After the third grade, which I failed, my granddad paid for us to go to parochial school, a Catholic one, for my sisters and me. I was the oldest and the least. By then I started to get pimples and I found out that kids were just as cruel there as a public school. One of the teachers put on a Christmas play for the parents. The whole school was in it except for me.  The abuse, physical and verbal, and the neglect and rejection continued for all my childhood, up through most of my adult life. The sources just changed.

My parents smoked and I started smoking when I was eight. I was taking them from my parent's drawer. I got caught and beaten, but that didn't stop me from smoking. I just started buying them because I had started to work with my granddad when I was nine, delivering bread. He, his son, and my dad's brother owned a bakery together. Every time I got money saved, my dad would always ask to borrow it and he would never pay it back. When I was thirteen, my granddad retired and I started working in the bakery for my uncle after school. He used to pick me up after school for work when he could find me, since I ran and hid from him alot. He did help me out most of my life when it came to saving money for me for a new car and a brand new house, but he abused me verbally and emotionally just as my dad did. Eventually I traded the house just to get away from his abuse, and the abuse of myself.  (God has since restored my relationship with my uncle, and has turned into a very special one.)

I got into drugs when I was 14 years old to escape my life and all the pain, but each time I came down from a high; the pain and I were still there. So, I did more drugs and different drugs, and stronger ones for over 20 years. I tried to kill myself many times and I succeeded once in 1973. I did nine horse tranquilizers, 714 milligrams. My heart stopped and I stopped breathing. I was in the hospital. They had me strapped to the bed, tubes up my nose, IV's, and I remember giving up and dying. I remember leaving my body and watching the doctors and nurses trying to bring me back to life. I was watching them from the corner of the ceiling. I did not see any light or tunnel, but I never felt so good in my life and so free -- free from the pain and agony and sorrow and misery -- the torment of life itself.  Then I heard an audible voice. It said to me, “You have to go back. It is not your time yet.” I told Him, “I do not want to go back. I hate my life and myself.”  He said, “You have a destiny; a purpose in life that is to help people.”   I replied, "How can I when I am so miserable?" God answered, "Have faith."

The next thing I remember was waking up the next day in the hospital room. I had no more doubts that God existed. I knew it for a fact that He was and that He is, but I woke up mad at Him because I thought He rejected me too! That He didn't care or love me either. I thought no one loved me. I didn't even love myself.

I found if you don't love yourself, how can others love you and how can you love others? For Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as thyself." (Which also means, “Love your neighbor and yourself because God made each of us special, no matter how badly we are treated by others).  All my life I felt I had to buy friends and I thought they were my "real" friends. But when trouble came, they were far from me. Later in life I found out that God was always there, for He said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."  (See Hebrews 13:5).  I just didn't know how to relate to Him, for I was blinded with, anger, rejection, self-pity, bitterness, self-righteousness, hopelessness, and despair. He was right there knocking on the door of my heart to let Him in (See: Revelation 3:20) but I couldn't see Him, because my anger at life was so strong that it nailed the door shut from the inside.  (Anger does that to everyone.  It is probably the most devastating emotion we have, yet when it holds us captive, we’re usually the last to realize it).

When I was 18 years old, a girl I worked with asked me to move in with her and I thought she liked me, so I said "yes" and moved in with her. We had a good platonic relationship for the first six months. Then she started seeing another man. That hurt me so badly I ran away and left all my furniture, TV, stereo, and all my belongings and didn't even go back to get them. I moved back to my parent's house for a time after that, though it was very difficult.

I met another woman in a restaurant sometime after that. We went out to the drive-in, got drunk, and I lost my virginity to a woman I thought I loved. It wasn't love. It was that she accepted me. So, I asked her to marry me and she said "Yes."  I told my family and all my friends. About a month later, I found her with one of my best friends. They had slept together. That really hurt and added to the spirit of rejection that was oppressing me. I left her and went from one bad relationship to another, founded on sex and lust, not God and love.

Everything was full of pain and agony because I wasn't doing it God's way. I know now that God's way is the only way if you want peace and deliverance and healing in your life.  I had been running from God and in denial to my sin and the devil’s strongholds in me for most of my life. Not until I got to know who God was and how much He really loved me was I able to start getting set free. However, I did not get to know God until I got into His Word - His truth.  I heard about God all my life but I didn't know Him personally until I got into His Word  - the Bible – especially the New Testament, because the New Testament reveals the loving and accepting side of God that is difficult for some to see in the Old Testament.   

After 35 years of pain and self-destruction and hopelessness, it was time for me to start living for God completely – not just partially or now and then.  Since then, God is using all my past troubles and using them for good as He promises He will do in Romans 8:28-29.  He is using me to help people that are going through, or have gone through, some of the same troubles I’ve experienced, and to let them know that there is hope and healing and that God loves them and wants to give them ever increasing joy and greater purposes for living.  Life was never meant to be just an “existence.”  There is always something to learn from our difficulties, if we’ll just seek God in our pain instead of clinging on to feeling sorry for ourselves.   Constantly feeling sorry for yourself can be as much of an addiction as chain-smoking or cocaine or alcohol addiction.  It’s just not thought of as an “addiction,” I’ve come to realize. 

The more you walk with Him, and in Him, the stronger you get, and the only way you can walk in Him is to die to selfish desires and pity-parties.  To die to selfish desires and pity-parties, you have to be obedient to truth, His Word.  I know by my own power I can't be obedient, so Jesus Christ helps me. For God the Father promises us in His Word that He will give us power through the Holy Spirit to be obedient to His desires if we sincerely have a heart to please Him (See: Chapter 15 in the Book of John) -- that there can be more of the presence of Jesus in me and less of myself.  That’s a difficult concept for the human mind to comprehend, but it comes from God’s Word, and because it comes from God’s Word, it has to be good!  I’ve learned the hard way that I’ll destroy myself if I don’t allow God to do with my mind, body and spirit as is pleasing to Him … and the only way I can know how He wants to accomplish that is seeking to understand and obeying His Word.  (Many seek to understand it – fewer seek to obey it).

The death Jesus died on the cross -- He took the punishment of my sin so I could have His eternal life and joy.  So much joy -- a much greater joy than words can express sometimes … because God was able to finally get through to me that until I started forgiving my parents and everyone else who ever hurt me, or hurts me still, my anger was actually keeping a barrier between me and God that I had no clue existed!  I also learned that giving thanks in all things (See 1 Thessalonians 5:18), and thanks for all things good (See Ephesians 5:20), is a weapon God gives us to keep anger and rejection from putting us back in its self-imposed prison.

God keeps healing my heart, hurt-by-hurt, scar-by-scar, wound-by-wound, as He will do for everyone who will seriously turn their lives over to Him through obedience to His Word.   He has delivered me from drug addictions: from crack, cocaine, pot, acid, and more - 25 years of drugs. He also took cigarettes from me. I smoked for more than 30 years and now I am free - free at last.

Probably more important than all my physical addictions He delivered me from, He has delivered me and healed me of anger and rejection and self-pity, though from time to time I’m tested in all those areas.  It was the devil’s stronghold of rejection that energized my anger, which he uses to trap people into hating life and themselves to where they want nothing more than to just die like I did, whether through quick suicide, or a slower suicide by use of addictions that they are in denial to.  Though self-pity isn’t as strong of an emotion as anger, it has the ability to cause God to bless you with less than more…and remember…the devil wants you to receive as few blessings from God as possible.  (See John 10:10)

Let me say something about anger before moving on.  All of us deal with anger at one time or another.  We can’t get around it.  How we deal with it will determine what happens afterward.  We can either ask God for help to deal with it, or anger will continue to be a spiritual cancer that only chips away at doing more harm to us and others than what we might possibly realize.  Realize anger is the equivalent of a nuclear warhead in your hands every time you get angry, and what you do with that warhead can have painful consequences.

Getting victory over rejection can be more difficult to get than victory over anger for some, until they seek God to reveal to them His unconditional love for each and every one of us no matter what has happened to us.   See – God loves each of us unconditionally – sinner to saint – equally the same.  It makes no difference what we’ve done in the past – it makes no difference how angry I’ve been at God or others – it makes no difference whether I don’t even believe God exists – He still loves each of us equally the same.  When you realize it’s impossible for God to do anything other than that … you come to realize it’s almost too good to be true, yet it is! 

And here is what is so amazing about God’s unconditional love for us: it’s totally free to us, but it cost God the most costly price He could pay – death of Himself.  See, the Word tells us that Jesus Christ is not only the Son of God; He also is God the Son.   What exactly does that mean, ‘He’s God the Son?’  It means that Jesus Christ always was, and always will be one of the eternal persons of the Triune Godhead.  (Father, Word [Son], and the Holy Spirit).  For evidence of that, read the entire first chapter of the book of John.  Jesus didn’t just speak “words” while He was here on earth: He was and is and always will be the Word.  When you allow God to reveal that incredible revelation to you, and you come to realize that God Himself died on the cross to pay the price for each of our sins…what greater act of unconditional love could God have displayed?! 

Because God doesn’t reject me, but rather gave His life for me as proof that He didn’t reject me so that I could have eternal life with Him…why in the world would I keep giving power to people rejecting me?!  I don’t care if people reject me anymore.  That’s their problem: I’m not going to allow it anymore to be my problem.  God loves me unconditionally; He accepts me unconditionally (though He loves us too much to let us stay the way we are when we turn our lives over to Him – which means change); and if the One who created all things - created Me - loves me unconditionally and accepts me unconditionally…I’m just not going to let people rejecting me have power over me anymore.  That’s how God has delivered me from rejection of others, praise His name!

Instead of waking up dreading each day like I used to, I look forward to each day now, because I’ve come to fully realize God has more intended for us every day than just feeling sorry for ourselves.  I thank God a thousand times a day for loving me and taking my sins and pain away and not giving up on me. Even when I gave up on Him, He never gave up on me!

I have never been closer to God and am getting closer every day, yet I’m not exempt from Satan attacking me, and I strive to apply the principles of Ephesians 6:10-18 on an ever-increasing basis.   The enemy takes God's Word and twists it or takes it out of context, for other young Christians to judge you. But there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, who walk according to the Spirit, not the flesh. And God delivers a righteous man out of all his troubles (if we’ll seek Him and trust Him to: See Psalms 34:4). God is a lover of my soul and a lifter of my heart. He caresses and tickles my heart and gives me so much joy and peace and a love so great I could never imagine. But I am receiving it more and more each day, even as trials visit me. 

My dad died a few years ago. A year before he died I forgave him for all the past and by God’s goodness we became best friends because I forgave him.  I thank God for that year that I had to get to know my dad.  We became very close.  My mom and I have been growing closer these last few years as well because I’ve forgiven her for hurts she didn’t know I even held onto.  (I've come to realize forgiveness is the key that unlocks the power of God to heal every fractured relationship.  Saying it another way, there is no relationship God can't heal, but we greatly hinder God from healing relationships when we chose not to forgive the one who has hurt us.)  There is so much good in her and I love her dearly.   I could have never been given better parents - I thank God for them.  They were just the right parents for me, but it took me so long to realize that (even though they weren’t perfect, as no parents are.)

I used to walk with a limp all my life until God healed me.  The weird thing about it was I didn't even realize I was healed until a lady at church came running toward me praising God and giving Him glory for healing me.  She asked me, "Weren't you crippled and walked with a limp?"  I said, "Yes" to her and then I realized I wasn't walking with a limp anymore, praise God!

I was diagnosed that I had chronic colitis and there is no cure for that and it was very painful. I didn't like the way the medication made me feel and I am grateful to say I have no need for the medication, for God healed me from that painful incurable disease too.

The devil arranged circumstances and I backslid (distanced myself from God), some years ago for a short time because I wasn't totally healed in my heart from rejection, self-pity, and anger.  Someone offended me and it stirred up memories from the past, but God didn't let me stay there.  He healed my heart and restored me, and made me stronger than ever before.  His grace and His mercy made me realize even if the whole world is against you, if you are truly seeking God with your whole heart, soul (mind), body, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself even if your neighbor doesn't love you, it doesn't matter much anymore.  The only person I have to worry about pleasing is God, and everything else will fall into place.  Seek first the Kingdom of God and HIS righteousness and all these things will be added to you.  (See Matthew 6:33).  And all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.  He turns the bad around for good, when we’ll allow Him to (See Romans 8:28-29).  That is His promise and I stand on every word that has been said by God through His Word, the Bible.

I knew since I was a child God had called me to tell the world about Him and share His love, but I was so messed up back then, full of shame and condemnation, I didn't follow through.  But when I got into God's Word and started to love myself and others, I felt a strong urge to do what I was called to do - to share God's love and the Good News and to give hope to hurting people.  At first when the Holy Spirit would lead me to share with someone, fear crept in and I would put God off. I would try to get up enough courage but by that time the person had already left.  But now after a few more years of being founded in the Word of God, I purpose with His help to move right when God tells me to and go where He tells me.  Through God's grace and His power, I have encouraged at least 1,000 people a year and alot of them were strangers.  God gives me the courage and the words to say.  He is so amazing, and I found out the more I minister to other people the more I'm ministered to and encouraged.

I came from a childhood where I felt that no one loved me, to knowing God's love for me, and the love of thousands of His children.  God has blessed me with the greatest gift of all – love.  His love that is overwhelming and overflowing - my cup runs over with His love and the love of His children.

At the time of this writing, I sing in the choir at Resurrection Life Church in Grandville, Michigan (a suburb of Grand Rapids).  Singing to the Lord is one of my favorite things to do besides sharing His Good News.  I get excited when I'm sharing God's Good News and also when I'm singing in the choir to bless other people.  

About two months ago (in 2003), Satan tried to take me out.  I got in a very serious car accident and broke my spine in four places in the neck area.  I crushed and/or fractured the same bones Christopher Reeves, the movie star who is paralyzed crushed and/or fractured, and only by the grace of God I'm not paralyzed.  God had an off duty EMS guy there at the scene of the accident, and about twenty people stopped and rushed to help me.  Then I heard a voice yelling at those people not to move me or touch me and he told me not to move.  He went back to his truck and by the grace of God had a stretcher board for back and spine injuries on his truck and brought it down.

He carefully got me out of the car and put me on the board and strapped me down tight where I couldn't move an inch and it hurt so bad.  He and a few other people carried me to the shoulder of the expressway to wait for the ambulance.  When they got there, I said to myself, "Thank God I can get some relief from this horrible pain and get off this board."  But they strapped me down even tighter, and when I asked if they could give me something for the pain they said they couldn't.  So every crack or hole in the road intensified my pain as we drove over them.  When we finally got to the hospital, I thought again to myself, ‘Thank God, now I can get some relief from the pain,’ but the doctors said they couldn't do anything until they took x-rays and a cat scan.

After that they told me they had some bad news for me.  They said that they didn't have the means to treat me there - that they would have to send me back to Grand Rapids and they couldn't give me anything for the pain.  So I was looking at a two-hour drive in an ambulance on my back.  Then one of the doctors mentioned Air Med, and I asked them to please, please try to get Air Med there.  I prayed and they were there within five minutes, praise God!  I asked them if they could give me anything for the pain and they said they couldn't so I asked them if they could put me to sleep and praise God they said, “Yes.”  The next day I woke up with a solid steel halo with four bolts screwed right into my skull and four steel bars hanging from my head.  I was hurting bad!

After three days in the hospital and four days in rehab, I was home and I wasn't doing very well accepting it.  I spent the first month almost constantly thinking about my halo and the four bolts screwed into my skull and how much it hurt and how uncomfortable it was.  I could hardly sleep; I was on a major pity-party feeling sorry for myself and feeling discouraged. Then it happened - God kept sending people from my church to encourage me, and almost everyday someone brought me food.  Someone also brought me over a brand new recliner hoping that would help me sleep, and someone else installed a ceiling fan in my apartment, and someone else gave me a CD player.  God was encouraging me daily through His Word and through His people.

I started to get stronger everyday.  Six weeks after the accident I went to the doctor believing I was healing and the halo was coming off, even though he told me in the beginning I had to wear it for three months.  I was crushed and broke down and started crying right in the doctor's office.  When I got home I was back on the pity-party-kick.  I had choir practice that day, so I called one of the care leaders and told her I wasn't going to make it to practice and told her why.  She said I needed to come; I should be with people that love me and I shouldn't isolate myself.  I agreed and said I would be there, but I fell asleep, and 15 minutes before practice started I had a call asking me if I needed a ride to practice, so I knew God wanted me there.  So I went the last hour of practice.  I felt led to go in the back and lay on my face and I cried my heart out praising God and thinking Him that I wasn't paralyzed or worse.  The more I praised Him and thanked Him, the better my heart felt and the stronger I felt.

Three weeks ago a friend in the choir asked me if I could come with him to visit his son in the hospital, so I went.  His son had a serious accident and had a halo also and a punctured lung, so when we walked into the room, I could relate to him.  His dad told me beforehand that he wasn't saved or should I say a true believer.  But when I shared the Good News with him and all that God has done for me, his whole demeanor changed - I started to see light and hope in his eyes, praise God!

When his dad was ready to leave, I walked out with him and then I told him I felt led to stay here - that God would find me a way home, so he left.  I started walking the halls; I saw an open door and I felt a strong urge to go in. Fear crept in but I overcame my fear right away and walked in, and they looked at me like who are you and I told them who I was and that the Holy Spirit led me here to this very room.  I asked them in a statement “You are Christians aren't you?” and their eyes just lit right up and smiled.  They asked me how I knew and I said God told me and I can also see it in your eyes.  I shared and encouraged eight different people that day in the hospital.  If I hadn’t had this halo on I probably wouldn't have been there.  When people saw my halo I would share how God spared my life, and that it is a miracle I'm walking and how He had that off duty EMS right at the scene with a board.  Praise God forever!

The more I focus on the things of God and on all God's promises and the more I'm in the Word and around His people, the better I feel and the stronger I get in the Lord and in my body.  I grew to realize that if I don't dwell on the halo or the pain or discomfort, and dwell on the goodness of God, life was so much easier.  He said cast all your burdens on Him, for His yoke is easy, His burden is light.

I hope something I’ve said has encouraged you, or given you a new perspective on life.  Remember, you are special to God and no matter how much pain and sorrow you have gone through, or are going through, only you can stop God from transforming your future into a life of joy and peace with Him, even through your trials.  Some people grow apart from God when suffering visits them.  God wants us to stay close to Him in our suffering, so He can turn our suffering into something to help others through their suffering, and wants us to realize that much of our suffering is simply the attacks of the devil to tempt us to turn cold toward God. 

None of us who desire to be pleasing to God are exempt from the devil’s attack to make us suffer.  God’s Word assures us that those who purpose to be Godly will suffer.  We have to grow to realize that most of the suffering we go through doesn’t come from God though – it is inspired by our enemy, Satan.  When you can come to the place where you know we serve a good God that is heaven-bent on drawing us closer to Him and we have a real bad enemy who is hell-bent on doing everything he can to try to draw us farther apart from God, it makes it easier to cling onto God through those times of suffering and hardship.

A couple other thoughts about suffering: I am a firm believer that whatever suffering we are going through, God wants us to seek Him about anything He might be wanting to show us, or teach us.  God will use suffering to get our attention, if nothing else seems to get it, and He’ll even allow Satan to inflict the suffering at times to help us realize that Christians are in a real spiritual battle that will never stop until we go to heaven, and the more determined we are to enhance our personal relationship with Jesus Christ and our heavenly Father through the Holy Spirit, the more determined Satan is to try to hinder our progress.   

Thank you for taking to time to read what has been written, and in faith I know you’ll be a better person for it this moment forward.  To God be the glory and I really mean it.  Oh and by the way, when I get to heaven, if God gives out “halos” to believers…ask me for mine.  I’ll be happy to give it away!

If this testimony has blessed you, would you please take a few moments and share with us HOW it has blessed you?  Your feedback is very important.  Please mention the author of this testimony when you email your comments.  Thank you so very, very much!  Email:  ptoffice@precious-testimonies.com

Dear Reader - are you at peace with God?  If not, you can be.  Do you know what awaits you when you die?  You can have the assurance from God that heaven will be your home, if you would like to be certain.  Either Jesus Christ died for your sins, or He didn't (He did!).  Are you prepared to stand before God on the Judgment Day and tell Him that you didn't need the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross to have your sins forgiven and get in right-standing with God?  We plead with you ... please don't make such a tragic mistake.

To get to know God; to be at peace with God; to have your sins forgiven; to make certain heaven will be your home for eternity; to make certain that you are in right-standing with God right now ... please click here to help understand the importance of being reconciled to God.  What you do about being reconciled to God will determine where you will spend eternity, precious one.  Your decision to be reconciled to God is the most important decision you'll ever make in this life.