My Testimony Part I

I've been thinking about sharing my testimony. I decided that since it's hard for me to keep this story short, I will do it in parts. Hopefully I can keep it to two parts. It may be long because I was thirty years old when I became a Christian.

I'll start with my childhood. My family was a church going family and we were good citizens. My parents worked hard and did their best to raise us right. There was a major life changing event for me about age 7 or 8. I have blocked it out for many years so I cannot recall times and ages. I have forgiven the person who sinned against me and have taken many years to mend.

I was always a people pleaser and I lacked confidence. I responded well to discipline, but as I entered high school I became somewhat rebellious. Junior high was difficult for me. I hung out with girls who smoked, but I didn't. I was a target for teasing and bullying. I didn't know how to handle this and did not tell anyone because I didn't want it to get worse as a result of being a tattle tale.

When it was time for high school, there was a new school being completed. One of my friends from my homeroom class talked me into going to the new school. I assumed we would become fast friends and hang out during the summer. We never spent one day together even though I made several attempts to get together with her. She always said her dad wouldn't allow whatever I invited her to do. I gave up, but still hoped to see her on the first day of school.

I didn't see her and I didn't recognize her when she walked right past me. She knew who I was and didn't say a word. I didn't know who she was until I passed her because she had matured a lot during that summer and she got her hair, which was very long in junior high, cut very short. I called out her name, she acknowledged me at that point, but didn't want talk much. She was a cheerleader now. Nothing against cheerleaders. I liked cheerleaders and admired them for many reasons.

That sweet and kind girl I knew all through junior high had decided she was too good for me and never spoke to me again. You could say I had placed all of my eggs in one basket hoping this girl would be my friend. I depended on other people to keep me happy and entertain me and invite me and ask me to be their friend. I was bad at choosing friends (I let them choose me). I trusted the wrong people and often wound up getting hurt, not to mention I was easily offended and hurt.

I met one of my forever friends that year though. Even though I hung out with the wrong people most of the time (she did too), we were pretty good kids when we hung out together. Neither of us was a Christian, but we both went to church, we enjoyed going to Campus Life meetings and we both came from good families.

I thought her family was okay until I heard the truth many years later, but that's another story. Today we are both Christians and happily married with children and still good friends.

I didn't do well at the new high school, so the next two years I went to the school I was closest too, had a lot of fun with a new group of friends (my old friend included) and graduated, but not with any honors. Just glad to have graduated.

I did a lot of stupid things and had a lot of close calls with life changing, bad decisions or lack of making a decision. For some reason I didn't get into any big trouble. I always managed to have a near miss. Probably the reason for me to continue on a downward spiral of bigger and bigger bad choices. Still nothing took me to rock bottom.

I went to college, but got married before I finished to a guy from high school at age 22. He was in the Navy Seal Team. I didn't know what that meant and boy was I surprised to learn quickly that drinking was more important than going home to a wife.

We had a difficult time for several years, but we managed to stay married and I think it was because he deployed so often that I would forget how mad I was at him by the time he returned. When he was home I didn't want to rock the boat so I tried to just go with the flow.

I didn't go to church very often, but I kept trying. I left once when he refused to ask his friend to move out of our house so we could work on our relationship more. I came back about two months later much to his disliking. We lived in a renovated garage we called "the cave" until we moved to the dump behind it in the alley.

I went in the Navy at age 24 thinking I wouldn't be able to quit a job like that and I could make a good paycheck and have my own benefits. I had worked in fast food places, a swap meet, and a video arcade (where I was accused of stealing the money from the night before. I wouldn't have gone to work the next day if I had stolen the whole night's income) and I was a warm body in a computer store for awhile. That was a joke. I knew absolutely NOTHING about computers or software.

I will stop here for now. In summary, it's about 1982,I'm about 24 years old and I live in a dump in an alley. I'm married to a guy in the Navy Seal team who has a serious drinking problem and didn't want me, his wife, to be in his life, but I was too naive to know it. Sounds like a sad story and it gets worse, but I'm here to tell you, it gets much better, believe me.