Reaching for Life

By Victoria Teague

Following an eleven-year cocaine addiction and a dangerous career as a dancer in Atlanta’s sex industry, Victoria Teague experienced what can only be called a miraculous rescue. For ten years after she left the clubs, she sat respectably in the pews of her church with a grateful heart and a zip-locked mouth. She built an entirely new life on top of embarrassing secrets from her past, and only a precious, trusted few knew her spiritual rags-to-riches story. That is until one ordinary day when she was asked to do anything but the ordinary. On that day, she was called not only to share her secrets, but also to spotlight them. To use them as her “street cred” to minister to other women in the strip clubs who desperately need a lifeline like the one she was offered. To seek the lost and give them hope for a better life.

Her “Yes!” to that call to share and serve ultimately resulted in the birth of Victoria’s Friends, her volunteer-led ministry that has rescued hundreds of ladies from the clubs that Victoria fears are maybe even less than a yard from hell.

Victoria’s story, Reaching for Life, will inspire readers to allow God to do for them, as the Bible promises, “immeasurably more than they ever thought or imagined” with their own shame and sorrow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victoria Teague
• Release date: Jan 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9780990928539

Book preview

Reaching for Life

Victoria Teague with Connie J. Singleton

Published by GreenTree Publishers at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 by GreenTree Publishers

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted by any means – electronic, mechanical, photographic (photocopying), recording,

or otherwise – except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for use in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine, online resource or journal.

For use in any other purpose, please contact the publisher for written permission.

If interested in contacting the author, you can do so through her website at victoriasfriends.com.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN-13: 978-0-9909285-3-9

ISBN-10: 0990928535

Follow Victoria Teague through the following media links:

Website/blog: www.victoriasfriends.com

Facebook: Victoria’s Friends

GreenTree Publishers

www.greentreepublishers.com

Foreword

One is a former stripper, previous drug abuser and homeless. The other is a married, suburban mom of two young sons who never drank, used drugs or swore, and who waited until she was married to have sex. What could these women possibly have in common?

What do they have in common? That is a good question. The world cannot understand the answer. It’s LOVE. Not the kind of love our world knows, but the love given to us by God. His love is patient, kind, slow to anger, and it knows no limits. His love is unconditional—it really doesn’t matter what you’ve done. God loved Victoria and Pam the same. That’s what they had in common—God’s love for them.

My family enjoyed the privilege of having Victoria live with us for a short time as she embarked on her new life. Her old life was gone; she simply needed someone to give her a chance. God allowed our worlds to be intertwined, not only to give Victoria a new life, but also to provide new paths for countless women who have been caught up in what is called adult entertainment.

There’s nothing extraordinary about me; it is our God who truly is extraordinary! If I could offer any advice to people who read this book, it would be this: listen to God. Does he want you to do something that is outside your comfort zone? Does he want you to do something that is all about him and nothing about you? Then do it! We serve a mighty, mighty God who can and does rescue the hopeless. We just need to listen.

With a heart full of joy and gratitude,

Pam Younker

This book is dedicated

to

The Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth

Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;

    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,

    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry

    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

then your light will rise in the darkness,

    and your night will become like the noonday."

~ Isaiah 58: 9-10 (New International Version)

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

One - The Grace-laced Tickets

Two - Whirlwinds

Three - Beyond the Church Walls

Four - Transformed by Love

Five - The Gentle Healer

Six - Catapulted for His Glory

Seven - Birthing a Ministry

Eight - The Winning Formula

Nine - Faithful to Complete It

Ten - How to Become a Christian

Photo Album

Praise for Reaching for Life

Acknowledgements

Notes

INTRODUCTION

Man is not imprisoned by habit.

Great changes in him can be wrought by crisis once that crisis

can be recognized and understood. ~ Norman Cousins

When the intercom crackles and a Code Blue! shatters the tranquility of a medical setting, somewhere in that building, a life literally hangs in the balance.

Code Blue is a call to immediate action instantly recognizable by every hospital or doctor’s office employee, from the highest-ranking physician right on down to the building custodian. No explanation for the alert is needed or given as organized chaos ensues and everyone rushes to offer aid to the endangered patient.

Early one morning several years ago, I experienced what I call a spiritual Code Blue, and like the hospital kind, the reason for it wasn’t immediately clear. I was awakened from a sound sleep with the unusual and urgent sense that I needed to pray for my family. I knew my obedience was critical.

I didn’t have to worry about disturbing my husband Jeff because he was on an overnight shift at the hospital where he worked. Leaving the warmth of my covers, I turned on a lamp, rolled out of bed, and dropped to my knees. Grabbing my Bible (my personal go-to source in times of worry or trouble) from the bedside table, I began reading aloud a familiar text to me which begins, He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust’ (Psalm 91:1-2). Reading on to the end of the chapter, I added my own requests and thanked God for hearing my prayer. I returned to bed and switched off the light—calmed and sleepy once again.

Only thirty minutes later, our eleven-year-old son, Joshua, appeared at my bedside complaining of a stomach ache. I helped him to the bathroom where he began vomiting, waves of sickness pummeling him until around 10 a.m. Curled up in a ball, exhausted and emptied, he lay on the bathroom floor moaning, Mom, my stomach hurts.

Joshua’s temperature was only a little over one hundred degrees, but I still decided to call Jeff. He wasn’t alarmed by the symptoms I described and suggested the stomach pains were likely a result of the hours of vomiting—perhaps all caused by a virus. Just let him rest, he advised before we disconnected, but a nagging feeling persisted after I hung up.

Remembering that Joshua once had vomiting with a bout of strep throat, I hurriedly made an appointment with our pediatrician to have a throat culture done, dressed my little guy, and off we went. As we crossed even the tiniest of bumps in the road, over and over Joshua wailed pitifully, Owww! My stomach hurts, Mommy!

Joshua’s distress captured everyone’s attention as we entered the pediatrician’s office. What started as an ordinary appointment to rule out a common childhood illness turned into one in which we were given preference over all others in the waiting room. Nurses rushed him back into one of the patient rooms, stretched him out on an exam table, and asked him to pull up his leg.

When Joshua found it impossible to follow the simple request, the lead nurse looked at me and insisted with a scary urgency in her voice, "Get in the car with your son right now. Put the flashers on and head straight to the emergency room at Children’s Hospital. I’ll call and they’ll expect you. Panicked and confused, I asked, What—why? She replied, It’s his appendix, though I’m not sure if it has ruptured yet. You will make it faster if you go now than if you wait for an ambulance."

Its flashers blinking furiously, our personal ambulance careened wildly towards the hospital. Just as we had been told, emergency room workers received us at the emergency room doors and put Joshua through a rapid evaluation. Though it wasn’t a full rupture of the appendix with its cascade of toxins, they determined it was leaking. Every passing moment meant his little system was being flooded with more poisonous e-coli bacteria. As Joshua’s army of medical warriors wheeled him into the surgical battle for his life, I stood alone, devastated, and in shock.

It all happened in an instant.

For five excruciating days, Joshua remained in the hospital on Code Blue status, and he received medical treatment to counter the near-fatal infection. I can’t bear to imagine what would have happened had it been a full rupture or if I had failed to follow my instinct to probe further for answers.

For five days, too, I looked the same as the moment we arrived at the hospital: disheveled hair, no makeup and in sweats. Fearful of what might happen in my absence, I never left Joshua’s side—not even to shower. He was critically ill, in desperate need of stabilization and healing, and I prayed continuously for him.

Fast forward past the waiting—my sweet Joshua recovered fully. I believe it was a combination of the wisdom and knowledge of the doctors and nurses who cared for him, his body’s miraculous ability to respond to treatment, and most assuredly, God’s protection and healing as this drama unfolded.

During those five days of waiting and uncertainty, though, an incredible parallel became clear to me: many people in this world live their lives on spiritual Code Blue. Without intervention, they are not going to make it. Because a person doesn’t know about or believe a truth doesn’t make the truth irrelevant. And friend, the truth about life is this: what we decide about Jesus Christ, God’s son, before we die is important. It matters for the here and now in terms of the quality of our life, and it also determines our eternal destiny after we die.

I lived my own life on Code Blue for eleven years, enslaved by a cocaine addiction that required my total devotion—and that almost killed me. On the issue of devotion, Jesus makes clear what I experienced to be true: No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other (Matthew 6:24).

Cocaine was my master: it held me in its unyielding grip and drove me to seek more during my every waking moment. It was a cruel master, as well, dehumanizing and humiliating me as I did whatever was necessary to sustain my lethal habit.

I have discovered that God’s people are the primary tools he uses to reach and teach us. God graciously intervened on my path of self-destruction to give me hope and new life, and he did it through the love and actions of others towards me. It has been an amazing journey of healing as I took advantage of the opportunities I needed to get well. I was empowered to face and deal with the soul wounds that led to my addiction, to change my circumstances, and to find true peace amidst life’s difficulties.

My heart’s desire is to be a tool—a change agent for God. I want to help others who are in crisis, on spiritual Code Blue like I was. I long to reach out to those who are living a destructive lifestyle similar to mine of those past desperate days—as well as to others who simply are lost and searching for real answers to real problems. If that’s you or someone you love, I want you to know it is possible to move beyond Code Blue status to claim a satisfying life of incredible joy.

It is my earnest prayer that because of my transparency, many will:

be reached emotionally and intellectually with the hope that real life change is possible;

be inspired to take the steps necessary to achieve wholeness; and

be healed permanently to live life fully and light the path of joy for others.

READER’S GUIDE - Introduction

1. Victoria recounts a time when she was awakened to pray. Has that ever happened to you?

2. Code Blue was a medical term that Victoria came to understand through her son’s appendicitis episode. It later represented a spiritual application as she reflected upon her own addictions and how she could have died from them. Has a particular life experience of your own ever pointed to or paralleled a higher spiritual reality? Discuss.

3. Jesus said, No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why or why not?

4. Victoria acknowledges, God graciously intervened on my path of self-destruction to give me hope and new life. It’s been an amazing journey of healing as I took advantage of the opportunities I needed to get well. Do you believe that people sometimes miss, disregard, or choose to reject opportunities for change that are offered them? If so, why? Can you recall a time when you had a great opportunity to course-correct your life, but you chose another way? If so, why did you do so?

5. Is your life on spiritual Code Blue? Could this book in your hands be God’s way of intervening and providing a new path for you? Will you take a few minutes right now to pray to God, even if you’re not sure he exists, and ask him to open your mind and your heart to the change he wants for you? If you’re more comfortable doing so, you may journal (write) your prayer.

ONE

The Grace-Laced Tickets

And now let me address all of you, high and low, rich and poor, one with another,

to accept of mercy and grace while it is offered to you;

Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation; and will you not accept it,

now that it is offered to you? ~ George Whitehead

Amazingly, I survived an eleven-year addiction to cocaine. During the last five of those years (1984-1989), from the time I was twenty-three until I was almost twenty-eight, I worked as a dancer in some of Metro Atlanta’s strip clubs. I was involved in a dangerous lifestyle that, but for the merciful grace of God, should have killed me.

High school was the place just a few years earlier where my addiction was birthed and nurtured. Heavy drinking, drug experimentation, and out-of-control partying were the self-destructive ways I deadened and attempted to bury some tremendously painful losses. A future co-worker identified and exploited my vulnerabilities. Before I could grasp what was happening, my innocent love of dance cultivated from years of childhood lessons became the perverted way I made money for both of us. And as I became a more experienced dancer, my cocaine habit grew even faster than my unacknowledged pain and shame. Cocaine became a monster that almost consumed me.

Along the way, I adopted the stage name, Diana, worked my way up from some of the lower, B-tier clubs of Atlanta, and landed a dance spot at The Cheetah, one of the city’s most elegant and well-paying bars. Women in evening gowns poured an unending stream of