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CBN.com – "I began to compromise myself again for the love of money because that was the need in my life at that point," says Staci Nicholson.
It was a need that would cause Staci Nicholson to lose her dignity and almost lose her life. It stemmed from her childhood. While her parents pursued the American dream, Staci was left searching for the love and attention she craved.
"My dad started becoming very successful as a CEO of Sears Saving Bank, and mom worked in commercial real estate," she says. "We had a lot of nice things, but as a little girl, I remember being very empty."
By the age of 15, Staci got the attention she craved by having sex. A promiscuous lifestyle opened the door to drugs, alcohol, and an abortion. Then one day she found a profession that gave her the money she desired but stripped away her dignity and sense of self worth.
"It was just this is an exotic dancer escort service operation, so that was the belief that I had," she explains. "But then as I continued on and I would go on these evenings, I began to learn that these men would offer you money for specific sex acts. I began to learn that you could make a lot of money for what I had already compromised in my life anyway. I had no more boundaries."
Staci actually prostituted herself.
Says
Staci, "I think it was compromise after compromise. I began to find
out that that is what the women did and that it was OK for me to do that.
Just be very careful when you do that."
Staci thought she was finally in control of her life.
"It felt like a powerful position to have men at the tip of my fingers, that I could control them, I could tell them what I was going to do," she says. "There was a false sense of power in that for me in another way that I was filling the void."
One night Staci went out on a call for a bachelor party. During her exotic dance routine, there was a violent interruption.
Staci recalls, "The doors broke down and the police officers came in, and we realized that we were on an undercover operation, a sting operation for prostitution. That is when I broke down. I just thought, How? How did I get to this place? How did I get to this place?"
Staci was arrested, charged with prostitution, and sent to jail.
"As I was sitting in that jail cell, I cried out to God," she remembers. "I said, 'Lord, save me. God, if You’re real, would You show me who You are? Would You show me who You are? I want to know who You are because there’s nobody else to help, and if You’re real, just let me see who You are."
God did! Amazingly, the charge of prostitution was dropped to trespassing.
"At that point, you can imagine my heart leaped with joy thinking, Oh, thank You. Even then I was thanking God. Thank you, God."
Staci was free to start her life over. God had answered her prayers. But she didn’t have any understanding of who God really was or what He wanted for her life.
"It wasn’t very real to me, and I had no idea of who God was, really," she explains. "I just thought it was pretty much just something that you did, like a story or a myth."
But one day Staci met God in a very real way. It happened as she watched people going into a church.
"There was something so strong, it was like a voice saying, 'Come, just as you are. Come.' I believe it was at that point where the Holy Spirit was drawing me Himself. It was Jesus Himself that was coming to rescue me. He was on His way," she says.
The next Sunday Staci went to that same church.
"The next thing that I begin to hear coming from the pastor’s mouth is that Jesus had come for the irreligious, the unholy, the murderers, the liars, the perverts, the prostitutes, that God had come for the outcasts of society, for the broken one. When he said 'prostitute,' I thought, Does this man know who I am? It’s as if he was speaking just to me. And he said, 'In this moment, if you would like to receive Jesus Christ into your heart, I want to invite you. You can stand up. You can sit in your seat. Whether you whisper it under your breath, God hears your heart. He knows where you are.' He gave the invitation, and I didn’t choose to sit in my seat. I didn’t choose to just say it quietly. I chose to jump up as high as I could and I said, 'I believe!' In fact, I remember people looking at me like Whoa! What is this woman doing?"
That day Staci gave her life to Jesus Christ. She trusted God to love her in spite of her past and to give her a brand new future.
"When
I said yes to Jesus, I literally felt the chains drop off of my body," she
says. "I felt this release, this freedom come over me. I felt much like the
woman at the well, where the woman at the well goes to tell her friends, 'Hey,
there’s this man, and he just exposed me. He knows everything that I’ve
done. Can you believe this? I’m not shamed.' That was me. God knows everything
I’ve done and He loves me. And so at that moment, I was filled with freedom
and joy and life and love. It was as if love came and just touched my heart,
and I knew that was what I was looking for all my life."
Staci walked away from the sin in her life and began to follow God. For a while she stayed out of relationships with men.
"I continued to walk in obedience. It was my pleasure to keep my body clean. I never wanted to share my body again," she says.
Eventually, Staci met a wonderful man who accepts her past and shares a love for God. They married and now have a beautiful two-and-a-half- year-old son and another one on the way. Today Staci is a teacher whose mission is to teach youth the truth about sex.
"I truly have a heart and I believe a passion that God has stirred up in me to go to prepare the way for the youth to say to them, 'Don’t buy into the lie,' says Staci. "God created us as a pure vessel to be holy and pleasing for Him, not to use it in a way of immorality. God says, 'I know the plans that I have for you, plans to give you a future and a hope, plans to prosper you. When you seek Me, you will find Me. '"
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