Joyce Meyer: For 43 year, she prayed for father who raped her 200 times
Evangelist Joyce Meyer has said she prayed ceaselessly for 43 years for her father who sexually abused her to be saved.
Meyer made the disclosure on Thursday June 13 during an interview on Faith TV, a Christian Cable channel shortly after her weekly preaching programme.
She said her conviction for the need to forgive her father and pray for her stemmed from her relationship with Jesus and the way Jesus healed her of the sexual abuse she went through with her father.
While expressing thanks to God that her father finally gave his life to Christ at the age of 83, Meyer said there was never a time she felt discouraged praying for him. Her father died three years after surrendering his life to Christ.
Meyer then encouraged believers to live a life of forgiveness noting that no matter the hurt Christians should always find it in their heart to forgive.
Joyce Meyer had always talked about the sexual molestation of her father and how she was raped consistently by by him before she turned 18.
Meyer once said in a Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) report that her father raped her every week.
Her words, “Literally, what he did was rape me, every week, at least once a week, until the time I was 18. My father, who I was supposed to be able to trust, who was supposed to keep me safe, raped me a minimum of 200 times,” she said.
Meyer had a traumatized childhood but she has long found peace with Jesus and had been restored.
Now a grandmother, Meyer whose husband Dave has been quite supportive runs a global ministry that has blessed millions of lives. She uses every opportunity to encourage those who have suffered abuse telling them if she could get out of abuse and gain her sanity they too can.
Meyer had lamented in one of a You Tube video in 2017 wondering, “Where was God in all this? Let’s talk about that for a minute,” Meyer tells the audience.
“I can’t explain it to you in my mind…I know that God didn’t get me out of it, but he did give me the strength to go through it. God had a plan,” she said.
“About three years ago, I said that, ‘But of course I wish I had not been abused’ and God stopped me. He said, ‘Stop saying that.’ And then I thought about it and I thought, and I know this sounds crazy, but I’m glad it happened. You know why? Because I’m a better person now than I ever would have been,” Meyer tearfully explained. “I don’t know how to make any sense out of that, but I know that I know that I know that God has redeemed me and he has taken what Satan meant for harm and worked it out for good.”
Meyer stated further in another Facebook post, “I’m stronger. I know God better. I understand people’s pain. And I believe it’s made me able to reach out to you in your pain and your need and to tell you with all passion, God is alive,”
Meyer uses every opportunity to tell her listeners that she is a living proof that recovery is possible.
“Can you recover? You’re looking at somebody who did. Amen? You’re looking at the evidence that you can recover,” she would say. “There’s no pit so deep that He can’t reach down and lift you out of. He will set your feet on a rock. He will give you a wonderful life. He will give you beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. He will make you a tree of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified.”