Lorie

My name is Lorie, God put it on my heart to share my testimony with a certain person, but it just might be you also. 

At the age of 18 years old, I got married while in my senior year of high school. I was raised in a very strict home by a single parent, who knew there was a God that did it all, respected that fact alone, and taught my sister and me that. We were sent to church regularly, but my parent never went with us. So we had all the look of Christians but no substance or understanding.

My husband was an alcoholic and he beat me. I believed that he loved me and only beat me when he got drunk and could not control himself. At the age of 21, I met a young man who seem to understand my plight and I left my husband and moved in with this young man, we lived together for about ten years. Again, I believed I was loved, but he too was an alcoholic and drug addict. However, he never beat me. As I look back, I accepted that this was my life and nothing could change it.

We migrated to another city away from my family and any means of support to make a change. By the ninth year together, I was starting to ware down. Between the DWI's, the calling hospitals and jails on nights he was missing, cars getting wrecked every six months, trying to help him maintain a job by literally dragging him out of bed, dressing him and sending out the door or trying to catch his paycheck to pay bills before he got too drunk and lost it all, it was too much.

One day I decided I had to get out, but he was a possessive man and I knew that I could not just walk away. Therefore, I decided that I would get a new job and an apartment secretly. You would be surprised the amounts of lies you will tell to get done what you want. My current job was closing and I searched until I got a job at an Accounting Firm. It was easy to say I was laid off and working at a temporary agency. No need to give him the telephone number or a location because that type of employment constantly changes. 

One morning while lying in the bed reading about 5:00 a.m., I called the physic hot line to see if I would be financially stable throughout the year and of course they said yes.  

Then, someone very directly called my name. I looked all around and found know one, my mate had already left for work, so I called up my friends, my sister and mother thinking it was some type of connection with someone I loved being in trouble. My sister told me that it probably was God telling me to get my life together. My mother felt she was wrong to say that and I was quite put out with my sister.

I had been working about four months, and I found an apartment and I put my first and last month's rent payment down. Then I rented a U Haul truck, to be picked up Tues. morning and called a friend to help move the big stuff. I went to work Monday morning with my mind on picking up the keys that evening to my new apartment.  One of the partners called me into his office and informed me that after doing their yearly taxes they could not continue to pay me so they were going to let me go. I was devastated.

All my dreams were gone in an instant. I went and bought a bottle of Vodka and tried to drink my blues away and cried and cried and cried. When my mate got home that day, I am sure he did not quite understand why losing a temporary position was so devastating.

Once I got through wallowing in self-pity, I paid our rent three months in advance with the severance pay and began looking for a job. I tried for a position at a bank but could not pass the adding machine test. They said that my test results were a few keystrokes short of what they required. However, two days later they called and said it did not matter. So now with my new job, I still plan to leave again but I needed to get my footing back.

I had been working about two or three days when the two family home I lived in caught on fire. I woke up thinking that my mate had recently come in and that he had left the light on in the kitchen. So grumbling, I got out of bed to turn off the light and what greeted me was a wall of fire to one side of my kitchen.   The landlord lived upstairs and to warn them I was going to cross to the back hallway door and bellow "fire" but the heat was so intense that I couldn't even cross the kitchen.  If I would have been able to open the door the flames from the fire would have follow me into the fresh air, thereby burning me alive or very severely.

Without a home, we had to live in my mate's sister's basement. The plan was to save money over the summer and then get a new place.  The former apartment never gave me back my money, they stated that they need it to get the house repaired. I let it go as I was too tired to fight. 

The people on my job were very generous in helping me to get started again.  One young lady invited me to her church and I really enjoyed the service, I though to myself this is the type of peace I need. So the next Sunday I decided to give my life to the Lord. However, the young lady did not go to church the next Sunday and I did not know how to get there on my own. The next week at work I got the directions, went to that church, and gave my life to the Lord.

I put the young man out of my new apartment after the second night there because what I wanted out of live was totally different from his outlook. It was very scary, remember this was the first time I had ever live alone in my life, but God made it so I didn't have to hide from my ex-boyfriend and I was surrounded by a church family that truly cared.

God bless all that read this testimony, He loves you, just as He loved me, don't wait until it's to late, give Him your life today. Will it get easier? Probably not, but you will never be alone again. Moreover, He will give you the strength to endure. 

Thank God

Email Lorie