Nala Ray’s Transformation from OnlyFans Success to a Life of Faith

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from the city where the West begins,
Fort Worth, Texas. Now, Ray made her fortune posting explicit
content of herself on Only Fans. In fact, she was
one of the first to ever do so. In the

(00:31):
early years of the website. When she made her account,
no one quite knew what the fledgling subscription based platform
would become. Maybe it would be full of cooking classes
or fitness tutorials, But because of nal Aray, it became
a de facto porn site where anyone could upload content
to themselves in exchange for cash from paying customers. According

(00:53):
to World or Statistics, one point four million girls are
now Only Fans creators. Let’s take a listen to the
young lady who’s been dubbed the prodigal daughter. Here’s Nellarey. Hi.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
My name is Nalarey. I was born in Decatur, Illinois.
I was born into a family of five children. So
I was the middle of five children, and so I
was homeschooled from first through fourth grade, and then my
parents decided to put us in a Christian school but
when I was about nine years old, my dad cheated
on my mom and he left our family for two

(01:26):
years and I didn’t see him at all. I had
no idea what was going on. Two years passed and
my parents decided to try to mend things up after
the divorce and ended up remarrying about two and a
half years later. And during that time, I was going
to a very tiny Christian school from fourth through eighth grade,
where I experienced, at the age of thirteen, being molested

(01:50):
by a sixteen year old boy. My family always felt
kind of scattered, even though we were together, always different opinions,
different ways of wanting to live, and there was no
real community, no real communication either between our family. It’s
like we couldn’t talk about the hard things. Even as

(02:11):
a young woman, when my cycle started, my mom didn’t
want to talk about it. Had to learn a lot
of things by myself as a young woman. And after
I was thirteen, my parents decided to pull me and
all the other kids out of Christian school, and that
was a very difficult time because that was about the
only social life I had. And that’s when my parents
decided to start going to church. And then it kind

(02:34):
of took a turn where my dad decided that out
of nowhere, that he wanted to be a pastor, And
that truly came out of nowhere, because none of us
felt like my dad had that kind of calling on
his life, and we did not have the calling of
being a pastor’s family. Roughly, he went through about three
church splits before he decided that he was probably not
a pastor and he probably shouldn’t be one. But years

(02:55):
had went by at that point where I was about
sixteen when he started being a pastor. We all moved
to Florida, and that was really hard going through all
of that, being a teenager, feeling so many different things,
not the parents not explaining anything. So shortly after, I
started working a job when I was fifteen, just to
get out of the house because we started homeschooling again,

(03:19):
and so my life consisted of going to church and
being homeschooled, and I didn’t have any kind of a
social life, which just felt like a cage. And so
if we fast forward a little bit, I really got
into some promiscuity. When I was sixteen and seventeen, I
started sneaking out of my parents’ home, like out of
my bedroom window to go meet men like way older

(03:41):
than I was, so just because I wanted to find
some form of freedom and love that I wasn’t getting
from my home. And so I arrived home at like
three am one time, with two cop cars outside my home,
where the police officers were like shining lights in my face,
asking me tons of questions, just trying to scare me,
and my mom and dad were just basically saying that

(04:04):
they would let me spend a night in jail if
it really, like if it would shake me enough to
stop doing what I was doing, but I didn’t care.
I wanted out of my family so bad. I was
so distraught. I was so lonely in a family of seven.
And I mean, it’s not even the people that make
you feel lonely, it’s like your circumstances that really push
you into isolation. And that’s a dangerous place for a

(04:26):
teenager to be at, where they don’t feel as though
they can be open with their own parents about things
they want, things they dream about. And so shortly after,
I got a job at a fast food joint and
I bought my first car, and it was a very
very old car, and it felt like for the first
time I had some more freedom. But then very shortly after,

(04:48):
I continued sneaking out of my home and doing promiscuous acts,
and my parents took everything away from me. They took
my job, they took my car. So if we fast
forward to meeting eighteen years old, I promised myself i’d
move out, and I did. The first chance I got,
I took on two jobs, working for a gym and
working as a waitress. I was working so many hours

(05:10):
just to live on my own. So I told my
parents that I wanted to be a personal trainer because
I was really fell into fitness at the time I
felt so I just loved it so much. I threw
myself into the gym. At eighteen years old, I hired
a personal trainer. I worked out every single day but Sundays,
and I took fight choreography classes. I did martial arts,

(05:34):
I did boxing, I did gymnastics. Every bit of that
like inflicted pain on my body, and it was the
best feeling to feel that like something like this. I
had a lot of anger, too, and so anger was
probably the only main emotion I could feel consistently. Was
just like this rage that I could pour into working out.

(05:57):
Until I was so tired i could. I was just like,
I just want to go to bed now, like I’m
so drained, and it was like it felt so good
to feel that. But yeah, if we fast forward to
about twenty years of age, I had really started kind
of popping off on social media with my fitness videos,

(06:18):
my fitness pictures, which was really just kind of sexualized
forms of photos and videos of me being in the gym.
So I got recognized by someone who worked in OnlyFans
as a recruiter. OnlyFans was originally designed to be a
PG platform. They never intended it to sell porn or
any sexualized photos or anything like that. They wanted it

(06:39):
to be a platform where people can share like things
that they’re good at, like cooking or fitness or race
car stuff or that’s what they intended Only Fans to be.
And I was one of the first creators to help
them in the process of turning it into a basically
a porn website because when it had come out, it

(06:59):
was out about two years before I joined, and it
was there was hardly anybody on it. There was no
promiscuity really at all on there. And the guy who
originally recruited me was right, like, you could make money
off of just selling like fitness videos and stuff. I
was the one who decided to make it something that
it never should have been.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
When we come back more of the story of Nalaree
here on our American Stories lie h Habib here, and
I’d like to encourage you to subscribe to Our American
Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever
you get our podcasts. Any story you missed or want

(07:42):
to hear again can be found there daily again. Please
subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts,
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helps us keep these great American stories coming. And we

(08:09):
continue with our American Stories and the story of Nalarey.
Let’s pick up where we last left off. Let’s return
to Noah.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
So that is what OnlyFans is. And they reached out
to me and told me that I would make a
lot of money being on OnlyFans just selling fitness stuff
or maybe bikini photos. And I was super intrigued at
the time because I was working a very dead end
job at an orthopedic company who did not care about me.
At all. I had worked for them for about two
and a half years. I’d never made it up the ladder.

(08:40):
Didn’t matter how much overtime I put in, how many
holidays I worked, They didn’t care at all. So I
was pretty done with corporate America trying to rule my
life and never getting paid more for it. And so
that was a pretty easy switchover for me, knowing that
I could just stay online and stay at home and
you know, make money off of it. My first rough
month on OnlyFans, I netted about eighty seven thousand dollars

(09:03):
and that changed my life. I saw green and I
ran after it, and I quit my job immediately. And
it was just crazy to me that I had made
two year salary in a month, and I got so
good at it. It was something that I felt like
I could pour my heart into because you know, I
grew up wanting love so bad, and I started getting

(09:25):
so much attention from the Internet, from only fans, from
men on OnlyFans, and not all of it was good attention.
Some of it was very negative, extremely perverted, but I
got it. I got something that I finally wanted, even
though it came at a major cost, and I didn’t
care what it costs. I was that desperate for love.

(09:45):
And I’m not saying that love isn’t a need. It
absolutely is. But I was so willing to sell my
own body to get that, and I needed love more
than I needed food. I felt. I felt like it
was my life line and that’s all I had to
work for was getting love and attention from random strangers.
And it’s crazy how random strangers made me feel something

(10:09):
that my parents never made me feel. And so I
pursued that feeling to the moon and back. I kept working.
I worked seven days a week, I got up early,
went to the gym, immediately started working on OnlyFans. I
posted videos three times a day on every single platform.
I went live all the time, and then I really

(10:29):
saw those numbers boost. I was extremely ambitious. I knew
that if I wanted to be the best, I had
to educate myself and if I am not a man,
so I really wanted to understand my audience. And that’s
the best thing. If you’re trying to sell something, you
have to understand your audience. Any major business person who’s
selling something will tell you that you have to learn

(10:51):
your audience, otherwise you are just shooting into the wind.
So I read the Neil Strauss’s book The Game. It
was just a dating book on a man teaching men
how to date, and I wanted, I really wanted an
insight into that. I read some articles about men. I
read some articles about why men are attracted to women,

(11:12):
why they don’t feel secure in their relationships. I manipulated
men hardcore so that I could get the game. I
wanted their money. I mean it became. It first began
as attention. I loved their attention. Then I wanted to
hurt them. I felt as though I was more powerful

(11:33):
than men. I fell into that independence, that false independence,
that equality mindset. I felt like I was above the
majority of men. You know why because I made more
than most NFL players, and I knew that I could
pull up to a table and I had more cards
than most people. So I had power fame. I could

(11:53):
book a flight anywhere anytime, I took helicopter rides out
of places I didn’t want to be in. I just
felt felt like the boss. I felt like I could dictate.
I needed that power in my life to dictate where
I was going, who I was going with. Girls don’t
make what I make like, netting fourteen million in almost
five years is ridiculous. That’s like three million a year.

(12:18):
Three hundred thousand dollars a month is crazy income for
a person in their young twenties to be making. And
so men by porn, and I wanted to get into
their heads and understand why they bought it so I
could make my content more appealing so that they would
buy it. Like, I was so bold. I did anything,
I said anything. I mean, if you’ve seen some of

(12:39):
my old podcast clips, I would say the most outlandish
things for men to be cat like I was already
eye catching with bright red hair and like fuzzy ears on.
And then I would say things like, oh I love
to cheat. Who says that? Like who openly admits that
they loved to cheat? But I thought, in my mind,

(13:02):
you know, if men are watching this and they’re in
like a rough relationship, but this girl over here loves
to cheat, she oh, she’ll sleep with me. You know,
she’ll get with me. Like I always gave men the
false sense that I would want to be with them
no matter what, Like I would pick you over anybody,
you know. So yeah, I was very good at a

(13:24):
very bad thing. So I fell into smoking weed every
single day. I had a major addiction to smoking weed.
I started drinking to just be able to do the
scenes that I needed to do, because your managers would
outright tell you if you don’t do these scenes, you’re
not gonna make any more money, You’re gonna fall off
the map, nobody’s gonna want you. And they were just

(13:46):
hardcore groomers, that’s all they were. They were your pins online.
And I only say that because I never knew my
limits until I was in only fans and I realized
I had no limits. I had absolutely none, and I
would do anything for money. I told myself early on that,
oh I would never do girl on girl scenes. Oh
I compromise so fast. I compromised everything, my mental health,

(14:10):
my sexuality. But now I have to look at myself
in the mirror and be like, yeah, I sell myself
for our money every single day. And that’s why I
had to smoke so much, because I could not allow
myself to feel weak in any way, to cry. I
could not allow myself to really recognize what I had done.
In just like year and a half, I started doing

(14:33):
hardcore pornography about seven months into being on Only Fans,
which I never thought I would do, but I started
it because my family found out that I was on OnlyFans.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
I think it.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
So I went out to dinner with my parents about
a week before I moved out to California. I wanted
to take them out to dinner. They already knew I
was moving out to California, but I had lied to
them about the reason I was going going out to California.
I had told them it was for my previous job
in orthopedics that I was gonna get to move out there.
They had no idea. They thought it was great. So

(15:10):
I went out to dinner with them and randomly at
the end of the dinner, this waiter comes up to me.
And I had stark red hair at the time, so
he comes up to me and is like, are you
Nala Ray? And I almost had a heart stack. To
be honest, I could not believe that somebody would come

(15:31):
up to me in front of my parents. Oh my word,
and so I denied it. I was just like instantly No.
Then later on that day, my mom googled my name Noalarey.
It’s pretty simple, nobody else’s name Nalaray. So she googled
it and there you go, there’s me. That’s my face
all over the internet doing horrific things. My dad had

(15:52):
already knew though. My dad knew beforehand because one of
his shop workers reached out to him and told him.
And he calls me, and he was pretty stunned at first, right,
And I explained it. I was like, Dad, I’m making
this much money like you, no matter what you say,
I’m still gonna do it. Like I’m too far deep
into this. I mean, I’m probably like six months in.

(16:15):
And he was genuinely okay with it. He was a
little starstruck at first, but then he was like, oh,
it’s all right, I just don’t tell your mom. And
I was like, oh great.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
And you’ve been listening to Nalla Ray tell one heck
of a story about her life, and the transparency with
which she tells it, the clarity and honesty with what
she tells it is laudable. And with people listening who
have family members who may have made choices like this,
and if you’ve made choices like this, what a way
to learn from somebody who’s done it, who’s been there.

(16:50):
My goodness, only fans in the beginning, she could have
just done fitness videos. Boy that first month eighty seven
thousand dollars, and what she was looking for, she can
fest was love. She was desperate for love. She said.
Random strangers gave me a feeling. My parents never made
me feel. So tragic is that line. I learned about

(17:12):
men and manipulated men so I could get their money.
I did anything, I said anything. I even admitted to
saying I love to cheat. And she must be thinking
to herself, what kind of a person says that? And
of course that is exactly what she says. I was
very good at a bad thing. When we come back

(17:34):
more of the story of nalare her redemption story here
on our American Stories, and we continue with our American

(18:10):
stories and the story of Nala Rey. Let’s pick up
where we last left off.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
So, after my mom found out, they both decided they
wanted to come to my apartment in Florida and have
a discussion with me about it. But my dad had
to act like he didn’t know, otherwise he’d be in
big trouble with my mom for knowing and not telling her,
And so they both came. We sat out all my
porch and my dad just went on this Dad rant

(18:38):
to me about it, acting as if he wasn’t okay
with it, and my mom just sat there staring off
into space, and I told him, I was like, listen,
like I I you know, I’m not changing, like I’m sorry,
like you’re mad at this. But me and my mom
already didn’t have a good relationship, and so I just
didn’t care that much. I was like, you know what,

(18:58):
You’ve never been a great to me anyway, Why would
I care what you say now. So then my mom
before they walk out the door, she just says, I
hope you find everything you’re looking for, and then later
sends me an email about how I have drifted off
the path of God, how disappointed she was in me.

(19:19):
But yeah, I maintained a relationship with my dad and
my mom and I didn’t speak for the next five years.
So I figured at that point, since I’d lost everybody
and I had no one’s respect, that I was going
to go full force into porn. And that was a
really rough time for me. That was a very very
rough time for me because I got very kind of
abused by my first boyfriend in it. He continued to

(19:40):
ask me for more and more money he physically abused
me until I finally moved to California and got away
from him. And so once I got to California, I
rented out a million dollar mansion that I lived in
for the next four years. I drove sports cars, I
lived the life. I did anything to drown the feeling
of being used by money and fame, and I really

(20:04):
quickly saw that there was no more love in my life.
I didn’t even understand what the word meant. I went
through many boyfriends. I had a few sexual partners during
that time that none of them loved me. A few
of them cheated on me, and I was so utterly
broken inside that I had to keep smoking weed. I
took adderall every day so that I could keep pushing

(20:26):
those work hours in. I became a full time streamer
on Twitch because I was getting paid by a company
to gamble, which I didn’t even like. But I did
it just for money, and I told I lied to
myself constantly about it. I always told myself, you know,
one day I’ll retire, one day it’ll all be over.
One day I can just go on a far off

(20:48):
island and just you know, live my life in peace.
And that never happened. I never wanted to get married.
I did not want children. I thought that you know,
who would want me after this many years of being
used like and I was okay with that fact. I
was like, you know what, I made this decision. I
was an adult, even though I was only like twenty
years old. I still told myself, you know, you made

(21:09):
these decisions, and now you have to live in this
bed that you made. So I was like, all right,
so I can do this. I can go retire after
maybe ten more years of doing this. You know, that
got shattered pretty quickly when I met my husband, now Jordan.
We met on TikTok and Jordan was a full out believer.

(21:31):
He spoke about Christ all over his social medias. I
met him on a live where he was going live
and I was just a viewer and he was just
talking about Jesus in the most intimate way. And it
was so crazy for me to see that because nothing
about Jesus in my mind was intimate. What Jesus represented
in my life was division and divorce. And that’s what

(21:51):
I saw when I thought of Jesus, and I was like,
there’s no way God loves me. There’s definitely no way.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Now.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
I live the worst life possible. I’m so addicted to drugs.
I drink all the time, I do porn. I am
kind of bisexual, and I make money selling my body.
God does not love me, I guarantee it. But the
way Jordan’s spoke about God started to very in a
small way, open up my heart, and it kind of

(22:19):
started feeding me a little bit, feeding me something that
I haven’t had in a while. And I’d say it
was just a really beautiful time in my life of awakening.
At the time, I was angry. I was at war
with myself over everything he was saying. We became friends
shortly after I saw him on live. We started texting,

(22:40):
we facetimed all the time, and we became like best friends.
I finally flew Jordan out to California from Virginia to
come be at my Halloween party, which I hosted at
my house where it’s pretty much just all a bunch
of OnlyFans models kind of making content and stuff. And
I hired a really big DJ to be at my party,

(23:02):
and there was just so much drug use, so much alcohol,
and I thought I was having the time of my life.
But when I came downstairs and wearing the most permiscuous outfit.
Jordan literally would not even look at me. He was like,
oh my gosh, like wow, and it really made me
feel something inside. I was really kind of embarrassed for

(23:23):
the first time showing my body, which was kind of
funny because I was just like, Wow, I’ve done this
for five years, and now, why all of a sudden
am I uncomfortable showing my body? You know? Why do
I want to go put a big sweatshirt on just
because this man is here. So I went through the party.
Jordan and I slept in separate rooms because we were

(23:45):
just good friends and that was it. And I wanted
to show Jordan like the kind of life that I lived,
which was extravagant. I rented him a sports car. I
drove a sports car. We went to some car meets,
which I’m really interested in cars, so we both got
to do some fun things. He went home shortly after,
and I had this radical moment probably about a month later,
where I had went to Miami to go receive a

(24:09):
reward for being a millionaire because I sold my body.
It’s called the Porn Awards, and I received a million
dollar reward for doing what I did, and I went
back to my hotel room staring at that reward, and
I was like distraught. And then one night Jordan calls
me on the phone and we have this discussion, and

(24:31):
Jordan was just like basically telling me over the phone, like,
you know, you were meant for so much more than this.
God did not create you to make porn. God created
you as his loving daughter, and you you are an
heir to his throne. And I was shocked, and I
was so angry at him for saying that to me
because I already felt like I was living like a queen.

(24:53):
I was like, do you even know who I am?
Do you know how much money I have in my
bank account? At this minute, I felt so justified in
my own thoughts. And so after we got off the
phone later that night, around one or two in the morning,
I was just sitting in my living room smoking weed
and I was just I was like, I just can’t

(25:14):
do this anymore, Like why do I feel this? Why?
Like I had used weed to numb myself and I
am no longer numb, Like, no longer I feel everything.
I felt like my nerves were on the top of
my skin. It was so like, I was in so
much pain, and so I just I looked over in

(25:34):
my corner of my living room and I had a
maid at the time, and I had reached out of
one of my cabinets and got my Bible. It was
like this big, beaten up purple Bible from two thousand
and nine, which my parents had given me for a
birthday present. It was so like ripped and torn in
it just it was just rough man and had all

(25:55):
these writings in it for me as a kid, and
highlighted passages. And I just opened it up and quickly
flipped through it, and I was like, wow. I realized
in that moment that I used to know who God was.
I was like, wow, we had something here. It might
not have been the best relationship, but I knew you
at some point in my life, and I actually trusted

(26:17):
you enough to read your word.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
And you’ve been listening to Nala Rey share the story
of her life and my goodness, that confrontation scene with
a mom and dad where a dad had to pretend
not to know, Well, that didn’t end very well. And
the mom says those words that sometimes parents feel compelled
to say, I hope you find what you’re looking for.
They don’t speak for five years. She went full steam

(26:43):
ahead into the world of porn. I lived the life.
I did anything in my life to dull the pain.
I was utterly broken inside. She confessed, I did not
want to get married. I did not want children. She
had just basically said, who wouldver want to do that
with me? And why would I ever want that? Then
she meets her husband and well, he starts to talk

(27:05):
about God and Jesus, and she’s convinced there’s just no
way God can possibly love me, and then they become friends.
He comes to that party and then makes that phone
call after she gets that big check. You were made
for so much more than this. When we come back
the rest of Nalarey’s story here on our American stories,

(27:47):
and we continue with our American stories and nalareise story,
Let’s pick up where we last left off.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
And so I just put my Bible down and I
just reached out to God’s sobbing. I was like, you
know what, God, you have to do something right now
in my life. You have to I need you to
talk to me right now or I’m going to do
something bad. And in that moment, I just like closed
my eyes and I just saw the wording from the

(28:18):
Lord just literally saying verbata that I was all you
ever needed wording. And I opened my eyes and I
could still see the wording like visually, and I was like,
oh my gosh, like did you just talk to me?
Like did you actually just talk to me? I called
Jordan at like six in the morning the next morning,

(28:38):
and I was sobbing still. I barely got sleep that night.
I was just trying to process everything that had just happened.
And I told him that God had spoken to me.
Jordan bought a one way ticket out he This was
on like a Saturday. He bought a ticket flew in.
The next day was church. It was Sunday. So he
took me to this church in downtown LA that he

(28:59):
had went to before, and they were doing baptisms in
the corner. They were ending it because we showed up
a little bit late, and so I was sobbing just
coming in and I was like, this is so embarrassing,
Like why am I crying so much? And I have
not cried in like years because I’ve been so numb
from the weed, and so I was just sobbing. And

(29:22):
we go into the bleachers and I just looked up
at Jordan and I’m like, I look at him, and
he’s like, do you want to go get baptized. I
was like, I have to right now, Like you don’t
get it. If I don’t get baptized right now, something
bad’s gonna happen. And so we rush over to the
corner where they’re doing baptisms. He says, are you ready,

(29:45):
And I’m like, I’m so ready. So he dunks me.
I come back up and it felt like I was
in the water for forever. It really felt like I
had been in the water for so long. And then
when I come up, I I left my eyes open
while I was in the town, and I just I
wanted to see it. I knew God was going to
do something so powerful in that moment that I wanted

(30:08):
to see it. So I all this water and I
come up and I instantly felt like I was a feather.
I felt I’m like, I’m falling out of words here
because there’s no words that described how much weight I
was carrying that God took off me. There’s I was weightless,

(30:33):
completely and utterly weightless. And I just remember going back
up to the bleachers with Jordan to hear the sermon,
and I kept looking around, like in awe of what
I was seeing. It’s just a church and a congregation
and people on some stages, and I felt like there
was this massive filter, this fog that was just gone.

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And I couldn’t believe my eyes. Like when people tell you,
like when you get your site back, things are different,
like that’s what I felt like. I felt like I
was so blind and I can see now, and everything
looked different. It felt different, my taste was different. And
it was just the most remarkable spiritual encounter I’ve ever

(31:17):
had in my entire life. And I knew right then
and there I wanted God more than anything in my
life anything. I had to go after him so strongly
because I was still in disbelief that God was going
to do anything. So he he surpassed every expectation I
had ever and the fact that he wanted me and

(31:41):
his kingdom was remarkable to me. So I was in
Virginia visiting my mother in law and father in law
with Jordan, and I believe we were we were dating
at the time, so they were my mother in law
just yet, but we were dating at the time. And
I had already decided to delete my only fans. It

(32:02):
was just a really long battle. It took like a
year and a half to get it fully deleted. It
was just a wreck. So that is something I would
warrant OnlyFans models about, is that it’s not easy to
get off. It’s not unless you only have a couple
of subscribers, it’s not going to be easy to get off.
So and I had over like two hundred and seven
thousand subscribers, so that was a lot. When I first

(32:27):
got saved, I learned that my mother in law had
been like almost like fasting and praying over me for
about I don’t know if it was like a week
or two weeks, but anyway, she had really poured her
heart out to the Lord to help me get saved.
Like she was already praying over me before I was
ever saved, And so that was so sweet to find

(32:48):
out from her. So she helped coach me along the
way with my modesty in the sense that when I
was wearing something that I shouldn’t be wearing because it
was already in my closet, she just would mention things like,
maybe this isn’t the best outfit. That you should be
wearing and then explain why. She’s like, you are a

(33:09):
beautiful woman. You know you do not need to show
anything anymore. And not that I was trying to entice
any other men. I could care less. At that point,
I was like, dude, I’m saved. I am good.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
Like I don’t care about what men think about me anymore.
Like it felt like such a stress reliever for the
first time. And I went through my social media feed
with my husband and asked her some questions too about it.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
I’m like, should I take this down? Like is this
too much? Like I was so new to all of
this idea of modesty because I had been promiscuous basically
since I was like sixteen, So it was so new
to me to have to rewire my brain in modesty.
And I have made mistakes along the way. I have
made some bad mistakes in some areas of wearing a

(33:54):
thing that I shouldn’t have worn. But now I feel
as though her coaching has brought me to a place
of always like asking another question instead of just saying, oh, yeah,
that’s fine, let’s ask the question, Let’s look it over again,
Let’s try to put yourself in a mindset where what
would a man think if they saw this, would they
find themselves potentially lusting or you know, because as Christians

(34:18):
we are called to not make people stumble. I’m not
trying to become a nun or anything. I love fashion,
but really I had to throw away like seventy percent
of my closet because it was that bad. And I
was like, wow, Like I had to get rid of lingerie,
I had to get rid of bikinis. I got rid
of so many shirts, rompers, jumpers, dresses, pants, shorts, I

(34:40):
got rid of everything. And I didn’t even second guess it.
If I even thought for a second I threw it away.
I was like, this cannot live in my life anymore.
Cussing was a massive one for me too, because like
every other word out of my mouth was the F word.
I literally said it like it was a vowel. So
I had to stop cussing. And that was with how
of my husband. He would just gently remind me if

(35:03):
I cussed or slipped up, he’d be like language, you know,
And it really helped me start taking notice of the
things that I was saying. It’s a very important part
about being a Christian too, because you have to, God says,
to imitate him. Is God cussing? No? Is God dressing him?
Mostly no?

Speaker 1 (35:21):
You know?

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Is God spending too much time on social media? Absolutely not?
You know. So I really wanted to start and I
start praying that over myself, like God helped me imitate you.
I had to deal with a major pride issue, to
major where I would just walk into a store and
this thought pops in my mind where I’m like, oh,
I’m way prettier than her. I’m like, where did that

(35:42):
come from? Like like that, I don’t even want to
think those thoughts. And so God had to really deliver
me from pride. And it was the most remarkable day
of my life where I met the love of my life.
Jesus is the love of my life. He was my
first love, the first person whoever showed me the love

(36:03):
that is you cannot find here on earth, and that
is what I had been searching for this entire time.
He takes the lowest of the low, changes their life
and they have such a gratitude for it because they
never thought they deserved it in the first place. So
God is my testimony. He is the love of my
life over any human being. On this earth, even over

(36:26):
my husband. I love him so dearly, but I could
never ever give him the love that God gave me.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
Ever and a terrific job on the production, editing and
storytelling by our own Greg Hangler, and a very special
thanks to Nalah Ray for sharing her story with us,
the good, the bad, and the ugly, the godly too.
I need you to talk to me right now where
I’m going to do something bad, was her plea to

(36:52):
the Lord. Remember that was Johnny Cash’s plea too. It’s
so many please of Christians and how they come close
to the Lord. It’s generally when they’re in the valley,
at the darkest point of their life that they lean
on him. Then there was that vision that signed those words,
I was all you ever needed. Then came that magical
baptism scene. All that work to get rid of the

(37:15):
only fans stuff, and then to learn how to walk
a godly walk, and that’s not easy. No Christian will
tell you it is, or any person of God. She
was trying to rewire her brain and it was simple.
Her simple prayer was God, help me imitate you, Help
me imitate you. And of course she closed with a
beautiful thought that though she loved her husband with all

(37:38):
of her heart, Jesus was the first love of her life.
The story of nala Ree a redemition story and a
real beauty here on our American Stories.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
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