MY TESTIMONY

  By Marlene

Revelation 12:11 says, "And they have overcome (conquered) him by means of the Blood of the Lamb and by the utterances of their testimony..."

 

I was born, the 2nd child of an alcoholic father and 17 year old mother. My father sexually molested me from the time I was in diapers until I was 11 years old. My mother and father divorced and my mother quickly remarried to an emotionally cruel man. Though I was raised as a Catholic to appease my Grandmother, I went to a Baptist church at 12 years old and "got saved." Though I did receive a Bible for my attendance and heard many Bible Stories (mostly Old Testament) I received no Christian training.
Home life was a nightmare of oppression and confusion. The Book of Psalms helped me to get through those years.

 

When I was 15, a friend and I attended a Baptist church where we cried and repented. We left church crying and loving Jesus, but there was no change in our lives. That is when I came to the conclusion that "God was in Heaven and I was down here on earth to do the best I could"
 

One month before my 17th Birthday, I met a recent Viet Nam Vet who was 6 years older than I and ready to get married. After seeing men getting sick from diseases in Viet Nam he had decided he wanted a wife to have sex with exclusively. Seven months after our marriage, our daughter Jennifer was born. Neither he nor my mother-in-law believed my daughter was from him. He turned out to be as oppressive and as emotionally cruel as my stepfather had been. After he left, a man broke into my apartment and brutally beat and raped me. I still believe to this day that my ex-husband had set that up to get back at me.

 

I married again at 19 to a wonderful man who was compassionate, patient, understanding and a hard worker. Our problem was drugs. We smoked pot daily. I did drugs to speed myself up, to give me energy, to accomplish and to overcome shyness. My husband did adopt my daughter and though we tried to be "good" parents and not do drugs around her, we started living an unrestrained life. Through buying drugs I met some Lesbians and because of our stories being so similar came to really believe I was a Lesbian too. Drugs made it easier to experiment. After 2 and 1/2 years, my husband and I went our separate ways and I started to live with another woman. Relationships were intense but turned out to be shallow. Weekends were spent at gay bars drinking, dancing and doing drugs. I loved the whirlwind! Though I entered periods of deep depressions climaxing in Suicide Hotline calls, I was the happiest I had ever been. When I was a teen-ager and had "gotten saved", the Pastor had said, "If you believed you're saved, then you're saved". So I believed. No matter how drunk I was, I prayed at night, laying in my bed, putting my foot on the floor to stop "the spins". I felt that this was required of me. If someone came to my door (and lots of Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Baptists did) asking me if I was "saved", I'd say, "Hell yes!" and slam the door in their face.

One time, a suicide Hotline counselor asked me how I called myself "gay" and "a Christian" and I answered, "God is love and He understands." I still felt like God was in Heaven and I was here on earth doing the best I could.

One day my lover received a "love letter" from a boy she'd gone to church with all of her life. She disgustedly threw it in the trash but I pulled it out to read it. It was a love letter all right but not man to woman. Rather, he shared with her his concern for her soul and whether she would enter Heaven. He didn't know anything about her lifestyle. The letter touched my heart deeply because of his godly love and concern for her. I believe that's when God planted the first perfect seed in me. Never underestimate the power of God's Love in a letter to a loved one! Pray and write!!! Within a month, I received a phone call from an old friend who had moved away. She had gotten "born-again"! She read John 3:3 to me. (ye must be Born-again, Jesus said)
Now I WAS confused! First of all, I had believed I was "saved" all these years but now I wasn't sure. Secondly, my friend was a "good person". She loved her husband and kids, didn't drink, smoke or do drugs and kept a good household. Why would she need to get "Born-again"? She explained how "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God", how ALL needed to get born-again in order to get to Heaven. I disgustedly said, " so now I suppose you think my lifestyle is a sin". She said," It doesn't matter what I think, only what God thinks". THAT caught my attention so she went on to say, " The Bible says that that is what caused God to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah", and I suddenly remembered the story I was taught in Sunday school at 11. However, I quickly dismissed it from my mind and hurriedly cut short the conversation.
But the seeds were planted and a few days to a week later, I could contain my worry and confusion about where I would spend my eternity if I died, no longer.
I HAD to KNOW.
I sat at my kitchen table, determined to sit there till I knew once and for all if I was SAVED and going to heaven.
I put my head down on my crossed arms and asked God how I would/could, ever KNOW.
"God", I said to him from my heart, "who can tell me the REAL way to be sure? Who is right; the Mormons? Jehovah's Witnesses? Baptists, Catholics , WHO?"

 Suddenly, my table became a hill of grass with a large beam of wood planted in the center! I whipped my head up and it was gone but above that shock was the understanding that THIS is where I would find my answers.

I put my head down again, hoping I would "see" that beam again and I did. Without looking with my natural eyes or raising my head, I stretched out my arms to encircle that beam for now I knew it was the cross of Christ where He offerend Himself up in my place! I felt, surely if I am to "get born-again" HE was the One Who could tell me HOW & accomplish it!

I felt the wood on my skin and smelled the grass! I tried to "look" up to see if I could see Jesus hanging there. I think I may have seen the bottom of His Feet but what caught my attention was the blood flowing down that beam. As I watched it, it came down and flowed onto my head and over my body. When it did, I could see inside myself. I was black with sin. Not any specific sin but it was a lifetime of sinning against God and I knew if I died I would go to hell. I saw hell. For me it was not flames or even the devil. For me hell was eternally separated from the Jesus I loved, never to see Him but KNOWING what I should have done to get to Heaven before I had died but now it was too late to do anything about it! I knew I was not worthy to even be in Heaven; that I deserved to be in hell.

Oh how I cried. I felt like not even God could help me!
But suddenly I realized that if Jesus had given His life up and spilled His blood for my salvation, surely He could make sure once and for all that I got what He died for. As this hope sprang up inside me, I cried out to Jesus to do inside of me what He had died to accomplish. I said,
"Jesus, whatever You died to do for me, please do it in me now. Whatever I was created and born to be in the first place, do it in me now". I suddenly noticed that the blood of Jesus stopped flowing. As it flowed down me, I could see inside myself that the blackness was gone! Inside of me was the cleanest, brightest light I had ever seen. And I knew God had accomplished in me what He intended Jesus to die for.

I KNEW I was Born-Again.

I knew I had become His child.

I arose from that table with a joy I had never experienced before in my life. I arose from that table with my arms raised up to God in absolute adoration, praise and love, though I had never seen anybody do that. I was filled with an understanding that the Bible was God's Love Letter to me and that it was 100% correct. I became extremely hungry and greedy for His Word. As I was standing there praising my God for all that He had accomplished in me, the door opened and I was face to face with my lover. As I looked at her, I suddenly realized I had been healed of something I hadn't even known I was sick from. I saw her as a person for whom Jesus had died. I saw her as if my little sister had just entered the room. Two things went through my heart as I stood there; I knew I was no longer sick from homosexuality and that since I wasn't, I could not continue a lesbian relationship with this woman. My heart saddened for I had great concern for hurting her when she said, "I am leaving you".

The joy again flooded my being as I realized that God had known this all along and knew that, had I heard that news less than an hour ago, I surely would have ended my life in misery and despair and ended up in hell! Now here I was, Born-Again, a child of God and firmly on a path that He was starting me on and I didn't have to hurt anybody to get there.

I was so overjoyed that all I could do was praise God out loud at her words. She really was confused so I told her what had just happened to me. She seemed mildly interested so I tried to explain to her it wasn't something she needed to work at but that all she need do was to surrender herself to Jesus (Whom she did believe in) and He would do the rest. She was too concerned about having to give up her homosexuality and wasn't about to do that. She left.
I excitedly called the boy who had written my friend the "Love Letter" and shared with him my conversion. He was very excited for me and we fellowshipped in the Lord for a time on the phone. The next day, my ex-lover returned with other of our gay friends. They had all assumed that we could just drink, smoke pot and party as we always had done together. Instead, they found me still excited about what had happened to me. One said she KNEW she was going to hell for being homosexual but didn't care. Another said she didn't believe any of what I said. As we talked, a pot cigarette was being passed around. I'd take it and pass it on but kept pleading with them to listen to what Jesus had done for them. Finally, someone noticed that I was not smoking the pot and said, "Oh, so now you're too good to party with us huh?"
I didn't "feel" better than them and besides, I was worn out with trying to explain what had happened to me so I went ahead and smoked the pot. A few minutes later, there was a knock on my door. Was I ever surprised to find the boy who had written the love letter standing there with a pile of Christian reading material (to help me in my new life). The women quickly left and I was left alone with my new Christian Brother only to have a hard time talking about my experience to him because I was so high on pot. I knew he was disappointed with me. He left.
But it became my first lesson from the Lord. I could not continue to live there any longer. This was the home of my "old self". I needed a place to go to where I could learn and grow into my new self. I prayed. God told me where and I went. That has been 30 years and millions of lessons since then. It has been quite an adventure that is still going on with me and in me and for me.
I am now remarried to my daughter's Born-again adopted Daddy for 30 years. We have the one daughter and three very precious grandsons.

God has been so very good to us.

My prayer is the same as Paul's in Acts 26:29,
"....I would to God that not only you but also all who are listening to me today might become such as I am..."
Giant sissy hugs,
Your sissy in Christ,
Marlene
http://www.pasgom.org/salvation.html