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CBN.com – Looking at the Lee family you would think they haven’t a care in the world. Yet Ingrid Lee’s life wasn’t always a picture of happiness. From age 4 until she was 14, Ingrid was molested by a trusted family member, and her father’s alcoholism led her to some disturbing assumptions about love.
“I felt that anything negative with a man was the appropriate behavior,” Ingrid tells The 700 Club. “That was love. Ultimately every relationship was bad.”
At age 21, Ingrid was in a progressive relationship with a controlling man. She suffered a broken jaw, ruptured eardrum, and numerous bruises. Ingrid suffered in silence.
“That is the life of someone who is domestically abused. They live a fairy tale on the outside. You’re ashamed of it. You believe you deserve it, so you hide it.”
On September 27, 1998, Ingrid attended her best friend’s wedding. She had no idea the tragedy the next day would bring.
“He woke me up with his hand over my mouth and my nose and said, ‘You’re going to die today. You’re going to die, and I’m taking my life too.’”
Eddie drug Ingrid by her neck to a natural gas line that was cut. He lit his lighter causing an explosion that set the apartment on fire. He then grabbed a steak knife and stabbed her 17 times.
Ingrid recalls, “It was right there at that moment that I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior -- right there on that kitchen floor. I said, 'If this my time to go, I will go graciously. But if You are so gracious enough to let me live, I will live for You.' In an instant, my body from head to toe was warm, and I could feel angels surround me. I knew that I was going to live for a purpose.”
Ingrid grabbed the knife out of her chest and looked for a way of escape. She made it through the flames and out to the street. A lady, who she had never seen before or since, rushed her to the hospital.
“I know she was sent from the Lord to get me where when I needed to be.”
Ingrid spent two weeks in the hospital and months recuperating. Eddie was unsuccessfully charged with attempted murder. Being diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, he spent several years in a mental institute. Ingrid forgave Eddie in court.
She says, “I believe that forgiveness is for yourself. I forgave him so that no anger could consume me and rob me of loving again and having a normal, wonderful marriage.”
With a second chance, Ingrid entered into a stage of rebuilding.
“I stayed by myself without a relationship for two years. I fasted, I prayed. He took all that pain away from my childhood. He renewed my soul, renewed my spirit, renewed my faith in people,” Ingrid recalls. “I love myself, and I can say that. I love being Ingrid. I could not say that before.”
In due time, God sent someone her way. Doug and Ingrid now experience all that God intends for marriage.
“He’s the one I look forward to coming home to,” she says. “Love is kind and sweet, and it doesn’t hurt.”
Doctors informed Ingrid that she wouldn’t be able to carry a child. At age 16, one of her fallopian tubes was removed. This in combination with her severe abdominal wounds made the possibility of a child highly unlikely.
She says, “I know the ultimate doctor intimately, and so I know what He can do. I knew I would be a mother.”
JeNoah was born on June 15, 2005.
Doug says, “We’ve both been through so much darkness, and now with the birth of our son, we can definitely see the light.”
“I was in a dark and lonely place, and now I’m not,” Ingrid says. “Everything is restored. I praise God for that.”
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