By Sandra Marroquin—
Nicole C. Mullens was a grown woman and could make decisions for herself. So she married an abusive man who made her life a hell.
“I recall begging him to finish the job as he held my neck against the wall,” she recalls an instance of domestic violence in her book It’s Never Wrong to Do the Right Thing. “I wanted out of this torment, and I longed to see Jesus. As if to spite and torture me even further, he would release my neck and deny me my request. He rather I suffer with him.”
Today, Nicole, winner of nine Dove awards, has remarried happily and encourages young ladies to make the right decision.
Raised by deacon parents with pastor grandparents, Nicole, 58, from Cincinnati, OH, never experienced drama as a child.That’s part of the reason she got caught off guard. When she was 20, this man walked into her life saying all the right words at the right time. She swooned.
From a young age, Nicole loved to sing. She began writing songs and performing in church, showing both a gift for music and a deep faith that would later anchor her during dark times.
Mullen’s songs focus on having an active, personal faith in God’s power. In “Redeemer,” for example, she uses imagery from creation to show God’s control and strength.
Mullen has said her first marriage was abusive and ended in divorce when she was about 24.
By the time of Nicole C. Mullen’s wedding, the physical abuse had already begun. She even prayed to die, she made a late night escape sleeping in her car, hiding with friends.
“By the time the wedding came around, I didn’t have the heart to tell my parents that he had already hit me the first time,” she recalls. “For the next three years, I lived the domestic violence cycle.”
Her husband “would pull her out of bed by her heels, punch her in the face, kick her in the ribs, and do other things like taunt her by clicking knives together,” she says.
She finally broke when she realized she’d find an “early grave.” She made a late-night escape, sleeping in her car and hiding with friends. He came looking for her.
In 1993, she married singer-producer David Mullen of Contemporary Christian Music. David produced some of her albums. They divorced in 2014, which she said was for “Biblical reasons.”
In 2020, Nicole married basketball player Stacey Scott, founder of Never Alone Ministry.
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