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FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript

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From Spiritual Scars to a Forever Family

Guest: Diana Prykhodko

From the series: From Spiritual Scars to a Forever Family (Day 1 of 1)

Bob: For Diana Prykhodko, trying to figure out how to navigate life started earlier than it does for most of us—much, much earlier.

Diana: I was actually nine years old when I decided I needed to run away from my birth mom, because her abuse had escalated a particular night from bad to worse. She was very drunk one night, and she woke me up. She was really angry. She woke me up and said, “I need you to get up!” She stormed into the kitchen, and she threw the pot of hot water all over me.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, September 1st. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. We’ll hear today how Diana Prykhodko became a trophy of God’s amazing grace. Stay tuned.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us.

1:00

We’re going to leave our studio today and take you with us to an event where Dennis Rainey was recently—at the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit—that was held earlier this year in Nashville, Tennessee. Dennis had a chance to sit down with Diana Prykhodko and hear an amazing story of God’s love and care for orphans.

[Recorded Interview]

Dennis: We’re going near the orphan. I thought of Job, Chapter 29, verse 12. Job gives his defense and talks about what he had done with his life—he said, “I delivered the poor who cried for help and the fatherless who had none to help him.” We have a guest with us on FamilyLife Today who knows about people who have been obedient to what Job did. Diana Prykhodko joins us on FamilyLife Today. Welcome to the broadcast, Diana.

Diana: Thank you very much.

Dennis: Diana is—yes; you can welcome her. [Applause]

2:00

Diana is from the Ukraine. She has a great story of redemption, and I want you to take us back to your childhood. Tell us about the circumstances under which you grew up.

Diana: I grew up in Kiev, Ukraine. My birth mom was a single mom. We had no home/no place that we could consistently reside at. My birth mom was an alcoholic, a prostitute, and a drug user. She didn’t know how to love me from the very beginning. As my earliest memory of her, she was very abusive verbally, emotionally, and physically. She took out a lot of her anger on me throughout my childhood.

Dennis: What do you remember most about those years growing up?

Diana: What I remember most was just the turmoil—

3:00

—the constant fear of her abandoning me, the constant fear of not knowing where we would sleep the next day / if she would find some guy for us to spend the night at his apartment and not knowing what that person would be like—just the ups and downs of an unstable home environment and the ups and downs of her anger.

And when she would drink, she was very abusive; but when she was sober, she was a totally different person. It was difficult for me to gauge and understand when she would be in a good mood or a bad mood.

Dennis: She ultimately had what would be the equivalent of a nervous breakdown—

Diana: That’s right.

Dennis: —and went to a mental hospital.

Diana: That’s correct.

Dennis: Then, came back. You stayed with friends while she was gone. There was no other person to stay with.

Diana: That’s right.

Dennis: What was it like when she came back?

Diana: Life was really chaotic. Her anger escalated. Things just went from bad to worse.

4:00

She was not protecting me / she was hurting me. She was drinking. She was trying to go to grocery stores and different places. She would hold my hand; and then, she’d walk away. I would be looking for her.

Dennis: You ultimately fled.

Diana: I did.

Dennis: You were how old when you ran away?

Diana: I was actually nine years old when I decided I needed to run away from my birth mom because of her abuse. Her abuse had escalated a particular night from bad to worse. She was very drunk one night. She woke me up and she said: “I need you to get up! I want you to make me some borscht,”—which is a Ukrainian soup. We were poor. We didn’t have anything. I said, “Mom, I don’t really know how to cook; but I don’t see any potatoes. I do not have the ingredients to make this food.”

Her anger just escalated so bad that she stormed into the kitchen, and she threw the pot of hot water all over me.

5:00

She ended up putting my face, with her whole weight bearing my face down on the burner on the stove. I tried to push her off of me, but her weight was more than I could bear. She ended up doing horrific things to me the rest of the night. I ran away from her after that episode because I knew that I could die with her—

Dennis: Yes.

Diana: —or I could try on the streets, and I could try my luck and make my life better without her around.

Dennis: The streets for a nine year old—a nine year old girl. I mean, come on? That had to be dangerous; huh?

Diana: It was very dangerous. I was on the streets for about a year. I found some friends. We ended up calling ourselves “The gang.” We ended up fi...