asked him, so did you really do this? Did you really make me or are people right? Am I a demon seed? Did, did this, you know, is this of your, a purpose? And I heard him say, I have placed you in the camp of the enemy to glorify my name. Oh, wow. Let me tell you, that's gonna just bump you up a notch and go, oh, I can do this. There's not anything in this world that I can't find a solution for, or I can't. And with him, I just I'm an encourager. So I wanna encourage people out there. If you're going through something, just seek him because he's our beginning. And he is our end. He is the beginning and he is the end and there's just nothing else. And our strength is gonna come from him alone. Other strength that we think, you know, we're doing yoga, we're doing whatever kind of things that the world wants to throw at us in substitution, but that's not gonna last. You're gonna get to a, a really hard place in life and that's not gonna be good enough because it's not truth. But when truth is standing there with you, there's not anything that's gonna bud you. So that's my mom. My mom knew the truth and she was not gonna be budged
When you go back and think of, think through these issues that you faced today. Did you ever think that God was gonna to used you in a special way? Did you ever say, dear gracious, God, you've, you've preserved me for this day. And for this time, what is it that you wanted me or did it just all of a sudden appear to you that there are other people in the world that came to this world? Like you, they need to be cared for as well. What about that?
Well, like I said, I didn't really know him know him and so I needed to get to learn him more because at that point I didn't really know what he wanted or anything and you know, just all over the place. So there's a portion in my life. That's a train wreck. Uh, and that's another story, but I got to the point where, um, I met my mother and I didn't ever wanna tell anybody ever in my life I was conceived and raped. That was a secret. I was always gonna keep up till that point up to that point. Well, it wasn't even that point. Um, it was a little bit before that when I had, um, learned at the, uh, agency mm-hmm
I, I'm not telling I'm arguing with God. I am not gonna tell my story. I'm not telling anybody, well, this may not be with everybody else. But when I don't say yes to God, he punches me in the stomach. I know that sounds totally insane. But I get this sucker punch in my gut. I'm like, ah, and I knew he to keep punching me until I'm like on the floor yelling mercy. And so I was up there. And so in my little attitude, I said, well, I'm I have to be in order. Right. He tells us to be in order. So I'm gonna go and ask the pastor in this little, really nasty little attitude towards God's a, he should have punched me and let me fall to the ground.
And I'm gonna say, I need to tell my story, like a goofball, right? And he's just gonna say, honey, you know, get back over there. I knew he was gonna say that pastor. That's what you tell him, not right now. Right now. What are you doing? All right. So I get up there and I go over, they're all confident. You know that he's gonna tell me no, get back over there. And he says, here I was so mad at God. Like, what are you do? All this arguing in my head. And then I don't know what I said. I said, whatever I said, can't remember. And I think that's because I think that God wants to always have the last word. So you don't know what you said, but it helped people. And from that point on, it has been ministry to help other people. Oh, well,
That's wonderful that you saw, uh, the, the hand of God working through something that was very clumsy and ugly to call you to do care for other people.
I met you a number of years ago and you were at that particular point ministering to people that I did not know existed in the world. What? You probably just uncovered them when they were trying to cover them. So exactly. How
Did all that happen? I just start telling my story and more people say, Hey, would you come and tell your story at my place? Would you come here? So when I would go every single time, I was anywhere telling my story. There'd be one to five people coming up to me after it was all over with and saying, I have your story. I've never told anybody in my life
Is that normal where people will keep the story to themselves. Unless they believe that God, in some way can use this.
Even if God can use it. Sometimes they don't want to because they don't want all of the attacks. If you just look at Facebook any given time and somebody's giving their story, um, there's a attack. There's a beautiful little boy. Um, his mom was brutally right and left for dead. And she of the kid he's beautiful. And her husband loves him and said, this is my child that God gave us. This is not a rapist kid. Why are you calling this a rapist kid? This is my son. This is the father talking. And they will attack her. They will attack the child. They will attack the husband. Um, so a lot of,
Because they think that that child
Hate the child. Why it's Satan? Because nobody planned for us to be here. Nobody except God, our mothers didn't wanna be raped. There's not a father wanting to create a family. So God is the only one who wanted a rape conceived child here.
It's so hard for, for me on this side of the, of the ledger to, to know that a baby is being created inside of a mother and that she could ever even conceive of aborting that child. And then on top of that, that the child is conceived in rape, but you've uncovered something that, that I, that I didn't know about until you uncovered it.
Me either. I'd never heard of it either,
But it's a, it's beautiful that these people have a place to go. They say, yes, there's somebody living in the state of Texas somewhere, um, who has been through this. And she's very, very mouthy about it. And, but she's very loving about it. How, how wonderful and experience these people must have when they meet you and know that you've been through what they are going through and you can do it with confidence.
Um, the, the biggest thing that sh that shocked me was that, um, there are women who, who are needing help so badly that nobody around them believes that they were even raped because they want this child. Well, if you were raped, you wouldn't want this child. I have found the love of mothers for their rape conceived child is unbelievable to most people. And that's where I'm trying to help. I, I have talk to almost 500 and it, it keeps astonishing me. The love is beyond anything. And then when you get these mothers together, they're bragging worse than any other mother I've ever met, just on and on embarrassing. My mom was doing that, just embarrassing. Oh, look at my job and this and everybody else is doing the same thing. And their kids, a lot of them are very talented. I have noticed some ex they're not, they're not rapists. They're not murderers. They're not thieves. They are good people who are contributing, doctors, lawyers, um, all kinds of people that are just amazing.
Julie, you have kind of uncovered, uh, something that I don't know that I've ever heard anyone uncover, but you've created a ministry out of it. And as a result of it's, your hearts are your dissolves open for ladies or men who have come up from rape conditions? What do you tell the, the people of the listening audience? There's someone out there hurting badly and doesn't know what to do. Tell them what to do.
So if you are conceived in rape, you are worth as much as anybody else, cuz God, may, you, you have a purpose for the mothers who are carrying a baby, or you have a child who's conceived a rape, but you just don't know what to say. Call us two eight one four five one eight four six zero two eight one four five one eight four six zero or choices. That's the number four life.org.
What would you say to a young lady? Um, who's burying a child today that everyone is forcing her through to, um, to, um, abort. What do you tell her confidently from your heart of hearts, what you should be thinking and how, how Jesus can truly make a difference in her life.
Jesus died to save us and I'm asking you to live for your child. You will never regret giving life to your child. That baby will love you and be ever, ever great. We all wanna be heroes here is that opportunity.
I'd like to just as we come to the last couple minutes of our, of our discussion, um, tell me a little bit about your mom that I don't know.
She had a very, very hard life. She, um, had mental issues after the rape. Um, she had shock therapy. Um, she prayed for 48 years that she would be able to see me again. And, um, she died. I was the last person with her. Um, she was the first person with me. So God fulfilled what he needed to do in her life.
How wonderful it is that you can look back upon the joy of finding your mom and tears, that flowed and the joy that you experienced. Um, that probably very few people can really comprehend simply because of the depth of what she went through to bring you into the world. Even I
Can't even imagine. And what that was like. She said, she was left for dead. So
Well, ju we've just got less than a minute left. And I just wanna say, thank you. You always kind of like lighting a, a wick
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