the following is my testimony, my sworn and truthful statement, of how god in all his sovereignty snatched me out of the pit of hell and the darkness of this world and set my feet on firm rock to do his purposes for his glory. all credit in this testimony goes completely to god. it is all his doing and his saving power.

i grew up in an average home with an average family in a suburb of chicago. i attended catholic church with my mom and eventually fell away completely from the church. i would tell my mom i was going to church but instead i would take the offering money and go buy candy and ride my bike around for an hour until service was over, stopping only briefly to pick up a bulletin to bring home to my mom. while i was a “great kid” in public getting excellent grades and showing outstanding leadership, secretly i was stealing from stores, vandalizing garages, beating up kids and sneaking out of school.

this behavior continued unnoticed or caught and in my high school years as i continued to excel in academics and leadership i also began to drink heavily, smoke pot and get sexually active. i also did such regrettable things as throwing eggs at people out of car windows, burying people’s car keys in a field of snow, breaking into locked buildings to party and stuff like that. its all pretty pathetic in retrospect. but that was who i was.

i continued on to “prestigious” northwestern university where i began my pre-med studies. the first year i was there i got raped on campus by someone i knew. this started me on a rapidly descending spiral though even then i did not hit rock bottom. i did report the crime to the authorities but pressed no charges and told no-one. at this point i was so far removed from the church and hadn’t attended in years except for christmas and easter of course

i wandered into the campus church one night only to leave empty and more discouraged than ever. i felt completely alone, could trust no one, never heard anyone say “i love you” to me (except the guy who raped me ironically) and was completely numb to any feeling what so ever.

i stayed at school and tried to press through. i took only three classes the next quarter , one on religious studies. i took it pass or fail and failed! so much for my great academic ability. in fact, a funny part of this story is that my assignment for the course was to read the book of job and i didn’t even know it was a book of the bible. i had a bible in my room but never opened it. i would wait at the reading library for two hours to read the photocopy of job. how true that our eyes are blind!

well, i continued in a state of isolation and depression and found myself in the hospital twice with alcohol poisoning. i also tried to overdose and kill myself and in reality, succeeded. my heart monitor at the er went completely flat and they had to revive me. at the time i saw a small speck of light and when i “came to” i grabbed the nurse by the collar and whipped her down in front of myself on the stretcher and said “don’t let me die”. well, i know now that my cry was to god, not the nurse, and he graciously decided to save me. but i still didn’t follow him. i still was blind.

i began to date different men and at one point found myself pregnant. i didn’t want to be of course and so i secretly had an abortion. i continued to plow my way through life, still drinking, still partying, still miserable and alone on the inside.

one morning after driving home from visiting a friend at her college, my car hit some “black ice” on the highway and i spun out of control into the center cement median. my car was totaled yet i was unharmed. i was completely sore and bruised but no lasting damage or broken bones. i remember praying right before impact. but nothing changed.

i began chiropractic college and was still depressed. i was frustrated because i now knew that i didn’t want to kill myself but i couldn’t stand the pain of living. i was diagnosed with cervical cancer and told that i may not be able to carry children in the future because my womb would be too weak. i also learned that the cervical cancer was due to a virus that i had contracted by the man who raped me. i had to go through a few disgusting doctors until i finally found a woman gynecologist who had some degree of “class and professionalism”. i then had to go through surgery alone with no one who cared, not even my family.

i was so lost, so desperate, so confused and so unwilling to admit it. i had no one to talk to and didn’t want to talk to anyone. life was a mess, a hassle and there was no point to living it. i would get on my bike sometimes at 2 or even 3 in the morning and just start to ride for hours. not caring where i was going, only knowing that i was going somewhere other than where i was. it was awful. i had no peace and yet, everyone probably thought i had it all together

i guess the lord decided that i was softened enough to mold because it was at this point that i decided to ditch school for the day and head on out to an outdoor mall. i wandered into a bookstore and searched the “religion shelves”. by god’s sovereign hand (but unknown to me) he led me to mere christianity by c.s.lewis.

i bought the book and sat outside and read the entire thing cover to cover before returning home. i liked it. i really liked it and i wanted more. i asked a guy on campus if there were “any other books like that out there” and he smiled and said there were. the next week he took me to a bill gothard seminar called basic youth conflicts. i don’t know how, but i even managed to make it through that whole week without giving my life to christ.

later on campus, another guy asked me if i had ever prayed the sinner’s prayer. i said no, but listened to what he had to say. later that night i got down on my knees alongside my bed and crying my heart out told god that if he even wanted my life he could have it. that i had no clue what to do and everything i did led to disaster. i wasn’t sure that he would even want me but if he did he could have me fully and completely. i would get out of his way and let him work. i also asked to be forgiven and to be made clean.

well, a lot has happened since then and it wasn’t all “suddenly”. i still stayed depressed but now had some sort of hope through it all. i began to get help , i began to talk about what had happened and i began to heal. i still didn’t have a church but kept searching. i finally found a seeker sensitive bible believing church plant that spoke to me right where i was at and taught me about the personal relationship i could have with christ.

i still dated men but decided to date only believers. i still drank alcohol but no longer got drunk as often and eventually did not get drunk at all. i still listened to pop music and went to nightclubs but also started listening to twila paris and keith green and began to take walks at night. god was moving, he was changing me, he was healing me and i was letting him.

one night, shortly into my new life as a believer i attended a fund raising event for our college. the main “guest” was a hypnotist. i wanted nothing to do with the hypnotist but was willing to sit in the crowd and watch the “amazing things” that seemed to be happening. at one point the guy said that he wanted to have us do a “relaxation exercise”, that this was not a mass hypnotism or anything and that he was going to stay on stage and talk us through it. he proceeded to do that and i played along. at the point where we were supposed to reach pure relaxation i felt a smack across my shoulders and back. he had come off the stage, picked me out of the crowd, and decided to show the audience “shock hypnotism”. i was hypnotized and was aware of it but couldn’t do anything about it. it was like i was drowning or something, completely aware of what was going on but no ability to stop it. my heart was racing seriously about 150 beats per minute, my whole body was ice cold and my face and mouth were tingling and my legs were numb. i could hear him talking and “teaching” the audience and everybody laughing and oohing and aahing. and there i sat in my chair trying desperately to break free. i remember turning to my boyfriend at the time (who is now my husband) and stuttering out fragments of words make him stop, make him stop. i think my boyfriend finally did tell the guy because then he hit me again and i was “out of it” yet still left with all the yuckiness of it all. i got up and ran out of the building only to be stopped by the son of the hypnotist who said to me “nobody can be hypnotized unless they want to- this wouldn’t have happened to you unless you wanted it to”. i was horrified, offended and hurt. i felt like i had just been raped again, only worse. this one was deeper and though i didn’t know it at the time, i now know that it was a “spiritual rape” of sorts and it completely wrecked me and set me back in a major way.

i spent the next 12-18 hrs. in a fetal position ball underneath my kitchen table. i wouldn’t talk to anyone, i was closed off completely. when my boyfriend came to see how i was all he could do was sit on the couch and be in the same room with me. i wouldn’t let anyone touch me. it was the hypnotists touch (whack) that had started this and now that was no longer an option.

eventually, god was faithful to his newly saved sheep and he led me out of this destruction and into the church. i began to learn first hand about the powers of darkness and i had my first revelation in christ.

suddenly, almost out of nowhere, i realized that god must have an awesome plan for my life if the devil is trying this hard to keep me from it. that became my motivation and my hope.

i ended up marrying that boyfriend and we both graduated as doctors from chiropractic college. we moved to wisconsin to start our practice from scratch and we got hooked up with a fun northern baptist church. we learned the word of god in a powerful way and every part of me that was ever empty or hurt or disappointed began to get filled, healed and hopeful. i fell in love with god’s word and began to fall in love with him too.

i have now been a christian for 19 years. i am 41 years old. i am married and have two beautiful and healthy children! i have no cancer in my body and this year i was healed of many of my allergies! i was baptized in the holy spirit 5 years ago and am 100% head over heals in love with my jesus! i will lay down everything and anything for him. my motto in christ is whatever, whenever, wherever!

everything in my life has come to me by his love and graciousness. he has fully healed me and set me free. my passion is to let others know that they too can get in on this. that he is not a respecter of persons but if he did it for me, he can do it for you!

god has transformed me into his warrior bride. he has revealed his love to me. he has overwhelmed me with his love! oh, the power of his love!

my god verse that he spoke to me himself is isaiah 61. “the spirit of the sovereign lord is on me, for he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our god, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in zion- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair”.

that is my one desire; to walk out my destiny. i will not be held back, for his sake, i cannot be held back. he is for me, not against me. he is on my side. together we will go forward and change this world for christ!!!!!