Kayla Brown

For as long as Kayla Brown can remember, she was begging her mother to leave her father. Mrs. Brown was afraid that she couldn’t support herself and her three daughters, so she stayed with her husband and squirreled away money with which to escape some day. It took twenty years of saving, and she finally had the money – unfortunately, by then the money couldn’t buy her time.
 
Kayla’s father found the money; and when he did he his violent temper erupted. Unfortunately, Mrs. Brown’s already depleted health took a turn for the worse. The cancer spread quickly through her body, and she ran out of time. From her death bed, she apologized to her daughters for all that they had gone through. Gathering them together, she said: “I need to die to end this abuse. When I’m gone flee from your father. Have nothing to do with him or his family. No one will believe you, so tell no one what happened. Let all that happened die with me.” In two weeks time, she was dead and Kayla was all alone with two disabled sisters.
 
Mr. Brown was a “good provider.” To outsiders, he was successful and charming. At home he was viciously cruel and tyrannical.  He threatened his family to “prove” that they had been abused or that he had been “sleeping around.” “You’re lying! Where’s your proof!” he demanded.  On one occasion, they went to a family therapist, but Kayla’s father just overpowered the therapist; he took complete control of the session and the therapist was unable to stop him. Mr. Brown used the session to shatter any hope that his family may have had for a better life. It was to be the last therapy session they would ever have together.
 
It was hard for Kayla to break off from her father. Her sisters were extremely vulnerable and needy. They continued to live with their father while Kayla was away at college. After graduating, Kayla came back to find that one of her sisters had become involved with a man who was living a double life. Like their father, the man was outwardly charming, but this was just a front for the many black market criminal activities he was involved in. Kayla’s sister turned to prostitution because her father wouldn’t help her financially.
 
When Kayla saw the extent of her father’s indifference to his own flesh and blood daughter; and when she recalled her loving mother, who was just too worn down to act sooner on behalf of her children – she stood up without fear and confronted her father for the first time in her life. She blasted him with the strength of all of the pain and anger that had accumulated in her; and, for all the years of pain and anguish that the family had suffered at his hand.
 
Mr. Brown exploded right back at his daughter. No one had ever dared to question him. His massive denial of his many crimes against his family deafened him to his daughter’s rebuke. He rationalized that since Kayla was above 18, his obligation to her was finished. He summarily threw her and her belongings into the cold of night.
 
Kayla knew that it wouldn’t be long before her father would cut himself off from her sister’s too – but what else could she do? Without money or a safe place to bring her sisters, Kayla had no choice but to leave them with their father. So with $600 to her name, Kayla Brown headed for the closest city hoping to find shelter and a job.
 
Kayla moved into a slummy rat and roach infested room. Trying to focus herself positively, Kayla wasted no time changing into her only business suit and went out looking for a job. She knew that it wouldn’t be long before she would be responsible for feeding her two adult sisters neither of whom would ever be able to support themselves.
 
This was Kayla’s breaking point and the moment G-d had been waiting for. Her mother was gone. She was hungry and couldn’t pay the rent. Her sisters were in danger. She was alone in a dark, cold filthy room –  far from the material “comforts” she grew up with – there was no turning back, and no one to turn to.
 
She wasn’t expecting to pray. There was simply nothing left to do.  So with her mother’s image in her mind, Kayla found herself standing and praying like she saw her mother pray when she was a little girl – but the difference was that Kayla prayed with a power and intensity that defies description.
 
Kayla starting working three jobs, studying for her master’s degree and working on her conversion to Judaism all at the same time. With very little sleep, Kayla didn’t know how she was able to keep up with such an overwhelming schedule, but she just kept praying and pushing herself relentlessly.
 
Kayla and her sisters became Jewish, and slowly the darkness began to lift. Kayla moved to a Jewish neighborhood that was walking distance from a synagogue and brought her sisters there to live with her. Mr. Brown said he’d help with the bills, but never did – regardless – Kayla was finished with her father – she didn’t need any more of his kind of “help.”
 
With a master’s degree in social work, Kayla found a better job. She used all of her money to support her sisters and keep them off the street and under her watchful eye. Kayla’s hard work didn’t go unnoticed. She was made the head social worker of the hospital where she worked. Eventually Kayla realized that she wouldn’t last in her new position. It was intolerable for Kayla to agree to certain unethical hospital policies. Things erupted when Kayla’s boss pressured her to fire an employee that Kayla knew had done nothing wrong. Kayla’s boss threatened to fire her, but Kayla stood her ground. She said: “I knew that someday I would have to face G-d. How could I possibly stand before the Heavenly Court and claim ‘I’m sorry, G-d, but I was afraid of losing my job!?”
 
Kayla desperately wanted to change careers. Her passion was to become a clinical psychologist and to do something important to help women and children. However, despite her many prayers and many applications to doctoral programs, she still had not been accepted anywhere.
 
It wasn’t until Kayla stood her ground and refused to fire that innocent employee, that G-d intervened. On the very day that Kayla was fired from her job, she received an acceptance letter from a doctoral program in clinical psychology. Another miracle occurred: Kayla was also given a monetary gift from an aging friend of her mother’s with which she purchased a condo.
 
Kayla’s loyalty to her sisters was such that she wouldn’t consider marriage until she knew that they could be properly cared for without her.  Kayla spent practically all of her money to obtain housing, services and caretakers for her sisters.
 
One of Kayla’s sisters found breslev.co.il. Kayla immediately applied herself with her usual intensity to studying the books of Rabbi Arush and practicing personal prayer. After completing her PhD in psychology, Kayla moved to Israel where she hopes to bring her sisters some day.
   
Currently, Kayla teaches psychology and business ethics at a local university and has enrolled in our emuna coach training program. Her dream is to marry and open her own practice using Torah and emuna to help others – because, as she says: “It was only emuna that enabled me and my sisters to get this far.”
 
I asked Kayla which of her many accomplishments would she say most qualified her to be an emuna coach. She quickly answered that her main qualification was not her PhD in psychology – but rather there were two other qualifications that she had. The first one, she said was that she had been beaten up so badly that she has the ability look at a person and in seconds just know what that person went through.
 
As our time was coming to an end, I was amazed to hear once again the same statement of faith that I’ve been hearing from other great women like Kayla. She smiled and told me her second qualification: “Do you know, with all that’s happened how much I’ve been blessed? I was blessed to know that G-d hears my prayers! Time after time I fell into places from which there was no way back,  and yet each time I felt Him lovingly lifting me up…look…here I am today!”
 
This is a true story. The names and personal details of those involved have been altered for the sake of privacy.