Q&A with Dulce

Dulce: It was 2017. I was taking out a suitcase from my car when I noticed someone approaching me asking if I knew the person in the building. I said "no" and continued to open the door. When I turned around, he got inside the apartment. The man entered my lobby and closed the door behind him. He looked at me and said if I talked he was going to kill me. ⁠⁠⁣

⁠⁠⁣I'd never met the man in my life. I lowered my chin and whispered "in Jesus name, leave this house." Then he told me to shut up and go upstairs and get my wallet. ⁠⁠⁣

⁠⁠⁣I immediately started praying desperately to God [that I would] live. The man heard my prayers and miraculously, he walked downstairs because I had no money to give him. He walked himself out of the house and closed the door. I [went] downstairs to make sure the house was locked and he looked at me and he said, "you did good." And then he left. ⁠⁠⁣

⁠⁠⁣I was so raw from recovering from the assault. I didn't have peace of mind going outside after dark. My independence and autonomy were stripped, and I was surrounded by fear. ⁠⁠⁣

Q: How did you get involved at Renew?

I came as a guest to Renew and and the guest that I came with knew I was assaulted. She said "talk to the blonde lady up front, she does like inner healing stuff and she's a really good prayer person." Janet was just in the front, just kind of waiting for people to come to pray.

I was like, "Could you help me? I just came to her and she was like "yeah, there's an inner healing ministry."

She invited me to a home group in her backyard in 2017, and I was so raw from recovering from the assault. I didn't have peace of mind when going outside after dark. My independence and autonomy were stripped and I was surrounded by fear. I was a very different person in 2017, and I committed to at least going to their home group.

And I started to get to know the women and get to know Janet. And little by little, my layers started coming off. And man, it feels like forever ago. I would cry at the drop of a hat mentioning the story. It took a lot out of me to talk about it and the more time I was in therapy with them and in my group therapy, I started healing.

I started accepting what happened. I wasn't in denial. Anger subsided and confidence came back, little by little. And after that home group session ended, Janet told me she was starting a sexual abuse one. It led to deeper healing, which was such a hard time because healing is not like candy where you just feel better after eating it.

No, it's really tough medicine, with very raw, vulnerable moments. And with these women and Janet, she was leading us in her own healing. It took a lot of courage every single week. My body was exhausted from processing trauma and I didn't want to do the workbook.

But I just blossomed as a person once I was healed. I started serving a lot in my church. I started serving in different avenues. When I was in a great spot to date, I met my husband at church, and that was so beautiful because we were loved in community and we dated in community people kept us accountable.

And like the whole wedding party was the church and then the whole baby shower was the church. I have a new baby, I have a new husband. If I wasn't healed, none of this would have happened. I would have been too stressed, too anxious to date. I would have been insecure. I wouldn't have dealt with all this junk. I would have been a very anxious person through all of this.

Q: Thank you so much for sharing that. What did your healing process look like? You mentioned that you had a lot of fear and a lot of layers coming into it. At what point do you feel like you were able to flip the script a little bit and allow people in and let God heal and shed those layers like you talked about?

Dulce: Healing without community is really hard. So if you're the kind of person that just kind of goes to the home group but kind of doesn't interact with people or doesn't get involved with the church, it's really hard to love and receive love.

I started receiving love in forms of friendships and hugs. Janet and the whole group of girls were just so steady – showing up all the time and doing work.

The tension kind of drops when you see that you're loved and you're cared for and you're accepted before you share your junk. It wasn't conditional love. You know, "only if you do this." I felt the love of Christ.

There were so many points along those like two and half years where I'd want to talk about something. But the fears would consume me. They would just listen and understand and hug me. The next week it was healing and more healing.

It's such a process of like you showing up, but it's also a safe space where you're received and loved. It's both. I wouldn't be the woman I am without Janet.

Q: Was there a specific moment where you can recall that just was like a breakthrough?

Dulce: We read this book, and it was talking to victims about their experience. I read about someone who was raped and I didn't put two and two together until I started reading through that book. And when I realized that I was raped, I had compassion. I had fear and anger at the same time. I think I would've ignored that part of my life if I didn't take time to be in that group and read and show up for months.

My husband helped me through my homework, because I wanted to avoid it. I didn't want to walk through the awkwardness again. I'd cry and not sleep at night and just, you know, go through the trauma. But that's where Janet, like, was gentle enough to be like, "okay guys. That was a really hard chapter. Maybe like, let's do arts and crafts this next week." It was just a process, because there's only so much a heart can take. That's why it took years.

Q: Did you grow up in church or following Jesus? Or did that happen later in life?

Dulce: It happened later in life. And I would say I was saved in my teens and then fell off. But really, when I came to Los Angeles and saw people really practicing their faith and they wanted to practice their faith, that's where it clicked.

For instance, I saw Janet talk about her devotionals and was like "this woman is putting it into practice, following Jesus." Coming to Los Angeles and being part of this church solidified my faith like nothing else. I even got baptized. I was [previously] baptized at 14. But then so much change just happened. So I got baptized again as an adult just to put to death the old self.

Q: Did going through the inner healing ministry help you to better empathize with people who'd gone through similar things?

Dulce: Let's talk about the women first. If you're a new person to the church and you don't really have friends going to a home group where you are vulnerable, it's awkward at first. But you really get to see how beautiful they are, how beautifully broken they are.

I've kept up with these girls and even they were part of my bridal party. You know, they are family now. I really have sisters at church. You know, I really have family at church because we've walked through healing in a lot of areas.

And then [with meeting] my husband, he was serving in the men's ministry and he saw the completely transformed version of me that loved Jesus and put Jesus first. And it was all God's timing. The whole story was crazy. Like, we got confirmation. And four months later, he proposed. And then four months after that, we were married. It was like, like, almost concerning, like "what's going on?"

Q: What would you tell somebody on the fence about joining the inner healing ministry?

Dulce: Oh, man. It takes a lot of courage, but you're not going to do it alone. It takes an enormous amount of courage, but like you don't have to depend on your strength, you just pray about it. And if you feel God's tugging on your heart on the topic of inner healing, take that because if you don't treat a symptom. It's going to get worse.

I had PTSD. I [had to treat it]. I wasn't concentrating at my job. I didn't sleep well.

And it just led to an anxious life. And I was it was like torture because I was not doing the work. So I was living in anxiety. But when I started doing the work, I started having more peace in my life.

So it's going to take courage, but you're not going to do it alone. There's a huge support system at Renew that's really there to help you. You have to be present. You have to put your heart into it.

Jesus is our healer and he wants deep healing.

He doesn't want surface level healing and it takes time. Just like with friends, you have get to know a person or a spouse. It takes time to get to know them, and it takes time to to meet Jesus in that area of your life. Because when you're not ready, you're covering up that area and it's very painful and you want to avoid it.

But Jesus is a gentleman, and he's all about making you whole. And, you know, thankfully, I can walk alone now, and I don't have those fears that someone is behind me.

Q: Was there a specific moment or throughout this process like you feel like it pulled you closer to God and helped you to understand him better, even in the midst of pain?

We had to write a letter to ourselves in a loving way that showed compassion to the suffering that we were facing. Like, "I understand that you're going through this just sucks. Like it sucks that you have to pull over in the side of your car and just cry uncontrollably. I'm sorry that you're still in this healing thing."

I wrote the letter to myself, and I was just filled with compassion. It was like that first little step towards really loving myself and accepting myself in the raw, unhealed state. It's so easy to say "oh girl, love yourself. Have self-love."

But when you're loving yourself through Jesus's eyes and accepting of that, you get overwhelmed with love and security. And it reassures you that you're loved so much by God and you have permission to love yourself.