Growing up my family went to church on Sunday. I was always around the things of God and prayer was part of our daily life. When I was in sixth grade a local church opened a Christian School, and since I had been getting in to trouble in public school my parents decided it was time for a change. Learning Bible on a daily basis and singing hymns in the choir I found myself under conviction. This God everyone speaks of.....I don't know him! I was saved in a Wednesday morning chapel service. I was baptized shortly there after, and all went well, for a while.
I begin to hang out with other kids in the school that were "cool" and soon I was off the straight and narrow on a long, bumpy road. I rebelled against my family, basically refusing to follow their rules and deceived them into believing that Christian school was not the place for me. In ninth grade I got my way, I went to public high school for the first time.
I met a guy that I was crazy mad nuts over. I'm not sure to this day if it was him I was infatuated with or the fact that my parents strongly disliked him. We dated for about two years and somehow I manage to talk my parents into letting me marry him at sixteen.
We had a beautiful baby boy together when we were nineteen, but something was missing. We had always dabbled in the drug and alcohol world, and I began to find gaps in the stories he told me about where he was going and when he would be back. Pornography and other things I didn't approve of began turning up under my bed and hidden in the closet. He would be out late without much explanation, and then came the affair with the woman at work. One day I had had enough. I waited for him to be gone to school one day and I loaded up my car with what I could carry and my son, of course, and moved back in with my parents.
Fast forward three years-I had a good job at the local prison as a nurse, a few great friends and my son. I was lonely though and my life seemed to be missing something. I joined an online dating community. I received a message one day from a guy, it was short and sweet. Soon after that we met and from then on we were inseparable. He loved my son like he was his own! I knew I had found the one, we moved in together after only a two month romance.
I had no intentions of ever marrying again. Why go through all that heartache and money spent for something that would inevitably fail? A few months later my mother began to get sick. She was falling a lot and she needed help around the house. My father told me that if John and I would get married he would leave us their home when they passed away. In exchange we would move in and help him take care of mom. So we made plans for a wedding.
A year and half later we discovered we were expecting. We were thrilled and a little nervous. My oldest was now seven and would be eight when baby came. My sister in law soon found out she was expecting too- we were due just weeks apart. So we planned and picked out names and bought baby clothes together. We attended each others showers and we were each others support system during these pregnancies. In late October our son was born and in early November my nephew was born. How wonderful! They would grow up and be like brothers!
One morning when my baby was about eight weeks old I was taking baby to a check up and I received a frantic phone call from my sister in law. Her baby had passed away in the night....What...Wait a minute? How does that happen? Our family was stricken with grief.
Days and weeks passed, and I began to search for answers. I found myself wondering why God takes some and leaves others. I began to cry out for answers, and when I hit my knees with a broken heart I began to find them. My heart was burdened with conviction to get my life in order, make right with our Almighty God, and be thankful for the blessings I had in my life.
I began to visit my parents little church with my little family. My husband went along reluctantly, he had been seeing what was going on in my own heart and life and he felt compelled to tag along for me. Low and behold, God had bigger plans. One Sunday morning after a message on Hell my husband whispered to me, "I think I need to go." I looked over at him and he was nodding toward the altar. I instantly fell to my seat, face in my hands, crying out thanks to God. He had heard my prayers, and answered them!
Life hasn't been the same since, it's not perfect by any means, but we are trying to live and raise our kids in the right way.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. Ecclesiastes 9:10
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