(My Personal Testitmony)
Part One
Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct; rebuke and encourage - with great patience and careful instruction. 2 Tim. 4:2
I would like to say that my life has been relatively smooth sailing, but unfortunately I can't. In truth, my life has been more like a soap opera. I was born in New Jersey in 1956. My parents are pretty special people, but for most of my young life they were so wrapped up in their own problems that I felt left out.
My father was a very strict man who believed in strict discipline. I had a lot of fear of him as a child. My mother tried to make up to us what my father was unable to give but it wasn't enough. I was a very insecure child and always wondered what was wrong with me. I knew something must be wrong because my father could not seem to accept me.
When I was five years old my mother signed me up for Vacation Bible School. I remember the teacher talking about Jesus and how He died for our sins. She asked us if we wanted Him to live in our hearts. I remember jumping up from my chair and saying, "I want Jesus to live in my heart!" She led me through the sinners prayer and told me I was now a new Christian. I told my mother about it but she didn't really understand what had happed. I really didn't understand either so from age five till age 12 my salvation was never discussed again.
When I was twelve my mother asked Jesus to come into her heart. It was the beginning of a whole new way of life. She never looked back when she said that prayer. Six months later my father said the same prayer but I never saw any changes in him. (At least not at first. Years later I began to see the change but not at that time.)
I would like to say that at this point my life took a change for the better. Unfortunately so much damage had already been done to me emotionally, that I was unable to respond to the changes in my mom.
When I was 14 years old I discovered boys. Since I felt uneccepted by my father I turned to what ever boy paid attention to me. I also started drinking the summer before my freshman year. That was also the summer I lost my virginity. I thought I was so in love and that this boy and I would be together forever. When he stopped showing any interest in me, my self-esteem took a nose dive. I became involved with one boy after another because I so desperately wanted to be loved.
When I entered High School I met a group of kids that seemed to accept me as I was. They introduced to Marijuana. I enjoyed it some but I didn’t like the way it made me feel sleepy. Soon I was being introduced to other drugs such as speed, mescaline and acid. I found I liked these better than the grass so I spent the next three years of my life getting high, drunk, or both. I also had sex with several boys during this time period.
Somewhere during the end of my junior year in high school I realized that the only person I was hurting was myself. My parents didn't even realize what I was doing because I hid it so well. I decided to go straight and give up the group of friends I had. It was a hard thing for me to do because I didn't know how to live any other way. I started getting involved in church. It was there that I met a boy named Jim. He was the son of one of the assistant pastors. (Yep, a preacher's kid.) We started dating and he began pressuring me to have sex with him. At first I resisted because I really wanted to change my life. But I fell for the “you would if you loved me” line and finally gave in. I thought this was the man I would live with for the rest of my life. (He was 16, I was 17. He really wasn't a man.) Anyway, shortly after we started having sex I skipped a period. I wasn't too worried until the following month when I still didn't start it. Several months after we started dating my mom commented on the weight I was gaining. Well, to make a long story short, I was pregnant. This was in the early 70's and girls in my position either gave their baby up for adoption or they got married.
Well, I could no way give up my own child and Jim really wanted to marry me. He decided to enter into the Army so that he could afford to support us. We talked to our parents about it and they allowed us to get married.
After basic training Jim got stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. We were living in Killeen, Texas. Jim and his army buddies would drink and get drunk a lot. Jim was a very angry drunk and he would smack me around or beat me. It didn't take long before the marriage turned into a very abusive marriage. He had a way of twisting things around so that it always seemed it was my fault that I’d get beaten up and that I deserved it. In fact he would say he was doing me a favor by staying with me because no other man would ever want me. (When a person hears this drilled into their brain over and over again, they start to believe it.) So, I stayed in this marriage for six years because I though I had no other choice.
Our first child, Kacie, was born six months after we were married. My husband was unfaithful right from the beginning. He would tell me it was my fault he was cheating on me because I was so boring. I believed him and eventually I became what he told me I was . . . nothing. Just an empty shell who had no love for myself. I considered myself worthless.
Around this time I became pregnant with our second child. CJ, was born 19 months after Kacie. By this time me and the girls were living in Phoenix again. Jim had gotten stationed in Germany but made me stay in the states. It was a real mess. He was unfaithful while there and told me that he knew I was being unfaithful also. (I wasn’t.) At one point I decided I wanted a divorce from him because I couldn’t take any more. He got out of the Army on an Emergency Discharge and came back home to Arizona. He acted like he was so sorry that he’d hurt me and that the most important thing to him was to work our marriage out. I believed him and took him back.
Shortly thereafter we moved to Montana where his family lived. It wasn’t long before it was all the same old stuff again. But this time, I had changed. While he was in Germany I began to realize that I was someone special. I realized that he had been feeding me lies all those years. I started taking care of myself and feeling good about me. He tried to take that away from me but I wouldn't let him .I don't know what happened, but something inside of me finally had enough.
One night when I was in bed, he came home drunk and decided to beat me. He was literally sitting on top of me and he had his fist pulled back. He was about to take a swing at me when somewhere inside of me this voice came out and I said to him that if he was going to hit me, he'd better just kill me. I added further that if he didn't, I was going to kill him. (At that moment I really meant what I was saying.) I guess he knew I meant it because he got off of me and left. The next day he moved back to Phoenix. (He left me with his family!)
After Jim left me I thought I didn't want to live anymore. I thought my life was a failure and all I had to offer my children was failure. So I thought about suicide. I wanted to do it dramatically so I thought I would drown myself in the bathtub. (I was not thinking rationally at that time!) I figured I'd fill the tub full of soapy water and hold myself under till I was dead. As I went to get into the tub I saw a book lying on the counter. It was called "Total Joy" by Marabell Morgan. It was a book on how to have a better marriage. I thought, "Heck, I'm pretty down, why not add to my misery by reading where I failed!" So I picked it up and began to read while soaking in the tub. All of a sudden this paragraph just jumped right off the page. I read it over and over again. It said "God knows where you're at right now and He knows how much you are hurting. He wants you to reach out to Him and give Him a chance to show you how much He loves you and cares for you." I couldn't believe what I was reading! So I prayed right there in the tub. I said, "Father, if You really do exist, and if You really do care for me, prove it. Show Yourself to me right here and now." I didn't know what I was looking for when I said that prayer but God heard me and met me right there. All of a sudden I had a vision of a man's hand reaching down to me. I could see the hand all the way up to the elbow. Suddenly I heard a voice say, "My child, take my hand. Reach for it now." So I reached up and grabbed that hand! Then I heard the voice again. It said, "This time, you're not holding My hand, I'm holding yours! And I will NEVER let it go!!! All these years you have seen the path you should take but the bright lights of the city have always pulled you away. And the bright lights always led you into sin. Well from this day forth, I will lead you down the path you are to follow. And you will look not to the left and you will look not to the right. Nor shall you look behind you. But instead you will look straight ahead towards My face and I will keep you from falling."
Well, I just started crying right then and there in that old bathtub. Then I started laughing. I began to laugh hysterically. I wept for joy. Then I thought what a sight it would be if anyone walked into the bathroom. They would see a grown woman soaking in a bubble bath laughing and crying at the same time. It was a moment I will never forget. And no one can ever tell me that what happened to me was just my imagination. It was as real as these words are right now.
I knew it was time to go back home to Phoenix. I wanted to be with my parents and friends. I was able to scrape up enough money to buy bus tickets for me and the girls. The day we left Montana, they had their first snow fall. I considered it a good sign.
To find out what happened next please read part 2 of my story
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