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07 Jan

07Jan

Destiny Nicole

Author and Co-Founder of Warrior Connections

and Battle Buddies

These are Destiny's favorite scriptures...

In your book, November Unknown, you talked about how you had many identities shaped by pain and labels others placed on you. Can you share some identities that you used to have?

When I woke up from my coma, I woke up with complete amnesia. Jesus literally walked me through each stage of my life where I went through childhood abuse, and that became my identity. Then I was in an abusive marriage, and I struggled to leave it, and I went through different identities because of the abuse. The next would’ve been paganism, where I was seeking after witchcraft and doing magic, and living that life. I thought that was what I needed to do to be a strong woman, as I had only known abuse at that point. In Paganism, they glorify the goddess and women, and I wanted to be a powerful woman. So I thought that’s where I would get it from. So I sank myself into that identity. And then I started working for a company that I later bought, having worked my way up through it. So I held many identities, and I just wanted to feel important–I wanted to be somebody that my children could look up to. I thought that becoming a strong woman would give me the answer, even though no one ever gave me an opportunity. My favorite identity was being a mom. The best identity I still have. I’ve adopted many children, and I love children. I did that because I knew this world is so mean, and what it was like to be a child. Unprotected, the world just engulfed me, and I wanted to be a different light for children. So that’s what I think grew my refined, my love for children was just because of what I lived through.

Your story in November Unknown is truly miraculous. Could you tell us about when the hospital rushed you there, and they said you were clinically dead with only a 4% chance of survival? So what, what happened, and what did you experience in that coma?

Yes. Because I lack six years of memories, I share things I’ve been told. So, there are a lot of memories I haven’t regained. The last thing I remember is living in Canada and returning to my ex-husband, whom I had been with before. I, okay. Went back to him again. I don’t remember moving to the state I’m in now.

I ended up in another relationship with yet a different abuser. So he had poisoned me. That’s how I actually ended up in my coma because of the poisoning. The EMS found me face down, unresponsive to pain, and already turning blue. They brought me in a sheet and were taking me out of my house.

And the EMS worker saw my stomach filled with air, and they started compressions, leaving so quickly that they didn’t even grab my identification. When I arrived at the hospital, they registered me as a Jane Doe because they didn’t know my identity. Now, they use a month, gender, and unknowns, which is how I became November Female Unknown. That’s where the book’s title comes from.

They use a month, your gender, and then unknowns. Oh, I didn’t know that. People knew me as November Female Unknown. So that’s how I — that’s where the title of the book came from. And once I got to that. Once the ambulance got to the hospital again. I died again at the hospital. So you died twice? Twice. I died on the 13th, but it was like 11 p.m.

It was really late. And then by the time I got to the hospital, it was the next day. So I died on November 13th and then November 14th, and that’s when I slipped into a coma. That’s where the book name came from.

Can you share your experience with Jesus, as not everyone gets to experience what you did?

Absolutely. One of everyone’s favorite questions is, Could you hear the doctors and people around you talking when I went into my coma? I couldn’t hear any of that. I am afraid of water here on Earth, especially water that I can’t see the bottom of — it terrifies me. But I was white water rafting down a raging river, and I was in this boat, and there was a rope that went around the sides of the boat. I grabbed onto the rope, and I turned just slightly to my right. And Jesus was standing in the boat with me, unmoved. The sound of the water was so loud, and everything was so crisp and bright. And I said to Him, “I’m scared,” not because I was feeling fear, but because I knew that’s what I was supposed to say. And He turned to me, and not only in seeing Him did I know who He was, but in the roar of His voice, and He spoke, “Move when I say move, and stay only when I say to stay.” He paused on the word only, and I still don’t know why yet, but that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I’ve learned to love the pause. And the Bible verse that says to pause and be slow to speak drew me in because I have to pause. We react rapidly as a society due to our fast-moving world and split-second choices. But if you just pause more and seek what He wants for you before you take even the smallest step, then the big steps are easier to pause at.

I have sought His picture ever since, and have yet to find it. I have people who send me pictures of Him regularly. There’s one picture that is very close to His presence that I’ve been able to find, and I can’t say He has a nose like this person or a feature like that person. He’s every emotion you’ve ever felt at one time without being overwhelmed. Every time I try to describe His voice, it just gets stuck inside me. He has a voice of agape love. Strict, firm, gentle, protective–for the first time in my life, I felt love because I had lived in so much abuse and I was seeking so many identities, trying to make myself feel important, and none of that mattered.

When I stood in His presence, I was just His. And I was enough, and He loved me. I always wished to be loved like that in that moment, and I always think that if everyone could have a second of that experience, their pursuit of Jesus would be very different today.

So it was during your time with Jesus that you learned who you truly are in Him?

Well, I was told that I was a Christian before my coma, so I had left paganism and moved to Florida, and I was working with the youth at church. I don’t remember the defining moment that made me a follower of Jesus instead of a pagan–I have no memory of that, and I rarely ask Him for memories back because He knows more than I do. And if He took them away, there’s probably a reason. I wish I knew what drew me back to Him, but I’m glad I was with Him, and was in that boat with Him. When I woke up, Satan immediately preyed on my vulnerability, whispering doubts about Jesus’ acceptance of me. So I went through a tough time, and I went right back into the abusive situation. The hospital had sent me home with the man who put me in a coma, and I went right back into the abuse the day I came home.

How is God using you today?

In my book, I discuss my daughter and armoring up. In the morning, we put on our armor, and there’s a little blip in the book that didn’t really make sense at the time I was writing it, but the Holy Spirit really wrote my book, and later, from my book, I developed because I’m so nervous to speak. I actually wrote the book so I wouldn’t have to speak. Because I’m such a shy person, I wanted to give my story to other people to share. I was asked to speak at a bunch of events to share my story, I would get very nervous, so I would write out everything to say and get up there, and then forget to read everything that I wrote, and I would stumble over myself.

I was speaking at a revival, and there were youth kids there, and I turned and started talking to the kids, and it felt so natural to me because I love children. So the armoring up developed into Battle Buddies, where my best friend, Trisha, and I Get in The Word Ministries and we do team verse and team games, which are object lessons, for children and family’s and as they come in, they choose pink or green, and they are team verse and team games, and everyone gets to have fun—it’s like the old VBS-style games, and it’s an object lesson of being labeled with an identity that sometimes they didn’t get to pick for themselves or that sometimes they come in and they all wanted to be team green or somebody wants to be a different color, and who you surround yourself with, sometimes you give up pieces of your identity. So, it’s important to stay around people who are leading you in the right direction. Trisha shares her testimony about her car accident. And I share about the identities that I have in my testimony.

Some who are reading your story may be facing their own struggles—identity battles, despair, or even depression. What message of hope and encouragement would you want them to take away from your testimony?

To seek Jesus and know that you are enough. You won’t find true healing or identity anywhere else, so let me save you the time of trying all the paths this world offers or the schemes the enemy will send your way. Just pause… and sit at the feet of Jesus, because that’s where the answers are.

My pursuit of Jesus looked different. It didn’t matter that I had been a witch or that I was abused—none of it mattered. Getting to Him mattered most. And when you put Jesus in the position where nothing else matters, the little agitations that once consumed you lose their power. God brought me back for a reason, and as He walked me through each of those identities, He kept saying, “I was there.”

I lived through domestic violence. Some women stay because they believe they can’t make it on their own. It’s incredibly hard—especially when you finally reach out for help, but the abuser is only held for 72 hours and then comes right back home. That doesn’t give a woman enough time to escape… but leave anyway. That is my biggest advice: leave anyway. You are far more valuable than sacrificing your life and identity to live for somebody else. You matter. Your safety matters. Your life matters.

Destiny's book, November Unknown. Get your copy today by clicking on the book cover.