The Story of The Girl

I thought it was well time I told my full life story or testimony.

I've left out important details on here before mostly because I was ashamed of things like my parents being divorced. But I am not ashamed of the life the Lord saved, so here it goes:

My father was a missionary who never graduated college but felt the calling to move to Africa. My mother was a Jewish girl in nursing school. They met while Dad visited New York, where Mom was at college. They married 9 months after meeting and moved to Africa. There my sister Emily and my brother Jeremy were born. After J's birth they talked about moving back to the states because my father was suffering back health problems. On the way, Dad got really sick and they were stuck in Europe and he ended up recovering in Romania. There, I was born.

I had two younger siblings--Josh and Rachael--while living in Europe. I spent a lot of my early childhood doing missions and working in a hospital with Mom in Romania until me finally moved back to the states so we could go to public school. I was in 1st grade. We moved about twice every year (pretty much to wherever Dad could get a job) and I was a pretty lonely little girl. My Dad and Mom divorced when I was nine, which broke my heart to pieces. Along with that I'd grown up around a lot of death in the hospital in Romania and moving around often I was told, "Nothing ever lasts." I was bitter, disbelieving, and burring inside. Especially when my mom remarried a year later. Later on she would have Willie, my youngest brother.

Without my Dad, I sadly never heard the gospel much growing up.

One big part of my life was my sister who was not seeking the Lord at that point. She was very involved in relationships with boys even at the age of 14. Emily was and still is the beauty of the family and could easily get someone to get out with her or to sleep with her. I didn't understand all this at the time, but I did understand some when Emily got pregnant one week after her 16th birthday. I wanted to keep it and persuaded Emily to keep the child. She did and named him Calvin. To this day he is a blessing.

When Emily was almost 18 (trust me...there's a point in telling you all this) she went to a retreat and were able to hear the Gospel for the first time and Em was saved. I saw a radical change in her life, from breaking up with her boyfriend, to the way she treated our family, to the way she mothered her son. It made me wonder.

I was 13 and Emily kept sharing the Gospel with me. But I didn't listen and continued to live for myself. She made me go to Church one Sunday. Then she made me go to a youth retreat with her. I did because I couldn't help desiring what Em had. One of the nights I suddenly felt a deep burden of guilt I could not describe. I felt a fire and a rushing wind upon my back and I was shaking in fear. For the first time, I was certain there was a God but I knew I was not worthy of Him. The next day I told Emily this and once more she shared the Good News with me. I was overwhelmed and cried. That night I called upon His mighty name to wash my new with the blood.

I couldn't believe He would be kind to me, a sinner. He would die for me, a sinner. For I had broken almost all of God's law. I was a girl of morals growing up and taught that "If I was good, good things came." But the truth was I to be eternally damned to hell and eternal suffering. I was dead in my sin. I was simply a thing of this world to fade away. I, along with all, deserve hell.
But God, being rich in mercy called me to be a disciple of him. I was naked but he clothed me in righteousness and I now I follow him with all of me.

It's been 5 and half  years since that day when the Lord called me to be His. And I have been through a lot since but everyday my joy of Christ my Lord been as great. Because He loves me I want to live the rest of my life porclaiming to others this love. Oh, that I, a sinner may cry Hallelujah! What kind of a love is this?