Posted on 03/14/2021 9:14:07 AM PDT by .30Carbine
In the fall of my 29th year I was married to my second husband. He was a mechanic at a local car dealership, which was handy because I worked as a part-time rural mail carrier and my 2 vehicles often needed repairs. I also worked nights at two different jobs; one was at the neighborhood country store, and one was as a bartender at a mid-range restaurant, known for its beer selection, in the same town where my husband worked.
The restaurant policy was to give the workers a free shift drink at the end of the night. One night my husband came back into town to have a drink with me there, and then we went out to a couple of other bars. By the end of the evening we were pretty toasted, and we landed in the seediest dive around, a pool joint, at closing time.
My husband had a tendency to change personality when he drank. The drunker he got, the meaner he became. We had been married about 4 years; I had noticed his rages accelerating, but he had never hit me.
At last call I turned from the pool table where a couple of other guys were talking to me, to look for my husband bent over his beer on a bar stool. He wasn't there. His jacket was gone, too. I asked the bartender if he knew where my husband had gone.
"He went to get the car, I guess," he said. Well, I knew that could not be the case, as both of us had cars parked very nearby, being that this bar was across the street from where my job was. I started to feel a little nervous then. I got my things and headed out to the parking lot. It was somewhere between 2 and 3am.
My husband's vehicle was nowhere in sight, but as I unlocked my car, got in, and started it up, I heard the squeal of tires coming around the corner onto Main Street. It was him, and I knew I was in for an argument, probably about the two guys I had been talking to at the pool table. I headed out onto Main Street and turned left toward home. My husband pulled right up onto my bumper. We never should have been behind the wheel at all, and it was (in hindsight) a miracle that we both survived the trip home.
The fight started in the driveway. Our neighbor's house about a hundred yards away was dark and quiet. My husband followed me into the house where the screaming and finger pointing continued. I argued back, protesting my innocence. It only enraged him more. I was afraid that this time he was going to hit me. I thought for sure if he started hitting me, in the condition he was in, he would never stop.
My dad, it suddenly occurred to me, would be up, watching the Turner Black and White Movie Channel about then. I often called him before I went to work at the P.O. early in the morning. I staggered over to the phone, which in those days was hanging on the wall (this was way before cell phones).
I was barely able to make out the numbers on the dial I was so drunk. My husband continued to scream in my face. He suddenly reached out and ripped the entire phone off the wall! He threw it across the room. It jangled and burst into pieces. I was in absolute terror for my life.
My dad had raised me to know how to shoot. Both my husband and I had guns hanging on a rack in the living room, with the ammo stored separately but nearby. I went for my .30 carbine and its clip, which had 10 rounds in it. I was so drunk that I could not line up the clip with the well of the magazine to load the gun. While I was struggling with it, my husband tore it out of my hands.
I turned and ran for the front door as fast as I could. I made it off the deck and down the seven steps before I fell, landing on my hands and knees in the dew-covered grass in the front yard. I was crying and screaming. My husband followed me out and walked down the steps. I heard his work boots on every wooden plank. I heard him load the gun and chamber a round.
"Daddy! Daddy!" I screamed. "Save me! Make him stop! Daddy! Make it all go away! Daddy! Save me!" The only excuse I have for crying out for my dad was my drunkenness. I never called my dad "Daddy."
My husband did stop! He turned around and walked back into the house! I got up and stumbled to my car. I thought I would lock myself in and sleep until daylight, but the keys were in it. I never leave my keys in my car, but to my surprise there they were! I drove away, just a couple of miles, to a pull-off near a brook deep in the woods on a private, dead-end road. I rolled up the windows, locked the doors, shut the engine off, and went to sleep.
It was so cold when I woke up. I drove back to the house. My husband met me in the driveway. He had his uniform on and was going to work. The sun was shining; that seemed so incongruous.
"I will be back this weekend for my things," he said through the little crack I made in the window. When he drove away I got out of the car and went inside.
Over the rest of that week I felt something like a cancer growing in my guts. This was my second marriage, and certainly not the second of my relationships. They had all failed. I was a failure. I could not do life. I had nothing else to try after years of sex, drugs, alcohol, and myriads of other habits and distractions to try to cope with this world. I wanted to die. The feeling just kept growing as I got up each day and went about my business on autopilot – going to work at night or to the P.O. in the daytime if I was scheduled. I was scheduled that Saturday. When I got home his things were gone.
I sat on the rug in the middle of the living room as the sun was setting. I had a revolver in my hand. I was picturing how to hold it: To the side of my head, I decided. But just before I raised the gun I had a vision. I saw a vast dark space full of nothing but smoldering heat. I was the only soul there. It was the kind of darkness that presses against your eyeballs, and the kind of heat that makes the air difficult to breathe. I knew it was hell. I knew that if I pulled the trigger I would go there, that I deserved to go there.
I did not typically think about God, or heaven, or hell. I knew there was a god "up there somewhere." Anyone looking around at creation could see that. I also had been given a minimalist Roman Catholic education when I was very young, up to First Communion. My mother had later been "saved" in the "Jesus Movement" during the 70s. She spoke in tongues. I thought it was weird.
But in this moment I spoke to God out loud for the first time ever as an adult. It was also the first time as an adult that I used the name of Jesus Christ as anything other than a curse.
"God, if you're there, I really need you. I’ve made a complete mess of things. I don't know how to make life work. I've tried everything I know to do and I am at the end. If you're there, and if you can hear me, I need you. Is it true what I've heard, that Jesus Christ died for my sins on the cross so that I could go to Heaven? If it is, I need you to take over. Please forgive me for the mess I've made. Please show me how to live."
I went so far as to make a deal with God. I found out later you are not supposed to do that, it supposedly never works, but I also discovered God’s incredible mercy.
"If you bring my husband back, I’ll know that it’s you doing it, that you have heard me. I will read the Bible, and I will tell everyone what you’ve done for me."
That was it. I stood up. I felt as if I could go on. One might even call it peace. The feeling of cancer in my stomach receded. I put the gun away.
God did bring my husband back. I did read the Bible (my husband was jealous of that, too). One day a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door. "God sent you to teach me how to read the Bible!" I told them enthusiastically. During one visit they asked me what, if any, Scriptures I knew. "I know the ten commandments," I said. They knew exactly where to turn to find that passage, Exodus 20, and I was so envious of that ability! Later that afternoon before my husband came home from work I sat on the couch and read that passage over and over again.
On the first reading I thought, 'I've kept most of these. I’m a pretty good person.' By the time I had read the ten commandments through about five times I knew I was guilty of breaking every single one of them. I sobbed, literally sobbed, for over an hour. My heart was broken. If I had not already believed at that point that Jesus died for my sins, including the sin of murder when I aborted my child, I could not have endured the conviction I felt. God was holy; I was not.
One of the customers on my mail route was a pastor. He started meeting me at the mailbox and talking to me about what I was reading in the Bible. Eventually I was baptized by him. I joined his church. I quit drinking and drugs and years later cigarettes and even coffee. I learned and grew and changed by leaps and bounds! I even became a Sunday school teacher, first for children and then for women. I have been a Christian now for 26 years. Jesus has never left me nor forsaken me, though my husband, who never understood the changes I was going through, did. I call God “Papa” in my prayers, which is very close to “Daddy.” I know Bible verses now that explain why I screamed “Daddy!” on the night my salvation began:
Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”
~Galatians 4:6 NIVFor you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received
the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”
~Romans 8:15 NKJV
Placemarker and amen to the weeds. The evil one has so many sowers of weed-seed.
The root of my testimony centers upon my “Daddy” and no I have never called him that. He grew up in our small community with his mother being the one that took him to church. He married my mother and they began to live the typical farm life. When I was nine, I witnessed my Dad and Mom give their lives to Christ. From there, it has been a lifetime walk with Christ for Dad and Mom and Dad’s 50 years of commitment to the community and the church. Not as a minister, but just a constant example of what a life for Christ is all about.
I believe it was seeing my Dad go all in for Christ and his family that led me to make my commitment to Christ 2 years later at almost 12 years of age. I think also, for me, God knew it would take my actual eyewitness of my Dad’s commitment to be a constant reminder for me in my life.
I enjoyed the typical teenage life, with all its tempations and indulged in some of them, as they would say ‘walking right up to the edge’. But I took a more serious turn in my relationship with the Lord as I headed to college, thus avoiding going over the edge. I completed college and headed back home to farm and live. I met the right woman with the right family (the inlaws) at the right time, married and had my own family. So, I have lived and worshipped at the same church along side my parents for all these years.
All this sounds idyllic, but like most charts, the more one examines, the more ups and downs and fluctuation you see. My life with the Lord has been a constant introspection, even after years of being saved and following Christ, that I have deep wonder and despair at times, that Christ would give his life for not just me, but for even me. His grace and mercy are unimagineable.
Again, I know the Lord could overcome it all, but I shudder to think at times, what I could have become, knowing myself, if I had not had that Dad’s example and making my commitment to Christ at my young age. I think I could have gone mighty low without that happening early on.
Whether coming to Christ early on or going through so much, like so many do and then experiencing salvation, God is there making the commitment to us. Thank you, Dad and thank you Jesus for all you have done for me.
In this introspective walk with the Lord, I seem to always have the burden for others and what they are going through. I try to go where led or who the Lord brings to me (he does) and attempt to provide some peace and friendship. In a way, again, make a commitment like my Dad did for himself and his family. The final point would be, that if you are a boy, man, or Dad that is reading this and have not accepted the Lord, give your life to Him. He will take it from there.
I shudder to think at times, what I could have become, knowing myself, if I had not had that Dad's example
My second husband, the one in my story, had been abandoned by his father when he was very young. He was raised by a step-dad who was completely different in appearance and interests. I encouraged my husband to look up and try to contact his dad, to try to heal those deep wounds of rejection and abandonment. When he did his birth father rejected him all over again. I was aghast at such lack of parental feeling. It weighed heavily on my husband. It contributed to his anger and alcoholism. I believe it has kept him from seeing God as a good, good Father.
Women I have known who were abused sexually by their dads have also had a great deal to overcome in accepting God as "Our Father who art in Heaven."
The role of father is so important in so many ways, including our coming to faith. I'm delighted you have such a loving testimony of your dad and his faithful walk with Jesus!
There is a book called THE LAST FARMER.by Howard Kahn(sp). That you might enjoy. Your stories are similar. My all time favorite book. I’ve given many copies away.
I got saved through a failed relationship with a guy I was very much in love with. He was more interested in someone else.
I was devastated and considered and dismissed the options of psychiatric help, and the fleeting thought of ending it all.
I too, was raised Catholic, but one did not just talk to God casually, and besides, I had not been to church in years.
One day, in despair, I prayed and told God “If You can straighten out this mess of a life of mine, You can have it. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll even become a missionary and go to Africa, because I’d rather be happy doing what you want than keep on going the way I am.”
I remember it like it was yesterday, and that was back in 1977, 44 years ago.
Through a series of circumstances that I now look back and see how God worked in my life, I ended up working with a Christian who witnessed profusely, and when he explained about asking Jesus into your heart as an act of your will, I thought “That’s it! That’s what I want! Jesus, I don’t know what it means to ask You in as an act of my will, but I will You in!”
After that, without anyone instructing me of all things I was supposed to do as a Christian, I thought *I need to start going to church. And I need to start reading the Bible, and giving. Where on earth do I buy a Bible?*
The Holy Spirit led me in all that I needed to do.
Your testimony was quite impactful to me...and thank God/Christ that He was able to guide you through your challenge.
My testimony is not nearly as intense although it was truly life changing and allowed me the strength to protect my two daughters from satanic evil after my wife, literally “the girl next door” had lost a battle to breast cancer at 28.
God bless you, Carbine!
I grew up in a Christian home......Baptist!......so we were at church whenever the doors were open, and loved it
When I was 7 a Missionary asked me if I was saved
I went home.....talked to my Mother....and she took me next door to a Pastor’s house.......and he and Mom asked me a lot of questions
I must have given the right answers because within a few weeks I was Baptized
Almost 30 years later, when I had children of my own.....
...I realized .......in an AHA! Moment!!!!!!....that I was going to church and Sunday School......but my life was a facade......a fake!
I had never made Jesus ‘LORD OF MY LIFE’
I could say all the right things.......but I wasn’t real.....inside.....where it counts!
It was a life changing moment
From that day forward......with flubs plenty I am a sinner saved by Grace......and daily being sanctified......
....Now I am His and He is mine
To God be the Glory
Thank you so, so much for sharing your story here! I can remember being on my mail route and listening to Chuck Swindoll on Christian radio talk about asking Jesus into your heart. I asked over and over again! I also later asked to be given a heart like good soil, according to the parable Jesus told in Matthew 13:1-23.
I volunteered at that time at the Christian radio station. A strong Christian woman there took me under her wing as a new disciple. She described inviting Jesus into every chamber of her heart with his gentle light, so that no room was left dark or barred from her Savior's searching purview.
You’ve had your share of intense trials. I’m so glad you invited Christ to walk through them with you. Thank you for testifying!
There is no need to explain. God will sort the wheat from the chaff. This thread is for testimony, not defense.
I’ll try. It is impossible for the human mind to comprehend Him Who created the universe and all that is known and unknown. What God has manifest, all that we know and can understand, is an infinitely small part of God Himself.
I have already asked that a couple of comments be deleted. This thread is about personal testimony, not debate, please.
Thank you, that is an awesome link.
Do you have your own personal story of transformation you would like to share?
God bless our Moderators.
Thanks for making this thread and sharing your testimony. Encouraging others to do the same is a powerful thing.
My first encounter with the Lord was as a small child. Due to the influence of my parents and Sunday school teachers, I came to understand my need to be saved from my sin, and I asked Jesus to come into my life. I had only a very basic understanding of this, but God has been faithful to work in me over the years and to teach me His word.
When I was younger I thought that the Christian life would be one where I felt a sense of accomplishment as I made progress in learning and doing the things God wanted me to do. Even though I can see some progress and changes, I’ve found that what has grown is my sense of inadequacy and failure. God has brought me through many trials and temptations as well.
This process never quits being painful, but I have found that even though things may not get easier, when Christ is with you, you will get stronger. Perhaps this comes from learning to rely on His strength rather than our own.
Oh, boy is that beautiful. You moved me to tears. It is so true.
Thank you!
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