Personal Testimony

Today, instead of blogging about one of the thousand thoughts in my mind or working on the paper I have due this week, or reading one of the dozen books stacked on my coffee table calling my name, I was wasting some time on Pinterest. But...I think now I wasn't wasting time because I ran across a picture that inspired this blog.

So begins what I share tonight as my personal testimony... this is a long story so please, indulge me. 

I am going to share with you some things that normally people wouldn't share either because they are scared or possibly ashamed. I am both...but I don't want to hide anything because that would lesson the point of my message. I want to be as real and a raw as I can be so that you all can be inspired and blessed by my story. This is a difficult story to tell because while most of it is negative and bad, I have so many good memories and things I hold close to my heart. I think it's because in those bad things that I did, I grew and developed, and I learned about the real world and if it had not been for those experiences I probably wouldn't be the strong God fearing woman I am today. I feel as though I can experience shame about some decisions yet feel pride that I came out of them alive and better than ever! It's my story and we all have our own story and while there are things that we might regret, none of it is so bad that we can't look back and smile on some of it. 

To set the stage for my testimony I want to start by giving you some history about me...I am a Seventh-day Adventist. I was raised in a Christian home and school. I was dedicated to God as a baby and I attended church every Sabbath, along with Sabbath school and my normal education in a Christian school. I was raised around other Christians who believed the same things that I did. On Friday and Saturday night I was either at church, at home, or spending the night with my bestie Jamie and her family who I now consider my second parents/family. I never questioned how I was being raised or the activities that I participated in. Church and Jesus were my life and as a child, that is all I needed. As I grew older and into my teenage years I started to question things, rebel, and experiment with my own identity. My parents began having issues in their marriage that I became fully aware of when I was around 11 years old. Consequently they divorced when I was 13 and that event in my life was a huge turning point. ( If parents get anything out of my story it is that your children suffer when you make the choice to separate from each other, even if you try and do it in the most peaceable way possible. What you do and the choices you make will forever impact them.) My story is probably going to come off as a really bad reflection on my parents and while I hate that and I want to defend that, I simply cannot. I will say that I don't tell this to hurt my parents, to disrespect them, or to shame them in any way and I want to say that I love them both very much and I know that the decisions they made or the things I was allowed to do was done out of the very best that they had at that time and they both did what they could with what knowledge they had. 

Back to my history....At 12 years old I met some people who were not the normal crowd that I was used to at church and boy were they fun! I had a boyfriend, I was sneaking around behind my Dad's back, I was dabbling with alcohol, and listening to new music. When my parents divorced my Mom and I moved out on our own and that's when the party really started. I was FREE!! I was still attending church school and never once in my life did I deny the existence of God but He sure wasn't setting in the front seat in my journey anymore. In fact, He was replaced as my driving partner and Satan quickly took His place. Honestly, in my mind at that time I was just having a blast. I was a little social butterfly and I was on top of the world. By outer appearances you would have thought that I was a normal, happy, healthy teenager. On the inside I was dying inside. My family was torn apart. I was depressed. I was getting in trouble at school. I was making choices and decisions that I knew in the depths of my heart were wrong but Satan had me convinced that everything up to that point was what was wrong and that I deserved to be happy and to party and to do whatever I wanted. I even started getting involved with the occult and Satanism. Eventually I got involved with someone who was far to old for me and if I have to be completely honest, by all accounts would be considered today a child molester and one sick SOB for even looking twice in my direction. I was going to school every day dressed all in black, I was too cool for school, and I had attitude for days! Something was about to change to rock my little world...

Let me just pause here for a second to put emphasis on the core of this story...Satan hates family. He hates God. He hates followers of God. He hates children. He hates marriage. He hates love. He hates light. For years even before I was a twinkle in the eye of my parents, Satan has been plotting, planning, and preparing to destroy my family. Like a perfectly designed chess board he had all the players right where he wanted them. He had my parents divorced, fighting and pitted against each other with me smack dab in the middle, he had my Dad depressed and disconnected, he had my Mom so angry and bitter toward my Dad that it clouded her judgement and distracted her as a Mother, and he had me involved with a man that was 8 years my senior, drinking, smoking cigarettes, and beginning to dabble in Marijuana and trying to act like a grown woman in a relationship that I had no damn business being in and was far to immature to understand at 13 years old. He had us fighting over some stupid issue or another which caused me to write a stupid letter to distract me from my surroundings and on September 23rd, 1993 he made his move. 

My boyfriend came to pick me up from school and we headed to go see his daughter from a previous relationship. We left that location and before heading home stopped at QT on the corner of SE 14th and Watrous. I was looking down reading the letter mentioned above not paying attention to the fact that my boyfriend was about to turn left on a yellow light. As he did so Satan came disguised as a 78 year old drunk driver barreling towards us in a 1960 something Ford station wagon at 55 mph. He slammed into the passenger side of the 1990 Ford Probe I was setting passenger in. I never saw it coming.

From what I am told the police and ambulance showed up and it was mentioned by an EMT that he was surprised they were not taking someone away in a body bag. The next thing that I knew I woke up in a hospital bed in the worst pain I had yet to experience with my boyfriend's ex-girlfriend-baby-momma-drama and their daughter in her lap holding my hand. As you can imagine, I was in shock and wondering what in the world happened. My Mom and Dad explained that I had been in an accident. The results were a punctured lower intestine that was spilling poisonous bile into my body, a black eye and facial contusion's. 

I believe that was a Wednesday and that Friday I went into surgery to repair the damage. The surgeon literally had to take out all my intestines and run them through his hands to find the quarter size hole and repair it. As you can imagine, my parents were a mess! My Mom could barely function and my Dad was in fear that I would die having been living in the gutter of complete and utter sin and rebellion against God. I came out of surgery and was moved out of the ICU. I believe I came out of that surgery with 23 staples in my stomach, the second surgery with 17 and to this day I get to look at a 6 inch scar on my stomach to remind me of that day and the days that followed. 

About a week after surgery thinking I was doing better I started throwing up while still having an NG tube in and experiencing pain and went back into surgery to find that my bowl had kinked together and was blocking all the food I had been eating back into my stomach. I clearly remember when they took me to surgery the second time how scared my Dad was and as I was drifting off to sleep from the medication that was preparing me for surgery he was begging me to pray and to give my life to Christ because there was a chance that I would not come out of it alive. I was lucky to even be alive period. I remember praying but complaining of tired I was. I can't tell you how grateful I am that he made me do that because I know my life was in danger and I know that because of the outpouring of prayer by my parents and my church family God saw fit to keep me on this earth. 

I spent approximately 30 days in the hospital during my 8th grade year because of this "accident" or as my Dad puts it, an attempt on my life. You might be asking at this point what happened to the boyfriend driving the car. Well, he walked away with a minor scratch on his head, came to see me twice in the hospital and before I got out ended up moving out of our apartment and back in with his ex-girlfriend. I guess the pressure of having me almost die in his arms was just too much for him to handle. That was a blessing in disguise that I wouldn't realize until a few years later. I now had to face going home without this person who I thought loved me, face the 30+ days of school I had missed, and the long, long recovery including a long and drawn out lawsuit against our insurance company that did not want to pay for my recovery after finding out the transient drunk driver had no insurance or home. I'll spare you the details of the many return visits to the Doctor because of the major stomach problems that I endured because of my injury's and now at almost 37 still deal with. 

I won't tell you that this story has a fairy tale happy ending and that I returned back to the good little Christian girl that I started out being because that would be a lie. Satan wasn't done with me yet. I struggled for my entire teenage years with alcohol and drug abuse, one bad relationship after another, promiscuity, dangerous people in my life, 3 more car accidents, and a horrible on and off again relationship with my Dad. It wasn't until my mid twenties that I made a public stand for Christ in the baptismal waters and even after that Satan was still working full force at destroying my life, my marriage, my child's life, and my sanity. I have struggled with deep depression, anxiety and panic disorder, guilt, anger, and fear. It has taken me a long time to learn that a relationship with Christ is the one and only way to battle the devil. 

So begins the GOOD NEWS...

I have learned that the farther away from God I drift the worse my life is. I won't tell you that having a life in Christ means you will never struggle. Being a Christian doesn't mean that we don't face trails. We face many trials and sometimes it seems as though they are more difficult because we know who is behind them and it isn't flesh and blood that we struggle with but the powers of darkness that seek to destroy us. 

The closer you come to Christ the more Satan is going to work to attack you which is why it is so incredibly important that you do NOT delay, or waste one single second of your life on anything other than seeking the Kingdom of God. Satan attempted to take my life at 13 years old but I was dedicated shortly after birth to Christ. I was claimed by a God with more power than Satan could ever dream of having. I am saved and I am the daughter of a Risen King!!! I can claim victory over my enemy because of Christs death on the Cross!!! I still may stumble and fall, I still struggle, I still fight, but I have a Heavenly Father who fights with me and for me. I may not be where I want to be, but I sure as heck am not where I used to be and the fires I go through are worth it because I understand now that in order to make me worthy of His Kingdom, I need to be refined in that fire so that I can come out pure as gold. 

Friends, family, and readers that I love so much....please take this seriously...Our years, our months, our weeks, our days, our hours, our minutes, our seconds...none are promised to us. We live this time by the grace of God, our Creator and we should not take them for granted for one second. ANYTHING can happen at any moment. You may think your day is going along just fine and BAM, something happens and your life is gone or in danger, or the life of someone you love is in danger or gone. We are not entitled to one second on this earth and we don't deserve one second of breath. You must always at every moment you are living remember this and be humbled by the time that God allows you to have. This is the reason that I talk about Christ every single day. This is the reason that I pray for every single one of you. This is the reason that I urge every single one of you to accept Christ as your personal Savior and accept the free gift of Grace and Salvation that is offered by His sacrifice on the Cross. I will NEVER stop. Until my dying breath I will tell you of the love of God and NOW is the time to turn your life to Him. Not tomorrow, not a month from now, not a year from now, not when you think it's convenient for your daily life, not when you think that you have solved all your issues or you've attempted to better yourself to come to Him. NOW is the time. Right this second!! Accept Him, give your life to Him so that you may live in Eternity with Him and the others who have accepted Him too. Don't delay my loves because your life could end any second and I promise you, separation from your Savior is the absolute worst pain you could ever experience. I love you all, I pray for you all, and I beg you to get on your knees TONIGHT and pray the sinners prayer, claim your free gift, take a stand for your free gift, claim VICTORY in your free gift and live in Eternity forever in Glory!!! 

Can I get an AMEN!!!???

Fruits of the Spirit, Social Issues, and POTUS Candidates

Every individual has a checklist of important topics or issues that they look for in a potential POTUS candidate. Some care very little if at all about the persons religious beliefs but, to me personally, that is a HUGE factor on who I vote for because it shows their personal moral and ethical values and the way they will handle certain situations. Clearly we can see how Obama's Muslim influence is playing out in how he is handling current situations and this was a fear of mine when he was elected.
Listening to a local radio show today on 99.3 The Truth on a show called "Mac's World Live" someone accused Donald Trump of not being a Christian or at least acting like one...a woman who is supposedly a personal friend and employee of Trump's called in and reamed (which I thought was a bit ironic in the fact that she was accusing him of not being a Christian himself for judging but yet I felt she was doing the exact same thing) this person for saying this. My response on discerning (not judging) someone's Christian walk or character in Christ is the fruit they bare. Wikipedia states that "The Fruit of the Holy Spirit is a biblical term that sums up nine attributes of a Christian life according to St. Paul in his Letter to the Galations. "But the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" Galations 5:22-23.

So when I look at Donald Trump and his history and character in the media and in shows such as "The Apprentice" and how he has treated women and spoke to women, I question his "fruits". To me, I am discerning and will have to agree with the radio personality today that he is not a Christian in the sense that I understand a Christian. In my humble opinion Donald Trump is a racist, woman hating, bigot, pompous, and self-centered ass who cares nothing about this country or it's citizens and only about his own self interest, He has publicly insulted women, Hispanics, the poor, Republicans, and Christians among many others on MULTIPLE occasions.

Now, you don't have to take my word for any of this...it's all out there for the world to see and I assume everyone is smart enough to use Google and research this monster for what he is. Can anyone tell me how Donald Trump portrays anything of a fruitful person? The problem I have with the rich of our country is that they care very little about the "little guy" of society and Donald Trump in my opinion is one of those people who cares very little. Of course those who support him, like the woman on the video above, will come up with all these wonderful things that he has done for others. I have no doubt that he has helped some people and he talks a really big game. But as I was listening to the show and listening to the words of this woman I thought to myself, well gee, if ALL that qualifies Donald Trump to be our next POTUS is the fact that he's helped a few poor people, sick people, or ONE U.S. Veteran,  well we should just vote for Oprah Winfrey to be our next POTUS. Or how about Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg? I mean come on people!!?? What really qualifies Donald Trump to run this country? Does he have experience in being a U.S. Veteran or ever served our country in war, does he know anything about how to run the Military? Does he know anything about our healthcare system, our mental health system, the addicted in the country, the homeless on our streets, the welfare program, women's health issues, or religious freedom, just to name a few things?? From what I have seen and heard of him over the years, he knows NOTHING about these things nor does he care about them. 

Does anyone remember when our current so called POTUS was running and how people were falling all over each other in praise of this man whose words stirred hearts and minds and caused passion and fever with his charismatic attitude and all of his "hope and change"?  Obama was sure feeding us all full of wonderful ideas and thought provoking ideas of all the wonderful things he was going to do as our President. Can I remind you now of how even the Democrat Black voter is regretting their vote because all the "hope and change" has done nothing but ruin lives, take away choice, impose personal beliefs, and keep the poor as they were, still poor? Do I really need to bring up all the awful things our country and society has endured that will last even unto our children and our children's children (if the world lasts that long) because of the horrible policy and decisions Obama has forced upon us? Well friends, I can promise you, a vote for Trump, and election for Trump, will be the Republicans Obama and we will be bitching and moaning and complaining for the next 4-8 years in regret for such a stupid decision.

In conclusion I will share with you what my personal check list is in regards to choosing whom I will vote for as our next POTUS:

Fruits of the Spirit is number ONE! What is the character and track record of our next POTUS? How does he/she handle pressure? How does he/she handle going to war? How does he/she handle social issues such as the poor, the innocent, the victimized, and the unborn? My top issues, in no particular order:

• Right 2 Life - protecting the unborn and abortion issues, who still stop funding to murderous organizations like Planned Parenthood through our federal tax payer dollars and the violence against women and the unborn is the highest in our country than it has ever been
• Mental health - who will stop cutting federal funding to mental health organizations, shutting down mental health institutions and who will help the fact that social workers, mental health, and drug addiction counselor are some of the most expensive degrees to earn and the most underpaid employees, suicide caused by bullying is one of the highest causes of death among our youth
• Social reform programs - who will stop the cutting of funding from social reform programs
• The Homeless - who is going to stop cutting funding from organizations that help the homeless
• Drug and Alcohol Addiction - who still stop cutting funding from programs that help the addicted and who will stop the the fact that addiction counselors earn almost less than minimum wage and pay more for their degrees than they will ever make in salary
• Religious Freedom - who is going to ensure the fact that we are able to have prayer in schools, that Sabbath keepers do not have to compromise their faith and work on the Sabbath, who is going to protect traditional and Biblical marriage
• Education and Common Core - who is going to stop the government controlling and conditioning of our youth
• Protecting and providing for our U.S. Vets - there are more homeless, mentally ill, PTSD, and addicted Vets on our streets than any other population and the Vet hospitals have NO support or funding to help them. Healthcare, housing and counseling should be FREE for those that have served
• Protecting our borders against terrorism - who is going to stop ISIS???
• Domestic Violence and child protection laws - who is going to stand up and make the laws stricter against people who choose to victimize women and children
• 2nd Amendment Rights/Upholding the Constitution - who is going to stop immediately calling for stricter gun laws when tragedy strikes instead of focusing on the real problems of why the crimes are happening 
• Drug and alcohol convictions - why do we have more people in prisons right now for minor drug and alcohol convictions than we do for major crimes, who is going to support drug courts and stop over populating our jail systems for minor crimes that could be solved within treatment centers
• ALL lives matter - who is going to step up and take a stand against racism, who is going to stop race bating people like Al Sharpton, who is going to take a stand for the murdered unborn, who is going to take a stand for our police force that risk their lives daily to keep us all safe

These are my most important issues and honestly and sadly, none of the people running are talking about any of them. I know that we all have our own morals and we all have our own values but I really want to challenge all of you to get your priorities straight and stop arguing and being offended over the stupidest things and really set down and think about what is destroying our society and what can we do as a nation to ensure that these things are improved. 

I welcome your input and opinions and unlike other people I won't discredit you for what you have to say. I am open and love healthy debates on any topic that I write about and everyone has a voice and right to their moral judgments. If you have something to say...if you have a defense, if you have any viable and reliable PROOF against anything I've said...share it...please...

And let me know, who are you voting for and why?