Welcome! My name is Debbie......I've been a Christian since I was 20 years old (31 years now.)
Jesus is my Lord and Savior. I would live to share my story........................
John 8:32 "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free"
Truth is the revelation of God's Word......we need to acknowledge that truth in our inner self.
Faith is the biblical response to the truth.......and believing the truth is a choice.
My Testimony
"Lend me your hope for awhile, I seem to have mislaid mine. Lost and hopeless feelings accompany me daily, pain and confusion are my companions. I see troubled time, pain filled days, and more tragedy.
Lend me your hope for awhile, I seem to have mislaid mine. Hold my hand and hug me, listen to all my ramblings, recovery seems so far distant. The road to healing seems like a long and lonely one.
Lend me your hope for awhile, I seem to have mislaid mine. Stand by me, offer me your presence, your heart and your hope. Acknowledge my pain, it is so real and ever present. I am overwhelmed with sad and conflicting thoughts.
Lend me your hope for awhile, a time will come when I will heal, and I will share my renewal, hope and love with others."
(Taken from Neil T. Anderson ~ Victory Over The Darkness)
.............................awhile back, this was me.
As I already mentioned above, I became a Christian when I was 20 years old. I was working in a Dry Cleaners....my boss was a Christian.
He really didn't say much.....but, he was "different". He was one of the kindest, thoughtfullest, gentlest people that I had ever known.
I watched him for acouple of years....then, finally I started to ask questions.
He then shared his faith in the Lord with me.
I was fasinated...I wanted to know more. He bought me a Bible, and told me to start reading it in the book of John.
So, I did. I could not get enough! I just kept wanting to know more........
I can't really remember how long it was.......but, I remember sitting in a chair on our porch, reading the bible.....and suddenly this "feeling" that I had never known or experienced before came upon me.
It was just so very beautiful!!! I remember it as much today as if it were yesterday.
I was a totally different person.......I had just so much peace and contentment within me.
I was a different person from that time on.........
Harold (my boss) attended a men's BSF.....and he got the information for the Young Adults BSF (BSF is Bible Study Fellowship). He then asked me if I would be interested in going to a introductory class. I was.....so, I went to it.
I attended the whole 5 year program.
After that......I met my husband. We met on a mixed bowling league. We dated for awhile......then we were married.
Our first couple of years of marriage were great! We both had our own daily prayer and bible reading time......and we also had a daily prayer time together.
Then we had our first child, our son Major.
Before I really knew what was happening......I found that our daily prayer time together was not as "daily". As more time went on.....it ended all together.
It was the same thing with my own personal daily time with the Lord.
Being a mommy just seemed to kindof take up too much of my time.....lack of sleep, over-whelmness, etc.
Soon I found myself not reading or praying at all.
As years went on.....our marriage grew more and more apart. He was always very critical of me...I could never do anything right. He was always crabby with me. When he was mad he would swear at me and call me names. He had the attitude that he worked his job...so his off work time was his. Leave him alone...handle everything else.
Our son had (still does) major behavioral problems...so that added to our problems.
We did not have awhole lot in common with each other anymore. He led his life, and I seemed to lead a different one too.
We saw less and less of each other, our communication with each other was "none".
Money was terribly tight.....to say the least. I found myself drawing money out from our credit cards to buy food, then pay bills, then to cover checks that had been written......and so on and so on.......
All the time doing this without telling my husband what I was doing.
It got to the point where I was afraid to tell him what I was doing. Hey....I could handle it.......
Yeah right........I soon found myself in so much debt that I did not know if I was coming or going!
We got behind in everything.....all our bills. Then the house payments, etc. Soon checks were bouncing......and on and on.
Phone calls were coming.....several aday. Threating letters were coming.....etc. (All this still without my husband knowing.)
I became a prisoner in my own home. Afraid to go out of the house for fear that the phone would ring. I MADE sure that I was the one to always get the mail.
This went on and on.
I was just so miserable!! It all just seemed so terribly hopeless and I was just so trapped! I walked around with this black cloud hanging over me all the time, and this horrible heavyness.
By this point, I was terrified to tell my husband.........
And the thoughts that were constantly going thru my mind....desparation....death was the only way out.
Then, our second child came....our daughter Feather.
Well....I had a family.....they could take care of my children............
I started to "make plans".
Then, one day I found this flyer on my door from a church that was just down afew blocks from our house. It was for a Womens Bible Study...called "Spice of Life" (Minnehaha Baptist Church). It said that they met once aweek, in the mornings, and they had child care. (Our son was in morning Kindergarden now, and our daughter was just afew months old. But, the flyer said that they provided child care for all ages, even infants.)
It also said that they met for one and ahalf hours each week, the first 45 minutes was the bible study, and the second 45 minutes was doing crafts (I love to do crafts.)
I decided to try it out.
The ladies were so nice.....and they went out of their way to welcome me, and make me feel comfortable. I enjoyed my first visit there.
So, I kept going back........(each week that I went, there were horrible thoughts going thru my head.....you don't belong here, you're not like these people, you're different, you have no business being here, etc.)
But.......I kept going back.....week after week. There was just something that kept drawing me back.
The more I went, the more people I began to meet. And then I started to attend their Sunday morning service. Boy....did that cause greif with my husband! (Bible Study there was bad enough....not church, etc. etc.)
I heard about a weekly evening program that was going to be held at the minister's home. It was just a casual meeting...fellowship only. I started going to that (more grief)
Pretty soon after several weeks, the minister brought out this book called "Victory over the Darkness"....by Neil T. Anderson.
I read the back of the book to see what it said about it.......I needed to read it!!
They borrowed it to me.......WOW! It was like reading about me!
It was about Christians who falter in their faith.....and satan gets em. How satan can destroy you.....without you even knowing it. The thoughts, etc......all things that "were me".
Here are just afew of the sayings that are in the book: If you have received Christ as your personal Savior, He has set you free through His victory over sin and death on the cross..
If you are not experiencing freedom, it may be because you have not stood firm in the faith or actively taken your place in Christ.
It is the Christian's responsibility to do whatever is necessary to maintain a right relationship with God.
Your eternal destiny is not at stake, you are secure in Christ. But your daily victory is at stake if you fail to claim and maintain your position in Christ.
You are not the helpless victim caught between two nearly equal but opposite heavenly super-powers. Satan is a deceiver!
Only God is all powerful, always present, and all knowing.
Sometimes the reality of sin and the presence of evil may seem more real than the presence of God, but that's part of satan's deception.
Satan is a defeated foe, and we are in Christ.
A true knowledge of God and our identity in Christ are the greatest determinants of our mental health. A false concept of God, a distorted understanding of who we are as children of God, and the misplaced deification of satan (attributing God's attributes to satan) are the greatest contributors to mental health/illness.
The battle is for your mind. The only way you can lose control is if you pay attention to a deceiving spirit and believe a lie. The opposing thoughts that you may experience can control you only if you believe them.
The battle for your mind can only be won as you personally CHOOSE TRUTH. God's truth!
In addition to false teachers, false prophets, and deceiving spirits, you can also deceive yourself.
Choosing the truth may be difficult if you have been living a lie (been deceived) for many years.
When someone says, I want to believe God, but I just can't....they are being deceived. Of course you can believe God. Faith is something you decide to do, not something you feel like doing. Believing the truth doesn't make it ture. It's true, therefore we believe it.
It's what, or whom you believe in that counts. Everybody believes in something, and everybody walks by faith according to what he or she believes. But if what you believe isn't true, then how you live (walk by faith) won't be right.
Satan will try to convince you that you are an unworthy, unacceptable, sin-sick person who will never amount to anything in God's eyes. That's a LIE! Satan is the father of lies!
Don't believe anything satan says about you, it's a lie.
Believe everything God says about you, it's the truth which will set you free.
I then went on to read Neil's second book....."The Bondage Breaker".
FANTASTIC!!!! I could quote more from this book too......but......
Anyway....I knew I had to go thru the steps to freedom. I set it up with my minister, another minister and a good friend whom I made thru the church (we're still good friends).
We spent one whole morning going thru the steps to freedom in Christ. I confessed all my sins, thoughts, actions, feelings, etc. I forgave alot of people, including myself.
I renounced satan from my life and all my sins that morning.
When it was over......I knew I had been forgiven and cleansed by Christ. I had a renewed relationship with my Lord......fellowship with Him was restored. The day was December 18th, 1992
But........I still had to go home to the same life. And...there was still the issue of the credit cards, our financal state, my deceiving my husband, etc.
I knew I had to tell John....but, I just could not. I just couldn't do it......not yet anyway......
One week later.....my sister was murdered. Boy...talk about devastation and tearing my family up! It was horrible.
The morning it happened (the day after Christmas).....my mom was over at our house. We were sitting in the kitchen when the phone rang. The minute the phone started to ring, I felt this incredible calmness come over me.
It was my nephew (my sister's first born son) on the phone, my sister had just been shot in the head by a man she was taking to a treatment center. (She was a counselor for the chemically dependent) She was still alive, but her condition was critical.
He was coming over to pick up my mom (whom was screaming & crying)
Within minutes he was over at our house.......the phone rang again.....she was dead.
Standing there between the two of them (full of clamness)....Phillippians 4:7 "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus"
My nephew went down....my mom also. All I could do was try to console both of them.
The days to come were not easy.....to say the least. The funeral was extremely hard.
(The members of the church were fantastic.....they all prayed for us....brought food over to us.....some attended the funeral, etc.)
My whole family still today suffers from this.
O.K.......
To go on, I still had not told my husband John what I had done.....and what I had gotten us into. I wanted to tell him, I really did.....I just couldn't. I was not able to get myself to tell him.
I prayed and prayed....cried to God to help me in this. I knew it was God's will for me to tell him.
In Feb. of 1993...our church heard that Neil T. Anderson was coming to the cities in April for a week long seminar. His "Freedom in Christ Ministries".
So, plans were made to attend it.
It ran from Sunday evening thru the following Saturday. Sunday thru Friday it was held in the evening. On Saturday, the last day, it was an all day long event.
So....each evening before leaving, I would turn the ringer on our phone off. And...off I went.
It was just so fantastic!!! I could relate to so much of it! I learned and grew more in the Lord.
Then Saturday came. That was going to be alittle tougher.
I again turned off the ringer on the phone....all the bills and threatening letters were well hid.....and, I "thought" that all of the mail that I did not want to come would not come at this late time of the month.
I left early that morning....the seminar was great! It was our personal "freedom" day. We all confessed our sins, renounced our sins, renounced satan from our lives, asked God's forgiveness & cleansing, etc.
When it was over......I joyfully went home.
Well.....lo and behold.....every bill, every threatening letter, everything that could possibly come....came! It did not take me long to realize what had happened when I got there.
The screen door was locked (first clue)....then....this crazed, completely out of control, screaming madman met me at the door.
(At that point...the "old" me would of taken off running down the street faster than my legs could run)
But, instead.....it was COMPLETE total surrenderance to the Lord. I closed my eyes and said to the Lord....O.K. Lord, this is yours. I CANNOT handle this, I can't do it without you. Your will be done.....your way be done.
I totally gave myself...and my care & protection to God. (There must of been angels standing in that door to keep John inside.)
A small quiet voice inside whispered....sit down. And.....that fantastic calmness again! I sat there for I don't know how long while John screamed at me, called me every swear name you could think of, you name it...he said it, saying he was going to kill me, etc. All the while all the neighbors were looking out their windows and doors.
But.....you know what? I was set free that day! It truely was a "freedom in Christ" day. Satan's strong hold on me was at long last broken...........
I sat there and felt all the chains fall off of me....the black clouds dissolved away.... for the first time in I do not know how long.....I was free. It was all out in the open finally!!
Jesus defeated satan in my life that day. Jesus crushed satan. Jesus set me free! Jesus loved me with a love I never knew could be such a love.
There was no more fear inside me.......there was faith inside me.
In the days and months to follow......it was not easy. It was hard....real hard. But, I was no longer alone, Jesus was with me all the way.
John suggested that we go to our bank and see if we could get some help, consolidate our bills......(something I never thought clearly enough before that to think of.) So, we did. They were able to help us alot.
John was not real nice to me for along, long time.....but, he never so much as raised a hand to me. And, he stayed with me.
It was along road back to recovery in our marraige. It took years. I totally crushed his trust in me.....I deceived him for many years.
I asked his forgiveness.......and it took along,long time.....but, he has forgiven me now. In 1995 we moved from Mpls, MN. to Waite Park, MN.
Today.......in 2006
Our son is now 17 years old, our daughter is now 13 years old. In 2000, John gave his life to the Lord...asking the Lord into his life and heart. God has restored our marriage......better than ever. We now have open communication with each other, bills are out in the open, everything is! We discuss things together now....make decisions together. He says that he now trusts me again...and, I feel he does. (I wanted him to handle the bills, but now he won't, he wants me to......believe it or not!)
I'm not saying that our marraige is a bed of roses now......because it's not. We still have problems and conflicts...money is still tight.
But.....things are handled in a whole new way now!!
Since John has become a Christian...I've seen a "new creation". He is a totally different person now. He is no longer critical of me. He is involved with all of our family affairs. He is a father to our children. He is continually growing in the Lord.
Our son gave his life/heart to the Lord in May 2005
Our daughter has always followed the Lord...having given her life/heart to the Lord at a very young age.
I Thank and I Praise the Lord for what He has done in our lives, and is continuing to do!
Our son's behavior WAS another "big issue". Something that I needed to work on all the time.
It was a real big struggle.
I found myself many times falling back into the wrong thoughts and patterns in this area.
I needed to constantly go back over all this stuff to get my thinking and behavior back on the right track.
(Note: since our son has given his life to the Lord, his behavior has changed considerably! He's a totally different person now.)
Please visit my site
Dealing With Behavioral Problems...God's Way
Are you hurting? Need someone to talk to? Please, please e-mail me.... Debbie
Have you faltered in your faith? You are not alone! Jesus loves you just as much as He loves me......He held onto me, and brought me back to Him......He will do the same for you. Jesus loves you.
Maybe you have not met Jesus yet........
He's right where you are......ready for you. No matter where you are in life....no matter what you have done in life.
ASK Him into your heart & life.
