Really, all we had in common was that we worked in that strip club, and now I don’t. I’m not one of them anymore. I hadn’t really been one of them in a while. I didn’t go down on guys in the back for extra cash, didn’t have a drug habit, and didn’t dress like them outside of work.

Now, I’m even less like them. I go to mass every morning. I don’t strip. I dress in long skirts and blouses. I feel better about myself, and I’m happy to have put that life behind me.

I’m also scared and a little lonely. The girls from the club were really the only friends I had in real life. I always had enough money to get through the month. I didn’t have to worry about bills very often. Now I have to worry about all those things.

I have enough money in savings to cover my bills until the end of the year, which is about the best thing I can say. I still have that massive tuition bill and ridiculously expensive computer that I have to find some way to pay for.

How is an uneducated, jobless woman supposed to come up with $30,000 in tuition money and $5,000 in computer equipment before the middle of December? Someone please give me an answer to that, because I just don’t know. I’m praying about that every day, and I hope God will make the answer clear soon.

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Several people have been recommending that I quit my job stripping at the club immediately. I know in my heart and in my mind that this would be best for my soul. What gives me trouble is the thought that from the day I turned 18, this has been my only source of income, and that it can be a lucrative one.

I’m also faced with massive financial obligations for the coming year. The cost of attending the school I’ve been accepted to is over $32,000 per semester, even with the scholarship program I was accepted to providing me with free room and board. In addition, before I get there, I will have to have a computer and camera purchased totaling over $5,000.

At current, I have $1,600 in savings, a car I can probably sell for about $2000 more once I get to the design institute, and some other various things I can probably sell for a little bit of cash.

The worst part is that I’ve been so afraid of being unable to raise the money to go to the institute that I’ve been unable to let go of this horrible, sinful job that leaves a tarnish on me every night I go in and work, and which has me terrified for my safety. I’ve been afraid to leave this job which has directly led to my being raped by three different men.

So, following some excellent advice, I got all the information I had together, thought about it, and prayed about it. I prayed to my patroness, St. Mary Magdalene. I prayed to Mother Mary, the Blessed Virgin. I prayed directly to Jesus. I prayed to every saint I could find who had faced a decision as terrifying as mine was for intercession on my behalf.

By the end of the night, I knew what had to be done. God had heard my prayers and the prayers of the saints interceding for me. He placed a grace of great peace in my heart and granted me the clear knowledge of what He expected of me.

This morning, I will go make my confession. My full confession repenting for all the sins related to my job. I will hear mass and participate in it fully, taking the Eucharist knowing full well that all my sins have been forgiven because I intend never to repeat them.

Tonight, I will go to my workplace and say goodbye to my friends and co-workers. I will not dance. I will sell all my stripper clothes. I will come home. I will thank God for the guidance He has given me. I will sleep as one newly freed from her sins.

My savings and the money from selling the stripper clothing I’ll never wear again will see me through the end of the year, so long as I live frugally. Rent, utilities, food, and the tank of gas to get me from here to the institute where I will be studying.

I will trust in God to provide me with the means to obtain the education I believe He wants me to have. I will try to find some other part-time work so that I can attempt to save more money for school. I will dedicate myself to continuing to write here as a combination of confession and prayer.

I will follow some more advice I received from a reader of this blog: I will write my story down as a book. It may be more of a piece of semi-autobiographical fiction rather than a memoir or autobiography, for various reasons, including my own personal safety.

I will begin attending mass daily. My parish has an early morning mass for those going to work, and another later in the morning for the students at the Catholic school here, making it easy for me to attend. I owe God this level of devotion for what he has shown to me.

Most of all, I will rejoice in my new life. I’ll be living simply, and without the constant threats to my safety that have plagued me these past four years. I’ll learn to be a normal, 22-year-old girl again. I’ll try to put the things that have been done to me, and the things I have done, into my past as much as possible.

I will serve and love God, and follow His will to go and learn to make beautiful things that improve the lives of those they touch.

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I met my stalker at the club where I work. He asked questions while I was dancing, and even invited me to just sit and talk. We talked, I tod him about my art, and even gave him a way to see some of it online.

He started coming in to see me dance more often, and started reading commetns on my art pages. He even commented a time or two and made me feel special. One day h came into the club wih a box of art supplies for me. I thanked him and continued my night.

He coninued to come in, and while I didn’t realize I at the time, he would get extremely jealous whenever I danced for someone other than him. I didn’t know that when he wasn’t there watching me, things were getting extremely creepy.

He was frequently following me around town. He knew my car and my license plate number. He knew my home phone number and my cell phone number. He knew my real name. He had my myspace and facebook addresses with my real name on them.

He knew who my parents had been. He knew where I lived, he knew when I worked and when I didn’t. He knew hings about me that I thought were deep, dark secrets from all but my very closest friends.

He would watch me from the shadows outside my home as I dressed for bed. He watched me go to sleep. He watched as I occasionally had sex with someone from the club or a bar. He got jeaous. He got angry. In his mind, I belonged to him, and no one else should have me.

He started to plan.

He started learning everything there was to learn about everplace I went reguarly. He learned the layut of the cub. He earned the layout of my home and the homes around me. He learned about the stores where I shopped and the parks where I ran.

He learned everything about me and made his plan foolproof. He hid severa times near each place he thought he could catch me alone at times he thought I would be there to learn if he really could catch me alone.

While all this went on, he continued to be a regular at the club whenever I was there. He and I continued to have little conversations whenever I danced for him. I thought we were, well not friends, but people who had a very pleasant working relationship. He was one of my favorite customers because he tipped well for dances and didn’t expect me to do things for him.

Then, one day, it happened. I was walking to my car at the edge of the parking lot of the mall I liked to shop at on my nights off. It was late and the mall had just closed. A van was parked next to my car. As I unlocked my car door, the van door rolled open and I was pulled inside.

I was tied down, gagged, and covered with a blanket. I was driven around for a long time, probably in circles. Eventually we stopped and I was carried like a sack of potatoes to a room where I was tied down on a bed.

He sat and talked to me. He told me all about his obsession with me. He called it his love for me. He told me that now we would be together forever. I cried. He cut my clothes off me.

He didn’t rape me right away. He tried to act like he was my lover. He kissed me all over. He touched me. He made my body betray me by becoming aroused. When he entered me, I screamed. I screamed that I hated him. I screamed that he was the worst thing that ever happened to me.

I made him angry. He beat me. He raped me again. He sodomized me. He told me that I would die as his property. He told me that I was his, and that I’d never see anyone I loved again. He told me that if I wanted to be see someone I loved I’d better start loving him.

I was kept chained to that bed for I don’t know how long. He would occasionally let me go to the bathroom, but would stay and watch me. He’d make me go with him standing right there looking at me, and then he’d chain me back to my bed. He’d rape me whenever he felt like it. He’d use me however he wanted.

I’m only alive and free because my roommates missed me and couldn’t get me on the phone, and I’d parked in view of a security camera at the mall. The police looked for me, found out I’d gone to the mall, found my car, and saw me being kidnapped. They saw his license plate. They found his address.

They found me chained to a bed, beaten, bloody, and feeling like my soul had been raped out of me. He was tried, I had to testify, and he went to prison. He wasn’t a big, tough, or mean guy, so he spent some time being raped repeatedly himself before he tried to fight back and was killed.

He’s the rapist it’s easiest to forgive for some reason, because he was the third. He was the one who led Miranda to bring her priest to talk with me. He was the one who ultimately led me to Jesus, and, in a way, I suppose I owe him for that.

I hope that he found God before he was killed, and I hope that his soul was saved, because otherwise he’ll spend the rest of eternity longing for the time he spent in prison and wishing he could have traded places with me chained to that bed. I won’t pray for him to be released from purgatory, and I won’t pray that he suffers in hell. I do forgive him, though, and I hope he found his salvation.

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St. Mary Magdalene, penitent who had the courage to wash Jesus’ feet with your tears and dry them with your hair, pray for me to your friend, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that He will grant me the great gifts you were given.

Ask Him to teach me your penitence, that I may weep at His feet for forgiveness of my sins, as you did.
Ask Him to show me a penance as perfect as yours, that I may serve Him as perfectly as you did.
Ask Him to show me the miracle of His resurrection with the clarity He showed it to you.
Ask Him to teach me humility, for while my sin of pride was not as great as yours in your sin, I am still too proud of my beauty and do not use it for His purposes.
Ask Him to grant me the peace and the joy of serving Him that he taught to you.
Ask Him, as He cast seven devils from you, to drive the devil’s influence from my life.
Ask Him to show me the forgiveness He showed to you, as I weep at His feet.

Pray for me, St. Mary Magdalene, that I may find my way out of sin and perfectly into His service as you did.
Amen

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Quite simply, I can’t afford to quit. I have $3,000 in tuition bills coming up and no way to pay them. On top of that , my rent runs about $300 a month with utilities and everything included on this crappy little place I live.

My car is paid off, though it’s not worth that much. I bought it for around $4000 and might be able to get 2000 if I were to sell it. On top of that, I’m going to have to buy about $5000 worth of computer equipment to be able to do my work when I get to school.

I’m going to be learning the most high end 3D computer design out there. For that I have to have a computer that will keep up with the programs I’ll have to use and no take months to render one of the scenes I’m going to be creating. It’s really cool stuff, but it takes a lot of power from the computer.

I have about $1600 left in savings after putting down my deposit to hold my place in the class starting in January. I have no idea how I’m going to make ends meet, or even if I will make them meet. I have a spot in their dorms lined up for free, but unless I can pay the tuition, I’m not sure how long they’ll let me stay.

I don’t know how much money the scholarship that’s been set up for me has in it right now, but it’s mostly coming from a very small church that meets in the pastor’s house because they don’t have enough people or enough money to rent, buy, or build a church building, so I don’t expect them to be contributing much. They’re hoping it will help me attract funds that the donation has official non-profit status through their church.

I want to trust that the Lord will provide me with the means to quit my job now and get ready for school starting in December, but no job out there I could get can pay me what I make now, and I still have no idea what I’m going to do to pay for school.

Yes, I’m worrying about money. Wouldn’t you be? I’ve got the best opportunity to change my life I’ve ever been offered sitting right in front of me, and I’m being asked for more money than I’ve ever had to get it. I’m also being told that I’ll never be able to work for the money I need and do well enough to stay in school.

So tell me Lord, what do I do? Do I quit the job that’s keeping me afloat until I can get where I need to go? Do I work this job until it’s time to go off to my school and my new life? Do I stay working where I am until I’m too old and worn out for anyone to want to see me? Do I quit this and give up on going to school, where it seems so clear You want me to go? I’m listening, Lord. Please tell me what to do…

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They’re a small house church in Kansas taking me on as a project, and eventually others as well. They’ve set up the scholarship to be “for the purpose of funding the education of sex workers who have found Jesus Christ and wish to leave their time as sex workers behind them.”

So within a few days, I’ll have an address through the church where donations can be sent, but right now I’ve got a paypal account where donations can be made. This is amazingly exciting to me, as it’s unlikely I’ll get much financial aid through the school, as they disburse their funds at the beginning of the fall semester.

I applied for the Spring semester because admission was less competitive and because I’d already missed the deadline for the Fall semester, and I want out of this line of work. So, if you want to donate to the scholarship fund which will help me (and eventually others working in sex industries) out of my line of work and into school, click the paypal button at the end of this post or in the sidebar!

God bless my friend Eric and his flock for doing this to help me and others like me!

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That proclamation opened up the door for thousands of traditional Anglicans who have long been calling their churches “Anglo-Catholic” churches to rejoin with the Catholic Church. They’ll be allowed to keep most of their liturgy (which I’ve heard and is nearly as beautiful as the Traditional Catholic Latin mass), many of their priests, including married ones, will have the chance to be ordained as Catholic priests, as will any unmarried bishops.

The churches have had to state that they believe the same way the Catholic Church believes and that they accept the doctrine that St. Peter was appointed by Christ himself as the head of the Church on Earth.

This is really exciting to me! I mean, to see all these people at once coming back to the Church after having been separated from the church since King Henery VIII of England decided getting divorced was more important than his duty to God is quite simply one of God’s clear miracles!

One of the great things about this is that the man at the head of the group of Anglican parishes is Archbishop John Hepworth, a man who left the Catholic priesthood to become an Anglican priest, married, divorced, remarried, and has three children. Under these conditions, not only can he not become a Catholic Bishop, he’ll likely also be barred from even serving in the Catholic clergy.

So Archbishop Hepworth has offered up his own position in a church hierarchy, surrendering his power, influence, and position for the spiritual well-being of his flock. To my mind, this means we may have witnessed two men earn sainthood at the same time.

So pray for soon-to-be-former-Archbishop John Hepworth and his family for the sacrifices they are making as they do what is best for the souls of thousands of God’s children. Pray for Pope Benedict and give thanks for his wisdom and his willingness to ignore trivial political difficulties to do God’s work and bring souls fully back into the body of the church.

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The way he acts reminds me of my stalker a bit when he finally found the club I work at, and that really sets my teeth on edge. I’m really just getting this feeling that he’s stalking someone, but I don’t know who. I’ve let the bouncers know about the vibe I’m getting off him, but they’re not going to just throw him out.

I’m getting scared, and if I didn’t need $30,000 by the end of December, plus my living expenses until then, I’d be out of this job in a heartbeat. I’d drop this and run, find another club in some other town to work at. I know God has put me on a path to this school, and that I’ll get there somehow. Right now though, I’m wondering if the road I’m taking is the right way to get there.

I’m going to spend a lot of time today praying about the directions to God’s next destination for me. Do I stay working at this club? Do I leave and work some menial job I’m barely qualified for until January when school starts? How do I get the tuition money together? Is this destination where God wants me to go? If not this design school, then where?

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Shauna told me tonight about a job she’s thinking of taking. She says she’s considering becoming a dominatrix. Apparently the money is better than stripping, better than being a regular escort even. The trouble is, you apparently have to spend a couple months in training.

So basically, what she’s decided she’s going to do is keep dancing for about as long as I am. The only difference is that during the day, she’s going to be a “slave” to a man who specializes in teaching girls to be dominatrices. At the end of that time, he’ll set her up with a couple of clients who’ve been begging this “master” to be some girl’s slave.

Part of me is repulsed at the idea, but part of me knows that I’d have jumped at this chance if it had come along a couple of years ago. I’d have loved to be taking the chance to vent some rage on men who were just asking for it.

It’s so strange to think that if I had met a different person a couple of years ago, rather than preparing to go off to a school that will make me able to get out of this life, I’d be deeper into it than ever. I’d be beating sweaty, little stockbrokers with whips and doing other nasty things to them.

I’m trying to get Shauna to go to mass with me, but she’s already a lapsed Catholic who doesn’t see what the church can do for her. I pray God will give me the strength to help her out of this situation she’s putting herself in.

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