God's Redeeming Love

The most powerful testimony of forgiveness in my life happened when I was 14 years old. My dad was a worldwide minister teaching Bible based counseling, and at 45 years old he was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. I want to begin this testimony by sharing how Abba Father laid a foundation of trust in my life, literally 11 days before this event happened. I was raised in a household where we frequently read the bible and memorized it. I was homeschooled at that time, and I was reading the book of Proverbs; one chapter for each day of the month. October 3rd, 1985, I discovered my life verse. That day the Holy Spirit was so strong that it was physically tangible to me. When I was reading this verse, it came off the page in 3D. Even today, it is just as powerful to me! Proverbs 3:5-6. “Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.” AMPC

I grew up in Dallas, Texas so every year we went to the State Fair of Texas. We moved to Arlington when I was 14 and my parents said we would still go that year. Unfortunately, my dad was not feeling well and decided to stay home. One of the guys that worked for him, who had just moved into town from Houston had not been to the State Fair, and offered to take me and my little sister who was 15 months younger than me. This was on October 14, 1985. We went to the fair but we had a hard time finding a parking place. The grounds were completely full so we parked in a remote parking lot off the grounds, not realizing at the time that it was not lit well for the nighttime hours. When we left, it was close to 11 o’clock, and this was in the days of payphones instead of cell phones. We were at the corner convenience station and called my mom on the payphone to let her know that we were leaving and heading back to Arlington from Dallas. In that moment, we had this amazingly overwhelming warning, a check in our spirits, all three of us, me and my sister and our 25-year-old companion, Tom, who was watching us. We talked it through and in the end, we liked none of the scenarios, so we decided to go together into the parking lot.

We had a Dodge Ram Custom Van back then. It was considered a luxury van that had bucket seats in the middle and a bench seat in the back. This was so when my dad traveled, he could get some sleep as they drove from church to church teaching and preaching. When we arrived at the van, Tom unlocked the doors and we were immediately confronted by two men in their early twenties with a sawed-off shotgun yelling for us to “GET ON THE GROUND!” Of course, we all did immediately. Next, they took the keys from Tom and then had us all get into the van. This was the beginning of the longest and most horrific night of my life; a night that I should not have lived through. By the AMAZING GRACE of an ALMIGHTY and SOVEREIGN GOD we all three lived through the many hours of pain and trauma that was enacted that night!

I want to say at this point that I truly believe that one of the reasons we survived that night was my mother. She was at home taking care of my sick father. She knew, by the Spirit of God, that something was terribly wrong and was interceding for us. Before the night was over, my sister and I were raped by both men very violently. We found out later that the reluctant one had previously served a year and half for rape. The sawed-off shotgun aimed towards us would keep us all in check and compliant to their every demand. These men had us down three different times to kill us execution style and then stopped. The men drove the van around, making what seemed to be random stops. At the last stop they prepared to leave us. Before they did, they threatened to blow up our van by shooting the gas tank if we left too soon. At that moment, something miraculous happened. Tom said to us, as we huddled in the center of the van crying and holding each other in shock and disbelief of what we had all just survived, “Girls, we must pray right now and forgive these guys for what they did.” To be honest, I really was not able to process what he was asking us to do in that very intense and traumatic moment! All we could do was OBEY the words he said. So, we did! Tom led us in prayer. “Father, we forgive those guys for what they did to us tonight. We know that vengeance is yours Lord and you will repay, but we release them and declare that you will find them and bring them to justice. In the Mighty Name of Jesus! Girls, do you agree?” We both agreed. We waited a long time, maybe an hour, then we began the journey to find help.

We were rejected by two hospitals who told us they could not help with this kind of thing, and we needed to go to Parkland Hospital. When we finally arrived, they had to carry me in because I could barely walk. Then, we had to wait and give a full report to the police of all that happened. After that my sister and I were separated into different rooms and left alone until the doctor did a rape kit on us. I had no idea what that would entail. I was waiting alone, but I was not alone. The incredible comforting presence of the Holy Spirit was in my room and I was in total peace, an unexplainable peace, a perfect peace! I was so at peace I was singing praise songs to the Lord! That night was a little over 40 years ago this last October. The miracle started that night as the peace of God rushed in.

Within a week's time those two men were in police custody due to them bragging about what they had done. They were positively identified by all three of us. My dad continued to get sicker and eventually could no longer work to provide. A man that my dad provided marriage counseling for was a developer in west Fort Worth. He invited us to stay in a fourplex apartment development he had just finished building, rent free as long as he had a vacancy. We did for almost two years. My mother didn’t drive because she has seizures so she had to get a job on a bus line or be within walking distance of the job. Well, in God’s provision, General Dynamics was hiring and was literally a long block from this apartment. Now the holidays had passed and I had just turned 15 yrs old when my dad slipped into a coma over a weekend two weeks after my mom started her new job. It was a Monday morning on January 27th, 1986 and we had an appointment to meet the District Attorneys who were going to prosecute the two men for the crimes they committed back in October. It was just me and my sister at the apartment, taking care of my dad while mom was at work. The two ladies, who came from Dallas, were 30 minutes late for their appointment to meet us and go over the details of the trial that would be in five weeks. Five minutes after they walked in the door, I heard a noise from my dad’s room. My dad was taking his last breath of earthly air and his first breath of Heaven’s! I am telling this part of the story to not only show the grace of God, but how He uses what the enemy means for evil. God WILL turn it for good.

Five weeks later it was time for the trial for these two men and determine the consequences for the sins they had committed just five short months earlier. Over the last 40 years I have called this “my five months of hell”, and I still see it as that. But God is a God of FULL MEASURE REDEMPTION! As the trial began each one of us had to take our turn retelling all the horrific details of that night from hell. We both also told a courtroom, which was full of so many strangers, that we prayed that night before leaving the scene of the crime, and forgiven them for what they had done. That day was another perfect peace moment that the Holy Spirit gave me; even as I described the horrible things those men did to me with them sitting across the room glaring at me. The judge, the jurors, the attorneys, and all of the other strangers heard us three victims say we prayed and forgave them. To this day I do not know how that impacted the people in that room. But God did bring justice that day. Both of the men were sentenced to two counts of life in prison and were not eligible for parole for at least 20 years! They were only charged on the two child rapes, not for kidnapping or theft. The jurors asked to meet us afterwards and there was not a dry eye in the room. God did bring justice but that was not the only miracle that came out of that horrible night. The REAL miracle was that I learned one of the most powerful lessons in the Bible. Forgiveness is not about our feelings, if we should or should not forgive someone, or if they do, or do not deserve our forgiveness. I literally lived out that forgiveness IS an act of obedience! That is the fact of the matter! What Jesus did on the cross was for every sin no matter how big or small! Sin is sin! People have said to me over the years that those guys didn’t deserve my forgiveness. They were right. But what is more important is that I didn’t deserve God’s forgiveness either; He still sent Jesus to die for me too. Others have said to me, “That was an unforgivable sin.” If we agree with that ideology then we will be measured with the same measurement.

To close, I wanted to remind whoever reads this testimony what the Bible says right after the Lord’s Prayer. In Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive people their trespasses (their reckless and willful sins, leaving them letting them go, and giving up resentment), your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses (their reckless and willful sins, leaving them letting them go, and giving up resentment), neither will your Father in heaven forgive you your trespasses (AMPC). Forgiveness is one of the most precious and eternally blessed gifts we have been given by our Abba Father and His Son Jesus Christ! It is more precious than we could ever imagine because it comes from an EVERLASTING LOVING FATHER! It was given to us, so we MUST, no matter how difficult to comprehend, we MUST forgive out of obedience to HIM! He will help sort out the rest!

In His Grip,

Donyse Jadlowski