Grace M Field was born in Zimbabwe, Southern Africa. She moved to South Africa at the age of four. Growing up in a highly dysfunctional home with an abusive father and an emotionally abusive mother, Grace’s life was marked with pain. The dysfunctional home led to her being vulnerable to sexual predators from the age of five into her 30s. From an early age Grace loved Jesus, He was her lifeline.

She got married at 34 to an amazing God-fearing man and has four beautiful children.

Jesus used what happened in her life to birth what she does now. She has written two books to help people who work with children, ages 10-14 years old, to have the vocabulary to express sexual abuse. Lucinda the Ragdoll is available on http://Amazon.com and Luke’s Fortress will be available around October 2026.

She works with women who were sexually abused as children. Studying to become a pastoral Christian counsellor to help others overcome their brokenness, confront their pain and find healing in Jesus. She has been doing this since 2014.

Grace believes that Jesus transforms our pain into purpose and is incredibly blessed to have a front row seat when He works in people’s lives. She believes that she is a living testimony of Isaiah 61:4 and what Jesus is able to do with a life yielded to Him.

• Website: https://gracefield.life
• Book: Lucinda the Ragdoll (available on http://Amazon.com )
• Lucinda the Ragdoll: A Christian story and activity book to help children verbalise sexual abuse: Field, Mrs Grace M: 9781049235394: Amazon.com: Books
• Contact details: [email protected]

Hi, I'm Angel.

This mission starts right in our home.

So for my wife and three sons, thank you for standing with us.

As we continue the mission of the 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers podcast, we invite you to help us share more stories of faith, hope, and transformation.

Your donation helps us produce new episodes, reach more listeners, and continue meaningful conversations with Jesus Believers around the world.

Every donation helps.

Hit the donate button at 12minuteconverse.com.

That's 1-2-M-I-N-C-O-N-V-E-R-S.com.

God chose us to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, Grace.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I am in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Where did you come to meet Jesus?

That's an interesting one, because I don't have a specific date or time.

I fairly much grew up in a Christian home, but to be honest, since I can remember, I'm going to give you a bit of background in terms of that.

I've always loved the Lord.

I can remember as a very young child, having our children sit down, my children, not our children, our dogs sit down, and I would preach to them.

From a very young age, I would have a scripture, and then I would tell our dogs all about these scriptures.

I can remember from a very, very young age, loving the Lord.

I don't remember a specific time that I did that, but I do know that in my 20s, I backslid.

From there, coming back, I was in my early 30s when I came back to the Lord.

And yes, not look back since then.

Do you ever feel as though the presence of God had left you?

No, not really.

Not even in the time where I backslid.

I really knew God was pursuing me.

I knew that he was loving on me.

He kept on reassuring me.

When I say that I backslid, it was a lot to do with what had actually happened to me in my childhood years.

I don't know how deep I can go on this one, but I'll go and just we can see where the Lord leads in terms of this.

Before you go, just for the people that are listening who may not understand what backslidden is or backslid is, because it is a Christian term that we use in Tuvalu, but it represents turning your back on a life that has always lived through the principles of Christ.

Yes, so Christian values.

I'm not going to do that anymore.

Yes, so I will explain how I backslid in terms of that.

When I was around five, six, I was sexually abused by a teenager.

That kind of started the story of my life because it was not just him.

It started to become a trend that happened in my life and it continued to happen in my life even through my teens, various teenage boys that would sexually molest me or abuse me.

At 19, I was raped and then at 20, I couldn't understand why God was allowing it.

I was angry with God and I said to God, this is it.

I just can't anymore.

I don't even want to go there anymore.

I really battled with understanding God and why God would allow it.

That said, when I was in my 20s, so to answer your question, late 20s, now I'm talking about 27, 28, God started a journey of healing with me around that.

Even though I backslid prior to that in getting involved in sexual relationships with my then boyfriend, the Lord kept on pursuing me and telling me that he loved me and that he wanted a relationship with me.

I honestly don't remember a time where I felt like God had turned away from me and walked away from me.

That's to answer your question very indirectly.

From there, I've also seen how the Lord has taken me, used that brokenness in me.

He's used to open up a ministry that I have with broken women, also from sexual abuse backgrounds.

I walk a road with them and I'm very blessed to see God minister to them through my stories and through what I've gone through and been able to work with them.

I've also studied counseling so that I can better help them.

That's what I've done in terms of helping them re-script or re-author their stories and help them to see that their story that happened in terms of sexual abuse is not the last chapter of this story.

It's the beginning of a beautiful new one.

Before we got recording, you mentioned having four children and I'm asking if you're married.

I believe you are married.

Are you?

Yes, I am.

Right, so making sure and step carefully, right?

So okay, so you're married and you have four children.

Was that during the time of getting into helping other young girls or did that come after having the children?

So it came basically after having had the children.

So I got married.

I've been married for 21 years and it was really after that that I started working with.

It was after our four children were born that I then started to do it more actively and more intentionally.

I'd been doing it prior to that but not as actively and I certainly hadn't, you know, I would feel for people but I wasn't actually pursuing it.

So it was after the children that I started.

So you began to, you, all right, let me go back.

So your husband, tell me about the journey of telling the story to him of your past or did you keep that until you got married and then told him after?

I'm a firm believer you tell before you get married because there are things that are going to come out in the marriage and given the nature of what had happened to me and what happens in marriage and the marriage bedroom, I needed him to know that I'd been scarred and wounded.

And so for me, I told him this before the time.

Actually, my husband and I have known each other for very, very, very long.

We have known each other now.

So I was 18 months old when my husband and I, well, actually his parents and my parents became friends.

And so we've known each other basically my entire life and have always had a friendship but not a relationship.

So we only really started a relationship in 2005.

How does he receive that story when you told him?

Because he loved me and he was protective about me.

He did not enjoy hearing how I'd been hurt.

And I think, you know, particularly as I continue to heal in front of him, he saw a lot of the pain.

He saw a lot of what God was doing in me and through me.

So I think for him, the protective side came to the fore and he just wanted to express his anger, which didn't help us initially.

I actually asked of him not to share his anger with me because it felt like he was angry with me.

And so we had to learn to work a way through for him to express his anger, but then for me to also be free to share with him and where he wasn't getting angry in front of me.

He could get angry, somewhere else come back and say, you know what, I was really angry when you shared this.

And he could share it with me where I wasn't seeing that anger because it was a trigger for me in terms of that, of not wanting to see an aggressive side of him.

What is a message you would leave for future you listening?

Continue the conversation.

Stay open.

Don't allow silence to silence you.

Don't allow shame to silence you.

So continue the conversations.

Continue being vulnerable.

It's been an honor having a conversation with you.

In closing, is there anything else you'd like to share?

No, not really.

Other than I saw your wife has also written some books.

So that's been a journey that I've been on recently as well.

So I've also started that, putting my story to paper, but to help children to express sexual abuse.

So yeah, that's been my journey.

What's the name of the book?

The current book that I have, that's been published on Amazon is Lucinda the Ragdoll.

And it's a Christian story and activity book to help children verbalize sexual abuse, very specifically.

So it's not a children's book.

It's designed to start the conversation with children.

And I have a second one going to be released in, Lord be willing, October, November this year, which is Luke's Fortress, which again follows on from that of what we often go on to do after we've been sexually abused.

Some go on to perpetrate and some build major walls around themselves.

So it's learning to identify and be able to, again, eliminate the shame.

Lucinda's Ragdoll.

Of course, we have those books in the show notes.

So you can simply click and get to that.

It is a pleasure, a treasure.

Thank you for being on what is inspired by 12 o'clock.