A testimony is gives credit to someone or something. This testimony, my testimony gives credit to God, for how he brought me to himself and what he has done in my life since then. I am telling my life as i remember it ( and some of what I've been told). It is not meant to hurt people who are important in my life, it is not meant to make people feel sorry for me. It is meant to give glory to God for the amazing things he has done for me and in me.
My Personal Testimony
My most vivid memory of my early childhood is being cold. Wearing my snow suit to bed and still being so cold that my bones ached. I was around four years old, my mom and I lived in a trailer without heat electricity, or running water. mom was struggling and our electricity had been turned off. Without electricity neither our furnace nor our well pump worked. We lived in Northwestern Pennsylvania, and the winters get below zero degrees.
As the school year started the next year and winter approached, my grandmother went to her lawyer to ask what she could do. He told her that he was a mandated reporter, and having this knowledge he was require to report the living conditions that I was in. He told her to file for custody and that he'd give her three days before he reported my mom to social services.
Now a days a strung out druggie can get her kids back by taking a few classes. My mom struggled to make ends meet, yet I would have been put into the foster care system and lost among the paper work.
Grandma got custody so I didn't lose my mom - at least not really. Mom, however, resented grandma for meddling. To Mom, Grandma stole me from her.
The next few years were a blur. I remember my brother Luke being born, I remember mom moving away. I don't remember the man i thought was my dad leaving. I was seven when he left, I was ten when I realized my friends had fathers, and I did not. I knew he wasn't dead, to me that meant he didn't want me.
Around this time Mom and Grandma were fighting a lot. I know now that that is normal for them, back then I thought it was my fault. I believed my father didn't want me and that I was a problem for the rest of my family. I hated myself - something I still struggle with.
At ten years old I found myself in a state of mind that is near inconceivable to me now. I wanted to die.
I had it planned. I would go to church, come home, grab my bag, and head to bowling (yes, I bowled on a league from age five to eighteen). I would hide the bag in the woods, and go bowl. Then I'd go hide in the woods, i wouldn't go home. I'd wait till morning when the train came through town, and just before it passed, i would jump in front of it. I was ten years old and suicidal.
That Sunday came, I hid a note where someone would find it when they cleaned out my stuff, and I left for church. That day was different though. My normal Sunday School teacher wasn't there, Mrs. Mook was sick that day. Instead we had Mrs. McGarvey (the pastor's wife). She taught us about Jesus' death on the cross. I remember her telling us that God loved us, and created us with a purpose. That God never made a mistake, and even though giving our lives to God wasn't a cure all for everything wrong in our lives, we could trust God to be with us through it.
Instead of going to childrens church I told Mrs. McGarvey that I wanted to know more about accepting Jesus as my savior. We talked, and the more we talked the more I knew, if nothing else I belonged with God. That morning I asked Jesus to come into my heart, I gave my life to God.
I'm not going to lie, things didn't get magically better and everything fell into place. But I can tell you I went home and unpacked my bag and tore up that letter. I also know that grandma must have noticed something in me because i began seeing the school psychologist twice a week.
Ms. P had a heart for kids from broken families, and I can not thank God enough for the short period of time she was in my life, it made a huge difference.
Things were still a struggle. I still didn't have my father, and mom and grandma still fought, sometimes bad enough that nuclear war seemed like a nice change of pace. But no matter what I knew God was there and that he loved me. I also knew that Grandma and Mom loved me too. God began to open my eyes to things that allowed me to stop blaming myself and the fact that I had been born wasn't the root of the problems.
Through high school i grew closer to God, and became more involved in church (something Grandma and i occasionally fought about). I was baptized at 18, a few months into my freshman year of college. I was so happy to have my Grandma attend my baptism (another sore spot for us).
I struggled to find a church to be involved in at college though. Finally in my sophomore year I found City Church of Connellesville (CCOC). The church was so alive and there was a large college age community there. I made friends, and started to get involved. Then things changed. During cell group ( a small group bible study) i mentioned that i would be moving home for the summer, i needed to get back on my feet financially, and i really felt that I needed to be home. I was told by my group leader that if the pastor didn't agree with it that it wasn't from. Basically telling me that the pastors will superseded God's will.
I knew this wasn't right and tried to ask the pastor about it. I don't know if he was busy and just couldn't be bothered with me or what but he neither confirmed nor denied this. I left that summer and never went back to that church. When I moved home, the only friends I heard from were the ones who had also left the church for similar experiences with un-biblical practices.
I knew God was still there, but i quit caring. I got very apathetic about my relationship with God. And though I knew God loved me, i started looking for love in other ways. I was never promiscuous in the way the secular world understands it, but i gave up the one gift I'd hoped to save for my husband; my body untouched by another man.
After finishing my bachelors degree I lived with a guy i was dating for almost a year. Then i moved out on my own after the relationship dissolved. I dated a couple more guys, but those relationships were never quite right. I knew I wasn't conducting my relationships the way God would have wanted. I started going to church again. And then in October of 2008 i began seeing a guy who was working to go back to school to become a youth pastor. We did good until November. We gave into temptation once, and I never saw him again after that due to schedules, we talked off and on through November. The beginning of December I realized I was pregnant. When I told him he asked to have some time to think about it, and we made a date to meet and talk after my doctors appointment to "confirm" my suspicions. The doctor confirmed my pregnancy, and he never showed for our date. When i returned home, there was a message on my answering machine, saying he'd fallen asleep. When i called back his phone was disconnected, and I never heard from him again.
I was scared. Having a child at that time hadn't been part of my plan, and i was terrified to tell my family. What would they think? How would they react? What about my friends at church? Or my church family back home? About a month after i found out, i broke down at YAM (a 18 y/o and up group at Allegheny Center Alliance Church in Pittsburgh). Juanita, a wonderful christian woman and friend, took me aside and we talked, and prayed. It was still months before I told anyone in my family. I wanted to tell them but could never find the words to even start.
I knew a few things. I needed to go home to be with my family. I didn't want to be alone in the city when my daughter was born, and that God still loved me. I prayed to God for forgiveness, and thanked him for the blessing of this child even though I'd sinned. A few weeks after I returned home i stood in front of my home church and told them that I was pregnant, that I knew God had forgiven me and asked them to do so too.
The outpouring of love was amazing. I could never thank those at Cochranton Christian Missionary Alliance enough. I felt God's love through them.
My daughter was born August 13th, 2009
In another amazing turn of events, on February 20th 2010 I learned that the man I had thought was my father, that I had finally gotten to meet when I was 21, was not my father. I have his last name, but that another man was in fact my father.
When he learned my mom was pregnant he'd wanted her to move south with him, he had to go, she chose not to and told him that I wasn't his. After a few years he decided he didn't believe her but at that point there was no way to find me.
Somehow they found each other on facebook and one year ago today we began talking. We had a DNA test done to confirm things, and Yes, he is my biological father.
In July of 2009 I was offered a teaching job at a private school here in Louisiana, and in August my daughter and I moved from Pennsylvania to Louisiana. Within a week I found a church where I knew I belonged, and within a month of moving I became a member of that church.
Life still isn't easy. I'm a single parent, private schools don't pay much, and a growing child costs money. But God always provides, and I know without a doubt that God loves me, and so does my whole family. God has brought me a long way from that ten year old child who thought everyone would be better off if she wasn't around.
I can't wait to see what God has planned next.
