GoodFruit

I drink a lot of water.  I have one good strong cup of coffee (with a little half & half) in the morning then drink water the rest of the day.  I also like iced green tea.  I brew it in a pot on the stove then pour it into a pitcher and put it in the fridge.  I gave up drinking pop several years ago and I really, really missed having a fizzy drink.  I recently started drinking club soda and it's pretty good.  Then I discovered sparkling water that is flavored and now I am hooked on it.  It's basically club soda with natural flavoring, no artificial sweeteners or other added chemicals, just fizzy water and natural flavoring.  I LOVE IT!     

As I mentioned in my welcome message, I first signed up back in 2008 but the storms of life got in the way and took my focus and attention in a different direction.  It was only recently that I found a link to Worthy News on a website and clicked on it.  From there I noticed the Forums tab and when I clicked on that, it all looked strangely familiar to me.  It's not exactly the same as it was back in '08 but I knew I had signed up at one time.  I'm in the habit of saving my website passwords so I checked my list and sure enough, I had saved my username and password and it still worked!  I know that it is no coincidence that I'm back.  This is how God tends to work in my life over and over again, through odd occurrences.  I'm not exactly sure yet why I am back here but I do believe that God has led me here for a reason and it will become clear to me when the time is right.      

 

Personally I try to avoid wearing white, not that I don't like it, but it never fails whenever I wear white I end up spilling, dripping, or slopping something on me in the most noticeable areas too.  Does anyone else seem to have this problem?  I like most all of the colors but my favorite would probably be purple, or blue, or pink, or...

 

Hello and thank you to those of you who take the time to read this.  Since I am new to the Worthy forum I thought I would give you some background on me and my faith walk.  However, after reading some of the other member’s testimonies, I’m not so sure I can consider mine a testimony.  The horrible things some others here have had to endure in their lives, it makes my life seem like a cake walk and has given me a whole new perspective.  Maybe it’s because I’m at an age where the world I grew up in was not so hateful and cold and bent towards doing evil, the demonic occult-tic things young people are going through now were unheard of or at least very rare when I was growing up – and I’m only slightly older than middle-aged so it goes to show how fast the world is disintegrating.   Parents didn’t do some of the most wretched things to their children that a lot of kids nowadays endure; at least it was not commonplace as it seems to be now.  I really just can’t imagine the horror of growing up like that.  My heart goes out to all of you who have been abused in all sorts of evil and vile ways and I pray you finally have peace and comfort in your life through Jesus.  My hope and prayer is that reading about my beginning life journey will somehow be of help or encouragement to someone else.

I was born into the Christian faith.  I can’t ever remember not believing in God because I have been taught about Him my entire life.  I’ve never doubted God’s existence and never had a reason to.  My parents (and grandparents, and so on) are generational Lutherans.  I was born and raised in the Lutheran denomination and went to parochial grade school.  I didn’t attend public school until high school.  Even though I went to a Lutheran grade school and to church every Sunday (which was required), Christianity was never practiced in my home life.  Odd isn’t it?  My parents raised me with morals and manners but they never expressed their faith like doing any Bible study or prayer before meals or anytime for that matter.  So right from the beginning I had a skewed perception of religion and belief in God.  My father never attended church at all, only my mom and us kids.  My parents also are very emotionally cold and they never showed any affection towards each other or me and my siblings.  My parents never consistently told me they loved me or hugged me and they still don’t to this very day.  Now I know intellectually that my parents do love me and would do anything for me to help me out.  I never lacked basic necessities growing up.  They just don’t know how to say it or show it physically so this has left a huge void in my life along with an on-going struggle in my relationships with other people.  My father was a police officer and was always very stern, verbally abusive, and expected all of us to do everything his way.  He never complimented or encouraged me on the good things I would do, only always pointed out all my mistakes and the things I was doing wrong.  I didn’t think I could ever do anything right in his eyes or please him.  I grew up with a lot of rejection and not just from my parents, but in school as well.  I was such a misfit, was not a good student and got poor grades, was not talented in any way, was terrible at sports, and wasn’t particularly liked by many.  I just didn’t seem to fit in at all and the harder I tried the more I failed.  I was a very emotional child, I cried a lot, had my feelings hurt a lot and was sensitive to that.  I just wanted to be liked and not be made fun of all the time.  I learned that going to a “church” school is really no better than public school, people are just as cruel and mean, and not just the kids, I had some pretty horrible teachers that were supposed to be loving “Christian” adults – not!  As far as the Christian education, well I didn’t get much out of it.  To me, religion class was just another required class in school.  It didn’t sink into my heart because I didn’t understand it at the time, it was taught to me like a theology class in the same fashion as other subjects and I was a very poor student.  There was no personal application and it wasn’t being practiced by my parents at home so it was just another school course to me.  As a Lutheran, my parents had me “baptized” when I was a month old.  In eighth grade I went through the required confirmation class and was confirmed-whatever that really means.  It really meant nothing to me at the time and I had no clue what I was actually confirming.  I did it because I didn’t have a choice, it was expected of me and at 13 y/o I was in no position to tell my parents, no I’m not gonna do it!  This is one of the big problems I have with the Lutheran belief, but that’s another rabbit trail for a different conversation.

Once I got into high school, I rebelled and I rebelled big time.  I gradually quit going to church when my mom realized that she could no longer force me to go.  I started hanging around the wrong crowd in school because they were just like me and the only ones who would accept me as I am - an underachiever.  They introduced me to others-many who were older and more “experienced,” and then came the drinking parties, staying out late at night and sneaking in the house, lying to my parents, dating guys older than me, and having sex.  I never dropped out of school and didn’t really skip classes, but only pulled in a GPA enough to pass the class and not flunk out.  I had no vision for my future and no desire to go to college.  I just wanted to get through it and be done with school.  I was enjoying myself partying all the time, I didn’t need all that “schooling garbage.”  I was a train wreck waiting to happen and eventually the train derailed.  The summer of my senior year, I was dating a guy I had met and I got pregnant.  I stayed in school and I graduated nine months pregnant and gave birth one week later.  That was one of the toughest (if not the toughest) time of my life.  Back in that day, it was pretty much unheard of for a prego girl to stay in school.  I come from a small rural area, it was definitely “groundbreaking.”  I endured the stares, the whispers behind my back, the desertion of “friends” because I was no longer partying, my guilt and shame of the public humiliation I had caused my parents (after all my dad was the former police chief and everyone in town knew us).  But the one thing I did gain that I am still proud of to this day is that I made the school honor roll for first time in my entire life because I actually studied and applied myself!  The one thing I regret the most is that I chose to put my child up for adoption.  I thought I was making the right decision at the time because I knew I was not able to care for child at that point in my life and I wasn’t going to put the burden on my parents-they didn’t ask for it and it wasn’t fair for me to do that to them.  I decided to choose adoption and be the answer to prayer for some childless couple.  And in a lot of ways, I believe that’s what God intended all along too.  To this very day I have a hole in my heart and although I don’t think about it every single day, I have never forgotten and it is still hard when I do think about it.  My regrets are because I never had any other children and I have no legacy – no children, no grandchildren to enjoy.  I am very much alone in this world humanly speaking.  I had my chance and I forfeited it.  It saddens me to this very day.

After high school I basically resumed my life of living in the moment because this was my identity and I had no other plans as an underachiever.  I entered the work field in the usual post high school jobs, waitress, fast food, convenience stores, factory laborer.  I hooked up with my future husband (8 yrs. my senior) and within six months I moved in with him – mainly because my parents gave me an ultimatum so I called their bluff and moved out.  I was 18 y/o and never went back home after that.  My life went from rebellion and wandering to pretty pathetic.  I started back with partying again only heavier with regular drug use, mostly pot but there were other harder drugs for a time that I was able to overcome before I fell in too deep.  I married my boyfriend three years later and we just lived life in this style and manner but he was more hardcore than I was.  He drank every day along with the pot smoking.  In the beginning years, it didn’t bother me much but over time as I began to age and the thrill was wearing off, I started to resent this and wanted him to grow up and be a responsible adult.  I realized that he wasn’t ever going to change (didn’t want to) and we started arguing a lot and growing distant with each other.  During this time, I was working in the office at an apartment complex.  I was living a double-life essentially.  To the outside world, I concealed my private lifestyle and transformed myself into the “good girl” type.  It was easy to do because it’s how I always wanted to be deep down but I carried a lot of secret baggage around and never had any self-confidence that I could ever be “good.”  So I played the part when I needed to.  Little did I know that God wasn’t finished with me and was about to make a big entrance into my life.  The company I worked for hired a new manager for the apartment complex who was my direct boss and it was just her and me in the office.  She is a Christian and was not shy about showing her faith in Christ which became very evident.  My first thoughts were, “great, of all people I end up working with a “Jesus freak”.  Not kidding!  Well, I thank God to this very day for that “Jesus freak” because He used her to save my life!  After a couple of years of listening to her “preach” in the office and initially just ignoring her, there was a turning point where I actually started to get curious about what the Bible really says and I decided to start reading it for the first time on my own accord.  Such a patient lady she is, she gently guided me when I had questions about God’s word in a way that I could understand and grasp.  She was such an encourager and had lots of biblical resources to expand my understanding and knowledge.  I started going to church again and reading the Bible more and more.  The scales began to fall off my eyes and I could see how sinful my life was the way I was living it.  This caused a lot of conflict and turmoil, not only in my inner being but also in my outer life as well, particularly my marriage.   I knew I had to make a solid choice – God’s way or the world’s way.  I chose God.  Unfortunately my husband was not on board with it at all and eventually we ended up getting a divorce after 10 years of marriage.  Ironically, we didn’t divorce over the issues of me choosing to live a Godly life; instead it was adultery on his part that came about.  I look at that now as a blessing from God; because I wouldn’t have obeyed God’s word if I had divorced him because of faith issues.

Over the past 20+ years I have continued to grow in my knowledge and faith in Jesus Christ.  This is only the beginning of my testimony.  There is a boatload of trials and tests I have endured and I wish I could say that it was easy and I turned into a superstar street preaching Christian, but it hasn’t happened that way.  I’ve had seasons of growth and regeneration along with seasons of backsliding and being broken and getting back up only to take another punch.  The believer’s life is a constant journey and I’m still on it.  I’m older and wiser now and realize what’s truly important – a personal relationship with my Savior Jesus.  Nothing else matters.  After all this time, I am still learning and growing and surrendering myself to God little by little every single day.  Some days are better than others but I never give up.  Well that’s part of my story, in time you might learn other tidbits as I get bold enough to share them.

And one final thought, the Christian lady who truly led me to Christ all those years ago…well, we are still friends and she is a powerful anointed witness for Christ.  She has helped so many people over the years, truly a spirit-filled warrior for Christ.  What makes this so special is that during the time she was ministering to me all those years ago, she was also living her own secret sinful life that I had no clue about at the time.  And despite that fact, God still used her to save me….now that is Amazing Grace!  So if you have sin in your life, don’t ever think that you are of no use to God.  And this should also be a lesson to those that look down on “sinners.”  No one is beyond God’s grace.