Redemption Is Real

Redemption Is Real:

By:

Heireina Rein Johnson

Redemption is Real:"

Smashwords Edition 2014

ISBN: 9781310195709

Copyright © Heireina Johnson 2014

Published in 2014 by HeReinz Publishing

E: HeReinz@me.com

California, US

Unless otherwise indicated, scripture references are from the New Living Translation version of the Bible, 1996, 2004, 2007, Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved.

Cover Design: Kelvin Pendleton

Heireina Johnson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved in all media. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author and/or publisher.

DEDICATIONS

First and foremost, I am grateful to God for challenging me to dig deeper, and helping me to understand that there was indeed more. I dedicate every word back to God, along with a life pledged to unwavering service.

I dedicate this work to those that God chose to use to prophesy it into existence. If there had been no obedience, there would be no seeking, and thus no project. Thank you all for an ear bent toward Heaven.

To my readers who are following me from the first work to now, thank you. I dedicate this to you as you continue on your journey to more. Get ready for the elevation.

As always, I celebrate my entire family, extended family, and personal friends for unconditional love and support.

To my sons Paris, Pierre, and Caleb, who have endured the journey with me, thank you for your unconditional love and support!

In Loving Memory of:

My father, Huey P. Johnson Sr., &

My grandmother and grandfather

Ollie & Leonora Triggs

Colossians 1:20-22

20 And having made peace through the blood of his cross by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, [I say], whether [they be] things in earth, or things in heaven.

21 And you, that were sometime alienated an enemies in [your] mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled

22 In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreporveable in His sight.

Re·demp·tion

riˈdempSHən/

noun

noun: redemption; plural noun: redemptions

1. The action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.

God's plans for the redemption of his world

2. A thing that saves someone from error or evil.

3. The action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment, or clearing a debt; Recovery

Contents

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter 1 The Genesis of Destiny

(Makings of something great)

Chapter 2 Blind Ambition

(When love gets in the way)

Chapter 3 Decisions, Decisions!

(When vows go wrong)

Chapter 4 Why do Fools Fall In Love?

(Patterns & Processes. Some things never change)

Chapter 5 Stepping Into Hell

(Talk about a detour)

Chapter 6 When Good Things Go Bad

(Still Stalking/Be careful who prophesies to you)

Chapter 7 So, What Was Wrong With Me?

(Spirits, Curses & Open Doors)

Chapter 8 The Gospel of Redemption

Epilogue

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Other Releases by Rein Johnson

Introduction

First, thank you for stopping here. I said this in my last book, and I will say it again. I never generally stop at the introduction unless there is content necessary to my understanding the rest of the story. Don’t get me wrong; I love to read more than I can say. I simply prefer to get to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible. So, I understand first hand the inclination to skip over the introduction. Since you are here, indulge me, as I explain how we got to yet another transparent testimony resulting in essentially a part two of my first book. You should also note, names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.

I wrote my first book, I Am Not Garbage in just three or so short months total back in 2012. It wasn’t quite the genesis of my transformation process in terms of time, but it was one of the things God completely stripped me of everything and planted me in a loft above my mother’s house to do. I remember sitting in that loft locked away from everyone and everything for hours and hours and days and days—all bleeding into each other, to process, pray, write, cry, process, write, pray, and cry some more.

Telling my story was not easy. There were so many memories so deeply buried and neatly packed away in my psyche hoarded away and accessible only when I decided to revisit them. Pouring out meant combing over details about the molestation, the abuse, the rape, the abortions, the torture, and a breaking family so full of secrets and stories that I really didn’t want to relive. There was so much exposure and accompanying pain, but with each chapter, there was an indescribable and undeniable release for me both naturally and spiritually. I remember falling on my face before God in worship and gratefulness for every chain falling off as I wrote and exposed old pain to the light of Heaven.

There was so much revelation that flowed in that writing process, one of which was a gospel (a new truth, principle, and revelation directly from heaven) regarding transformation that launched a ministry God had been promising me for years. He was simply waiting for me to yield to the experience of transformation so that I could teach it from the heart. Needless to say, I poured out in that book, and if you have it, you understand. By the time I was done writing, I felt as if I had come through long-term labor and finally delivered. There was nothing left to do but worship, celebrate, and exhale.

#

Finding a publisher was not easy. I went though two shady publishing deals before finally getting the books printed and shipped to me. Everything seemed to be standing in my way, but there was no greater feeling than getting those books shipped to the house, opening the boxes, and just touching them. It was birthed. My baby was birthed and worth it all. Then it hit me, the world is going to read my words. My life in full dramatic color is in print for the world to read. There was no going back. It was done. My family would read it, or so I assumed. Churches would read it. Friends and even enemies would read it. Yep, there was no going back. God being true to every promise made, if I would write, opened up more opportunities than I could handle. The more I shared my story, and the more I saw others being genuinely blessed by this Gospel of Transformation, was the easier it became to shake my insecurities and walk right into purpose.

There are no words to express the catapulting of the ministry and my gratitude for every book sold. I received countless emails on Facebook and personally regarding how others were being healed and transformed. Everywhere we went to minister the testimonies were coming and the sales were booming. I was never more astounded. It still amazes me how powerfully moving sharing a testimony can be. The Gospel of Transformation was birthed and in full swing.

I know this seems like a long shameless plug, but the truth is, I had to share all that to describe the high, so that you can imagine the buzz kill when God gently whispered, There's more. Talk about feeling deflated. Three times that word came to me from different prophets who had no knowledge of what the other had spoken. I poured so much into the first work that I kept asking God what more there could possibly be to say. That book is thicker than most textbooks. I was worded out, storied out, and testified out. More? Yes. More! And thanks be to God.

#

I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to hurt anybody’s ministry. These were excuses I repeatedly gave God about this book. If I am being completely honest, there were other reasons I didn’t want to write it. These are the stories that I have touched on in the other book, and even touched on in some sermons, but to write them makes them seem so permanent. It shouldn’t be a big deal considering all the other things I have poured out abut my life, but fear is real. I worried over what people would think about me, what they would feel about my ministry as a result, and I feared that if I talked about this stuff I might hurt someone else or their ministry. The fact is all of those emotions were surface emotions. They are valid feelings and fears, but the root of it all was initially shame.

My previous issues that I wrote about in my first book were things that I ultimately had no control over. People easily and readily understood how the pain of the past would shape so many personal decisions. Conveying all the lies that were set up in my head because of that hurt and abuse made the reader empathize. It wasn’t ultimately my fault. I could claim ignorance or influence in such a way that helped people understand my choices.

This story isn’t so easy. These choices are adulthood choices (even though I travel backwards a little bit and reiterate some things I highlighted in the first book). Writing this meant that I had to face again some of my worst choices. I could just hear people calling me stupid or accusing me of justifying my choices by blaming strongholds and demons. I’m fully aware of rumors and conversations others have had about me, and the replaying of those things only incited the fear. Quite honestly, I just wasn’t ready to write this part in the first book. I wanted to skip over it and bury my guilt and shame. There were things I should have known, things I should have recognized, and feelings I should have had the courage to acknowledge.

The fact is; redemption wouldn’t be redemption if there were nothing to be redeemed from. All of us have stories. Many of us have made mistakes that we wish we could take back. We have all undoubtedly dealt with the embarrassment and shame of things that are neatly tucked away in our personal closet under emotional lock and key.

I don’t present this book with any false pretense of having been lured into some demonic life without my consent. I absolutely gave consent—not because I wanted to be an embarrassment or do things that I never dreamed I would, but because I was influenced—influenced by emotions that opened doors. Life is a balance between what we cognizantly initiate, and what gets added on to those choices in the spiritual realm. One feeling of fear or abandonment can open the door to choices that we never imagined we would ever make. I found myself there. I am just grateful that I serve a God that takes every choice and mistake and turns it into a testimony.

I am presenting this book from a free place. No matter what others may think or say, this story isn’t about my choices solely, or choices that are juicy and gossip worthy. This is a story about redemption—plain and simple. This is a story that highlights how real the power of God is, and how God can take a massive detour and turn it for His glory no matter how devastating our behavior. It’s a story about how much a Father truly loves His daughter, and how He thought enough of her to press the reset button when she perceived that all was lost. It’s a story about second chances and gratefulness.

#

I was standing in my hotel room when something broke for me. I understood myself to be on an assignment for God in Italy, but I had no idea God was on assignment for me. For years I had been carrying burdens and guilt that I had no idea existed. This current breaking had nothing to do with anything I had done to displease God. I wasn’t being corrected; I wasn’t being chastened; I wasn’t being called to repent for countless mistakes and epic failures. This time I was being loved on. God was showing me a literal breaking of eighteen years of emotional bondage that I had no clue I was under, and coming out of this one, there was no holding back. This time I could go deeper and tell more of the story and uncover more of the pain, and ultimately destroy the curses that were over my life for good. I thought the family stuff had come to do that, but there was more. God showed me, standing in the window of my hotel room, it was finally really over, and that redemption had officially come in a way I would never forget and would of course be destined to share with the word as the Gospel of Redemption. The guilt was taken; the shame was ended; the curse was fully broken.

#

My friend, it is no accident that this book is in your hands. Even with all that God has done in your life thus far, there is still a higher place for you. This place comes to redeem the time. If you are carrying guilt, it is broken today. If you are carrying shame, it is broken today. If you believe the lie of lost time, that lie is broken today.

My prayer is that the words in this more in depth testimony will bless and inspire you to find your own redemption story, because my friend, it is indeed REAL.

A Prayer

God, I ask that as this reader reads the words on these pages, something will break in the heavenly atmosphere that will cause Your hand to reach back into the past and in one swish of Your hand catch the past up to their destiny. I break by the power of the Holy Spirit every trap, every spell, every curse, and every lie off of their life in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. Thank You God for this time to read and reflect and to hear Your voice calling us to more, bigger, greater, and free. We fully trust You and honor Your wisdom for our lives. With a willing and ready heart we say to You O God, Here I am, I want to be redeemed.

Amen.

Prologue

~

Really God? You brought me all the way here to do this—to mess me up? I remember thinking those words as I stood just in front of the window of my hotel room balcony in Naples Italy preparing to minister twice that day, May 18, 2014. I was studying when I began to rehearse the sermon aloud and something hit me. It was a bittersweet time because I was ministering in a place I had only once dreamed of seeing, but it was also my son’s sixteenth birthday and I was away. I put out a birthday wish on Facebook to him and proceeded to study the Word before sadness set in.

I had no doubt in my mind that God was getting ready to move powerfully. It was my fourth day there, several services down that included a women’s group, a two-day retreat, and now two services left to give. I don’t know what made me focus on the date 5/18/2014 other than the Holy Spirit, but when I did, the power of God filled my hotel room as I heard God say, Happy Anniversary. Initially confused, I paced the room as I always do when I am processing, thinking and talking aloud to myself—still rehearsing the Word. That’s when God drew me to the window, and I realized where I was standing. I wasn’t in just any hotel. I was standing in a hotel room on a military base. That was significant to me because it was the place where I took my first detour away from destiny for a man. Here it was all these years later, and what I assumed was a golden opportunity to bring my story of transformation and its Gospel to Italy, was really my own redemption story. I was standing smack dab in the middle of my own memories, and God was snatching them from me and turning them around one by one. I stood there in that window weeping like I had been lost for centuries and I was reuniting with a loving parent. The truth is I was. I was being reunited and reconnected with something I had lost--my hope. I had no clue I had lost it, but I understood it once I found it again. In all that God had done for me over the last few years, this was the final piece (and peace) of the puzzle, the ultimate turnaround that would solidify my being changed forever. He sent me all the way to Naples Italy Support Site (the military base), to show me that redemption is real.

Now late for service, I wiped my tears, collected my things, gave myself a once over, took a deep breath and headed out the door to complete my assignment, but not before one last moment to give God praise for completing His. I was finally really free.

Chapter 1

The Genesis of Destiny

~

I was always told from the time I was a mere toddler that I was destined to become someone great. I kept hearing even as young as four years old that there was a great anointing over my life. I was an unusual child—not like all the rest. I took an interest fairly early in God, and if you had asked me what I was going to be when I grew up I would have adamantly declared to you that I would be a travelling evangelist and a singer. It was just in me. I learned to read at three, I had a phenomenal gift of recall, and all I did was sing and preach, even on the school grounds. If you were going to play with me, you were going to be in the audience while I preached, in a choir as I directed you, or in the prayer line to be sufficiently rebuked and delivered.

It was cute then, but it was more a part of my future than I could have ever really imagined or foreseen. If my suffering was any indication, then it should have been painstakingly clear to me what I was destined for. The pain was the hard part. I could never reconcile at that early age how God could both love me and allow me to suffer at the same time. I couldn’t understand what made me so bad that my grandmother could hate me so much to give me away to rapists and pedophiles at four years old, and then torture and abuse me on her days off. Still, my heart for God and desire for His rescue never changed. If you have my first book, you will recall this…

#

I was seven when I accepted Christ into my life. I have no dynamic or emotionally dramatic story to tell about it. It was an average Sunday morning that ran well into the afternoon as is common in the Church of God in Christ experience. Our church, Hamilton Memorial Church of God In Christ was a fairly average sized church at 2398 Geary Boulevard, right on the corner of Geary and Baker across the street from Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco, CA.

Every Sunday was like a revival and this particular Sunday, the Spirit was high. We felt a powerful presence of God in the building that incited attendees to lift their hands in worship, cry out to God, shed tears, dance, and even run around the sanctuary. For those without a Christian experience in the Black Church, it sounds more chaotic than it was. Don’t believe everything you see in the movies, but the depictions aren’t too far from what I experienced in Sunday morning worship.

My pastor, Pastor Langston was operating in his prophetic gifts, giving to many members what he understood God to be saying to him, and compelling him to give to those who had formed a prayer line. I sat silently watching and swinging my legs. I wanted to understand what the people around me were feeling. I knew who Jesus was from my Sunday school lessons, and I had certainly come to understand how the Spirit was moving. I was quite accustomed to it, but I wanted to actually feel God’s love for myself. I wanted to know if it was real and if it could wipe out my worthless feelings. I wanted the same experience that I had seen in others that made them run around the church. More than anything, I wanted to feel something other than the pain of life, of my grandmother’s words, and the memories of being prostituted.

I heard the preacher say aloud in the microphone, Some of you here need to be saved and filled with the Holy Ghost. I don’t want to take for granted that every reader understands what that means, so in short he was suggesting in the context of the Christian experience that some of us sitting in the audience needed to come into full acceptance of the belief that Jesus died for our sins and rose again, that we needed to accept him into our hearts, which would be salvation, and his reference to being filled with the Holy ghost was based on the understanding that a Keeping Spirit would fill us or take residence in our hearts, serving as the guide, strength, and power we needed to maintain a Godly life. I don’t want to make it spooky because it is not. Scripture references that will aid in your understanding are John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10; Romans 8:26; John 16: 7-14, and Acts 10: 44-47, and you will find several other references in your Bible’s concordance. I recommend the New Living Translation to aid in your understanding.

As I sat on my seat, after hearing his words, something strange began to happen to me. Unexpectedly, the tears just began to stream down my face. I stopped swinging my legs and had entered into deep sobs. I wasn’t so much compelled by his words or the high praise in the atmosphere, but I was crying because I was so aware of how much my grandmother’s words to me as a younger child had branded me. I was so aware of how much I hated her and how much she hated me.

I wanted my grandmother to stop hating me and cursing the day I was born. I wanted the nightmares to end. I wanted my mother to understand me more, and since no one else could seem to really see me or see what I was going through, I had desperately hoped that God would. I sat Sunday after Sunday with S.O.S on my countenance, waving my white flag, almost begging for attention while everyone danced and praised God all around me, so this moment felt like my one chance to have a real audience with God.

I felt a push against my back and queasiness in my stomach. My tongue seemed to be tingling, and I felt the blood withdraw from my too big lips. The tears were still flowing, but as I turned around to see who was pushing me, no one was there. I knew it was God, calling me and compelling me to get up and see for myself if what I had hoped and longed for could actually be. I didn’t move right away, but seconds later, I found myself leaping off of the pew and running toward the altar. It wasn’t fully my own free will. No one was pushing me physically or even holding my hand, but I was being physically led to the altar by something I could not see.

I was just a few rows from the altar, but it seemed like I was an eternity away. Still my compelling happened so fast, I reached the altar faster than I could comprehend. I saw others watching me. I vaguely remember hearing cheers and applause and, seeing some stand and wave me on, but my focus was on getting to that altar. I had some things to say to God and I didn’t want to miss the chance.

Just as I reached the right side of the altar, my former first lady Ruth stood to greet me. I was so emotional, and I just fell into her arms and sobbed. I remember her holding me close like I was a toddler in her arms and rocking me gently before she spoke. Heireina (my full name which she and everybody else inaccurately pronounced huh-rain-uh), I know more than you think I know, she paused to cry a little. You are a special child destined for great things, you are anointed and God is going to use it all, everything you have been through. I didn’t fully understand what she meant or just how much she knew or how she knew it, but I did understand that she could possibly see in the Spirit what I had been through (at least I made the assumption) and I cried. I wasn’t sure, but I hoped that God was assuring me that I was going to receive help and the memories would dissolve. I believed that I would become new.

It’s time for you to accept Christ, she said, I was just about as young as you, and I promise you He loves you and He won’t ever let you down. I trusted her so much that I believed her every word and I began to cry a little more uncontrollably. God is going to use you, she said. God wants to use you and use your voice to reach so many. You are not too young to be saved. The devil is after you and wants to destroy you, but he can’t have you, she said. I am determined that he cannot have you," she said with adamant and righteous indignation I had not heard