bible_says-15

                  TESTIMONIAL
I Lori Hanson was raised Catholic. Went to 13 years of Catholic school. It was not until I was 24 that I realized that there is a need to have a one on one relationship with Jesus Christ to be truly fulfilled in this crazy world. It was at that time that my husband left me. I had been injured when my horse threw me on a horse trailer. I was all alone and ready to take a bottle of the pain pills when I was drawn to pick up a King James Bible my mom had bought me.

It was at that time that I thought I had a "religious experience." I guess I did. All the sudden I had cults knocking on my door, people at work talking to me about giving my problems to the Lord and the counselor I was going to wanted to baptize me in the holy spirit. All of these situations were so new to me even after spending almost half of my life in a "religious" institution. My husband and I did get back together. He thought it great that I had changed. I had taken 100% of all the responsibility for the problems in our marriage and he jumped at the chance to have everything 100% his way with no accountability to his actions.

Over the next 15 years we had three children. During those years we were in and out of church. My husband got back into the drug use, which eventually led to minimizing the seriousness of all unrighteousness. He got involved in pornography, started to bring booze into the home, which all eventually led to his heart being anywhere but at home with a wife and three children. While he was pursuing his desires the kids and I became very close. I kept them in church. I got them to summer camps and preaching events around the area. We spent many precious hours reading, talking and praying about how to please God with our lives. But without the leader in the family having any interest in spiritual matters it became a struggle. I know my walk was not pleasing to the Lord as I started to compromise my walk with Him. So to wake me up before three precious lives were led astray by two selfish parents God took a very precious friend of mine home in a tragic car accident. I sat in a waiting room in a hospital and heard my friend's mom cry out when she died. Almost simultaneously pregnant ladies were entering the hospital to give birth to new innocent lives. I then realized how very precious time and life was. It took a couple of months, but I remember praying with a broken heart that I was so sorry that I had killed Jesus. I knew it was my sin that had put Him on that cross. I then experienced true salvation. The bible says salvation requires repentance. It wasn't the "God come into my life to help me with my problems" philosophy, but true repentance and salvation. Then things started to happen.

To make a very long complicated story short, I was beaten down both emotionally and physically by my husband. More emotionally, thank God, but then again the outside bruises healed much faster. He told my then seven and eleven year old boys that a man needs to discipline a disobedient wife. It was then I thought there is no way my daughter is going to be treated this way and my two boys will not be treating a woman in this manner.

The kids and I went through a very long wicked divorce. I was a stay at home mom without a job. He was a computer professional. He wouldn't pay child support. His parents who held the contract on our acreage foreclosed on me. I lived from sister to sister's house with the three kids in my almost brakeless diesel truck for four months. I decided to go to college to get some type of degree to get a somewhat better paying job then a factory job. Since I was considered homeless and penniless I received most of my schooling free. All this was going on in a time span of six months or so.

I did get divorced. The kids and I moved into a trailer court. We got rid of our bunnies, kitties, and my horse died the day before we had to be out. It probably would not have been so hard, but the kids and I had only known living in the country all of our lives. What was also difficult was to have to sell the home to my ex's father who in turn sold it back to my ex. So the kids and I were in a trailer and the ex was in a three bedroom house on twelve acres where the kids grew up. Life is strange!

I graduated with all kinds of honors, but only with a two year degree. I took the kids out of government schools and put them into our Christian Academy. With the great leadership and examples at church my kids grew into admirable young people. They all three were active in soul winning ministry, bus ministry, nursing home ministry and attended numerous camps and youth conferences where God spoke to them about their lives through awesome men of God.

I ended up getting married again to someone that said he were saved. I was not counseling with my Preacher the way I should have been or I would never had married him, but I did. He left me about four years into the marriage. So I ended up having to sell the house that we lived in and have been basically homeless for the last 18 months. I am paying down debts that I have and I have hopes to be able to find a place of my own by next February. I am with my unsaved father right now. My unsaved sisters are no support whatsoever and actually have pretty much turned their back on me.

The kids are all seniors. The twins are seniors in college. My son is at Providence Baptist College in Elgin, IL. A work out of Northwest Baptist Church. My daughter is at Hyles-Anderson College a work of First Baptist Church in Hammond, IN. My youngest son is a senior in high school who will probably be attending Providence next Fall. All three of my children desire to work in Christian service for the Lord. It has been my request that they do not date until they were juniors in college and that request has been honored. The older two are now courting two other Christians that have flawless testimonies for the Lord. My youngest son has a heart for going into child evangelism. He is working with Brother Jerry Lewis this summer. Brother Lewis goes around the country holding Vacation Bible Schools and doing camps. They have almost no contact with their father. Their grandparents have made no attempt to contact them these ten years. But my kids pray for their relatives and have even dealt with the hurt successfully and they have contacted their father. They have no real relationship, but they carry no baggage with them as they move on in their lives. I'm proud of them.

I have been dealing with this awful thyroid disease the last six years now and not real successfully. It is a struggle to live. My heart's desire has always been to be a wife and mom. Having to be out in the world working, being so sick, and having no where to call home couldn't be any farther away from that desire. But here I am. I can have a peace that passeth all understanding and I know where that comes from. I daily read Psalm 25. I do trust in the Lord and I ask Him as I read this Psalm to teach me and guide me and to please answer my prayers. I don't know of a single relative that is saved besides my kids. That is an incentive to keep soul winning and passing out tracts. I do have purpose in this life. Its just that I'm limping a little at this point of my life. For what ever purpose God would have me to be. My prayer is to get feeling good again so I can go 100% for the Lord instead of always hurting. I am so glad the kids and I have been through what we have been through. Being around a lot of people at work, out visiting, and just at church I see how selfish this United States is. Selfishness seems to be the character of most people. I see that my kids being without and leaning on the Lord to get through has made three pretty special people.

I grew up in church always hearing that Jesus loved me and wanted me to follow him. I was very blessed to have parents that took me to church and I was blessed to be in a church that taught the truth and loved kids and believed that children were very important to Christ and were not to be hindered when coming to Him.

At the age of 9, I was in "children's church" and they asked if anyone wanted to give their hearts to Christ and He would give them a new one in place of it. The heart of Christ! So it was very simple really, I knew that I wanted to do this, So I went to one of the teachers and said that I knew Jesus loved me and that I wanted to love Him back. And I knew I could only love Him if I turned from sinning and followed Him in His ways (take up my cross and follow Him). I knew I could only love Him because He died for me. And so this was the beginning of my life as a Child of God. I remember after that moment that I was different inside. I yearned for my Heavenly father and to please Him. I didn't yearn for the approval for others. I'm glad God took that desire away from me at an early age.

As I grew I went through normal childhood and teenage years. My relationship with Christ was very simple for most of my young life. And God protected me from many things and answered my simple and sometimes pleading prayers. He talked with me and made our relationship very easy because He knew I was not mature enough to handle many things. So He did most of the initiating and He always told me He loved me. So by the time I was in High School I was very grounded in who I was in Christ and who I wanted to be in Christ.

As I went through my High School years, God created a deeper yearning with in me to know Him at a more intimate level. I had known Him as Daddy, now He wanted me to know Him as Lord. He wanted me to learn just how deep His love really was, and He wanted me to be like Him. And to be like Him would take many life lessons with Him by my side encouraging me and directing me all the way. Some paths were not easy, some paths were very refreshing. And I still have many paths to go through until I die.

God's goal for me is the same as His goal for you. To show you how much He really does love you and to teach you to be like Him. To teach you to love others as He love them, even if they don't love you (even hate you) God does this for everyone who is willing and asks Him to do so. He will teach you these things and many more things through ways different than mine because He knows you and what you will need to be molded into a servant of Christ.
My testimony is a never ending story. My testimony grows each day as Christ teaches me more and more and as I become less and He becomes more.



MY TESTIMONY - Finding the Way
How many of us as children calculated how old we would be in the year 2000? I remember doing the math when I was about 10 years old and figuring I would be turning 36 on my birthday in the year 2000. As for where I would be and what I’d be doing, it seemed so far away and 36 seemed so old, I couldn’t even begin to imagine it.

When I was a young adult in my early twenties, if a fortune-teller had told me the year 2000 would find me a born-again Christian, committed to growing in the Lord, reading my Bible and attending church regularly to worship with other believers, I would have thought she was nuts and definitely a fraud to boot!

Anyway, back then I was into that sort of thing. Fortune-telling, astrology, palmistry, tarot cards, runes even “white” witch-craft were all interests of mine. I thought organized religion was for people who were too conformist or weak to think for themselves. I used to laugh at those JESUS IS THE ANSWER bumper stickers. Obviously those people were just too simple-minded to ask complex enough questions!

   I had tried to read the Bible a few times because it seemed to be a spiritual thing to do. I also wanted to be prepared to refute any arguments in case I was challenged by Christians about my beliefs. However, I never seemed to be able to make it past Genesis and Exodus. Although I enjoyed the stories of Adam and Eve and Noah’s Ark, I thought they were stories pretty much on the same level as Greek or Roman mythology. I shuddered at the violence of a lot of the stories in the old Testament. The God of the Bible seemed particularly stern and wrathful which didn’t fit with my “peace and love” philosophy.

I tried very hard to be a good person. I thought that basically I was honest . I tried to live according to the Golden Rule “ Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

   Yet there were things I really didn’t like about myself deep inside. I was often very critical of others. I was a perfectionist. I set a very high standard for myself and others which often led to feelings of disappointment and bitterness.

I tended to judge people very quickly. My belief in astrology really amplified this negative character trait.   When I found out someone’s birthday I would slot them into the appropriate category. “ Oh she’s a Virgo! That’s why she’s so nitpicky!” or   “ He’s just a bull-headed Taurus!” Often I would be quite pleasant to people on the outside, while condemning them within my heart and mind.

I felt like a real hypocrite a lot of the time. I could be polite and nice to strangers yet my foul temper all too often got the better of me at home with my husband and children.   I felt like a big phony, an actor in my own life. I longed to be “real” just like the stuffed rabbit in the children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit.

But try hard as I might, I couldn’t seem to make any lasting changes in my life. I read all kinds of books on parenting, self-improvement and New Age spirituality but nothing seemed to stick. I’d implement some of the ideas and philosophies I’d read about but it never lasted for long. Then I’d beat myself up inside about being weak-willed and lazy.

I determined that my problems were spiritual in nature. So on New Year’s Eve 1988 I resolved to find spiritual truth. I prayed to the Creator for an open mind and a true heart as I embarked upon my quest.

I thought I would first take a look at Christianity, since the Christmas season had just wound up for another year. I had grown up as basically a “Christmas and Easter” Catholic and I cherished my childhood memories of these celebrations and felt my children were missing the deeper meaning of these holidays.

So I took my Bible off the shelf , blew the dust off and began to read. But this time I decided to start with the New Testament, even though it felt a little strange starting a book in the middle. As I read through the first part, Matthew, I began to get excited. The things Jesus was saying rang so true!

But I wanted to know a little more about Christianity before I committed myself to becoming a “Bible-thumper” so I went to the public library and checked out a how-to book.

I’m not kidding. I found a book entitled How to Born Again by Billy Graham. I never thought I’d find myself reading a book by him. We only had one channel when I was growing up and we used to groan and complain and turn off the t.v. whenever one of his crusades pre-empted the regular shows.   So it was more than a little humbling to be looking to a man I’d always mocked to help me find the answers to my deep spiritual questions.

Anyway, as I continued to read the Bible in conjunction with the Billy Graham book, like pieces in a puzzle, things began to fall into place in my mind.

When I read in my Bible where Jesus says “ I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one can get to the Father except by means of me,” something clicked inside my head.

What if the spiritual truth I was looking for wasn’t found in a particular religion or set of beliefs but instead found in a person? And that if I wanted to know the Truth, it meant getting to know Jesus.

In fact if I wanted to know God, it meant getting to know Jesus because I remembered reading previously in my Bible: “Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God . He has always been alive and is Himself God.” John 1:1,2
And maybe the way to make lasting changes in my life also meant getting to know Jesus because He also says He is the Way!

Wow! As this realization dawned in my heart and mind like the rays of a new sunrise, I felt this tremendous sense of liberation in my soul! “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free” John 8:32.

It all seemed so simple yet at the same time infinitely profound. Then later it occurred to me that truth is usually simple, it is lies that are complicated.

Now that I’d found the Truth I’d been searching for, what was I going to do with it, or rather Him? I didn’t know what following Jesus would entail. What would my husband, my parents and my friends say?

   I had set out on a spiritual quest and at the end found Jesus with His hand extended to me. But it wasn’t really the end at all, but the choice to step out into the unknown, a new beginning.

   Either that or give in to my fears, turn my back on the Truth , go back the way I’d come and deny the reality of what I had been shown. In other words, live a lie. Something within me would not accept this option.

So not without a little reluctance, yet also with a tremulous thrill of new hope I knelt down beside my bed and prayed the prayer in the How to Be Born Again book.

When I had finished, I felt this unexplainable sense of joy and excitement! I didn’t exactly understand it but I knew deep in my soul that somehow I had been changed.

Emptiness and despair had prompted me to embark on my spiritual quest and now I looked to the future with bright new hope.

The Year 2000 has come and gone and it’s been more than twelve years since I first embarked on this adventure with Jesus.   The journey hasn’t always been easy and I’ve stumbled and fallen. But Jesus has never let go of my hand and when I cry out to Him in repentance, He always gently lifts me up again to continue on our way.

It has often been a painful process, but Jesus has given me the power to make lasting changes in my life. And so, like gold is purified by passing through a refining fire, so am I.   I’m by no means perfect but I know as long as I don’t let go of Jesus, I am in the process of being perfected by Him. And He promises to finish what He started.

I am no longer an actor in my own life. Like the stuffed bunny in The Velveteen Rabbit, I’m finally REAL! But it wasn’t by a fairy waving a magic wand, it was Jesus giving me his Life when I gave Him mine.


My testimony: Where do I begin? I guess I will start from the day I was saved which was January 25, 1986.

My real estate broker led me to Christ in the office where we worked. He knew I was always getting high and then one day he confronted me about it. I asked him how he knew and he said, "Because you are so flaky. All drug users are flaky and I know because I used to be one". After talking for a while he just had me say the prayer of salvation. I didn't really say the prayer with much passion and wondered during the prayer if it really meant anything. I wasn't new to Christianity. I was born and raised a Catholic, had received communion, and also went through confirmation, so I did know about Christ to a certain extent.

After I said the prayer of Salvation, I remember my broker saying, "Now you may not think that anything happened here, but believe me, something did happen." So I left the office and got into my car. I sat in my car and before I had a chance to put my keys in the ignition, I had this feeling that I will never forget and I have never heard of anyone else having it since. It was as though someone injected cold peppermint into my veins and the feeling raced through me from my head to my toes. Kind of like a cleansing, swiped clean feeling. If anyone has ever been injected with anesthesia before a surgery, I would say it is like that feeling as the anesthesia goes through your veins. I thought it was truly strange and then started the car and turned on the radio. The song, "I can see clearly now" was playing. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but when I look back, years later, I had a significant experience when I was born again.

So here I go, just born again, a baby in Christ, but my life was a mess when all of this first happened. Not only was I a drug addict who managed to be semi-successful in my real estate career, but I was also involved in a tumultuous and destructive relationship with a man 12 years older than me. I met him when I was 20, naive, and vulnerable. He was living with a woman at the time we met and told me about it, but I just thought they would break up and he would be with me. This did not happen. In fact, that woman he lived with became pregnant, so he married her. I broke off the relationship at that time, but somehow he convinced me to continue to see him and this went on for a few years. I could not seem to get away from him. He was extremely jealous, super successful in his career and dashing. It was lust at first site for me as he physically looked like the guy I always dreamed I would be with. Because he was rich and always spent loads of money on me, it made it even harder to get out of the relationship. He was the type that would take me out to dinner in limousines and give me diamonds at dinner and fabulous jewelry on special occasions. I was young and when all my friends were dating guys that could barely afford to buy them dinner at the local McDonalds, I was being wined and dined and living the high life--literally. Of course this guy always got the best drugs money could buy and he loved getting me wasted so he could take advantage of me sexually. He was a pervert, loved pornography and although he told me he loved me all the time, he really wanted me just for sex. I was too stupid and blind to see past it. So this is where I was when I first got saved.

In the first couple of months after coming to Christ I was turned on to God! I even stopped having sex with my boyfriend. I would read the Bible constantly, listen to the Bible on tapes in my car and stopped using drugs. My boyfriend actually liked it because he now thought he didn't have to worry about me being with other men when he wasn't around. I never was with any other men and was always loyal to him.
But he was insanely jealous of any attention that other men or people gave me. When he was being the good father and husband, he was worried about what I was doing. He was worried that a nice guy who could offer me a real life could snatch me away in a heartbeat, so he would have me followed or tap my phone to make sure I wasn't doing anything. I was so consumed in the relationship that if a nice guy did happen to come my way, I never would have noticed. Anyway, the point here is that I did not know the importance of getting rid of all the people in your life that are not walking with God when I was first saved.
I kept the same friends and before I knew it, I had backslidden and was right back to where I was before getting saved. I would read the Bible once in a while, but eventually even that went away too. I was back into the world, into my flesh, and back to being totally miserable. I tried to break off that relationship but would end up going back over and over again. This went on for a total of four and a half years. I was so weak and pathetic. I did not want to continue living that way. I did not want to look back on my 20's and know that I was a loser who was weak and stayed with a guy who had a wife. The tears and anguish I suffered from this manipulative person were unbearable and on top of that, I was also having to deal with the scorn of being the 'other woman'. I cannot believe I stayed with him for so long and now it seems as though it never happened. On the night when I finally said good-bye to that guy for good, I cried for two hours and begged God to take away any feelings I had for him. I was on my knees crying out for God to help me.   I was truly sick of being in bondage. I was sick of being with a man who was manipulating me and I was tired of living a life that was full of embarrassment and humiliation. I fell asleep on my couch out of exhaustion from fighting with that guy on the phone and begging God to help me. When I awoke in the morning, I was renewed and refreshed. I felt a release from the bondage and never went back to that sick relationship again. The moral of this story is that God can and will get you out of a bad relationship if you really cry out to him. Don't think for a second that God cannot rescue you and get you out of any bondage that you are in. He will get you out of anything if you cry out to Him.

Now, I was completely free from the bondage of that relationship, but I still used drugs. I loved smoking pot and used it as a crutch for many years after that. I was also continuing to have pre-marital sex. I would try to justify the sex by saying it was okay as long as I was 'in love'. I did not understand the war I was in and how to get right with God. I did not have a grasp of truth about how the struggle wasn't against the flesh and blood, but against the powers of this dark world, and I paid the price with emotional pain. I was not walking in obedience and knew it, but refused to walk with God completely. God was my part-time lover and I would call on Him only when I was desperate. Every relationship I had ended in pain.
All the guys I met were jerks. I could not understand why it was happening over and over again.

When my mother was diagnosed with cancer and died three years after that, I was very far from God. I was again involved in an unhealthy relationship that I couldn't seem to get out of. I had been sexually molested at around 6 years old, so it is no wonder I ended up with the wrong men, but honestly, I never gave God a chance to heal me from all of that. Yes, Jesus did shed blood for every disease, broken heart, and problem that we ever had, but I was living in the world and had forgotten all about it. I was the worst kind of back slider. I knew the truth, and still kept living in the flesh and denying the holy spirit.

I managed to get out of the bad relationship and was very alone. I had the perfect opportunity to get right with God and serve Him, but AGAIN, I let my flesh rule me in everything I did and did not understand that the dark forces were working on me to steal, rob, and lie to me, keeping me from my faith. When my mother died and left me a small inheritance (about $100,000 cash and a house with $80,000 in equity), I was selfish and did not give God what was rightfully his. My mother told me on her death bed to give some money to the church and I told her I would, knowing I had no intention of giving any money to any church or charity of any sort. I was full of GREED. I was going to hold on to that money and use it for my nest egg...for the future. That would be the money I would have for the rest of my life and I would not part with any of it unless a good business opportunity happen to come along.

I needed someone to fix the paint on my car and hired a company to do the work at my house. A nice Christian man showed up to fix the paint. He was an on-fire type who started witnessing to me right away. He probed and asked what was keeping me from God. I told him I did not know and he guessed it was sex. He was right, but it was also my pot smoking that was putting a wedge between me and the Lord. I didn't admit to all of my sins. I did feel guilty but was not willing to crucify my flesh at that time. This nice Christian man also told me that it was obvious that money was my God and asked if I had tithed any of the money I got when my mother died. I told him, "No", and he told me to tithe that money right away. I did not obey, but instead, I purchased a business that I was sure would make me really rich. I had plans of building a huge franchise and making millions of dollars. Six months after I bought that business, I was in the red (almost bankrupt) and had NONE of the inheritance left. Before I bought the business, my brother and I had a falling out and sold the house and split the money and that money was gone too. A good example of where disobedience can lead you. Please remember this story!

So, I have no money, no job and I don't know what I am going to do. I had nothing left. I was on my knees (again) begging God to rescue me.   I was blessed to get some work in a temp agency working for an insurance company and that kept me alive and off the street. It still amazes me how God will continue to bless us even when we are IDIOTS!
Life is going along, I am still not walking with God, I am still smoking pot everyday (keeping a wedge between me and God) and living in the flesh. I say a prayer every morning for strength, but that is about it for walking with the Lord. I try going to church a few times, but I get convicted when I hear the pastor preach. I am not willing to give up the things of the world and continue to listen to Satan's lies telling me it is impossible to walk with God. Of course I don't even consider that anything is possible with God.

I am lonely and I meet this guy at a wedding. He is eight years younger than me and he becomes infatuated with me and asks me to marry him six weeks after we met. I guess he may be "the one". I mean, no one else has asked me to marry them and I am already 29 years old! I had two surgeries on my ovaries for endometriosis and the doctors are telling me I might not ever be able to have children. They are telling me I need to try to get pregnant as soon as possible. So when this guy asks me to get married, I think, hey, this might work out. He comes from a good family. His dad is a well respected surgeon and his parents are Christian, so I ASSUME he is too and that he is on the right path. I was completely deceived. Of course, I did not consult God on the decision to marry this guy. My friends say I am jumping into this way too fast and I just ignore any advice from anyone. I don't even ask this guy if he believes in God or not! I marry this guy just two months after we met and two weeks after I married him, I knew it was a mistake.

But I made the commitment, so I am determined to make it work. I put up with all his lies (he lied about everything), his addiction to pornography, and his secret addiction to drugs (he had a secret addiction to crystal meth that I did not find out about until a year later). To make a very long story short, I got pregnant a year later and the doctors are amazed. I have a hard delivery and the baby is in intensive care for three days, but we both made it through okay.

Four months after I have the baby, my husband moves us up to where he used to live, about four hours from where I grew up. I quit my job, sold my car, and left my friends to move to my husband's home town. One week after we get there, he doesn't want to come home. He wants to party with his friends. He tells me that he is not happy, never has been, and wants out of the marriage. I am devastated because I left my life to move to this small town and now I don't even have a car. I have nothing once again. I decide to leave and go stay with my cousin who lives up north, about five hours away. I am collecting unemployment and am depressed and don't know what to do. I turn to God once again. I start watching Marilyn Hickey and I realize that everything that has been going on is a spiritual battle and that my husband is being ruled by the dark side. I start reading my Bible and really getting in the word. I started sewing a little seed whenever I could in Marilyn Hickey's ministry. Two months later, my husband calls me and wants me back and also tells me of his adulterous affair he had two months after the baby was born. He is a pathological liar, so I know it was not the first time he has cheated, but find it interesting he confessed this. I move back to his town and pay as many of the bills I could because he has not paid any for two months. I could not afford the phone bill of $300 so it gets disconnected.   I am there barely a week and he is staying out all night long with his friends and not coming home for days at a time. I decide I will stay in that town, look for a job and make a life for myself and the baby without him. But it was hard financially. I had to stand at the pay phone and wait for employers to call me. I was trying to get this great job that would allow me to work out of the house and take care of the baby too. It has always been my dream to stay home with my children. I am praying like crazy and having faith that God will see me through and provide. Hallelujah! I did end up being blessed with that great job and worked for that company for over two years. I only had to put my baby in daycare a few hours a week and since she was such a good baby, I could take her with me on my appointments.

I was in sales, and she was a good ice breaker when I would show up for appointments (Praise God!). My husband had moved out and was living with his friends. He would see the baby a couple of times a week but really just baby sat her when I had an appointment I could not take her on. He was not into being a father. He just wanted to party. One day, I have an appointment and I need to take the baby to her fathers to be watched, but the holy spirit tells me to stay home that day, so I listened. I canceled my appointment and stayed home with the baby. The next day, I get a call from the police telling me that my husband has been put in jail for dealing drugs. I will end this chapter by saying that I ended up divorcing him. It was very hard for me to do that as I know God does not like divorce. But after many episodes, I decide for my own safety that divorcing the father of my baby was the best decision. Praise God that we are forgiven for all of our sins.

Now I was a single parent, but I was happy. I still had some things in my life that needed to be cleaned up, but I was reading my Bible everyday and turning to God more and more. I was not tithing, but I did sew seed now and again. I had gotten rid of the cancer of greed from my life and had repented for a long time about not giving God what was rightfully His. I was able to stay at home with my baby which was absolute bliss for me and she was (is) such a good girl. God had blessed me all the time I was an idiot!

I did date a couple of guys in that town, and I was still involved in sexual immorality. I still smoked pot and could not give up the lusts of the flesh. I was content most of the time, but because I was not completely right with God, I was not able to fulfill the destiny the Lord had put before me. Then came the angel of light. A guy I used to date 10 years before starts calling me. He starts telling me everything I want to hear on telephone and before long, I am flying up to Oregon to see him. He asks me to marry him the first weekend I go up to see him and I say yes, wondering if I am doing the right thing. I was making a life for me and my daughter in that small town, but I never wanted to be there.

It was a place that my husband put me. I did want to move out of California for good and marrying this other guy was my chance to do just that. He looked like the guy who would rescue me from everything I had been through. He seemed to have his act together and also seemed to have an inner peace about him. I asked him about his faith and he gave me a long explanation of what he believed and honestly, it left me a bit confused, but I thought he was very spiritual. So, I quit my great job, sell all my belongings, pack up my car, and me and the baby (now two and a half years old) drive up to Oregon, 16 hours away. We are there just a week and I realized I have messed up again! I am in my bathroom, on my knees, weeping, repenting and begging God to help me get out of this mess! I knew I had made YET ANOTHER mistake! I thought I was entering into the promised land but instead, I ended up in Sodom and Gomorra. I should have stayed where I was, in that small town. But I cannot go back to the small town, so I move in with my cousin again, back in California. It was hard there. I was sharing a room with my cousin, she had a 16 year old daughter who did not like me or my baby. The baby was sleeping on the floor of my cousin's bedroom. I managed to get another job with that same company (they had offices all over the country) so I was not out of work at all. I was starting to pick the pieces again and get back on track. I really hated living with my cousin because we were cramped in her little apartment but at least I was not on the street.

Two months later the guy I left calls me and tells me how sorry he was for everything and begs me to come back to Oregon. "He really wants to make it work", he says. He will do anything to make this relationship right. Because of the pressure I was under living with my cousin (who by this time wanted me to leave), I decide to head back to Oregon. I know, you must be thinking, "When will I get a clue, huh?" Well it only took about four weeks before everything fell apart this time. I knew there was no way it would ever work, but I was glad to be out of California and had decided to stay in Oregon and make a life for myself and my toddler. I am blessed (once again!) with a great job. God blesses IDIOTS! Here I was, living in sin, and God still blessed me. That guy and I had decided to call it quits, for good this time, but we were both still living in the same apartment. His business had suddenly took a nosedive and he had no money to move out. Then I find out I am pregnant! Could it get any worse? Then, on top of that, Satan was working overtime through the father of my unborn baby. He is trying to convince me that there is no God and that everything I believe in is just a myth. He is showing me videos of people trying to discredit the Bible saying it is not the truth, but just stories that were made up centuries ago. I am broken hearted thinking that there might not be a God. My so called friends are telling me to get an abortion since I am not going to stay with this guy. I actually call the abortion clinic and ask about an abortion and the girl who answered the phone says, "Oh you just show up in the morning and we can take care of it for you". I was horrified! How could they be so cold? When I was 18 I found myself pregnant and got an abortion. They counseled me a couple of times before I went through with it, but now, 16 years later, it is almost like going to a drive-thru window. You just call up, say you are coming and they perform the "procedure" and you are on your way. I decided there was no way I could go through that again. I was miserable, in my darkest hour, and did not know what to do. I was now an unwed, pregnant, divorced mother! I was very far from God, again. I started praying (real hard!) and decided to start going to church.
I started tithing and sowing seed. I prayed to God and told Him I would keep the baby and put all my faith in Him as He saw me through this. My friends thought I was nuts and tried to get me to come back to California. I chose to stay put in Oregon.

I started going to church faithfully and my faith got stronger every day. The father of my unborn baby told me he would not be able to move out for two months.   I prayed and asked God to get the father of my baby out of my house as soon as possible. I could now see more clearly and saw how the demons were working through him, trying to steal my faith. Two weeks later he not only moved out, but left to another state. He had suddenly come into some money, PRAISE GOD!! I was alone during the pregnancy and had a few problems with premature labor, but the Lord saw me through. He also blessed me with a friend during that time. A nice man who lived in an apartment upstairs from mine became a very good friend to me during my pregnancy. We went to church together and we were both committed to the Lord. I ended up falling madly in love with my friend and I wanted him to be 'the one'. He was the first man I had spent time with, who I was also very attracted to, who loved the Lord. I prayed and told God if he was not the guy for me to please remove him from my life. I was sick of picking the wrong guys. About three weeks after I asked God to remove my friend from my life (if he wasn't the right one for me), he proposed marriage. We agreed before we got married that we had to put God absolutely first or the relationship would never work. We got counseling from our local church and were very committed to making the Lord number one in our lives. We got married five months after the baby was born. From the time I met my husband to the day we were married, it had been exactly one year. I spent a year of sowing good seed and was now reaping the harvest the Lord had for me.

I am now happily married, serving the Lord and the Lord is molding me and shaping me into the person he has wanted me to be over 15 years ago when I first got saved. The Jewish people wandered around in the desert for 40 years and I walked around in the desert for almost 15 years myself. I am now entering into the promised land and have finally reached a place with the Lord that I have found true peace and tranquility in. He is revealing much to me daily and I am now able to see my destiny, little by little. I want to do what the Lord wants me to do and I no longer look at his laws like things that will keep me from what I want to do. Instead I know those laws will bring me to the place that my soul truly desires. I only want to serve the Lord, have fellowship with Lord and bring others into the Kingdom so that they will have everlasting life and see their true destiny. We are all destined for greatness through Jesus Christ and will receive it if we put God absolutely first in our lives. He must be first and we must obey Him. If we don't, we will miss out on all His blessings and more importantly, we will not experience the true intimacy that comes with walking in obedience.

If I had advice for anyone, I would say, get rid of your old friends (don't be unequally yoked--what does darkness have in common with the light?), know that we are in a spiritual war and put on the full armor of God everyday, and OBEY God! If you don't, you will only end up with heartache. God only wants what is best for His children. He gives us his laws so that we will get the best. If we disobey, we will end up with pain. I am not saying that being a Christian is a guarantee that your life will be easy, but it is a lot more peaceful when you are walking with God and letting the Holy Spirit guide you every day than trying to do it on your own. Make the Lord your God number one. Don't keep Him on the back burner like a part-time lover. Relationships don't work when you keep them on the back burner. Take it from someone who has messed up over and over. If you want to see the promised land, you must be obedient and walk the path that the Lord has set before you. Give the Lord a mighty shout of praise!


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