You don’t have to be afraid that God doesn’t want you. He wanted you to spend eternity with Him so badly that He died for you, took your place in Hell and then defeated the devil while He was there; left there and went back to Heaven where He reigns as Lord of All. He is watching over you, waiting for you to accept Him into your life so He can change those things that are destroying you and make you into everything you never dreamed you could be.

Sound impossible? It is! In our own strength it certainly is. But in God’s strength anything is possible. I am living proof of the power of God in our lives to change, to be healed and radically saved! I was a dysfunctional person with a victim of the world mentality and He changed me into a victorious person who knows the God of the universe. He loves me! He loves you! He sent me to tell you He wants you in His life; He wants to be in yours. He wants to show you how much He loves you. Come with me; let me tell you my story…

My father died when I was just 3 months old. My mother was only 20 and was unprepared to face life alone with a baby. My father’s family was so against my father marrying my mother, because she wore lipstick and fingernail polish, that when he died they disowned us and I never saw my grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins even though they lived less than 5 miles from us most of my life. In less than a year’s time, my mother met my stepfather, who was old enough to be her father, and in 1 1/2 years I had a brother and 5 years later, a sister. He never physically abused the children but we were terrorized by his very presence. He drank every day and was verbally abusive and when we got old enough to run for help, he locked us in a bedroom while he beat my mother. We could hear him hitting her and hear her screams but were powerless to do anything. In my first, second and third grades, I went to a Catholic school. They were very strict which isn’t bad in itself, but there was no love to balance it out and all religion did was fill me with fear of a God who was just waiting for you to mess up so He could punish you. Between my home and school life I was nervous and fearful all the time. When I was 8 years old, my mother dropped my brother, my friend and me at the movies for a Saturday matinee and I was molested by a stranger. When I told what happened, we went to the police. The man was found and arrested. When we got home and told my stepfather, he asked me why I didn’t stop him and what did I do to encourage him. The damage that the molester did was nothing compared to the damage brought by my stepfather’s attitude. I was devastated and never felt right about myself again. When I was 14, I met a boy and because he wanted more than friendship, I let him have what he wanted so I wouldn’t lose this new love I’d found. We were together for 8 years. Then he met someone at college and wrote me to tell me he didn’t want me anymore. Again, I was devastated but not surprised because how could anyone love me, I wasn’t worth anything. So I put all my efforts into my work and closed my heart to the pain. My boss’s son came home from the service and moved into my apartment complex. She told me to stay away from him because he was trouble. But when I met him he seemed charming and exciting………………

It was a whirlwind romance and he swept me off my feet. Again, I would do anything to please so when he told me to go drinking with him or he would find someone who would, I did. When he wanted me to try drugs I said no for a while and then gave in and became a drug addict. After 4 years of marriage, I couldn’t take the lying, cheating, adultery and abuse any longer, so I took our two daughters and left. But I immediately fell into another relationship with a close friend and fellow drug addict. He was not abusive and I felt safe in this relationship (talk about deceived). I allowed the drugs to numb me so I wouldn’t feel the pain of life, but I also couldn’t feel anything else; no love, no peace, no joy. In 1976 we were arrested for drug possession and my husband went to prison because it was not his first arrest. I went to the county jail and ended up with 2 years probation. I had to report to a probation officer each month. She liked me and told me I needed to straighten out for myself and my girls and I knew she was right. But I also knew I couldn’t. She asked me if I went to church. I told her ‘no’. She said it would look good on my reports and might even shorten my probation. So I asked my mother if she would go to church with me and I told her why. I believed in God all my life, but for the first time I heard that He loved me and wanted to help me live a good, clean life. I wanted that more than anything but I knew I couldn’t stop what I was doing. But there was a restless hunger growing in my heart, a hunger to know God and be close to Him. I didn’t understand what I was feeling but it was pulling me to Him. The preacher said that all I needed to do is come to Jesus just like I was and He would do the work, that I couldn’t even if I wanted to. But I was so afraid of God. I didn’t want God to punish me. So with my old attitude of ‘I don’t have anything to lose so why not’, I decided to have a conversation with God. I sat on the couch in the living room and told God I knew He was real; that I had always believed in Him. But I found it very hard to believe in Jesus. I thought it was a fairy tale that God had a Son who He sent here to die for me because I couldn’t get to Heaven on my own. I was a sinner and God can’t look on sin or be near it, so I couldn’t be near Him and I felt like I was in a hopeless situation. As I was sitting there thinking about this, I felt an urge to open the family Bible that was on the coffee table (as a decoration-not because it was used). I had never read the Bible and never wanted to so I didn’t know where to start reading. So I just flipped it open. It rested on 1 John 5 and it said (I paraphrase) “If you believe in Me but don’t believe in the One that I sent, you are calling Me a liar”. My mouth fell open and I knew that God was somehow speaking to me through the Words of His book and I said, “God I would never call you a liar. If you will show me Jesus is real, I will believe”. I sat on the couch and cried for 3 hours and when I finished, I was a new person………………..

I was so changed, so full of peace and joy. I felt so clean on the inside, I knew I would never do drugs again. I knew that Jesus was real; I couldn’t tell you how I knew. Nothing had changed on the outside. But on the inside I knew and I was changed by that knowledge. He loved me, He died for me, and He was in Heaven rejoicing with the angels that I had decided to believe in Him. I knew I was going to have to finish my probation and face the future, but I wasn’t afraid anymore; for the first time in my life I was not afraid and it felt wonderful. Love welled up inside of me. I felt the peace and joy that Jesus had promised in His Word. I felt safe, really safe for the first time in my life. I was saved. I didn’t know what that meant, I just knew it was good. Everything from then on was going to be perfect (little did I know). Life did take on a surreal quality after that. I saw things in a whole new way. Nothing looked the same. I did end up getting a year taken off my probation because they saw the tremendous change in me. And it was real, not just to look good for them. Jesus lived inside of me. I couldn’t wait until visiting day so I could tell my husband. First, he didn’t believe me; second, he said it wouldn’t last. I was so hurt. I thought when he saw the reality of it, he would want it too. When he was released and we were home together again, I thought things would change. But I went to church with my children and he did not. He didn’t want what I had and he was very unhappy with me. I wouldn’t allow drugs in the house anymore and he had to go out with his friends to get high. I wasn’t angry at this because I remembered I couldn’t quit without the Lord’s help. But he wouldn’t work, just laid around watching TV and doing drugs with his friends. I was so confused. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want what I had. It was wonderful; Jesus was wonderful. He had his own beliefs and they included the paranormal and metaphysical. He believed you could cast spells and manipulate people, read the future in tarot cards, and talk to the spirits. When I wouldn’t give the Lord up, he tried to change my mind by casting a spell on me. I felt something akin to depression and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I prayed and asked the Lord for help and He told me to go to a certain part of the house. When I got there, I saw a book on a shelf and brought it down. It was a book on how to cast spells and I flipped it open. A highlighted page caught my attention. It was a chapter on how to make your spouse do what you wanted. I closed the book and put it back. I prayed and thanked the Holy Spirit for showing me the truth and protecting me. Immediately, the depression left and never returned. The Bible says that “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”. 1John 4:4 It was true. Jesus defeated the devil at the Cross and I had nothing to fear. In a few months, he couldn’t stand being in the same house with me so he left. He went to another state with some friends. He would call and I would tell him we belonged together and God loved him. I prayed for him to come home. After 6 months he was at the front door saying he didn’t know why he was there, he just felt compelled to come home. I knew it was an answer to prayer. I knew everything was going to be alright. But nothing changed. He continued to lay around and get high with his friends. I went to the Lord and said, “Lord, I thought things were going to be better. What do you want me to do?” He said “I just want you to love him like I do”. That was very difficult for me because I wasn’t God. I just wanted to kick him out and get on with my life. But I did as I was told. I did everything as if nothing was wrong. The more I did it, the easier it became. I told him the god that he was serving would destroy him if he didn’t stop what he was doing. About 3 months went by and I was at church when the lights went out…………..

We thought a transformer had blown but in a little while the lights came back on. When I got home, one of his friends was waiting at the gate to inform me that my husband had hit a telephone pole and had been instantly killed (at the exact time the lights went out at church). My head was reeling. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Why, Lord, why? You were supposed to save him and we were going to grow old together. And He spoke to me and said, “I have given everyone a free will, and I know the future and whether a person is going to accept Me or reject Me and he chose in his heart to follow the ways of evil. I let him go. I will see you through this; have faith in Me”. God became my husband and He had always been my father. The days and weeks ahead were together peaceful and agonizing. I couldn’t believe my husband had chosen hell over the wonderful promise of eternal life. Then God spoke in my heart, “See, you obeyed Me and now you have no regrets”. And that was true. As I reflected on that last year we were together, I saw what God’s provision of love did in my life. It had set me free to love someone that was unloveable. After a time, some friends at work played matchmaker and introduced me to the man I would marry. He went to church with us and gave his heart to the Lord. Then he asked me to marry him. I felt much reservation on the inside but I attributed it to fear of remarrying and pushed it aside and said ‘yes’. Our life was good for a couple of years and then he started staying out late and I smelled alcohol on his breath. Then he came home one day and said he was leaving. I later found out he was seeing someone else. My oldest daughter became angry and belligerent when he left. She was like a stranger and I couldn’t get her to talk to me about what was wrong. For the next 1 1/2 years she ran away from home 3 times and she was out of control. We had a meeting with our Pastor and he determined that something happened before my husband left to make her change this drastically. So I sat her down, told her I loved her and asked her if her stepfather had hurt her in any way before he left. My worst fears were realized when she broke down weeping uncontrollably. She admitted that he had molested her. She was so damaged on the inside and I just wanted to kill him for what he did. But God wouldn’t allow me to hate him. He told me the hate would destroy me and my family; to just give the situation to Him and He would take care of it. So I confronted my husband and he denied it. I told him he needed to ask God and my daughter to forgive him, but he said he didn’t need to. A couple of years went by and I got word that he had fallen off a scaffold and crushed his leg. Then he was working on a machine and got his hand caught and lost a finger. The judgment of God was on him, I knew. Judgment is intended to draw you to God, but if you run from it, it only gets worse. So back in the beginning when I first felt the hesitation inside, I believe it was the Holy Spirit warning me, but I misread the warning as fear of remarrying and we all paid dearly for my mistake. So at that moment of revelation, I made a promise to God and myself I would not get into any more relationships until my children were grown and safe. I was alone for the next 11 years. During that time, God became everything to me and still is to this day. I went to Bible College and earned a certificate in Bible Study & Spiritual Leadership…………………….

I had always been a hairdresser and the Lord told me I enjoyed making people beautiful on the outside but now He was going to show me how to make people beautiful on the inside. Over those years spent with Him, he healed me of the destructive tendencies I had toward myself. He taught me how to love myself. He showed me that I was worth so much to Him that He was willing to go to the Cross even if I were the only person on the earth. And He cares about every detail of my life. Many years ago when the kids were young, I had enough money to take care of us without much extra. I was walking through the mall (something I rarely did) and noticed a pretty shell necklace in the window of a shop. It was only $10 but I couldn’t afford it so I walked on by. I never gave it another thought. It was my birthday that week and the next weekend when I went to church, a lady came up to me and handed me a small box. When I looked at her puzzled, she smiled and said a little birdie had told her it was my birthday (my daughter). When I opened the box, my mouth dropped open because it was that pretty shell necklace I had seen at the mall. Now remember, I had told no one about that necklace. Only God knew because He saw the desire of my heart. She said she was walking in the mall and the Lord told her to buy that necklace and He never told her why. She obeyed and when my daughter told her it was my birthday, then He told her it was for me. He cares about every detail of our lives. And that necklace was really from Him. Isn’t He wonderful! That was 17 years ago and I still have it. It’s out of style now and I don’t wear it, but it’s a stone of remembrance for me and I will never forget what God did for me that day. There are so many more ’special times’ like that. He lets me know all the time what I mean to Him. This is a lifetime process. I have to spend time with Him and open myself up to His scrutiny and be willing to face what He shows me and then give it to Him because I can’t change myself. Every step is very liberating. I was so full of ‘yuck’. Some of it was not my fault and some of it was. But ultimately, I am responsible for all of it as it applies to my relationship with Him and those around me and He holds me accountable to give it to Him. But it is so worth it; the freedom that He brings. He always replaces it with something so much better. He replaces fear with love. Peace and joy come to replace depression and anger. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for; just some peace of mind. It’s worth everything and yet without God it’s impossible to find. I’m not ‘there’ yet. It’s a lifetime process but with God I am going to finish this race. So let me go on…After my youngest daughter married and left home, I started asking God to put someone in my life to share this great experience with. I moved alot with my job and rarely made new friends or socialized. I moved from state to state and city to city and for a time was even out of church. I love to cook and was in a chat room talking about diets and food when I struck up a conversation with an interesting gentleman. We had a lot in common and he was a kind, caring person. We talked, we met and then he moved south to be where I was because I was not moving to snow country. We married in 1997 and our lives are not perfect but with God, we are striving to be the best that we can be. We are elders in our church, greeter coordinators and I am the secretary in our church office. Money is no longer my motivator. Pleasing my Father is what motivates my heart. I know this story was long (but I left so much out that there was not room for). If you relate to any of this, let me pray with you for God to touch your life like He has mine. Don’t wait another minute. He’s talking to you through these pages and you can hear Him, I know you can………………………….

It’s really very simple. He’s your Daddy. He would like very much for you to sit and talk to Him just like you do your best friend. He already knows what you need. But since He will not force Himself on anyone, you need to ask Him into your life. If you would like to do that just ask Him…..”Father, I need you in my life. Jesus, come live inside of me and be my Lord and Savior. Holy Spirit, teach me what I need to know. Forgive me of my sins and cleanse me; make me right with you. Thank you that I am now in your Kingdom. Your blood has made me clean and I am on my way to Heaven. I love you, Lord”…..See, it was that easy. You are now a child of God and on your way to an adventurous life in Him. Please email me and let me pray with you. (leedunda@bellsouth.net) I would love to rejoice with you. And I want to send you a little gift. Your future is set. Your destiny is secure in God. Read the Bible everyday and find a good church that teaches the whole Bible. God bless you, for the decision you just made is the most important one of your life…………………