As long as she can remember, Brenda Burton wanted to look and act like a man. She had good reason; everywhere she looked, her female relatives were abused by men. So in her world, being a woman brought only one thing.

“I saw so much pain when it came to men,” Brenda said. “I’m looking that my mom’s hurt. I’m looking at her pain. I’m looking at my aunt’s pain. I’m looking at my sister’s pain. And I just saw - just pain.”

It wasn’t just relatives, Brenda’s childhood and college years were filled with sexual abuse.

“At the age of three, I was molested by my female cousin,” Brenda said. “I was molested in college. I was raped in college. And I didn’t love me. I had vowed that I would never let a man touch me, that I would never open my heart to a man.”

She developed a tough personality and began to dress and act like a man.

“I used to go out there and I learned how to work on a car. Everything that boys would do, that’s what I wanted to do,” Brenda said. “I didn’t want to clean up. I didn’t learn makeup. I didn’t learn how to put makeup on. I didn’t know.”

In her early 20’s, Brenda began to desire women.

“I used to love women. I used to lust after them everyday, all day,” she said. “And I was like, ‘I was born this way.’”

Brenda had multiple partners. Eventually she settled down with a woman she thought she’d be with forever. But ultimately, her lover thought their relationship was wrong.

“She knew God, but she had walked away from God,” Brenda said. “And she had told me, she said, “God is never going to let me go. So she had come to the agreement - she said, ‘look, I’m going to have to get out of here. I’m going to have to leave, because God won’t let me go.’”

After the woman left, it forced Brenda to question what was right and what was wrong; and made her want to read the Bible. She heard a preacher on the radio speaking from Leviticus, Chapter 20.

It talked about, ‘if a man shall lie with mankind as he lie with a woman, then they both have committed abomination and their blood shall be upon them,’” Brenda recalled. “I was like, ‘wait a minute,’ because I didn’t think my lifestyle - I didn’t think that was a sin. I thought, ‘well, I’m in love with one woman at a time. Surely, God doesn’t hate this? Because I’m in love with just one woman.’ And when I saw those scriptures, and I looked at and it came to life, I was like, ‘God you’re trying to tell me this is a sin?’”

Brenda asked God to help her. But she wasn’t sure God could do what she was asking.

“Because I knew my desire,” Brenda said. “I knew what I wanted, and that was a woman. Then I said, ‘God, if you can take the desires away, I’ll serve you.’ And that’s all He was waiting on. Oh, yeah. Thank God for that.”

As she read the Bible, she made a commitment to God.

“I told God, ‘whatever you want me to do.’ And I read those verses and I repented to God,” Brenda said. “I said, ‘God, this is no longer me; I would have been dead.” It’s not me. It’s not I; it’s you God. I live for you.”

Brenda is the first to admit it was a struggle. Leaving her old lifestyle and habits was a step-by-step process.

“Philippians 1:6, ‘being confident of this very thing that He that begun a good work, He’ll perform it till the day of Jesus Christ. Because in that verse it tells me that God will, no matter what I do in this walk with him, no matter what I do He’s going to perform it,’” Brenda said.

It’s been years since Brenda turned away from her lesbian lifestyle and she is amazed by God’s love for her.

“And then when I realized it - hold up - God loves me? He loves me in spite of? That’s what drew me to God, His love,” Brenda said. “I get so much energy when I minister, when I talk or when I share my story about what God has done in my life, about the transformation that He has taken me from the caterpillar to the butterfly. So grateful to God for what He has done, because I know I couldn’t have done it.”