My Testimony
I celebrated my eighty-ninth birthday a few days ago. My granddaughter and her husband who live in Phoenix Arizona came to visit me. We had a great day.
As I look back over my life, I see many lonely days and nights - no love, and no happiness.
I was raised on a big farm in North Carolina with five brothers and two sisters. My mother was a controlling person. With her, it was “you do it my way or hit the highway.” She ruled with a rod of iron. My father was no better. He constantly sexually molested me all through my childhood. I hated him for it, and hated my mother because she knew it and didn’t try to stop it.
We never heard the word love in our home. Mom and Dad were always cursing and yelling at each other. He beat her almost every day. They were both coldhearted and insensitive. I never knew what a peaceful home was like.
I grew up searching for love but it was nowhere to be found. We worked hard from sun-up to sun-down. I felt almost like a slave.
At twenty years of age I met Tall and Handsome and we were married. I thought I had my chance to get out of an abusive home, but it was not to be. He turned out to be very brutal and drank a lot, always chasing other women.
Two years later my baby girl was born. I finally found love! I would rock her and tell her how beautiful she was and how much I loved her.
Even with my beautiful little daughter, I still had not found the happiness I hungered for. We were very poor. My husband spent his money on booze and other women.
I shed many tears. I tried to pray, but didn’t know how. One day, I literally fell on my knees. With tears streaming down my face, I cried “Lord I can’t go on like this, please get us out of this mess.
To my surprise, my life changed after that. I learned that God loved me with a love never changing. He said he would give me the desires of my heart, and it’s His will that I prosper and be in good health.
Oh how I prayed every night. I found a local church and my little girl and I went often.
At thirty-two, my husband gave me a sexual transmitted disease. I didn’t have two cents to my name so I let it go. It got so bad I lost a lot of blood and was almost completely bedfast. I lost about twenty pounds. It was slowly killing me. No money-No doctor-No pills! Again, I prayed out to God and He completely healed me. Every prayer I prayed He answered.
Before my daughter’s seventeenth birthday, she found the right man and married him. Three days later I left my husband, moved to New Jersey with my sister and worked there for thirteen years. Then I moved back to North Carolina and married another man. Again, the marriage did not last. After about a year, I left him and moved to Florida with my granddaughter and her three little boys.
I loved my granddaughter and my grandchildren, but I needed some time for myself. I moved out and bought a home of my own. That when my life began. I met the most wonderful man in the world. At eighty-eight I finally found real love and happiness. We’ve been together for more than a year. He is ninety-one and I am eighty-nine years young. Would you believe it? LIFE CAN BE BEAUTIFUL.
Looking back on my life, I can see a lot of heartache, a lot of grief and sorrow. But as I think about it, I can also see a lot of positive things. Although my first marriage was terrible, out of it came something good. I gave birth to a beautiful little girl who gave me two wonderful granddaughters who, in turn, gave me three great grandsons, two great granddaughters, and a little great-great-granddaughter.
I have made a lot of friends throughout the years. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and a lot of triumphs.
Eventually I found tranquility and was able to forgive my parents and my husband for the way they treated me. I found peace through bringing Jesus into my life. I found love and happiness.
