Well, as most children, I grew up in the church. There was not a day that I
didn't go, I was involved in everything they had to offer. I guess I was
saved as a little girl, though I don't remember it. I know that the youth
leaders would ask on a consistent basis about being saved. Anyway, what I am
trying to get at is that I truly didn't know what it meant to be saved until
years later when I would pray that prayer again.

It all started after my first baby. I had visions flood through my head from
when I was a little girl about things happening to me. Things that shouldn't
happen to little girls, especially from someone they looked up to. I came to
realize that I had been molested by my father. After speaking with a
Christian counselor, she told me that sometimes when something like that
happened to you, your mind blocks out the bad memories. Evidently I had. 

It was so hard to all of a sudden realize that someone you thought would never
do anything like that to you would do such an awful thing. Basically after
my memories came back from my childhood, I started to stop speaking and
seeing my father. I grew to hate him so much and would talk to other women
who had also went through the same thing in their lives. It was so easy to
bash him and curse him over and over again. This went on for two years which
seemed like an eternity because I was in living hell the whole time. My
husband and I had stopped going to church. I was in the greatest depression
of my life. I had never felt so hurt and alone and alienated from people.
It was ruining my marriage because I was so afraid to be intimate with my
husband. I felt so dirty and ashamed of what had happened. Over time with 
my counselor and Christian friends, the thoughts of being ashamed and hatred
diminished. 

I was in need for a part time job and ran across a want ad for a
nursery worker at a local church. I got the job and found great comfort in
friends that I had made while working there. I know God sent me there to
that church because eventually my husband and I would join the church.
Here's the best part: after sometime, I guess two years had went by that I
had stopped speaking to my Dad, I was reading a devotional that I would
normally do on a daily basis. It said, "If you forgive others for their transgressions,
then God will forgive you for your transgressions, but if you don't forgive others 
for their transgressions, how do you expect your Father (God) to forgive 
your transgressions? 

At that moment, I realized that I expected God to forgive me of all the sin I had let
into my life. Although it was tough and a long road to get to, I finally
realized that I needed to let the past go and forgive my Dad for what he had
done so long ago. So, I picked up the phone that very day and told him that
I forgive him for what he had done. He was so thankful for hearing from me
and I could tell immediately the change that happened to me after that. I no
longer was angry or bitter about my life and my past. 

I became happy again like I used to be, and to this day, I have a relationship 
with my Dad. We spend holidays together and I usually go over two times a week 
to see him with my kids. See? Isn't it amazing what God's love can do to someone? 
A lot of people that I see from time to time can't believe the change I made in
my life and how I could turn something like that around into something
wonderful again. All I can say is that it was the Lord that did it. It
couldn't have been me. I would never had done that on my own. It was when I
started trusting in Jesus to give me the strength to carry on. Ever
since, I have learned to trust in the Lord for everything in my life, and I
hope you can too! 

I hope my testimony has inspired at least one person to trust Jesus and let Him into your life!!!