Ateba Crocker Rescued and Restored
By Michelle Wilson
The 700 Club
www.rescuedwomen.comBook:
RescuedCBN.com– Ateba Crocker had no idea that her life would make the front page ofher local newspaper. The story broke after she had lived for two yearsas a professional escort in the sex industry.
“I neverthought of myself as a prostitute because I wasn’t out on the streetslike the other prostitutes making twenty dollars a pop, jumping insomebody’s car here and there,” Ateba said. “I was an escort. I was ahigh-class somebody.”
Ateba’s painful past had pushed her toward a life of promiscuity. Her father began to abuse her when she was nine years old.
“Iremember him pulling back the covers and I remember being really scaredand I remember he climbed into the bed with me,” Ateba said.
Toavoid the abuse, Ateba often slept with her sister. At other times shetied a jump rope around the door knobs to lock her father out of herroom. Her parents eventually divorced and she moved with her motherand sisters to another state.
When Ateba was 14, she started dating and having sex. She also had two abortions.
“I began to just give my body away and drink and have sex; drink, party and have sex. That was my teen life,” Ateba said.
At 19, Ateba got pregnant for the third time. Two times during that pregnancy Ateba tried to kill herself.
“I had a baby on the inside of me but I still had no hope. And I didn’t know how to love the baby,” Ateba said.
Bothtimes someone saved her. Ateba gave birth to her son, but the boy’sfather wasn’t around to help. She struggled to support herself and herson and she was desperate. Ateba signed on with an escort service. Thesame day she got her first call.
“And at that time thestate that I was in, I really didn’t care about myself. I was havingsex with people anyway. I just wasn’t getting paid for it. So I thoughtto myself, you know, I really need this money. I am going to stay andsee what happens,” Ateba said.
Ateba started bringing home$1000 for just two or three evenings of work. The alcohol numbed theemotional pain and the guilt, but Ateba knew that with every client shewas dying a little more on the inside.
“I was just dead onthe inside and now you can begin to see the deadness just begin to comeout; on the outward in my appearance, Ateba said. “And this time Idrunk all throughout the day, at night. I mean alcohol was really badfor me.”
Two years after her first escort Ateba met her final client.
“I think in that hotel that day I felt like an animal. I felt likesomeone that was just a piece of meat that you could take a bite out ofand just throw it away,” Ateba said. “And I just remember at that pointjust looking up to the ceiling and just saying, ‘God please help me.’That’s all I said. I just said God please help me. And after the manwas finished I got up and I put my clothes on and I left. And I justknew something about that time was different. It wasn’t right. It wasdirty.”
The next day Ateba was driving with her son when she heard him say, “Mommy I want to be a meacher.”
What he meant by that was preacher.
“Andat that point I remember thinking in my head, ‘How can I teach my sonhow to be a meacher if I am a prostitute?” Ateba said. “He wanted toknow about a God that I didn’t know anything about.”
That night Ateba made the decision to go to church. There she began to learn about a loving God who could totally set her free.
“Andhe was talking about how Lazarus was dead and how this man Jesus Christcame and rose him and brought him alive again,” Ateba said. “And Iremember thinking, ‘I know that I am not in a coffin and I know thatI’m not dead like Lazarus actually was, dead but something in me isdead – emotionally and spiritually,’ and I connected with Lazarus thatday.”
Ateba made her way to the front of the church.
“Andthis man put his hand on my shoulder and he said, ‘Stop, I’ll pray withyou. He said, ‘You want to pray?’ I said, “Yes. I want what Lazarushad. I want to come alive.”
“And he prayed with me and thensomething happened on the inside of my heart and it touched me. And Iwas no longer dead. And I was alive and I could see all the pain and Icould feel all the hurt and all the past things that happened. I couldfeel and I just remember falling on my knees and just crying. It was somany years of pain bottled up the inside that it was like a volcanothat just erupted,” Ateba said.
“And I made a decision thatday to serve Jesus Christ; to serve this man that brought me alive, toserve this man that helped me to feel – feel something that I had neverfelt before,” Ateba said.
In the months that followed, Ateba read the Bible and attended a Christian 12-step program.
“Ireally began to develop a relationship with God. And that was awesomebecause through that relationship I began to see myself not the way myearthly father saw me, but through the eyes of my heavenly father,”Ateba said.
Ateba then got her first real job! Four yearslater she married Tyrone and today they have a beautiful family. Atebahas completed a master’s degree and she teaches at a prestigiousuniversity. She also published her first book titled Rescued, where she shares her life story about God’s grace that set her free. Ateba has even been able to forgive her father.
“JesusChrist healed me. My life was shattered and He put every piece backtogether again. He washed me off, He cleaned me up, He purified myheart, softened me to be a woman again, gave me value, restored me,then called me 'Jewel,'” Ateba said.