THE STORY OF PETRA

I was born in 1981 and raised in a Dutch, conservative christian family. Shortly after my birth, my mother became terribly ill, so we had to be separated. Missing the first bonding with her is probably the reason why I've been looking for love in other places for so long.

I've always been the kind of person that wanted to please others. I gave my bubblegum to the girls next door to win their appreciation, for example. This attitude also made me connect with the wrong kind of people, unfortunately. It's truly a miracle that I'm still alive and able to write this story down today. I got interested in the culture of Hip Hop in the late 80's and early 90's and discovered I had a talent for writing lyrics and performing raps at a young age. I really felt at home in Hip Hop culture and made a lot of friends in the local scene. Soon I got noticed in the national scene as well and was invited to perform live shows. Around that time I got into a relationship with one of my best friends from the local scene and became pregnant of my first child. This was something very difficult at first, because at home and in church I was told that you can only have sex with a partner who you would be with for the rest of your life. Since I was going 100 percent for my relationship, this made it a bit easier to tell my family about it.

A more serious problem was the fact that my boyfriend was extremely jealous and posessive. He was terrified that someone else would take me, his 'princess', and he didn't let me go out to see my friends and work on my carreer in Hip Hop anymore. I saw it as a sacrifice for our relationship to obey him so I gave that all up. However, he also started to mentally and physically abuse me and beat me on a regular basis. I also discovered he was a big drugdealer and learned about his power even inside the prison walls when I visited him there and smuggled drugs inside for him. After doing his time there, the authorities discovered that this guy, now my ex, had a record in his country of origin, came into the Netherlands with a false passport and they sent him back to where he was from.

After being a single mother for a while, I got into a new relationship with a very gentle guy. The first years everything was fine, though it seemed difficult, if not impossible, to talk about his past. He was a nice boyfriend and father for my 2 children, until he started using alcohol and drugs. He now also became agressive and after a while I decided to end the relationship to protect my children and me from further trouble. He now started threatening me very seriously so I called the police, but they said they couldn't help me unless he would really come inside the house. I tried to make them understand how serious it was, but they said they couldn't 'do anything without proof.

One night, 6 months after I quit the relationship, I was at home preparing a sandwich, when he suddenly stood in my kitchen. He beat me to the other side of the kitchen with a 10kg bag of rice, took a big knife and ordered me to go to the room, undress myself and sit on a chair. He'd already rolled out the roller-blinds and ripped out the telephone cables, and there I was, naked, heavily pregnant of his child and powerless to protect my 2 children who were in bed upstairs. It was midnight and he was very psychotic, so bad that he kept walking the room back and forth, talking with 'other people', waving the knife, while heavily beating his fists on my face. I wanted to jump out the window and scream for help, but I couldn't. This went on for hours, I peed myself and sat in my own blood, begging God to help me because I knew I was going to die. Now I started to think about what would come after this life. I was raised with a belief in God, but He always felt very far away from me.

Now that I felt I was going to die, I remembered to ask God for forgiveness. All my powers had left me and I simply said 'God, here I am. Just come and take me. I can't do this anymore'. I looked up and said 'Forgive me all my sins. And also forgive him (my ex) for what he's doing to me, because it's not him doing it'. Right at that moment I saw a Light above the cabinet and I felt a Presence, I just can't explain it. I was shocked and thought 'Huh...God really exists!' and said 'Thank you, Father, that You are here and came to take me home'. I had been fighting for hours and only had a pillow to protect my unborn child and didn't know if it even was alive anymore. I only wanted to go 'home'. Then I thought about my 2 children. I lived for them and am everything to them and knew they couldn't live without me. Feeling that Presence, I prayed one more time and said 'Father, please, thank You for taking me home, but please let me say goodbye to my children, who are upstairs in their beds'. And then I heard a voice, saying 'My daughter, my daughter, I didn come here to take you home, I came here to save you'. That is what I litteraly heard, I can't describe what I felt like, I was shocked to notice God really exists.

Then, something very strange happened. I started laughing out so loud, bursting out in tears, even though I sat there naked, in my own blood and urine, with my paranoid ex still walking back and forth with that knife in his hand. Right at that time he stepped close to me and said 'Why are you laughing? WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING??' And then, in English:'You see, that girl is crazy, you see that girl is crazy...I have to kill her, I have to kill her!' and again 'Why are you laughing?!?' and I answered:'He is here!', on which he responded:'Who is here? You didn't pray, did you?!?'. He wanted to stab me to death, but he couldn't move his arm to put the knife into my body anymore. And then I stood up, naked, from a pool of my blood and urine, with my huge belly, and I could only look up. I felt so strong, like a victor, but it wasn't finished yet. My ex told me to come upstairs and he put me under the shower. Then he ran downstairs, and I prayed once more and said 'Thank You, Father, for saving me. But will You please, please, will You please open his eyes so he will understand what he did to me, please Father, wake him up?'. Just when I said 'Amen', he came back into the shower with the same knife and he looks at me and sees my belly, carrying his child, and he drops the knife and says 'Oh my God, what have I done? What have I done??'. And then, at that moment I knew: It's over!

Early in the morning, when the schoolbus came to pick the children up, I managed to escape, together with my children. At a certain point I saw a police car with the men that handled my case stand next to our buss. I got off and they opened their window. When they finally recognised me – this was hard because I was in my nightrobe, covered in blood and with a swollen and broken face – I asked them:'Is this enough proof for you to take action?'. Soon after that, they caught my ex. He was sent to prison for one and a half year for attempted homicide and got a restraining order. I recovered, however still suffer from brain damage. I had bonesplinter fractures in my face, my arm, my nose, a perforated eardrum which made me deaf for a while and I'm partially-sighted with my right eye. But the worst thing is the brain damage, especially my short therm memory. I had horrible nightmares and sometimes get up 2, 3 or 4 times to see if my children are still alright. But I'm so much better now. I trust in the Lord and the doctors and physical therapists say it's a miracle that I'm now taking care of my children for 12 years on my own and that I'm doing so much next to that. I have a carreer, I give speeches, wrote a book and am back on track with my music. My life has changed dramatically if it weren't for the Man above. If I hadn't prayed that night and reached out my hand, I'm perfectly sure I wouldn't be here anymore. By performing I hope to show other people that God really exists and what He can do in their lives. If He has done it for me...who am I? Then He can do it for everybody else.

Queen P has recently launched her new track Our God saves which you can listen here (YouTube).

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