My Testimony

Born in the late 1950's my parents divorced when I was ten. This was before it was fashionable, and even in high school most of my friend's parents were still married. My father remarried quickly within less than a year. My mother had boyfriends, and hung out with "hippies" when she started going to a Unitarian Church. A camping trip with this group consisted of sitting around the fire topless and smoking pot.

The divorce was a devastating event for me on many levels and my mother's liberal ways played a significant part in what would happen in my teens and early twenties. As a freshman in High School I had a boyfriend and lost my virginity with him. My mom suspecting as much asked me, I never was very good at lying, so I told her. She promptly made an appointment for me with the gynecologist and had me go on the pill. I'm sure some of her motivation was to protect me from being a teen mom as she had me when she was 19. However giving an insecure, hormonal, teen, who lacked the positive attention from a father she didn't really like, the freedom to have sex without fear of pregnancy was probably a mistake.

Around this same time I stated smoking cigarettes and marijuana as well as drinking if it was available. Thus with my inhibitions gone and minimal risk of pregnancy, a boyfriend could probably get what he wanted. I however, didn't get what I wanted and that was to be truly loved. For a short time I hung out with some Christians, mostly because I was interested in a guy. But during that time I gave my life to the Lord or so I thought. This will be important later on in my story. The guy told me he wasn't interested and after a few more weeks, I moved back to my old crowd. We'd ditch class and go to behind a liquor store or over to Foster Freezes and smoke an hang out. One of the friends would write notes to get us excused. This lasted for a while, until the attendance clerk called my mom and I was busted.

Between my sophomore and junior year my mom moved us from Placentia, CA twenty minutes south to Costa Mesa, CA. Socially this was devastating for me. I didn't know anyone at the new high school and was just biding my time until I could get out. My only solace was my boyfriend. At some point in time in my year and a half in Costa Mesa my mom actually allowed my boyfriend to spend the night. By my senior year, I had a different boyfriend who was a few years older than me. We decided to move into an apartment together. So a few weeks before the end of the first semester at the age of 18 I took up housekeeping with him in Anaheim. I did finish the semester and had enough credits to graduate midterm.

This man was a daily pot user and dealt in small quantities to support his habit. We also had jobs, but the main purpose in life was to party and get high. He also introduced me to acid, got me pregnant, and talked me into an abortion. I lived with him for about two and a half years until shortly before my 21st birthday.

For my 21st birthday I went to dinner with my family, and then us girls went to a night club to see male strippers. I think I was drinking daiquiris, a fruity drink with not much alcohol, which will mean something later. This introduced me to the night club and male stripping scene. One of the ladies with us that night actually knew one of the strippers, who worked with her as a hair dresser by day. Being lonely and protected, (I was still on the pill) I got sucked into this scene and one night stands in my quest to be loved.

I frequented two bars and at once of them meet my first husband whose main quality was he was a good dancer. Being all of twenty one and fearing if I let him go I might regret it someday, I succumbed to his pressure to get married. He was a Marine and was going to be stationed in Okinawa for six months, so we eloped. By the time our housing came through he was gone, so I moved into our empty apartment without him. Being lonely and all our friends being at the bar we meet at I would go there on the weekends. He was jealous and insecure and did not trust that I was being faithful to him. After much time on the phone with him, $2000 worth, I suggested that maybe we need a separation until he came back to the states. His reply was we might as well get divorced, to which I agreed.

With the divorce came to need to move out of military housing. Fortunately by this time I was not longer doing retail and progressed beyond file clerk in the workers compensation field. I was making just enough money to be able to get a place pay the bills and have about $10 a week for groceries. Needing extra cash, I cleaned my dad's house full of bachelors once a week, I worked at the swap meets on the weekends and I caught clothes for the male strippers at night. By this time I was drinking Long Island Ice Teas and Kamikazes which are mostly all alcohol, and I'd have more than one a night. I was during this time that I also started taking Black Beauties, a form of speed. Mostly in the day so I could stay awake at work. When you go to sleep between 2 and 4 a.m. and have to get up at 6:00 a.m. to go to work you need some help.

I truly believe because of that commitment to God I made back in High School, that God protected me in this time. One time while still in military housing, I was pulled over about two blocks away from home after a night in the club. I was able to drop a name of a police officer that my ex new and he let me go home. I should have been taken in for drunk driving. Another time I drove over a cement divider and ended up stop in the oncoming traffics lane. That sobered me up some and probably scared a lot of other drivers. I'm sure I dozed while driving a few times. The fact that I didn't contract some venereal disease from all the one night stands is also amazing to me.

Some where around the age of 24 or 25 my bar scene activity decreased and I hooked up with a local kid, he was younger than me, didn't have a car, but always had some pot. His mother and sister would play and important role in my life after another event. It was around Thanksgiving of 1982, my grandmother had a stroke, while swimming at the health spa. After several days in a coma, she started to come out of it and that start removing some of the life support. She was responding to questions by squeezing your hand, we were hopeful. Then suddenly one night she had trouble breathing, the reintubated her and she went back into a comma, with no improvement the moved her to a long term care facility. I got a call on Christmas morning, that after weeks in the hospital she had passed away at 12:01 Christmas morning. To me this was significant, because she had in my eyes been a very religious, women. In hindsight, I think she probably had a relationship with the Lord.

This is not the kind of news you want to get on Christmas day, and even though we weren't close per se, it affected me deeply. This was my last living grandparent and the only one I really knew, the others died when I was three and six. Emotionally I was not in a good place. Years of alcohol and drug abuse, one night stands and broken relationships were taking their toll. Shortly after my grandma passed I received something in the mail from Guide Posts and subscribe to their publication. I had remembered seeing that name on a lot of books at her house so I thought I check out this thing that she was into.
When the magazine arrived, I read the stories, mostly about peoples spiritual encounters. Many of the stories I wrote off as coincidence but there were a few that got me thinking about the existence of God again. As a child before the divorce there were some years that we attended church and I had believed in God then. I started thinking about why I didn't believe at this time. Somewhere around this time I also started going to counseling. I also started reading one of the many Bibles my grandma had given me in her lifetime. I started in Proverbs and found out that from a biblical stand point I wasn't a very good person. Chapter eleven popped out especially versus 21-23. In between two versus talking about the wicked is the one that says "A beautiful woman who lacks discretion is like a gold ring in a pig's snout." This and other versus made me realize I was worse than I though I was and that maybe because of the way I was living was why I was having so many problems.

I continued to read my Bible, and started praying. I still had the pot-head boyfriend who worked for his Christian brother. The brother was a bad witness of Christ for us, but his mother and sister, also both Christians, were very helpful to me during this time. Sometimes I would read things and not understand what it meant, they would explain it too me and I'm sure spent much time praying for me too. Somewhere during this time I gave my life to the Lord, but it wasn't until I went to church, one Sunday in June of 1983, and prayed with the pastor there that I noticed real change. When he prayed with me I had the sensation of something going from head to toe. Almost like a cleansing. When I got home my boyfriend and I had the worse fight we had ever had, which I know in hindsight was the enemy trying to rob me of my joy and get me to turn away from God.

So now you know the path I took to get to the Lord, and he has done much in my life since then. But this lens is already long, so I think I'll tell the rest of the story in another lens.