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THIS TESTIMONY IS FROM AN EMAIL THAT I
RECEIVED......
This is the story I know He wants me to share with anyone who will
listen. When I say " my testimony " I really am saying " the life
changing story of an addict that found the Savior." Because I have
so much testimony of the Lord answering so many prayers. Big ones
and little ones, I know to Him they are all big but still so little. Because He is so big, mighty and powerful. I tell you When I start
talking about my Jesus I just can't quit. He has been so good to me.
I pray Marti, that you will be blessed by what the Lord has done in
my life, SO FAR. God Bless You.
Love In Christ, Annie
Those who believe in the Son of God have the
testimony of God in them.
1 John 5:10
Being confident of this very thing, that he which
hath begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:6
I am
so excited about the opportunity to share what the Lord has done in
my life, so far. I know that He will continue to answer prayers and
guide me. I thank you Jesus.
Lord I pray you will empower me by the Holy Spirit
and give me wisdom and guidance to write. Thank you Lord for sending
your Son to die on the cross so that even I Lord can have eternal
life with you. Thank you for the testimony that you have given to
me, may it honor and glorify You. I love you Lord. It is in your
Son’s name that I pray, Amen.
Born
into a happy fun-loving family, my early childhood life was
relatively simple and pain-free. We were a military family, very
secure and very loving. We were never wealthy but my brothers and I
never lacked for anything we needed. My father retired in 1983 and
we moved to
Arkansas.
Where we all were very happy. It didn’t take long for us to start a
great civilian life. Daddy began teaching ROTC at
Dardanelle
High School.
April 23, 1984,
my peaceful and happy world became confused by pain. My parents went
on one of their Sunday afternoon motorcycle drives. They loved to
spend time together on the road enjoying our new home. Daddy was
always telling family in
California
how he loved
Arkansas
and the beauty God had created here. ( we
moved here from the flat
land
of
Fort Riley
Kansas
)
I had
no idea as I watched my mom and dad leave like I always had, as far
as I could see them I would be waving, that it would be the last
time I would kiss my daddy on his shaved cheeks and smell the
leather from his jacket. At 1:23 his motorcycle left highway 7 about
a mile south of Dardanelle, the motorcycle ran off the road,
traveled 72 feet, turned sideways and traveled another 48 feet
before striking a highway marker and landing in a creek. Leaving my
mom and daddy seriously injured. My mom’s hand nearly severed, she
began dragging my daddy out of the water to some sort of safety. By
the time the ambulance had got there my daddy had died in my mom’s
arms.
At this point in my life I was shuffled around staying with
aunts, uncles and grandparents. My mom became very depressed and
could not deal with what had happened, didn’t know how.
I had to figure out on my own just what was going to happen
in my life, the one person I thought would never leave me left me
and I became very hard hearted, a tough little adult carrying a big
chunk of bitterness. I started having feelings that I couldn’t
explain. These feelings caused me to feel insecure about myself. I
always tried to justify these feelings by saying things weren’t
really that bad.
I wanted to find the right guy and I thought I was
ready to get married by the age of 15. My mom was absolutely not
ready for me to get married. But I was quite the rebellious teenager
and thought well I will just show her she is wrong. So my boyfriend
and I began having sex and after a nine month relationship I became
pregnant. After I gave birth to my sweet baby girl. Her Father and I
got married and 1 year later divorced. I really began to feel
insecure. Just before I got pregnant I had lost 25 pounds and now I
was about 65 pounds heavier than before.
When I went to school one
day just after finding out I was pregnant, a friend said to me “You
are looking pretty good after loosing weight and now I hear your
going to get all fat.” Well those words stuck to me the whole time I
was pregnant. And as soon as I had her I was determined to loose
that weight no matter what I had to do. It didn’t take long to lose
10 pounds, and it made me feel really good. I figured if loosing 10
pounds made me feel that good another 10 would make me feel even
better. So I continued to loose weight. I became desperate to take
care of the new baby, graduate high school and loose weight.
Eventually I felt that my method of dieting needed some help. So I
began taking 20 to 30 laxatives a day and forcing myself to throw up
after I would indulge in boxes of donuts, cheeseburgers, chips
anything I could get my hands on. For the next 3 years this was my
method of dieting. After being hospitalized for poisoning my body,
and paralyzing my anal sphincter, damaging my large intestines,
ulcer and severe trauma to my esophagus, my mom
pleaded with me to get help. But that didn’t stop me. I packed up
mine and my daughters things and moved to
California
in 1991.
Still unsure of my life and what I wanted all I could think
about was getting skinny and a husband. I started talking to a
friend who wanted to loose weight and she told me about crystal meth
so I started taking it. I would put it in toilet paper because I
wasn’t sure about the whole up your nose thing. I began going to a
palm reader, I started working for a really big software company. It
gave Jessyca and me very good health insurance benefits and a very
good salary for a single mother trying to make it in
California,
where the cost of living was so incredibly high. About 6 months into
the job, still doing the crystal meth, still loosing weight.
The President of the company began making
passes at me. After about 2 weeks of this I began to really feel
like it was getting to be more than I can handle. When I went to my
supervisor about it he made a joke out of it. He began teasing me
about it and never doing a thing about the situation. So to make a
long story short they settled out of court leaving me with a big
hunk of money. I began doing more cocaine and crystal meth. The
money kept coming and more drugs did as well. I began selling and I
was a true tarot card believer. I paid a woman to come to my house
and read my horoscope, my palms, my tarot cards anything she knew
how to read, and I lived by what that woman said.
I was seeing a man, that after a little over a year with him
I became pregnant with my second child. And having to face the
terror of gaining weight, I knew that something had to be done if I
wanted to have a healthy baby. I wanted to get help for the baby
that was growing inside of me and straighten up the life I was
leading for my baby girl. I went to a psychiatrist the whole
pregnancy, I thank God for her she kept me from harming my body
while carrying this new baby. She had high hopes that after I
delivered that I would stop abusing my body. The drugs only got
worse, I started snorting cocaine and crystal meth on a daily basis
every hour on the hour. My life was spinning out of control worse as
every day passed.
I began selling and traveling to get ounces of
dope that lead to getting pounds of dope. I had all this money and
could only think of one thing to do with it, buy, sell and use. I
was an addict a true addict. Some people sugar coat their problem by
saying they only use for recreational purposes. Well I know there is
no such thing if you use you’re an addict. I sent Jessyca to stay
with my mom when school got out in May and planned to move back to
Arkansas
in June. Drug deals weren’t going the way planned so I didn’t make
it back to
Arkansas
until August. Myself , my son and a friend came back home with
pounds of crystal meth. My eating disorder
became an even more serious drug problem. I was again hospitalized
for heart palpitations, anxiety, severe dehydration and a bleeding
ulcer. When we got here and settled I went straight to work for a
doctor here local. I say I was a functional addict because I held a
job went out and carried on like I had not a care in the world. It
didn’t take long to build up a few contacts, just enough to keep the
ball rolling. My contacts now never to come to my place of
employment and never come to my house during daylight. I thought I
was being so sneaky. I can assure you Rodney Pfiefer was suspicious
but never having truly known the depth of what was going on. He was
a guardian angel so to speak. He was always breaking up fights,
taking people away, trying to keep peace.
At the clinic where I
worked I met a lady by the name of Debbie who began to witness to
me. A dark shadow hung over me for the next few months people from
every denomination were coming to me. At work, at home, even when I
was out somewhere. I began to have a really strange guilty feeling
that wouldn’t go away. Of course I thought I needed to do more dope
to make this feeling go away. On my birthday in 1996 I began
shooting up the cocaine and crystal meth, still trying to make this
feeling go away not having an idea what was happening to me. The
morning of (4am)
Easter I realized that I had forgotten my kids Easter baskets I went
out in the middle of the night trying to find them an Easter basket
and some candy. There wasn’t an Easter Basket to be found or Easter
candy. Nothing was open. My kids got bubble gum, sunflower seeds and
peanuts in a brown bag that Easter because my mind was so wasted
that I had forgotten all about it. I started to really feel that I
was going to have to die to make these feelings go away that became
so strange to me. I wanted to stop doing drugs. I sent my (I thought
friend) back to
California.
And tried to end the problem on my own.
I began going to church but
still unable to stop doing the drugs. I went to Bible studies, after
just a few visits I was beginning to understand a little. I knew a
man that went to school at
Dover
and had a reputation of being a Christian. I saw him one day talking
to a friend of mine that was also and addict. And I thought well if
he will talk to her maybe he will talk to me. The next day I was at
the car wash and he the guy I thought probably wouldn’t
talk to me, came over to me and began talking to me. WOW I was so
shocked. When I asked him why did he come talk
to me he said “ I saw a having trouble with the dollar changer and
wanted to lend a hand.” The Lord sent him to me. He invited me to
church and I was excited and said yes, but then never would show up.
I continued to do the drugs. Donald invited me over to his house and
began reading to me stories from the Bible, the first story was
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I had so many questions but I was so
ashamed that I knew so little. I told him I didn’t know a lot. He
then went as far to show me the way you find the book of Psalms,
It’s the middle of the Bible, The four gospels, What the Concordance
was, and how to use it. He was teaching me at 28yo just like I
taught
Jordan
his ABC’s at 2yo.
One night I was at my moms house watching Trinity
Network I began to cry out to the Lord....
Lord help me! what
do I do?! where do I go?! I know this is you that has been trying to
reach me. I’ll do it Lord what ever it is that you want me to do I
will do it. Take all this out of me take the drugs, the bitterness,
the hurt take it Lord. I know you are the only one who can help me
Lord. Thank you for loving me, thank you for being the perfect
gentlemen, thank you for waiting patiently. While I ran from you,
you never gave up on me. Thank You Lord.
I went to church on
that Sunday night and received Jesus as my Savior, My Lord My Love
My Life. I enjoy the freedom and comfort I now experience in knowing
that true love isn’t earned by having the perfect body, you can’t
escape from problems, you can’t find security from any man, and true
love isn’t found on earth. I know now that true love and security
come from a relationship with God. This comfort did not come quickly
or easily. Slowly, in so many ways- through reading the Bible,
praying, others praying for me, God put his arms around me and
helped my broken body and heart heal. I know now He was there all
along I only needed to open up and let him in. I know now that not
only will I see my Savior Jesus but I will also see my daddy again.
Today Christ fills the void in my life which I strived for so long
to fill on my own, with drugs, alcohol and men. His love and
acceptance meets my needs and gives me strength. That guy at the car
wash with a reputation of being a Christian I am so proud to say he
in now my husband. We share a wonderful life together. I am not
saying that the Christian life is a bed of roses, there is plenty of
heart ache, it is then though that I will forever seek His name.
Thank
you Jesus. I Love You.
I pray
that my testimony will lift your faith, and show you how God can
bring Anyone
out of
the darkest times in their life and use it to glorify him. I give
all the honor and glory to my savior Jesus. I love each of you as my
sisters in Christ and I thank you for letting me have this time to
share with you.
In Christ Love........Annie
I chose to write this in red, to remind us that we are covered with
the blood of the lamb.
Thank you Jesus
I shall continue in this way. I shall not quit.
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of god in
Christ Jesus.
Philippians 2:13
So over flowing in his kindness towards us that he took away all our
sins
through the blood of his son by whom we are saved.
Ephesians 1:7
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