My beginning testimony

We were asked to share our testimony and This is what parts of it I shared. Really, it's just the beginning of what the Lord did in my life. There are so many other testimonies that I could share! He has healed, delivered and totally set me free. He has brought this little miss "nothing" and raised my life up on several occasions for HIS GLORY. There is no greater God than Jehovah!!!! Thank you Jesus for making this possible!!! Thank you Holy Spirit for leading me to Him!!!

I grew up with a single mother of 3 kids with no father. There were times when my mom would try to find babysitters, but there was not a lot of choices based on her income. She was left to leave me with people who treated me less than loving and violated me physically, emotionally, and sexually. When she couldn’t afford one, I was left alone at home a lot with my baby sister while my mom went out and did the best she could to work and provide a roof over our heads. There were many nights when there would be shootings in the alley just outside of the apartment in Anaheim, CA that we lived in. It was just normal everyday life in our neighborhood. At the time, I didn’t realize it, but somehow as I grew up, I realized just how much I had been through in the formative years of my childhood. We had finally moved to TN into a more stable environment when I was about 12 years old, but by then, I had already been a little warped. I am person with a very big heart so the wounds were very deep and shook the core of my being.
I tried to fit into the mold when we moved here and tried to be a good daughter, but the pain that was in my heart was so “indescribable” that I wasn’t able to communicate it well to other people. I was very “misunderstood” and was unable to process the pain. Needless to say, I was not an easy child to handle. I was very needy and most people could not meet my needs. I carried a lot of shame and guilt for the way I was and I really wanted to be different. I wanted to be like other kids who were happy and content. I knew I was “different” than most kids and often felt like I was nothing but a failure. I didn’t fit into most people’s molds and it caused me to feel “left out” most of the time lacking affection. This caused me to try to find people that loved me and to latch on to the first people that showed me any affection. Thus, I ended up living my later teenage and early adult years in various promiscuous ways. I was a very social person because I did not want to be alone. I yearned for affection and rarely found anyone that could approach me to give me the affection that I needed.
I lived with my fiancé’s parents my junior and senior year of high school. They loved me like their own child and brought me to church with them. I felt like I fit in and tried not to do anything that would cause them to not love me anymore. They brought me to church, but I remember it made me want to hide all my sins from them so that they wouldn’t throw me out. The UNCONDITIONAL LOVE was not there. As time went on, it became harder and harder to hide the real messed up me and I eventually broke up with their son and could no longer live with them. I tried going to church with other friends in my life. We would party and drink alcohol together and then go to church with their parents at times. I remember one night, we went to Faith Outreach Worship Center for a revival they were having. There were people lined up for prayer and sometimes they would fall on the ground. They would get up smiling like they enjoyed it. I wanted to see what that was all about so I went up. They laid their hands on me and I felt warm and tingly. I had NO CLUE what I experienced. It felt like my insides were changed. For a couple of weeks after that, I had some peace. However, I didn’t have a “relationship” with Jesus yet, so it quickly diminished and I was left empty.
There were several various relationships in and out of my life through the years, but none of them were able to fill this “God shaped hole” in my heart. When I became pregnant with my first child, I was not married. I knew that was a “sin” and so I tried to make it right by marrying my child’s father. So, we were about to become two very wounded souls trying to raise a child. I remember the night I came home from the hospital with my precious baby girl, we found out that the trailer that we had just moved out of shortly before she was born had burned to the ground that night. I remember thinking that God Himself had protected us and that He was trying to get my attention. I told him I would try to go to church with my child and live right.
I had went to a couple of churches in town, but never felt compelled to stay there. I just didn’t have any peace. I knew there was more in churches because I had “felt” God before. I fell into a deep depression and had a hard time managing my daily life. Then, when I was finally at the end of my rope in 2001, the Lord planted a very different type of “Christian” in my path. This woman was one that LOVED everyone. She truly was an example of God’s amazing grace. I watched her and began to trust her. I began to share my problems with her. I told her that I was a Christian because I had gone to church and that I was looking for a church. I told her how bad I felt and that I couldn’t even find comfort in church. I told her I would like to find one of them exciting churches like I had been to before. I knew I needed God’s help. She shared her experience at the “Altar” with me. She told me that anytime that she was burdened down, she could go to the “Altar” and God would lift those burdens from her. WOW!!!! I knew I had to find that “Altar” she was talking about. So, that Sunday morning, I got up and got dressed for church with a determination that I was going to touch Jesus and He was going to lift my burdens at that altar. I left the house that morning by myself and told my husband that I needed to go. I remember him being concerned that I was going to become a religious person. I told him “Don’t worry; I am not going to go getting religious on you or anything. I just need help with my depression”. Ha ha, God will let you believe what you need to believe to get us where HE NEEDS US TO BE. HE KNOWS THE END FROM THE BEGINNING. Man looks on the outside, BUT GOD looks at the heart. Ok, So I got to church and the music had barely started playing when I looked to Nancy Hughes and said “Can I go up there now?” She said the “altar is always open and you can go up there anytime you want”. For those of you who know me, this is the reason I like that the altar doesn’t have to be “opened up”, but that we are always free to go up there at any given point and time. As I laid myself down at that altar with my whole heart, I remember thinking ‘God, if you will help me, I will stay in church and I will do what you ask me to’. Little did I know that His touch would cause a passion in me that could not be contained in the four walls of a church. When all the burdens were lifted from me, I got up from that altar and knew that I would never be the same. The LOVE I felt in my heart that day was beyond anything I had ever known. I KNEW for the first time in my life that I was LOVED and that God Himself was my protector and that I was HIS and HE was mine. He made me whole and complete inside for the first time in my entire life. It was just a taste of what He would bring me to later in life.
I was used to being the odd ball in a group, so as usual, I didn’t fit into the mold of a typical Christian either, but that didn’t bother me. God had already prepared me. I had such a new found freedom that I couldn’t explain and I wanted to learn more about what happened to me. I knew I was different on the inside and I had a new nature about me. Why was I different when I hadn’t done anything? As I began to get into the Bible, I found myself in the pages of the Word contained there. I began to realize that I was HIS before I was ever born and that He had been wooing me back my whole life. I learned that those negative things that happened in my life were just the enemy trying to cause me to be destroyed, BUT GOD who is rich in Mercy had already redeemed me before I ever knew to come to Him. I learned that the very depths of my heart were created for worship to God and that He was truly the only one ever worthy of worship. I learned that He gives us the Holy Spirit so that once we have been set free and have been given the Holy Spirit, we can now go out in HIS POWER to make DISCIPLES everywhere we go. I learned that no matter what comes against us in life, that God has our back and is able to cause “All things to work together for our good”. I learned that as I empty myself out, that God fills me back up. I have had a deep relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. As I have walked with the Holy Spirit and talked with Him, He has taught me so much about the sacrificial LOVE of God. He has brought me through trials and tribulations that have caused me to know God the Father as: Adonai- My Lord and Master, Jehovah Jireh- My, Provider, Jehovah Rapha- the Lord My Healer, Jehovah Raah – The Lord my Shepherd/Protector, Jehovah Shammah- The Lord is There, Jehovah Tsidkenu – The Lord our Righteousness, and Jehovah Shalom- The Lord MY PEACE! There are many other names of God that I have learned personally and there are many more that I have yet to learn intimately. I look forward to a lifetime of continually learning just how amazing our God is. He continues to “blow my mind” everyday. I am so thankful that He has placed me in a group of believers that is just as in love with Him as I am. He knows exactly what we need and when we need it. This life is not about us, but instead it is about building the Kingdom of God here on earth. I pray that I am able to do that more and more as the years go on. I will GO where He sends me and I will STAY where HE tells me to stay. I know my life has a KINGDOM purpose and I am NOT MY OWN, but I am BOUGHT with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, not just my SAVIOR, but also MY LORD!!!!