From Self-Made Millionaire to God Made Millions™ by Dr. Venus Opal Reese

“Don’t touch me!”

I curled inside myself, trying desperately to have my recoiling body speak louder than my voice.

He sat on the couch next to me.

“I love you.”

I could smell the desperation on his skin. He wanted me to marry him.

I  saw a smoky, dark cloud enter my small living room and move toward him.

I watched as an unclean spirit slithered into his hands.

I felt his hand coil around my throat as he gently pulled my stiff back against his heaving chest.

That’s when it happened.

I remember being six years old.

I was lonesome and wanted someone to play Jacks with me.

I asked my teenage step-brother to play with me.

“I love you.”

He put his hand under my dress.

I remember being around 14.

I was on the streets by then.

Staying where I could.

A friend pulled me into a closet.

His hand around my throat, as he panted, “ I love you,” in my ear.

He squeezed my neck until I passed out.

I had been groomed by pedophiles since I was a child.

Love, sex, and violence were used to control me.

I developed an appetite for this particular brew.

I learned that love came through my body in pain.

I cried first. Then I learned how to fake it.

Then I discovered that I had a taste for it.

I learned that love had a price.

If I wanted love, I had to pay for it.

Nobody wanted me.

Nobody loved me.

Not even momma.

Momma never wanted me.

Momma sat me in tubs of hot water.

Momma cut my hair off.

“No one will look at you.”

My momma put me out at twelve.

She said I lied about one of her friends.

Men and women had access to my body.

Momma never believed me.

She said I was just trying to get attention.

Momma beat me bloody for starting trouble.

I stopped telling.

No one believed me.

No one listened.

By 16, I was out there.

I sat on the corner.

My street corner.

In urine and beer.

It was cold.

I was hungry.

I had no place to go.

I prayed.

“God, please, help me.”

I slept in an alley filled with rats and roaches.

“Go back to school,” I heard God say.

I dropped out when Momma left for Texas.

The school provided free food.

I went because I was hungry.

I smelled like the gutter.

Holes in my shoes.

Dirty clothes from Goodwill.

I looked like death waiting to happen.

I dropped my eyes.

I shut my ears.

I kept walking.

“You dirty!” Ha! Ha! Ha!

“You smell like horse shit!” Ha! Ha! Ha!

“She’s bleeding through her pants!

“She needs a tampon!” Ha! Ha! Ha!

“Venus, go sit in the back of my classroom, now!”

I was groomed to obey, so I did.

That teacher was God’s answer to my pathetic prayer.

She took me in.

She taught me how to eat with a fork instead of my hands.

She stood over me while I cried in my sleep.

She paid for me to go to college fairs.

She supported me in college for my BFA, MFA, MA, and Ph.D.

She made me invest in my first business mentor.

She attended every live event I produced.

She worked every book tour stop.

She encouraged me to travel the world.

The result: I became a self-made millionaire.

But..

The truth was, I still felt like the poor little black girl from the streets of Baltimore.

The same worthless piece of shit,  whose momma tried to kill her.

The same gutter urchin whose daddy went to jail without ever seeing me.

As a self-made millionaire I had it all.

But, in my heart, I still felt like nothing.

Then I met him.

I told him about my background.

He took care of me.

But he was like Momma.

He was like my step-brother.

He was like my friend in the closet.

As long as I complied, they would not or stop hurting my body with their hands.

Or extension cords.

Or boiling water.

Or guns playing russian roulette until I peed on myself.

He was good to me–except when I didn’t obey.

I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore.

He said I was just upset.

I said I am not upset.

He told me I was wrong.

He tried to buy my compliance.

He started showing up unannounced.

He created fake emails and fake social media accounts.

He became more and more threatening.

I knew he had it in him to hurt.

I just never thought he would do it to me.

Until he locked me in his car and wouldn’t let me out.

Until he blindfolded, tied me down, spread-eagled, and hurt me in private ways.

Until he peed on himself just to get back into my apartment.

He wanted to help me understand that I really did love him and wanted to marry him.

I said no every way I could.

He agreed to go to therapy.

That softened my heart.

We agreed to take it slow, no sex, and be friends.

We agreed to get to know each other as people.

We agreed to meet at my place to do a book about Christian couples.

I open the door.

I let him in.

I felt something was off, but I ignored it.

This was the man who loved me.

This was the man God had sent for me.

This was the man who was willing to do the work so we could build God’s kingdom together.

I.

Was.

Wrong.

“I love you, Venus! Please,” he pleaded.

“God told me you are my wife.”

“No. I don’t want this.”

“Yes, you do. You love me.”

“Don’t touch me!”

I curled inside myself, trying desperately to have my recoiling body speak louder than my voice.

He sat on the couch next to me.

“I love you.”

I could smell the desperation on his skin. He wanted me to marry him.

I saw a smoky, dark cloud enter my small living room and move toward him.

I watched as an unclean spirit slithered into his hands.

I felt his hand coil around my throat as he gently pulled my stiff back against his heaving chest.

Then it happened.

I felt my spirit leave my body.

I saw myself looking down at myself on my couch.

I say his hand around my throat.

I saw my friend from the closet.

The more I resisted, the more he squeezed my neck.

Not this time.

This time, I did what grown men who liked little girls taught me to do.

This time, I complied like I did when I was a child.

This time, I participated so I didn’t get stomped, or beaten, or passed around.

Afterward, I did as I was taught to do.

I cleaned him up.

I bath.

I said nothing, like a good girl should behave with her Daddy.

I agreed with him with silence and downcast eyes.

Once he left, I went to pick up Happy, my service animal, from daycare.

I sat in my car.

Then I prayed.

“God, please, help me.”

God showed me that this man would never stop.

God showed me that this wounded man would only escalate.

God showed me that if I didn’t walk away from it all, I would kill myself.

Just like when I was a teen, living on the streets, I had to get away. 

Just like when I was sleeping in urine and beer in an alley near Monument Street, I prayed.

Just like when I was being mocked and ridiculed, God sent me a way out.

God showed me the cycle.

I realized my entire life was just a cover-up.

I was worthless.

I used success to cover up the stench.

I wasn't successful.

I was surviving.

I survived with accomplishments, credentials, and strategy.

Survival strategies made me a millionaire.

Survival strategies kept me in a cycle of picking people who matched my survival.

Survival strategies kept me people-pleasing, self-sacrificing, and overgiving in the name of love.

Survival strategies kept me villainizing myself instead of seeing the gross abuse of my loyalty.

“God, I need you.”

“ I am right here, my precious one.”

“Nobody wants me. Nobody loves me.”

“That’s not true, my beloved. I love you.”

“I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know where to put all of this.”

“Give it to me. Let me love you, Venus. Let me show you that you don’t have to earn, prove, or make it with me. I want you just as you are.”

“I am a bad person Lord–”

“No, you are not beloved. You are wounded. And I want to take care of you. Will you let me? Will you let me love you?

I began to cry.

“I won’t hurt you. I won’t leave you. I will never turn my back on you.

Ever.”

I couldn't look at Him.

“Please. Give me a chance. Let me carry you.”

My soul trembled.

“Let me protect you.

Let me provide for you.

Please Venus. I love you.”

I couldn't say anything.

God understood.

He simply bent down from the heavens, reached over the Sun and opened His arms.

Then God smiled into my heart, the gentlest touch I had even known.

There, God wrapped me in His arms and carried me home.

In His house, there are many mansions.

In His house, there are millions and millions of stars and grains of sand.

In His house, affluence is simply an abundant and profuse overflow.

In the beginning God made–then there was.

God made is NOT self-made.

God made is a process of allowing, while self-made is a process of effort.

God moved me from survival-driven success to spirit-led affluence.

Since surrendering my life to Christ, I no longer work hard, strive, hustle, or grind.

Those knee-jerk behaviors made me a millionaire, but they also made me tired.

I was so used to living a transactional life that I didn’t trust I would survive if I didn’t “earn it.”

As I learned to abide in Christ, not lean on my own understanding, and to trust in God’s covenant with Abraham for his descendants, I started to take my hands off the wheel and my foot off the gas.

I learned to surrender.

I learned to let go.

I learned to trust God, especially with money.

God Made Millions is so much more than money.

It’s resting in the ease and opulence of God.

When something is “God made,” it naturally multiplies effortlessly.

A flower doesn’t strive to bloom.

A fish doesn’t “hustle hard” to breathe underwater.

God Made is when you surrender to God’s will and allow God to bless you without your help.

God has transformed me from a self-made millionaire to a steward of God Made Millions™ in service of creating wealth for the righteous to fund God’s kingdom effortlessly. The way to fund the kingdom is by modeling people, specifically women, who were entrepreneurs in the Bible.

The Bible is the best business manual ever created, and yet, as Christian businesswomen, we are not taught to use it as such. Because I can model women like Lydia, Sheba, Phoebe, and many others, I can now reach, have, and serve millions of people God’s way instead of the way of a fallen world.

I can also teach other sister entrepreneurs in Christ who have walked through life’s fire how to access God Made Millions™. When you know how to access God’s affluence instead of defaulting to effort, you can reach, have, and serve millions in the ease and opulence of God.

If you are ready to transform from self-made millionaire to God Made Millions, please accept this love offering as a gift to inspire you. It’s called the God Made Millions™ Manifesto. God gave me this future when I gave all of me to Him.

May it feed you.

AUTHOR’S BIO

Dr. Venus Opal Reese is a marketplace pioneer and Kingdom strategist who embodies Lydia’s economic influence and Peter’s bold leadership. She founded Bible Business, LLC, whose mission is “Creating Wealth For The Righteous To Effortlessly Finance God’s Kingdom™.” Through her speaking, courses, devotionals, books, and spirit-led mentorship, Dr. Venus empowers Christian businesswomen—especially Black women of faith—to align their businesses with biblical principles, heal financial wounds, and prosper God’s way.

A former little Black girl from the streets, Dr. Venus turned her pain into purpose, earned multiple degrees—including a second master’s degree and Ph.D. from Stanford University—and built a multi-seven-figure business. Today, she leads a faith-fueled movement to raise up Christian women entrepreneurs, business owners, and marketplace ministries to reach, serve, and have millions–God’s way–to easily finance God’s kingdom, globally. Stay connected at info@biblebusiness.co

RSVP to the God Made Millions Virtual Masterclass on 6/12 at 7pm HERE