But even through all that, I did learn that there is a good side to people. My dad angry as he was, still could be a nice loving father when he wanted to be. I can't really recall being close to him as a child, but I can remember the days when I used to wait for him to come home just so I could greet him at the door.

 

I was around 8 years old when my dad asked one of our neighbors if he could take us to church with him. There was my oldest brother Tony, Monica, Me and than my younger brother Ruben. My dad was "concerned" because we just were not doing as well in school as he thought we should. My neighbors, an elderly couple named the Dudleys said yes and from then on out we began going to church with them every Wednesday and Sunday.

 

The Dudley's church is a pentacostal church. For anyone not familiar with the pentacostal church, it is a shock the first time you go.

They are not shy in outward expressions of faith. They sing, pray in tongues and cry. One time, I saw a lady spitting up buildup from years of smoking. It can be quite an experience.

 

Another thing that they used to do is have frequent altar calls. After the service, all the older church members used to seek out the new people if they were praying at the front. They used to gather around them and intensely pray that they would speak in tongues to show "evidence" of their salvation. I would go up their a few times, and I would feel such fear because I just wanted to be alone with God praying, and they would all pray in tongues and hold my hands out trying to force me to get the Holy Spirit.

 

 

Even through all of these experiences, one thing about their church is that as a young child, I felt drawn in a way that I couldn't quite understand. The people struck me as odd but I kept going back and I am not sure why. Even thinking about it now I cannot really tell why I stayed for so long. It was not because I did not like it, but I felt such strong fears by staying.

 

One memory in particular is in Children's Church, they had an illustrated sermon which really scarred my heart. They had a book at the front of the room which they said was the book of life. They said if yours or your families name is not written in this book, you will go to hell. I remember crying and crying just knowing that my family did not speak in tongues, I did not speak in tongues so I just knew that we were all going to hell.

 

I don't really remember much else after that, but eventually I just stopped going because I didn't really see a point of continuing on if  the end result would be is hell.

 

So life just continued on for a few years. I wouldn't say that they weren't interesting just uneventful.

 

It wasn't until my freshman year in high school that things really started to turn. During that summer, I began working at Sonic. While I was there, I just began to eat more out of boredom than hunger. The pounds started to pack on began to show and that year I went from 128 ibs to 160. I went to school that year completely unaware of the change. When I looked at myself, I didn't see myself as fat, even though all the so called friends I had at that time did not have a problem pointing it out. Not just to me but to my older sister. One time Monica my sister said that one of my friends from junior high told her, "Why does your sister wears belts if her clothes are already tight?"

It hurt me so much just because I knew that I was more than the way that I looked. I never looked in the mirror and saw myself as fat until those little attacks began to eat away at me.

 

Well after school got out that year, I decided that I was going to go on a diet. During junior high, I used to skip meals to maintain my weight so I just decided that I would limit my meals to one a day.

At first that was fine, but eventually it got to the point where even that was too much. I started to go down in pounds but felt like there was nothing wrong with that. I was getting what I wanted and that was all that mattered.

 

The next year, I went back to school weighing 121. I didnt even realize what a huge difference it made until I got there and one of my freshman science teachers saw me and gave me a huge hug and told me how great I looked.  I knew she really didn't mean to hurt my feelings but she did.  But it really just wasn't with her  but EVERYONE. Everyone I knew would look at me with wonder and compliment me on how wonderful I looked which made me feel worse and worse. I really didn't get it. What was wrong with who I was before? Didn't I always look about the same? Some of the boys the year earlier who didn't ever look my way were now looking at me in totally different light.

 

I didn't know any other way of handling it except just to keep feeding into it. To me it all came down to this; these same people didn't really like you when you were big, so this is just the way that it has to be.

 

For those next 3 years, I did everything I could think to keep my weight down. Eventually I fell into bulimia as a way to feel the void in my soul.

 

Honestly I don't know how I made it those long, lonely years. I had no one to turn to. My mother just thought that I was doing it just because I was too lazy to exercise. My father would yell at me. But there was no one willing to help.

 

In my senior year in high school, the church across the street would have a lunch and bible study. I would go and hang out but at that time, I really didn't believe in Jesus at all.

I would never have considered myself an agnostic but I just never thought that God really CARED about people enough to really get involved in their lives. I used to go to the bible study at first for free pizza, but than it began to grow into something more. I became an active listener and more engaged into what was being said.

I still wasn't truly convinced of anything until God began to move.

 

In our Humanities class, they began to teach about the lifestyles of different religions. They taught about Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. All of this new information was interesting but yet confusing. Something inside of me told me they can't all be right but yet which one is real?

 

I knew I didn't really know and could really never even know which one was the "right" religion. But I still never forgot about my experience at Faith Tabernacle. I knew for a fact that I had with my very own eyes something supernaturally real. But I didn't want to take a chance and be wrong.

 

So one day as I was getting ready to go to work, I was in the bathroom throwing up when I started to feel really shaky. I was in such a state of confusion and emptiness that I almost couldn't take it anymore. I cried out to God, " Lord if you are real and you really care about me as a person, please send me a sign to show me what is the right way to follow you and if you do, I promise to follow you the rest of my life." I said that prayer and almost immediately forgot about it. I knew those symtoms before the blood pressure dropping and the dizziness.  So I called in to work, and went into my parents room and tried to fall asleep.

 

Almost immediately, a knock on the door woke me up. I tried to ignore it, but whoever it was, was very persistent. I went to the door and standing on the doorstep were two young boys about 12 and 13 handing out tracts for their church. At first I was like "Oh great, what do they want.." But I remembered my prayer and I KNEW that was my answer.

 

God showed me the way to Himself. When Jesus said Knock and the door shall be opened He meant it...

 

I would like to say that I have lived all of my life since that point bringing converts to Christ but I am still a very real work in progress.

I will try to post more later, but there is still much more to be written.

 

This is just a drop in the bucket, but I can truly say that God is an intimate Father who knows us better than we know ourselves. If you are reading this and don't know him, please know that God is waiting for YOU.

 

Call on His name and be saved.