About Jenny
Born into this world under terrible circumstances, Jen has always been chased by rejection and loneliness. With an overcoming spirit, she not only rose above it, but created a ministry for women with life controlling issues that led to a ministry for the recovery of thousands of human slavery survivors in the UK. With 14 safe houses across the British Isles as well as programs in Scotland, Holland and Ghana, this ministry changed forever the lives of many.
This is an extract from her forthcoming book ‘Unchosen: Contesting for Your Destiny’
I shouldn’t be here . . .
I know I shouldn’t. The current chances of my very existence are slim to none. My life should actually have ended before it ever began. The fact that I’m alive flies in the face of almost every conviction that’s ever been voiced across the planet… simply to ease the pain.
I have become the unwanted reminder of when a person’s life is slashed by havoc and recklessly changed forever.
In almost every home and heart, that reminder must go. No one wants a photo album of a tragic memory crawling around their carpet from dawn to dusk. I get it entirely.
I have become part of the smallest minority group on earth: the unchosen - those who remain alive yet unchosen by mothers, grand mothers, friends and family. We’re the unchosen - those sent away to live in the shadowlands of adoption, harassed by a recurring dream of being cast aside, rejected and abandoned. I stand with the unchosen - a minority splinter group that somehow holds the record of having the shortest life expectancy of any group on earth.
I do understand - it’s hard for the world to not create double victims from one single crime. Yet I’m not the criminal and somehow just escaped the crime wave. I’m just the unplanned and unwanted swept along and swept under the rug by a double injustice.
My life began in defilement, there’s no denying that. I was the baby of not just a rape, but a gang rape - no love, no thought, no care, no value - nothing but the stark ugliness of both greed and theft, abuse and denial.
This would all be true, though, if it had not been for one other truth that I’ve worn every single day as a golden pendant around my neck, ever since I was informed of my sinister beginnings. I’ve held onto it and it’s held onto me through valleys and droughts, tears and surrenders, storms and blessings.
It’s a scripture found at the start of the Book of Jeremiah right in the centre of the Bible’s Old Testament. It’s God declaring to Jeremiah and just as importantly to me:
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‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…’
It’s a truth that, if it were a sword, it would be found swash buckling in every lonely hour of every season within my soul against the double edged sword of death itself - rejection and abandonment.
God’s words to Jeremiah didn’t stop there. He continued with a bold declaration:
‘I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’
It speaks not just of origins but of future - of meaning and purpose. That truth is mine as well. I own it and I owe my life to it. I’ve received both a new story of origin AND a new story to write!
Can this actually be real though? Can God redeem and restore even the most heinous crimes on this earth? Can He rebuild and build back better that which was mercilessly attacked, bashed and broken? Could God have preempted the story? Could He have known?
I find myself often exhausted in my incessant battles between fear and faith, aloneness and presence, past and future. Could this be the ‘fight of faith’ that Paul encouraged Timothy to pursue and conquer? There’s no doubt that all of us are plagued with our own feeling of abandonment even if your childhood memories are both happy and joyous. The fine dust of rejection finds its way through every window of every soul . . .
For many either frozen by trauma or recovering from trauma, my story is yours - just different rock formations, different caves, different landscapes and different places we once called home - yet the same shadows, the same night screeches, the same battles and the same arch enemies.
My story, however, isn’t just about finding connection points, it’s about the rest of my story - my redemption story. It’s about me giving you hope - fresh hope in Christ. It’s about God giving you a view beyond the mountain ridge and beyond that horizon that seems to be getting threateningly closer each season you live.
My life is about conquest and destiny. It's about contending for YOUR destiny. As you know, destiny will never just fall from the sky. The universe has nothing to do with it. It doesn’t have any interest in you. It must be taken by faith, by belief, by patience and by standing strong - standing alone with God, with me (your new friend) and with others called to contend with you for the greatest gift outside of salvation - a life of purpose, peace and joy.
You’re chosen and called, hand selected and set apart. You’re rebooting, recovering and restoring for a new day, a new season and a new era. It may be slow but it’s never no! Alway remember that 'fast' is an optical illusion. Every miracle has a history just as every branch has a root. There’s no such thing as 'fast love' or 'fast faith' - just real love and real faith. It may take some time but what a life God creates.
Things take time, yet, by the time you arrive, someone else will be arriving at exactly the same time as you to create a new team: your new team, and a new partnership: your new partnership, all to see God turn brokenness into wholeness, prisons into palaces and mourning into joy into the hearts and lives of others.
If it sounds too good to be true, halve it and then halve it again. It’s still full of power. You past will become a distant memory and the light of His goodness will be light enough to show you the way into all He has set aside for you.