Lay has self-published a book, “From a Nobody to a Somebody: From Prostitute to Pulpit,” which tells her journey from working as a 17-year-old prostitute to becoming an ordained Christian evangelist. The book is available for sale through Amazon and at xlibris.com.
Lay grew up middle-class, raised by a single mother. She says she rebelled against her sheltered upbringing by sneaking out and meeting older men. By age 16, she was pregnant with her first child and was a high school dropout. By 17, urged on by a friend and eager to earn money, she began stripping. It wasn’t long before she turned to prostitution. She became addicted to drugs — popping pills, smoking marijuana and, eventually, blowing cocaine, she describes.
“I was lost,” she said. “When I was young, I kept looking for love and never finding it in the right place.”
On Jan. 16, 2000, her life hit a new low when she was raped by an acquaintance in the front seat of a car. She was 23 years old.
Soon, her life would finally take a turn for the better. “That summer, on July 15, I gave my life to the Lord,” Lay said.
Her conversion was swift. Lay was walking toward a pay phone in a church parking lot when a woman came out to talk to her. “She came and said, ‘Do you know Jesus?’ ” At first, Lay laughed off the woman’s offer to pray together, but the woman seemed so kind that Lay indulged her. As they prayed, she found herself genuinely moved. “She said the repentance prayer and I felt this hot fire going through my body and that was the holy spirit of God,” Lay said.
She agreed to attend church with the woman the next morning. “I got filled with the Holy Ghost, and I didn’t look back,” she said.
With the help of her new church family, Lay began turning her life around. Eventually, she felt called to help others in her situation. In 2009, Lay was ordained as an evangelist at Deliverance Temple Ministries International in Dayton. To become ordained, she attended classes for six months, learning about the ministry and evangelism.
She began a street ministry, reaching out to young women involved in prostitution and drugs. She’d approach them, share her own story and tell them about the Gospel. “I’d be their friend, praying for them, having my phone available 24/7. I just loved them and listened to them and didn’t judge them,” she said. “I have a special love for them, because I used to be lost.”
She knows what a difference reaching out can make. “For me, all it took was just that one lady — taking that step to talk to me — to change me for life,” she said.
Lay hopes her autobiography will help inspire others. The book provides a raw, intensely personal narrative of Lay’s life and faith, even when her resolve has wavered. She decided to put her story down on paper after a visiting minister gave her encouragement to do so. She hand wrote the first draft in a five-subject notebook.
“I started writing from back when I was a child and poured my heart into the book,” she said. When it was finished, her sister gave her the money to publish it through Xlibris, a self-publishing company.
Lay is mother to eight children, ages 2 to 19. Her eldest has cerebral palsy and is paralyzed from the waist down, and her 15-year-old daughter is autistic. She’s working toward becoming an STNA (state tested nursing assistant) and is drafting her second book, a novel loosely based on her own life.
Recently divorced, she is struggling with the pain of the breakup, but is relying on her faith to help her through this difficult period. “Sometimes, you’ve got to go through the hurt and pain to get where God wants you to be,” she said.
She now attends King of Glory, a Pentecostal church in downtown Dayton. She’s not currently involved in ministry, but hopes to do so again in the future. “I need to be healed before I go before God’s people again,” she said. “But I will. When God calls me, I’ll be ready.”
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