CAMEO Ministries

I’m usually very quiet and have kept so much in all my life, which I have realized since coming to Grace Fellowship, accepting Jesus Christ into my heart then taking His hand guiding me. In attending several small groups and (other areas) within the past two weeks He really started to work inside to push things out of me. I have kept quiet until now. … I was a woman who spent all of my life battling rejection, including at birth and as an innocent baby who was stricken with illness, as well as all kinds of abuse. The abuse ranged from sexual abuse starting at six years old, to controlling (mental) manipulating abuse and physical abuse.  Because of this… I was such a sinner always seeking relief. I endured so much brokenness and destruction, time after time, from making wrong choices and decisions, trying to find my way out on my own. I did believe in God that whole time. ….I was a lost, worried soul full of fear, doubt and sin… God is showing me all truths vs lies in the most significant way. I am thanking God for you being the leaders of this ministry and for guiding me for healing.

God has been moving in my heart in my marriage. He has clearly shown me how I was in sin with disrespect. The word respect angered me. I felt that no man was deserving of it. Every man in my life hurt me, including my husband. I recently see it as sin. I confessed it and received His forgiveness and asked for Him to show me what respect was. I have clearly seen disrespect and I know the Lord will be glorified through this. Obedience will always lead to blessing. I will not fear but walk in belief of what He says will come true. I am excited to see the healing in my marriage. I am also learning to be content in all things. With every trial with the Lord there is victory if you choose to give it over to Him. With this it leads to contentment.

God delivered me from anger and deep rage. He restored my relationship with my daughter who I used to neglect and abuse. He gave me peace to surrender to His will for me to birth another child. The stronghold of hatred I had against motherhood was destroyed so I could be a good mother. He restored the intimacy I lost with Him and gave me joy and great expectation for my future. God restored the ability to feel emotions again so that I could be healed and cleaned out.

The Lord rescued me… With my obedience with God I am healing along with healing the relationships of the ones I love. I have been saved by God’s grace and live by faith and hope by His grace.

To be surrounded by caring women, week in and week out, gave me the strength to keep coming back. The abuse made me feel so isolated- so alone. The Lord, through CAMEO, surrounded me instantly with a support system. I struggled with anger for years and this affected my relationship with God. Now the anger is completely gone. My spirit is quiet, my soul has found comfort and my relationship with God has been restored.

I had a lot of strongholds and wounds. My mind was damaged, my sexual and emotional being disconnected and fragile. I was numb from pain and severe disappointment. I lacked joy and struggled with rage, deep terror and hatred for reproduction. I lacked the will and desire to live because of fear and hopelessness but decided to stay alive long enough until my daughter was old enough to care for herself. I was giving the Lord until I was 55 years old to fix me and turn things around before I started to pray for death to go home to be with Jesus. But the lord didn’t wait that long before I made this decision to start to move in my life. Since coming to CAMEO God has exposed the bondage and strongholds still present in my life and delivered me from it. I was enraged at God for allowing the story of humanity, of creation to play out the way it did in the Garden of Eden and blamed Him for the suffering. But God helped me let go and not defend it anymore. His anointing gave me a release so I could be free from the internal poison and so the intimacy I used to enjoy with Him could be restored. The Lord also softened the hardness of my heart so I could feel again and begin to cleanse my soul through weeping. I can feel emotions I had frozen long ago come alive in me again. But I was not afraid to feel it this time. The numbness gave way to sensitivity and vulnerability as God has provided a safe and loving place for me to be weak without fear. God’s anointing healed my heart and soul and created maternal desires and longings for my daughter that wasn’t there before. He gave me compassion for my wounded, hurting child as He opened my eyes to see her as He does. We are now learning to become closer together and more bonded in love. God in His mercy and great love sent His anointed Holy Ghost to heal and deliver me once again from my anger and hurt against the Lord’s sovereign will. God gave me release and freedom to surrender one of the greatest strongholds in my life, which is motherhood. God told me a few years back that I would have a son with my husband and I rebelled and was furious with Him because I felt betrayed, since He knew how strongly I opposed motherhood. When I did surrender it was with grit teeth and a mind to reject the child God would give me. I decided to push it out of my mind like everything else that is too painful for me to deal with so the anger would not get in the way of my relationship with Jesus. But I told the Lord I would not celebrate the birth of the child, nor would I permit anyone else to do so either through a baby shower. The subject of the child became a forbidden topic and was not permitted to be discussed much. My husband and I used birth control methods to try to avoid this but I knew in the back of my mind that I would need to come to grips with this sooner or later. The Lord touched my mind and my heart and healed me at a women’s conference and released the pain from my belly all the way up. I felt the darkness slowly bubbling up and out of me through the healing anointing that flowed from deep within and was cleansed as the tears flowed. The anger and hurt left and now I can embrace the child with maternal love. I am not afraid anymore. I am ready to surrender to God’s will for my life and now have joy and excitement as I think of the future that Jesus has planned for me. Through these healings I am now more passionate for God, people, and His ministry. I want to love and heal and help deliver others as I was. Forgiveness is easier as anger quickly subsides in His presence and by His love and tender mercy. There are two strongholds left to be conquered. One is shame and the other (which is greatest) is fear. I need healing in my sexual being as this was damaged when I was a child through molestation. My sexuality was damaged and twisted causing natural desires to be weak for a man, but strong for a woman. I get numb sexually making it difficult to be intimate with my husband or sometimes overcome with shame. I need God to bring back buried memories to get complete deliverance and find closure to my past. When God delivers me from fear then I can fully embrace life and not keep death as an option for escape and safety. (This was written before God did His work in this area. This young woman is now free of shame and fear!)

I give God the praise and glory for great things He has done. The bible says in Phil 1:6…God has been dredging all the bad and ugly from me and healing all the hurt and pain. Like Rev 22, He is allowing my river to be pure and crystal clear proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb so that He can be glorified.

I give God thanks and praise for CAMEO. God has really blessed me and is continually healing me. I suffered from low self esteem, trust issues, and had a negative view of myself because of the lies that had been planted by my abuser. God has used CAMEO to help minister His healing and love to me. God has been removing layers, knocking down walls in my heart and has given me a new perspective.

The Lord has healed me of emotional garbage that had been hiding and eaten at me for many years. I could not solve the problem unless I was able to identify it, and then accept it. Through Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness, anything is possible. My garbage has been thrown out!

I can’t thank CAMEO enough for the time given and the love shared these past few months. I have grown in Christ’s love as a result of this ministry.
I was expecting for “memories to bubble up”-but God, in His mercy, provided me with so much more!

It took me about 1 year before God led me to attend the Cameo group. I was very reluctant and nervous the first meeting because I thought I was wasting my time because I had already handled the emotions from my “experience” before and it wasn’t a serious issue anymore. At the first meeting, Eileen, our group leader, covered the definition of abuse and then asked us two questions “Are you not sure whether you were abused?” and “You aren’t sure why you’re here?” From that moment, I started to cry and knew God had ordered my steps to Cameo. I believed God could not forgive me for the abuse because I believed I caused the abuse to happen, but that was just a lie from the devil. The lessons and prayers in Cameo helped me to know not only did God love me now but He loved me when I was abused 15 years ago. When I grasped the depth and width of God’s love for me, the negative thoughts, nightmares, depression, and flashbacks associated with my abuse started to disappear. Today, I can remember my abuse and not become depressed and bitter because I’m convinced God’s love never failed 15 years ago and does not fail today. Cameo was a difficult period in my walk with God to relive my past. Now, I have victory over my abuse because I have peace about my abuse and can share my life story with others so they can gain peace and freedom in the midst of their pain.

~With the help of CAMEO I have noticed a change in my life spiritually, emotionally, and physically. I am actually starting to like the person I am becoming and excited to see what the future will lead me to in ministry. When I first came to CAMEO I was there only to be a comfort for my friend. I thought that I had worked out my abusive past and that I had moved on. The Lord began to open my eyes that I too needed to be here for healing. I never experienced the true healing that only the Lord could bring to me. I was stuck in thinking that I will always be this way and I will always struggle through life. Even though I struggled as a Christian I never understood that Christ wanted me to be set free. I thought I would always be insecure, standoffish, distant, and shy. I was scared of any kind of confrontation and I became a people pleaser. I had trouble excepting the love from others and from God. I distrusted people and was unforgiving. To sum it all up I was miserable and I had learned to paint on a good smile. I believed that this was the person God created and I would have to be content with it until the Lord returns. Through CAMEO I have learned to be real, to forgive, to be positive, face confrontation, to love, to be sincere, and I have learned to know the Lords love for me. He loves me and cherishes me. He looks forward to meeting with me everyday. He is my Counselor, my Shelter, my Refuge, my Joy, my Savior, and He is well pleased with me. Sin had created the person I was and God through His mercy created the new me. I thank God and His ministering people at CAMEO for showing me the difference. “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. The Sovereign Lord is my strength! He will make me as surefooted as a deer and bring me safely over the mountains.” Habakkuk 3:18-19