One night, after I had shared my personal testimony before a congregation, a lady came by to shake my hand and said, "Oh, what I'd give to have a testimony like yours! I've been a Christian all my life..." She sounded almost apologetic. I took her hand and smiled as I said to her, "Ma'am, I would gladly trade your regrets for mine."

     I want to say to you: I do not offer this testimony to brag about anything I have done. I am not at all proud of how I lived and the years I wasted. And while I have asked the Lord to never allow me to forget where He brought me from, I do not dwell in the past. I offer my personal testimony page as a reminder to the reader that sin will devastate a person's life. It is only through Jesus Christ that we can be set free from that which binds us--the shackles of sin.

     If you're looking for high adventure here, you won't find it. I had "low-level" adventures. Gutter-level. But Praise God, from the guttermost to the uttermost, my Lord and Savior saw fit to have Mercy on me, He allowed me to "come to myself" in a pigpen of my own making. When I saw me for who I truly was, it was more frightening than all that I had ever experienced, for that image was accompanied with a road map to where I was headed. I was dead-ending, downhill, towards everlasting damnation and taking my family with me!

     God never allowed me to have any crutches. I don't blame my actions and the way I lived on drugs or abuse or devastating circumstances. I chose to live the way I lived, without anyone or anything to blame for it, except myself. While I know abuse is a very real problem in our society and leaves lasting scars of anguish for its victims, God spared me that.

     To be as smart as I thought I was, I was too foolish to be thankful for that which didn't happen to me. No, I'm not "down on my case": the truth is the truth. And I don't have a problem with "self-esteem": I esteem Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, the Captain of my Salvation, my Savior and Soon-Coming King! I esteem Him: I "highly regard" Him, and lift HIM to the world, not me!

Despite being protected and nurtured, I was a "deprived" child. I was "deprived" of wearing skirts that barely covered my hips, staying out till all hours of the night, dating whomever I pleased, listening to rock'n'roll, cursing, wearing make-up, hanging out on the street corners or at the shopping centers, watching tv or talking on the phone for hours. Instead, I participated in such boring activities as going to school, visiting the elderly, learning about the homeless from hoboes Daddy brought in to be fed, making friends with and visiting homes and churches of people of other races because Mom and Dad wanted us to know more than just white people. I was allowed to grow up in a happy, safe environment to be a child and a teenager with no worries.

Yet, I didn't want what I needed--I wanted what I shouldn't have. Thus, the first chance I had I plunged into all that I had been "deprived" of. Mama was in the hospital with stomach cancer, Daddy had a series of strokes. I was free to do as I pleased and believe me, I did! First: cut my hair. Second: buy the tightest pair of pants I could get into. Third: cake on the make-up. Fourth: find those with the least morals and "catch up" on life.

I traveled up north to visit members of my biological family. I went to honkytonks and beer joints, but I didn't last long up there: I didn't fit in. Daddy died while I was "finding my roots". Loyal, grateful child that I wasn't, I didn't come back for his funeral. I was too busy hitchhiking my way across Detroit at all hours of the night, switchblade in my pocket and black jacket on my back. No one ever bothered me--I deluded myself into believing it was 'cause I was so bad. I'm glad my "badness" was never put to the test. I now know it was the prayers of those who truly cared about me, keeping the hand of God over me to protect me from myself. Luck was not a factor.

I returned to Tennessee and moved into a house that sat just inside the gates of a large cemetery. I wandered through it all hours of the night, and "talked" to the dead, with my little ceremonies. In the latter part of that year, I got married. We lived in one of the roughest parts of town--I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, many times, waiting for him to come home from his extramarital encounters. There was no phone, no tv, very little food and he had the only car.

About midway through 1972, my oldest brother and his wife invited us to go back with them to Texas. It was a chance to get to know this brother I'd grown up without. He was a great brother and tried to give me good advice, but my hearing was still in "selective" mode.

Soon after we got there, I started drinking. I quickly learned that vodka didn't smell on one's breath and it didn't cause hangovers. The influence of alcohol only worsened my already vile tongue. I didn't go to honky tonks--I couldn't stand the noise and I hated being around other drunks. But I "loved" to drink. I was playing a dangerous game, with no thought of the consequences.

In 1973, Ricky was born. At sixty-five years of age, Mama rode a bus to Texas to come down and help me. A year and eight days later, I had my daughter, Tiffany, and again, Mama rode a bus to come down and help me. I was so thankful for her help, I refused to take her home and she had to endure another bus ride.

My husband's job required we move to Oklahoma. I'll never forget one night in particular. He had promised we would go to Mama's for Thanksgiving. When it came time to leave, he didn't come home. Hours passed. Looking out the bedroom window in the direction he worked several miles away from town, I repeated every chant, every incantation, every vile word I knew. I literally frothed at the mouth with hatred toward him. I channeled every bit of the anger and hatred I could muster against him.

It was almost midnight when he finally got home. His truck was burned on the side and parts of his clothes were charred. He was barefoot and limping. He recounted how they had been refueling the huge bulldozer he operated. No one had been smoking, there were no sparks, it was something they had done time after time. Yet, it blew up, setting his clothes on fire and tossing him some distance from it. They got his truck moved before it was destroyed, but the bulldozer was a total loss.

I never told him about what I had done, but I continued to mutter my hate and curses behind his back. When the job ended, we moved back to Texas, where he abandoned the two children and me in the heart of Dallas, while he went back to Missouri for Christmas with his folks. We had no food, no money, no transportation. I persuaded the neighbors to let me clean their floors. They paid me in baby food and formula. When my husband came back, he paid $250 for a 1964 Buick Special, told me to get in it and leave. I did. With two babies asleep in the back seat and $20 for gas in my back pocket, I drove home to Tennessee.

Had I finally learned any more lessons? Absolutely! One: "Do unto others before they do unto you." I had a grudge against the world even though it hadn't done anything to me, and if I had never stuck to anything else in my life, I stuck to that. I convinced myself that I had "connections" with the devil. I ranted against God every time somebody mentioned Him. If there wasn't a phrase nasty enough to embarrass somebody, I made one up. I would get so angry, it was as if somebody else was talking through me. My voice would change and I'd give an evil cackle every time I managed to humiliate someone.

I did many things merely for their "shock value". I didn't care who it was, I didn't care where it was. I gleefully walked into a church one time and retrieved my children from the altar during the service. I advanced on the preacher and shook my fist in his face, laughing hysterically, purposely disrupting the service. No, I didn't do illegal drugs, I didn't engage in prostitution, I didn't murder, but I lived a life of blackness and evil. I defied God every chance I got.

I want to take a moment to remind you that I do not relate this personal testimony of my life to you with any amount of pride about how I used to live. I tell you of this because I want you to fully realize how terribly wretched a life can be when a person rebels against God. If you have ever known the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and then turned away from Him, you know exactly what I am writing about. It's a miserable enough existence to have never known Jesus, but oh, how much moreso when one has experienced the joy of salvation and rebelled against that which the Lord would have them do!

I also want to make something very clear here: You don't have to take any blood oaths to serve satan. You don't have to join any societies or covens for him to be your master. You don't have to do animal sacrifices or draw pentagrams, you don't have to commit murder or any number of other offenses against the laws of our land to live in the darkness of sin. Your world may not be filled with as much darkness as mine was, but if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you are SERVING SIN! Sin separates us from God. You can't live a good enough life, you can't do enough good deeds to "earn" entrance into Heaven. Do I need to repeat that?

The Grace of God, by which the mercy of forgiveness of our sins through Salvation is offered, cannot be earned, learned, bought, or deserved. In Isaiah 64:6, we are told ...all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags... Look at it again: it doesn't just say "rags"--it says "filthy rags"! Further, Romans 3:23 tells us, ...For ALL have sinned...

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? Romans 6:16. Whatever rules your life is your master. ...The wages of sin is death... Romans 6:23 didn't scare me at all. If I was the SOMEBODY I thought I was, funny how the rest of the world didn't seem to know it!

My car needed some work done on it. I took it to a man I knew. He and his family had attended the church my dad pastored years ago, when we were all children. In the years since then, he had been married, but was divorced. We started going about together. He loved the children and they adored him. I still had a black temper and drank from time to time. He gave me a choice: stop the witchcraft and other foolishness in my life or he would not be there to see it. I didn't stop, but I kept my rituals and chanting and curses under wraps. The less I engaged in it, the further away from it I got. He insisted we go to church and to appease him, I did. I didn't change my outlook on life, I didn't ask anybody's (including God) forgiveness, but I went to church. The way I was living had started to bother me, but still, I wouldn't surrender. We got married.

When Stephanie was born, I fluctuated between ranting at God and begging Him to do something for her. I loved my children and did all I could to provide well for them, but nothing made me happy. I was miserable. I blamed the world in general for the consequences of every stupid thing I did. I say "stupid": I mean "stupid". I knew better. That's stupidity. I didn't do what I did out of ignorance.

My husband was good to us. He made us a good living--he bought me anything he could afford that my heart desired. A new home, new furniture, a new car every second year. If I saw it and liked it, he got it for me, in an attempt to make me a happy person. We took the baby to Memphis one time. Driving by a car showroom, I commented on a car I saw and liked. He turned around, went back and bought it for me! I had only one reason to not be happy: me. Yet I blamed my inward misery on everybody else.

We started attending church regularly; I abandoned all incantations and divining. It was enough of a balancing act to deal with Stephanie's problems and spend quality time with the older two. They were so loving with her.

My husband and I had been so wrapped up in her disabilities, when Stephanie died, we looked at one another and said, "Who are you?" We still attended church, but I wasn't living it. Three years after she died, it all caught up with me. I had an emotional breakdown.

I had a sewing shop and slept about four hours a night. I drove myself into total exhaustion, hoping I would sleep deeply enough to not dream, because when I dreamed, I had nightmares. I was fighting my own demons. When it all caught up to me, I went insane. For six days I was on the mental ward--stark raving mad. Not totally all by myself; they kept me so heavily drugged I couldn't come out of the fog.

I had gone from a size 14 to a size 6 in less than four months because I refused to eat. I couldn't walk across a room without gasping for breath. The sudden weight loss caused damage to my heart. I was on self-distruct. When I came home from the hospital, I went right back to my old ways of not eating and barely sleeping. See, I was still blaming others for my misery. But I was the problem!

Mama was again diagnosed with cancer--this time of the colon. She had surgery, but was not regaining her health. Tests showed the cancer had already spread to other organs. She and I had made our peace, finally, and now she was leaving me! By then, our youngest daughter had been born. Oh, what a delight she was! Not that the others hadn't been, but I was more settled in my emotions and could better appreciate a child. Ricky and Tiffany loved her and were a big help in caring for her. After Mama died and I finished handling her affairs, I followed my husband to Nashville.

Ricky was soon appearing in juvenile court on a frequent basis. He got further behind in school and was going only because the law required it. Tiffany was having secret conversations with her friends on the phone. I was "letting them have their privacy": what a joke! And on all of us! Instead of living for God and applying Biblical principles to my parenting, I was listening to the world and its folly!

One morning, our next-door neighbor called me at work: Tiffany had left with some people, suitcase in hand. I got home in record time, but it was too late. After all those years of turning my back on Him, I contacted God. I was desperate. Only He knew where she was, and only He could do what needed to be done.

On the twelfth day, at one in the morning the phone woke me. I knew it had to be about her. It was Tiffany, herself! A former juvenile probation officer had found her in a park where her "friends" had abandoned her in Indiana. He took her to his girlfriend's house and from there, called me. We went after her and got her back home. Her assistant principal at school "took her under his wing" and helped her catch up on her school work.

By the time Tiffany graduated, Ricky had been into drug use for several years. Was I living for God? Nope. Just going along, using Him as I would a lawyer. When I needed Him, I knew where to find Him. But at all other times, I had no use for Him.

I was so wrapped up in myself I didn't see my children for who they truly were to me: Ricky was so loving, Tiffany was so quick-witted and funny, and Charli was wise beyond her years. Three marvelous gifts from God. God had given them each a special gift to share with me, but my existence consisted of Patricia and what she wanted at the moment.

Tiffany became engaged and got married. Dan was a Christian boy, but in lukewarm spiritual condition. About eighteen months later, their first child was born, a beautiful little girl they named Paige. Within a few months, they began to have problems in their marriage. I used it as fertile soil to implant bad advice to my daughter, encouraging her to do things to spite her husband. I was just mean, through and through. And that's the TRUTH of it. Lowdown, stinking, rotten mean.

When Dan filed for divorce, Tiffany brought the baby and moved in with my husband and me. Instead of encouraging her to work things out with her husband, I provoked him every chance I got. My SELF-esteem was soaring! I was flying high. You see it coming, don't you? I didn't. I didn't think there was a thing could put a dent in me.

I was so mad! I flung myself onto my couch and just sat there, stunned. Against everything we had "going for us", my daughter had just lost custody of Paige, our beautiful grandbaby. My hatefulness and meanness had just cost her that which was dearest to her. She was such a good mother, too! She adored that child.

I remember looking across the room at her as tears silently slid down her face. I saw the look of hopelessness on her face. Suddenly, without warning, "something" swept through my mind, and I broke.

I began to cry as I had never cried before. I wailed. But this time it wasn't in a fit of anger. It was as if God opened a screen and let me see everything I had ever done and all the things I should have done, but didn't. Panoramic, in living color. I pray to never ever ever forget the horribleness of those scenes. Oh, the vile wretched condition I was in! And it was ALL, I said ALL my fault! I didn't do ONE thing out of ignorance. That's when one knows they are truly filthy in their sins--when they come to the honest realization that they knew better but rebelled against such knowledge!

I don't know how long I cried, but I prayed harder, longer, more intently than ever before. I admitted to myself and to God all that I had done. Oh, He already knew--He just wanted me to admit it, you see. He wanted me to acknowledge that I had sinned. And I was tired of playing the part of fool for satan. I had no joy in my life. I hadn't laughed in ages. And I couldn't remember the last time I had even hummed a tune. I wasn't living--I was merely existing and it was a poor excuse for an existence, I might add.

He brought me up.....out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock.

Psalm 40:2

As I asked forgiveness for my sins that day, I asked the Lord to undo the damage I had done to my daughter's marriage. Those were the only two things I prayed for that afternoon. But you see, our God does everything He does completely, perfectly, in His Time, in His Way. He washed my sins away that day. And then, not only did my son-in-law rededicate his life to God, the Lord restored their marriage. Soon after that, Tiffany surrendered her life to Jesus Christ. It took time for the wounds to heal, for the trust to be restored, but God does all things perfectly. And He has further blessed me with another beautiful grandbaby for this old woman to love, Rebecca.

Then, the Lord began to restore all those dreams I had abandoned long ago. As for my hatred toward people? The Lord provided me with a job in retail, of all places. But you see, there I could share the wonderful things the Lord had done in all our lives with those who were hurting, who hadn't met Him, who didn't know how much He wanted to know them!

I had always wanted to write. I began to write poetry and articles as never before. The Lord provided a way for me to earn an computer, another "dream" of mine. Then we began to publish a newsletter. Our God did a marvelous work in the life of our son, Ricky, as He saved his soul and brought him out of a wretched life of addictions. He completed a year's course at Teen Challenge, got his GED, met and married a marvelous Christian girl; they bought a beautiful home, the Lord blessed them both with good jobs and they now have two lovely daughters.

Our youngest? She has ALWAYS steadfastly continued in her faithfulness to her "best friend", Jesus. Even in my most rebellious moments, this child daily reminded me of Jesus through her living witness of Him in her life. Oh, how, how could I NOT love Him? Least worthy of all, surely I must have grieved Him countless times, yet He still pled my case to the Father, that Grace might be extended. And through that Grace, complete perfect salvation as He forgave me of all my ungodly wretchedness! And since then, the Holy Spirit has heaped blessing upon blessing in our lives, exceeding abundantly, more than we could have ever asked or thought! Through our Pastor, I was introduced to another pastor and his wife. I wrote a full-length book for them and am currently working on a second for another person.

That hard heart I had so many years? The Master Potter took that old dried out clay, added the Rivers of Life to it and continues to mold me every day. Where I never shed tears before, I cry fountains. But you know, I'd much rather be the me I am today than the me I was then, at any time! It no longer bothers me to cry, for each time, I am reminded of the love that replaced hate, the changes that the Lord Jesus Christ made in my heart and life.

But the best news is, God loves me. I have a genuine Father/daughter relationship with Him, through Jesus Christ. And He allows me to continue to learn that which He wants me to know. Well, Glory to God! I love Him, oh how I love Him! I lift Your name, Jesus!

Lord Jesus, there are no words to describe my love for You. I cannot begin to tell you how thankful I am for the mercy, the Grace You extended to me. I don't want to ever, ever forget where You brought me from. I don't want to ever forget who I was and what I was: lost and undone. I want to always remember the changes You have made in my life, my heart and my mind. I want to always remember, for it is through that remembrance, that I can tell others of the love You have for them, too.

I thank You, Lord, for my parents and the truths they taught me from Your Word, that have been proven time and time again through the years. I thank You, Lord, for all that You have brought me through. I thank You for my family and my friends. I thank You for all the prayers I've prayed and all the answers You've given. For Your Ways are perfect. There truly is none like unto You, Lord. I give You all the glory and honor, for you truly are worthy of all our praise. Thank You, my Jesus, my All in All. Know my heart and know I love You, Lord.

Dearest Reader, I plead with you, if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, don't go the route I did. Don't waste any more years of your life. The enemy of your eternal soul will destroy you. It is his purpose to use your past to defeat your future! Don't let him do it!

I promise you, with all the truth I have in my heart with the Word of God to back it up, if you have been led to believe that Jesus doesn't love you, read the account of Him dying on the cross. How much does He love you? He spread His arms wide open on an old rugged cross and died that you might have life and have it more abundantly. He rose again on the third day and has ascended to the right hand of God the Father, to make intercession for you. That you might live, victoriously, every day of your life.

Yes, He took a debt He did not owe and paid it for you, for me, for all who will accept the Gift of Salvation He so freely offers. It wasn't free--He paid the price. He bore the cost of it so it could be freely offered to all who will accept it.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye

shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Matthew 11:28-30