I was baptized the following Easter. I was very active in my church. I was in the Church choir, in our youth group, and eventually as I got older helped out with the youth group and became a Sunday School Teacher, before my experiences with God came crashing to a halt. It’s amazing what turning 19 and being able to go out drinking does to a young person. Although I was 19, I still went to church until I was about 21. That’s when it completely stopped. I can’t say why for sure… I just know Satan started over running my life. The “sex, drugs and rock & roll” got the best of me when I got loose. I became out of control for quite a few years.

 

One night I drank too much and passed out and was date raped and ended up pregnant. The pregnancy ended in an abortion and I’ve regretted it everyday since. You would think I would have slowed down because of that but I just kept on trucking for several years after that… finally age or something caught up with me… Because of the lifestyle I had led, even though I may have slowed down, it led me to a lot of unhealthy relationships and eventually to an unhealthy marriage with a physically abusive alcoholic that lasted only 8 months when we seperated.  I guess I always blamed my rebel lifestyle on being good all those years.. But when you become a true Christian you realize it was Satan the whole the whole time.

 

So after the divorce, I got some needed therapy, and took some personal time on my own without men. My mother kept after me to go back to church… after all these years. To go back to my roots. There was a lot of hesitation at first. Well… one week in October 2007, I received a flier from a Church…and I went online and looked further into it. I went a few weeks prior to the starting of the series. What Pastor Vince said that day…. God used him because he was talking right to me that day… I sat in awe in church praying to God that day thanking Him for giving me the strength to come to that church. That huge church where so many people attended. To me, that showed that so many people loved going to it. It showed love, growth, contemporary music & something I was looking for. The updated version of today’s society but with a strong backbone of the Bible. I sat there and just cried. I must of cried for quiet a few Sundays. That hole in my heart was finally getting filled. I asked Him to help me to forgive my ex-husband, to help me to become a better person. I asked Him to forgive me for the things that I had done over the years. I was tired of being lonely and doing it by myself and I knew deep in my heart that He was the answer. I knew it all along, I just wasn’t allowing myself to be open to it, for whatever reason. I didn’t want to be angry anymore. I prayed for Him to help me.

 

That was the day I renewed my life in Christ. It took a lot of years in between … and I finally realized that He’s been walking beside me all these years waiting for me to come back.