My Testimony

My Testimony

2012

            I was recently asked what Jesus has done in my life, and how comfortable I would be to tell a group of teenagers. First of all, speaking in front of a group is not my thing, but I prayed about it and have decided that it would be very selfish of me to not share my story.  I feel that he has saved me from uncertain death on numerous occasions, He has placed people in my life to direct me on the right path and he has spoken directly to me through scripture and that still small voice deep inside, let me explain what I mean.

            My earliest childhood memories are of good times around my grandmother’s kitchen table, all the family together enjoying the simplicity of togetherness, and food. My memories of extreme violence and alcoholism tend to overshadow the good memories however. My parents, both alcoholics, would invite friends and family over to play cards and what would start out as what appeared to be a fun filled evening, always turned ugly. The cousins and I would be in the bedrooms playing kids games and we would hear the sound of laughter turn to shouting and things breaking and people crying.  Sometimes an ambulance would come and take someone away, other times the police. One night I heard my mom and dad arguing and it stopped abruptly after a thud outside my door. As I peered through the crack the first thing I noticed was my mother “sleeping on the floor” then the pool of blood was the next snapshot burned in my brain. I’m not sure where my father was but nobody was tending to my mother so I got some paper towels to help clean up the blood.

            A few times throughout my childhood, my mother would run away, sometimes taking my sister and me with her. I remember when I was four being in the back of our station wagon in the middle of the night in my pajamas, my dad crying on our front steps as we drove away.  We lived in Maine for a while among other places and I saw some things over the earliest years of my life that no child should ever see. After a while my mother sent me to live with my father; when she came back to live with us, she had another baby. We tried to live a “normal” life but that was not to be the case.

            On the outside, we appeared to be a decent family; we went to a Catholic Church occasionally, and spent our Sundays at my grandmothers. We went on family vacations and my dad worked while my mother was a stay at home mom; she was an alcoholic however, and in and out of rehab all the time. When she was home, she would abuse me and my sisters, I remember her beating my older sister over a broken window one day. She used a belt and counted each strike the belt made contact with my sister’s bare bottom. At the 100 mark, my dad yelled “ENOUGH” and took the belt away from my mother.  Another time, she cut all of my sister’s beautiful black hair off just in time for school pictures, she was in High school.  Eventually, when I was twelve, the courts ordered her to leave and we were only allowed weekend visitations.

My dad raised us from that point and I remember overhearing him talking on the phone with her one night; he told her that she should be taking care of her kids not him. I thought he was saying that we weren’t his kids and that killed me inside.

I started drinking and doing drugs. I became promiscuous at a very young age and was a victim of vicious bullying, so I skipped school often. I ran away a few times and once ended up in an adolescent home for run-a-ways. I was trying everything that I thought would fill this void in me, but nothing worked.

 I’m very lucky to be alive because there were a few times after drinking with friends, everyone was too drunk to drive and they asked me to drive. Even though I was drunk and didn’t even have a license, the idea of driving a car was thrilling to me, we almost had a head on collision as I tried passing a car and another car was coming directly at me from the other lane. I could have killed everyone that night. There were many nights like that, but it didn’t faze me. I was seeking something that I couldn’t understand, and living recklessly in the moment. This went on for many years.

Then completely by accident, I met Brian when I was seventeen, I remember thinking he was cute, and wanted to hang around with him all the time, I was like an annoying puppy that wouldn’t go away. I would visit him at work and we would sit in his truck and talk for hours, sipping hot chocolate. He was different from the other boys I hung around with, the ones who used me. One night he told me how he doesn’t respect girls who do drugs, the idea that I could have someone respect me was enough to make me quit drugs altogether.  We ended up dating a few weeks later, and a few months later I found out I was pregnant. Pregnant at seventeen!

 I went to a Pregnancy center in Springfield and they told me the best thing to do was to abort the baby. I was in shock, I didn’t have my mother to talk to, and I felt that my grandmother would be ashamed of me. All I had was my dad and we didn’t have the type of relationship that I could talk to him about something like this. I decided that I would listen to these women who must know best, after all they worked in a pregnancy clinic, they must know best. I didn’t want to and I should have gone with my own instinct, but they put me in contact with a center that “takes care of these things” and they reassured me that everything would be fine. I went to my “appointment” and it was the most horrific experience, I told them I changed my mind but they said it was too late to change my mind, and this is what’s best. It is something to this day I have never overcome, it haunts me daily.

             A few months later on my eighteenth birthday, Brian and I moved in together, two years later I was pregnant again but this time there was no way that anyone was going to tell me what to do with this baby. We got married in the fall of 91 and Kim was born January of 1992, and then along came Brandon in 1995. Our marriage was very difficult, we had many struggles and being parents at a very young age was extremely hard. We both came from broken homes and had many wounds still in need of healing.

 In 1995 I lost my grandmother. The following year, on Mother’s Day, I received a phone call from the East Hartford police that they found my mother dead in her apartment. A few years later on Valentine’s Day 1999 my sister died of Leukemia. My world was crashing down around me, the three most important women in my life were ripped away and I felt myself drowning, I turned to alcohol, it made my husband upset but the more upset he got the more I would rebel and drink. Although at the time, I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing. I felt like I was an adult and I could do what I wanted. I was destroying my family and didn’t even realize it. I was becoming my mother.

Then I started to hear about this book, the Prayer of Jabez. Everywhere I turned I heard people talking about this book, on t.v. and on the computer it would randomly pop up. I decided to go to a bookstore and check it out, but I refused to ask the clerk about it because it was a “Religious” book and I didn’t want them to think I was weird, or look at me funny. I walked out of the bookstore with nothing.

Later that year a friend of mine was looking for a church to get her baby baptized in; so she asked me to go church shopping with her. We went to St. David’s Episcopal Church and I loved it, I immediately felt at home and realized what I had been missing in my life. The Love of Jesus was so evident in that place and I was very happy, it was like a veil had been lifted and I could see clearly.  I attended regularly and one day the preacher was talking about the Prayer of Jabez. I remember thinking wow; this Jabez just isn’t going to let me go. I went home that night and thought okay, I have to look this Jabez up in the Bible, but I didn’t have a Bible just a pocket New Testament. I tried finding the prayer in the New Testament but I didn’t realize that the New Testament was only half the book. So I didn’t find it. Then “something” reminded me that my mother in law had sent a Bible to my daughter Kim for her Baptism, I knew I had to find that Bible and I did, it was up in the closet, still in the box.

I opened it and was even more lost than when I had the New Testament. How on earth does anyone find anything in these things? Well lo and behold, I noticed some pages dog-eared. NO! There is no way that the pages I needed to look in were dog-eared, this book had never been touched, and it was still in the box it was shipped in. Well I was wrong and the page that I needed was within those pages. 1^st Chronicles 4:10  ^“And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.” My hair stood up on the back of my neck as the realization hit me that God had been trying to get my attention.

“OK GOD! You’ve got my attention, what do you want from me.” I remember the house was eerily quiet, both kids were already in bed and Brian was off to work, I was all alone and I clearly felt His words speak inside of me. I can’t say that I heard the words audibly, I just felt them. It was strange but very much an authoritative voice. “Pour the beer down the drain” I laughed, then again “POUR the BEER DOWN THE DRAIN” I didn’t hesitate after that, and I got up and I went to the fridge and poured out every bottle of beer we had in the fridge. I didn’t understand why but I certainly didn’t question it. This was His way of telling me to step back and analyze my life, see how much pain you are causing your family! Your drinking is destroying your family just like your mothers drinking destroyed your childhood. I was on fire for God something fierce after that and I didn’t touch alcohol of any kind for about 9 years.

My family became very involved in the church over the years we attended and I even became the church secretary for about a year and a half, then there was division in the church and we were off to find a new church home. This was one of the saddest times in my life and very confusing for the kids. We had just found God and this thing came in and destroyed our church family, everyone was leaving and they all went in different directions. It was horrible. In the mean time I ended up working at the Christian Book store and some of my coworkers went to Church in the Acres so we decided to attend there as well and became volunteers in their youth group. Everything seemed perfect and back to normal again, we had God in our lives and had a great church family. Everything was going great.

Then on Martin Luther King Day 2005, my boss told me to take the day off; he wasn’t opening the store in honor of the holiday. I ended up calling my doctor to see if he could check out a small lump that had been bothering me that was sticking out of my stomach. My Dr. told me I had a lipoma, he wanted me to get a CT scan and I did. The day of the CT scan I almost cancelled my appointment because the lump was gone, I decided it’s just best to get it looked at anyway, so off I went.

The following Tuesday the 25^th, I got a phone call from my doctor as I was getting ready for work. He told me that I had a tumor in my kidney, and that this was very serious. He wanted to see me right away. I asked him what happened to the tumor in my stomach, he said it was gone but offered no explanation. I was a little scared at first but my first thought was to open my Bible. The first scripture I opened to was Jeremiah 29:11 “ For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” my spirits were immediately lifted and I was overcome with joy and excitement.

I was so excited I couldn’t contain myself. I ran down the hall to wake Brian up, you are not going to believe this I said; he was groggy and a bit upset that I woke him. What? I just got off the phone with my doctor, he says I have a tumor in my kidney, can you believe that? There was complete silence, then “oh no, no I’m not ready to lose you” I was flabbergasted, No, you’re not going to! See God told me I’m going to be fine, he says He’s not going to harm me but has a hope and a future for me. Brian was very quiet and he began to cry, he didn’t understand. I could not convince him, no matter how hard I tried.

I called my boss and explained why I wouldn’t be to work and off to the doctor I went. He was very grim and could not understand why I sat there grinning ear to ear. I tried explaining, but he just kept telling me how serious this was. He then told me that I should cancel my appointment with the surgeon the next day.  See when we originally thought I had a Lipoma, he made an appointment with a surgeon to look at my ct scan. This particular surgeon did not deal with Kidney tumors however. So he made me an appointment with a Urologist two weeks out. I didn’t listen to him, I went to see Dr. Frank (The original surgeon) the very next day and as expected, he told me there was nothing he could do for me. I was persistent and told him that he is a surgeon; he must know someone that can take my kidney out. He told me he had an idea but would need my doctor’s permission. My doctor told him to do whatever I wanted him to and so he contacted Western New England Renal Transplant to see if they could take a look at me. The TOP RENAL TRANSPLANT Doctor, Dr. Lipkowitz just so happened to have an opening in the office the very next day. So on Thursday the 27^th I went with my daughter to visit Dr. Lipkowitz.

I remember being so excited about the whole ordeal, God using me, just an ordinary person to perform His miracles. I was on top of the world. I started singing “This is the Day, this is the day that the Lord has made” my daughter was very embarrassed, she wouldn’t sing along at all…Party pooper. When I got in to see the Doctor, he asked me if I was busy tomorrow. He just “happened” to have an Operating room available but no patient, I started grinning again and I’m quite sure at this point that all the Dr’s I encountered thought I was in complete denial or on drugs. Sure I said. He then explained the procedure and all the complications that could happen, including the possibility of taking out one of my ribs to get to my kidney. He then asked me if I was nervous and my reply was “no, are you?”

Off to the mall I went, I needed some cheery slippers and pajamas, I was going to be in the hospital for a while and there are going to be a lot of sad and sick people who are going to need to be cheered up. Not once did I ever think of myself as a patient, I was a tool being used by God so I had to do my best to represent Him. So I bought some Cookie Monster slippers and muppets tee shirts, I had work to do.

Everyone in my family was quite gloomy though, they were sure this was my death sentence. I had to straighten them all out. They were so used to losing people that the thought of someone making it out of cancer alive, never crossed their minds.

The surgery came and went, piece of cake. They found a golf ball sized tumor in my right Kidney that had been there for approximately 5-8 years. That meant that when my sister was in the hospital dying of cancer, I too had cancer. My tumor however, remained encapsulated. The cancer cells never broke free. The Doctor had no explanation. He simply pointed up, ahhh he gets it now J

I shared my story with everyone within earshot, and I visited many patients the week I was in the hospital. Two weeks later I was with the youth group for Snow camp at Monadnock and we were tubing down the hill with no problems. Nobody could believe that I had just had my kidney out, who could possibly heal that fast?  It still fascinates me to this day when I look back, it’s Awesome how God works!

We continued going to Church in the Acres, and everything was great, youth group was thriving, my children were well rounded individuals and had both given their hearts to Jesus at Snow Camp and everything seemed perfect. Then I was out of work because the bookstore closed, and I had to find a new job. I started working at WNEU in the Police department, and unfortunately I had to work most Sundays. I started to lose connection with the church, but at least I still had youth group on Thursday nights. Then we decided to have another baby, along came Olivia in 2007 and it was difficult to go to church and youth group with a newborn. We tried to keep Kim and Brandon involved but it was difficult to get rides for them and eventually they stopped going all together. Their friends from youth group stopped calling and the kids decided that Christians were not very nice people after all. They started to turn from God.

I noticed too that away from the church and God, I started drinking again, our marriage started to suffer and we fought a lot.  We even left each other a few times. This went on for a four year period. Then last summer we found Hope Community Church. Thank God!

   In my marriage I have found that though it is nowhere near perfect, it is always stronger when we allow God in. When we walked away from God and the church that was when our marriage was the hardest. We went through many trials and tribulations.  I have found though, that when we allowed God back into our marriage we are happier and are able to work out our differences a little easier. I find myself arguing less and praying more. Let’s face it, the odds are completely stacked against us and statistically we should have been divorced and possibly remarried by now. All of our friends from our teens are divorced, some remarried and others are having horrific struggles. I believe that would have been the case for us if we had not made God a priority in our marriage, that is the one and only difference between our marriage and theirs.

 I am not condoning in any way that anyone should consider marrying at such a young age, or living together before marriage. It has and still is a struggle but the difference is that I know who to bring my troubles to. I also know that you should never hide from God, you can’t anyway. If anything you should be running to Him, we all should. I’m not in denial that I have sinned, let me make that perfectly clear, I know I am a sinner and will have to account for everything I have just shared with you. But I would much rather go to my Father in Heaven in love and account for my past and future mistakes, than the alternative. Thankfully Jesus paved the way and made it easier for us all.  

No one will ever be able to convince me that there is not a God, and that he doesn’t long for relationship with us. I do not consider myself religious by any means, I actually detest that word. I am a believer, plain and simple. That is very hard for unbelievers to grasp, especially self-proclaimed atheists. I’ve decided not to try to persuade people one way or the other and have chosen to love everyone, right where they’re at. It’s the Holy Spirits job to convict, mine is simply to plant the seeds.

Please don’t think I’m telling you my story for pity, I don’t feel sorry for myself and I don’t want you to either. It’s actually quite the opposite. I’m telling you this story because I feel that if there is anyone out there who can identify with any part of my story, if you feel yourself struggling and in a dark place, if you find yourself hiding from God or feeling unworthy of his love because you’re a sinner and not worth redemption. You feel like you’ve done too much and how can he possibly still love you. If this is you STOP! Stop listening to the lies of the enemy! God is on fire for you. He’s calling out your name and he’s patiently waiting for you.  Will you let Him in? Will you let Him heal your hurts? Are you willing to trust Him? 


When asked I tell my story and I tell it honestly hoping that the words I speak are the ones the Holy Spirit has directed me to. After all, it is just as much His story as it is mine.