I was born in the early 40's. My family was drenched in church, we went on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesday nights. I never felt forced to go, I just went with my family, whether I liked it or not. It was expected of us, and I did it out of respect. Every August we would have a Camp Meeting at a near-by lake. I loved to go. We had a cottage there... As children, we had to attend one service out of 3 everyday. We would sit on the last row, and, (you know how children are), we talked, and passed notes. One night, Old Brother Riggle was preaching. I was struck by his words, and the Lord spoke to my heart. Before I knew what was going on, I was walking down the wooden floor to the altar, crying. My legs seeming to walk on their own. It was a long trip down the aisle, but Sister Riggle came to me, and ministered to me about the Lord forgiving all my sins. She asked if I would like to ask Jesus into my heart, I did. I was baptized in the lake. It was wonderful, I felt squeaky clean inside, and I have never forgotten that feeling. I was 7 years old.
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Six months later, I had contracted Polio. Paralyzed from the waist down, my dad carried me everywhere. A few monts later, I was lying on the sofa, my mother was sitting with me. My 5 year old sister came and told me that Jesus would heal me if I asked Him, and daddy would never have to carry me anywhere again. I told her that Jesus DID NOT love me. But my sister was stubborn, told me to be quiet... she would ask Jesus to heal me. I told her again that He would not heal me, He did not love me. She finally said, "Jesus loves you... anyway I do not care what you think, because I KNOW He does... and I am going to ask Him to heal you so you can walk again." Kneeling on the floor, and touching my legs, she started to pray. My toes started to wiggle, it tickled so much that I giggled. My mother said, "Shhh, your sister is praying for you." I said, "I know, but my toes are moving, and it is tickling me." My mother looked, and sure enough, my toes were moving, on both feet. She ran to get my dad, shouting, "Praise God!", and crying. A few years later, we moved to the city. I use to say that since I was the first born, the things of the Lord hit me and never bounced off to hit my brother and sister. They were different than me, but that was ok. I was taught to work out my own salvation with the Lord, and I tried to be obedient. After graduating from high school, I moved to Indiana, met a man, and married him, I was 18 years old.
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I liked being a wife, and I wanted to be a mother. A lady at church told me that if I wanted a girl, to ask the Lord. I believed, and we adopted a precious baby girl in 1969, she was a beautiful. I poured all my love into her, I loved being her mother. My husband and I did not get along. He abused me, and our marriage was on the rocks. In the early 1980's he kicked me with a steel-toed shoe, and crushed my tail bone, but the Lord healed me so I could walk, even though the doctors said I would never walk again, and the x-rays proved that my tail bone was still crushed. I learned that my husband never asked the Lord into his heart. All that time he was pretending to believe. It was hardto accept, but he said that he could never swallow all that about Jesus. No wonder we never got along. He was viciously against my Lord Jesus. We seperated, and then my daughter disappeard. I was frantic. I prayed and prayed. Six months later, my husband told me that he'd had his sister take her away from me, to hide her 2 states away, to keep our daughter from me until he could have her. This was right after he crushed my tail-bone. Our daughter saw it all happen in front of her... after 18 years of marriage, my husband and I finally divorced. The Lord was with me me all that time, but I never realised it till years later. Once again I was learning, He never stops loving us. Tough lessons at times. (My daughter is now married with 4 children of her own... and I am grateful to the Lord for her.)
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I remember a high school friend, who grew up in a family of preachers, but had never accepted the Lord. On graduation day, I had asked her when she was going to ask the Lord into her heart. Boy, did I ever get it! "Don't ever ask me again, I will ask Him when I am good and ready." to this day, she has not come to the Lord, and has said that she and her dad were going to hell. I was shocked at her words, but have since learned that if the Lord does not knock at the door of our heart, we can not go to Him at 'our' will, we are not the ones to say when we can accept Him. It is He, that strives with us... and He says that He will not always strive with man. He does stop knocking at our heart's door after a time of being turned away. I never wanted Him to turn away from me ever. I love the Lord God Almighty. Several years passed after high school. My friends daddy offered her $1500.00 NOT to marry a man she was engaged to. He was known as "all hands" in high school. I was to get to know him all too well. Please, never forget that Satan is seeking whom he can devour! I was on his hit list and not aware of it. This high school friend of mine did marry the man. About the same time my husband had crushed my tail bone, this girl asked me to run with her husband to see if I could change him. He was a con artist, one of the very best, and conned me right into Satan's web. He used me as a prositute and did all he could to get money at my expense. He had me take money from churches, so he could go to the horse track each night, feeding me 1 hotdog for the whole day, and forcing me to wear short dresses, to go up and down the bleachers to get his winnings, every night for 8 years.
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He was also a timber buyer, and I learned the trade. I had saved a quarter of a million dollars, but in one day he had thrown it all away, betting at the race track. I was in bondage to him. My mother, bless her heart, prayed 8 years for me, night and day, never once stopping. She stood in the gap for me... my father told her, ''leopards'' never change their spots''. But Jesus can! My mother told him ''get thee behind me Satan, the Lord told me that Her children were His and their children and their children's children!'' He promised her and she was claiming this promise. I did not know what my mother was all about, but I was not long in learning! She was a servant to the Most High God, in ALL her ways. I never met anyone like her. This man, abused me physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually. Whenever I called home, my mother asked me the same old question again, "Aren't you ready to come home?" But every time I tried to get away, I get beaten up. He used my head as a battering ram on a freezer handle, and he threw me against the car door opening so that I was wounded in the temple and ear. I lost both my sight and hearing on one side. I had a sexual disease that the Lord healed me of also. I was finally able to give him the slip at a motel. All of my posessions fit in 2 grocery bags, as he had sold everything else I owned. The motel owner helped me get away. My mother told me to ''go to a Spirit- filled church, and they would help me out. '' "What is a Spirit-filled church?", I asked. "A penticostal church." "What is that?" My father said, "Will you believe this is of the Lord, if you get free?" I said, "Well, yes, I will have to believe that this is the Lord if this happens."
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It happened! The pastor was such a man of God. He taught me if you break one commandment you have broken them all. And that, the Lord would take me just as I was. I thought I was the filthiest person alive, and did not deserve to be loved. How could the Lord love a filthy person like me? But He did and He does. He forgave all of my sins, and I never knew that the clean feeling could cover me again, like it did when I was 7 years old! Since that time I set about my parents home, getting a job 2 blocks away, saved my money and tips as a waitress. I spent all my extra time in my bedroom reading my Bible and using a concordance... Strongs, and a dictionary, and I wrote notebooks full of the Word. I used the Scriptures to learn and use in battles. I got to know the Lord like never before. But then I stepped right back from where I had escaped. That con man stole a diamond necklace, and he and his wife used me so much that I was in bondage again... but it was my fault! In less than 6 hours, I was his prisoner again, in the same town as my parents. I tried, in the middle of the night to call my parents on the telephone, but he tied me up with ropes, and kept me that way until we left the state. I ran away the first chance I got, and ran to the preacher that had taken me in the first time... and I was set free. My father would not allow me to come home unless I proved that I had changed. It was very difficult, and I ended up in jail for writing bad checks. I had been forced to write them. I was filled with hatred for men. I remember sitting in the hall waiting to face the judge, and watching all the shoes walk past me. I was ashamed, I was in a mess, and I knew I was in danger.
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I had befriended a gal in jail who had cleaning fluid poured into her food by another woman. They burned her with cigarettes, and stole all her clothes, she was left with only her underwear. The others in the jail did terrible things to her, and to the food that we were served. She was freed to go, and she thanked me for helping her. I was put in solitary confinement. My heart had gone out to her. I was in there for a bad thing, but there were others in there for far worse crimes. My life was threatened from that time on. One gal, (I will call her Pat), threatened me. She told me that when I was sent to the Indiana prison, I would be killed before I even got there. I did not know that the sheriff had been listening, and heard all she said and planned to do to me. He cameand got me, and told me that I was to be as sick as I could until he came in and got me, and that I was not to say anything to anyone in there. My cell was big enough for 10 women... but, we had 30. The next morning, I was so sick I rolled off my rubber mattress and onto the floor in a fetal position. The matron and the doctor came and got me, and I kept on until the sherrif came and took me out of the matron's office. Pat and her buddies were on their way to the prison at 5 am that morning. I was to go with them too, and I did not understand why I wasn't in the van with them. That is when the sheriff told me he had heard what Pat and her friends planned to do with me, and that I would not be going to prison, because she would have others help her kill me, one way or another!
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My mother and dad were praying and the Lord gave them the name of an attorney. They called the city I was in, and asked the operator for an attorney by that name. They spoke with him about my case, but he said that he was not a criminal lawyer. But he and his wife would pray about it. He called my parents back that night and told them that the Lord wanted him to take my case. So, the first time I saw this man was in that hallway, waiting to face the judge, while I watched that parade of shoes going past me. He asked for my name, and I said it was me. He told me about my parents contacting him to represent me, but that it was up to me. I was short with him, because I hated men by this time. Him... in his nice clothes, and smelling good, and he was greatly handsome... He had brought homemade cookies for me, and since he was not allowed to give them to me, he put them in his briefcase. As we sat in front of the sheriff's office window, with cameras in front of us, he slid cookies to me under the table. I was so hungry that I could not resist. Just as I started to eat one, the deputy caught me, and asked me to stand up and open my mouth. I swallowed that cookie whole, and showed him my empty mouth. He had the matron search me, (she knew that I was hiding cookies in my underwear, and did not check me there). I went back to the cell and thanked the Lord for the cookies.
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The judge was nice to me. He said that I was not the normal kind that was in there, and he felt that I had gotten caught up in something, not realizing it until it was too late. He was going to place all my crimes into one crime, and give me 14 years. But he would not let me serve them, but would put me on 4 years of probation, as long as I lived with my parents in Colorado. When I was in the cell, a christian group came often, but I always turned my back to them. I wanted nothing to do with them. But, your spiritual ears hear, even if your ears of flesh do not. I heard that Jesus loved... I did not want to hear it ever again. But Jesus kept it up until I broke down and let Him lead me to His lap. I heard and listened and craved His Words. From the time I was in Colorado. things changed with me. I became a whole new person in the Lord. The call of the Lord was on my mother in 3 different callings. and before she went hoime to be with the Lord she told me she had asked the Lord to put her mantle on me except to double it. He did, but I found out that my brother carries the same mantle too... my sister does not carry any part of the mantle my mother carried.. My mother was in the deliverence ministry for over 25 years.. and a phrophetess of the Lord too. It has been a different road to travel without my mother, but, she told me, I am not afraid for you as the Lord is NOT going to let you slip away ever again, and I will see you on the otherside when He calls you home too. I have searched high and low for a church that preached the same as I believed for a full 5 years.
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Two years ago, I found that church and the gifts of the Holy Spirit are alive in me. as long as I let them. I found out that the very Words we speak are either life or death.. and the people you run with are either of the Lord or not of the Lord and that if you have faith and trust the Lord with ALL YOUR HEART, NOT DOUBTING HE WILL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU NEED AND SOMETIMES WHAT YOU WANT. HE is my total source. He is all the world to me, I need no other. He is my ALL. He brings His people to me for friends.. and those I minister to... but SATAN IS STILL OUT THERE SEEKING WHOM HE MAY DESIRE. Thank you for listening. I pray you hear from the Lord too, and that you receive Him as He is the ONLY living way of life today, everyday. I never would be alive today with out Him. May the Lord Bless every one that reads this and call you closer to Him, to have Him live in you daily. HE IS VERY MUCH ALIVE TODAY AND EVERY DAY.
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