I Cried to the Lord

Dear reader, I am blessed that you would take the time to read this short testimony of my conversion to the Lord thus far. To God I pray that He might use it as He seems fit, even in your life.

It is always difficult to think where to start because everything plays a role in the big picture but to keep it short I will just give a quick overview of my childhood.  I was born to my parents on 3rd of May in the late seventies, the first and only daughter of two children in Swakopmund, Namibia, Africa.  I grew up in a traditional ‘Afrikaanse boere’ house. I was taught about the Lord from an early age and can remember being 7 years of age and having a great desire to be a missionary.  I went all my childhood and youth to the NG (Dutch Reformed) church where I was baptized, catechized and confirmed.  In school I was an exemplary student and excelled academically in many areas.

So far you might think that I was a very good person.  I attended youth gatherings and my understanding of the Bible made me very able  at pleasing my teachers and parents.  Even sharing the gospel was a delight to me.  I was proclaiming Christ to the lost as I understood lost.  But I had such a ‘better than thou’ attitude like the proud Pharisee that thanked God that he was not like others.  Yes we are all sinners and need a Saviour, even the good people.  I was not such a ‘good’ person after all, as it seemed on the outside.  My corruption became evident, slowly at first, but then it quickly escalated into many things too devilish to mention. It was pride that brought me to this fall. Yet it was only a fall in my eyes and that of those that was looking on, because in the sight of God I was naked and destitute all along, lost, without any true foundation that would hold in the storm .  Those things I despised in others I became partaker of.  Inside me was a lusting, envious house devil ruling me.  And when the temptation submitted himself I was powerless to resist.  

The first was men which led me into a life of persistent fornication which they would call simply dating.  It’s all innocent they may say but living in that dating sphere I promise you it is neither innocent nor as joyous as the movies and magazines portray.  It is heartaches and shame, depression and guilt and then I don’t even mention the reality today of S.T.D. ’s that is rampant as part of God’s judgement.  I want to plead with you if you are or know someone who is in this trap, seek God for deliverance.  The sad part is that those that were supposed to help me out of it only helped me settle more conscience-comforting into it.  Take the minister that told me, after my honest, blunt question about premarital sex, that nowhere in the Bible it says you may not!!  Hello?  Anyone out there to hear the cry of millions lost in dark despair of sexual immorality.  I weep when I hear of young girls in relationships.  I know their heartache and shame when no one is looking.  Worse today is that I know the pain and baggage that I brought with me into our marriage.  I bless God that He gave me back that which the locusts have eaten.  But I missed out on so much, should I have entered into marriage a pure, undefiled, chaste virgin.  Parents of teens and their teachers, listen up!  There is devastation in the land, home, and church because the God-ordained boundaries have been thrown off for a moment of pleasure that belongs in marriage!  Teach children the truth and live it too.

Another facet of my life that slowly came to be a reality was the night life of a party girl.  First it was alcohol abuse and smoking which again escalated into drug abuse a year or two later. I was on top of my world!  I served only myself and my lusts; but even more I served the devil.

Yet another teenage epidemic became a reality in my life: bulimia.  I became so infatuated by outward appearance that I could no longer resist the temptation to live this double life of indulging in food but not bear the consequence of weight gain which follows gluttony.  It became a life style for over 3 years.  Later I even suffered anorexia to rule in my life too.  This had an adverse effect on my health and I became barren as a menopausal woman at the age of 20.  I also suffered from an early failing thyroid.  

Psa 107:17-21 [in]

In February 1999 I was apprehended by the Lord to take a look at my life with sobriety.  I was weighed in the balance, so to speak, and found myself wanting, a slave to sin with a clear vision of the condemnation that awaits such a one as I.  This all happened at the same time as I was being confronted by a friend, who became born-again from the same circle I was in. (Read detail in Bro. Llewellyn’s testimony for he became my beloved husband - the first to really care for my soul)

I cried to the Lord in my distress and by His grace He saved me from certain doom.  He washed me clean, delivered me from sin, broke my bondage's and healed all my diseases. He gave me a new heart and His blessed Holy Spirit.  Now I had a hope and a future. In retrospect, while all my sins were under the hideous cover of religion, I was just as much in need of Christ, my Redeemer.  But this is what it took me, as high minded and puffed-up by worldly wisdom and philosophy as I was, to be brought to my knees exposing my sin that lurked inside me all along.  Without Christ in my life all my works were as filthy rags of iniquity before Him, the evil and the good.  I praise God for it all, for he (or she) who has been forgiven much, loves much.

More than 20 years has passed in the service of the Lord and I love my Jesus even more, for He spared nothing to save me and has also given all to keep me!  I am privileged to be the wife of a godly husband that loves me, and grateful to be mother of 8 arrows, willing to take from the Lord as He gives, because each one is a testimony in themselves of the power of God to heal a broken sinner like me.

2Co 4:5-7 [in]