ecclesiastes 3:1-14 for everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. ² a time to be born and a time to die. a time to plant and a time to harvest. ³ a time to kill and a time to heal. a time to tear down and a time to build up. ⁴ a time to cry and a time to laugh. a time to grieve and a time to dance. ⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. a time to embrace and a time to turn away. ⁶ a time to search and a time to quit searching. a time to keep and a time to throw away. ⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend.a time to be quiet and a time to speak. ⁸ a time to love and a time to hate. a time for war and a time for peace. ⁹ what do people really get for all their hard work? ¹⁰ i have seen the burden god has placed on us all. ¹¹ yet god has made everything beautiful for its own time. he has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of god’s work from beginning to end. ¹² so i concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. ¹³ and people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from god. ¹⁴ and i know that whatever god does is final. nothing can be added to it or taken from it. god’s purpose is that people should fear him.

with god i have found and forgiven myself and so can you!

 where do i start?  i have wrestled all my life with myself.  growing up my school years was what i considered horrible.  i was always told that i was ugly and i never had any friends or boyfriends in school. there were two girls that lived on my block that were my very best friends and only friends.  i was a little skinny and boney child. fast forward to high school around the age of 14 my body begin to develop and men started to pay attention to me and i loved the attention.  let me say this i was always a daddy’s girl so i was never short on love but i believe i was looking for someone to make me feel pretty.  also by this time in my life my mom and dad had divorced.  my dad was always in my life even more so after the divorce. at this time a man that i had known all my life started paying attention to me.  he was the cousin of my best friend. he was 10 years older than me. this was the beginning of my downfall.  i turned into a totally different person.  i started sleeping with him.  he became my life and there was nothing that i would not do for him.  i thought i was grown.  i would sneak out of the house on weekends and stay gone all weekend and he would sneak me into motels. i would sneak back into the house and no matter what my mother did to me it did not matter i continued sneaking out with him.  low and behold at the age of fifteen i became pregnant and tried to hide it from my mom but she did eventually find out and i was somewhat far along in the pregnancy but none of that mattered i had to get an abortion and it was one of the most horrible experiences of my life i hated myself for a long time for that. after that the sneaking out and the beatings from my mother continued until she finally could not do it anymore and put me out.  i had to go live with my dad and step mom.  of course being a daddy’s girl i got away with murder.  all i had to do was say that i was spending the weekend with a girlfriend and everything was ok.  it was around this time that my so called boyfriend started hitting me and made me do all sorts of things. i never ever in my life thought that i would let some man hit me and get away with it.  but i stayed with him.  i thought i loved him. fast forward to 17 i became pregnant in january of 1982 again this time i was going to keep my child.  i moved back home with my mom to have my baby. my son was born in october of 1982 and i continued to stay with his father threw the beatings and all.  the time came when i finally decided that i had, had enough and left him i was 19 and he was 29 by then. i will always remember this night.  it was on christmas night december 1983.  by this time i was back living with my dad.  we were i sitting around the tree with my son and all of a sudden my son’s father shows up and asks if he could talk to me for a minute.  now keep in mine that up to this point he had threatened me numerous times he would always say that he was going to shoot me in both of my knees and take my son from me even though he had always denied him and said that he was not his child.  but i thought what harm would it do to sit in the driveway and talk to him.  so i got in the car with no coat on and before i knew it he had pulled off with me in the car.  he knew that i had been hanging out at my best friend’s apartment and thought i was over there seeing someone even though we were not together anymore. he made me take him down there.   it was right off of the river. he was completely mad.  he began saying stuff like if he can’t have me no one else will and before i knew it he had jumped over on top of me and began to strangle me i remember being so close to death that i released all my body functions and passed out.  when i woke up he was saying all sorts of stuff like he was going to kill me and throw me in the river and that my family would never find my body.  so he started driving towards the river but had to stop to get some gas (god’s intervention).  before he got out of the car he told me to take off my shoes and socks.  so i did take my shoes off and managed to be able to keep my socks on.  as soon as he stepped into the gas station i jumped out of the car and went running up jefferson screaming and hollering.  i remember seeing him jump in the car and start after me by some chance i remembered that a boy that i used to talk to stayed down there so i ran to his house and did not even knock just busted thru there door they thought i was some crazy person until they realized who i was and they called my father to come and get me. i decided to tell my story for a number of reasons. i wanted young ladies to know you can be delivered from anything you may have done in this world.  it took me a long time to forgive myself for all that i had done not realizing that god had forgiven me a long time ago.  i also wanted to encourage the young ladies of today to let them know that you don’t have to find love this way god loves you the way you are. you are gods most precious gift and your body is a temple and should be treated as such. there is not a day in my daughters life that i don’t let her know how beautiful she is inside and out and that there is no greater love than the one that god has for her.  i hated myself for along time for all of this (feeling ugly, the sex, abortion, having a child) but finally realized that i was really a child making child decision when all of this happened and that the devil will always try to make you feel as if god won’t forgive you. but know there is nothing in this world that you can do to make god not love you and turn against you god will always be there and forgive you.  like i know he was right there with me that night.  god’s grace and mercy is awesome. it’s time to forgive yourself and come home to god where you belong like i did when i gave my life to christ and joined clearview christian ministries there is no greater feeling you will ever have than to serve the lord. i am also the proud single mother of two sons and a beautiful daughter (pictured with me). i now know that i am beautiful and always was. the lord has blessed me with the most loving and spiritual friends that i would not trade for anything in the world.

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