From Bondage To Freedom
A teenager's journey from an abusive marriage to bitterness, to freedom.

Mary Pickens, is an up and coming straight from the hip (heart) shooting Bible Teacher and licensed minister. Having received this calling in 1982, Mary started her ministry by teaching women in the living room of her home.

Born in 1956, Mary, like many, was born into what is now considered a dysfunctional family. Parents divorcing, father choosing not to accept his role as a daddy, causing a lack of male leadership in her life. Being an independent person from childhood, Mary found it difficult to relate to a family (mother, grandmother and brother) who was extremely co-dependent. Surrounded by love, but never seeming to connect led to some very lonely years in her life.

In 1974 Mary married her high school sweetheart and lived a life of chaos for ten years. Her husband felt that if he provided her and their three children, (Mimi-pictured below, Reggie, and Brian), with material things that she would and should over look his many acts of infidelity. Adultery led this marriage into a spiral of anger, mistrust, resentment, and eventually bitterness. February 12, 1984, Mary gave up on this union and never looked back. Sin had finally won.

Six years later, God began to whisper in Mary’s heart about getting married again. This being the farthest thing from her mind, since she had long given up on the fantasy of “happily ever after,” Mary resisted God’s nudge. However, the nudging didn’t stop, so on September 22, 1990, Mary became the bride of Mr. Kevin H. Pickens (pictured above), and to this commitment, seven years later, a fourth child, Jennifer was added. Along with receiving Mary as his wife, Kevin also received all her baggage from the past. After years of hidden struggles, Kevin and Mary’s marriage has grown into a unity that many call blessed. Thank God for a husband that was willing to weather the storms of false accusations and fears as Mary healed from old abuses.

Mary has been blessed to teach the Word of God to people of the Baptist, Methodist, Church of God in Christ, and Charismatic denominations. In March of 2004, God opened a door and she held her first Women’s Seminar, entitled, “Hurting People Hurt People.” At this meeting, God revealed that we keep our abuses and pains of the past hidden, feeling ashamed. The second annual seminar was entitled, “Come Out of the Graveyard with Dead Hurts.”

Even though Mary has been teaching the Word of God for twenty-three years, her ministry is in its infancy stage. God instructed her while she was preparing to speak at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women, in Baton Rouge, in January of 2006, that it was time to take her ministry to a higher level. Work in an urgency mode was His instructions. Truly as stated in Isaiah 61 it is the heart of God to set all that are captive free. As Mary joins the army of the many soldiers fighting this battle, she knows it won ’t be easy, but it’s necessary. ”

Watch the Come Out of the Graveyard
of Past Hurts-Video Montage

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