I never understood why everyone went to church, it seemed so obvious that there was no God and they were wasting their time. I assumed they just went because everyone else went. So I went for a while and was never saved, they told me I was saved because I was baptised when I was about 1 year old. So I believed them and I thought I was saved.

As I got older I started really hating church. So I decided that Christianity was boring and I tried Wicca for a while. It was pretty cool but I never understood why none of the spells and crap worked. And everyone I talked to on the internet said the spells worked for them.

I got out of Wicca cause it never worked for me and met a new friend who was an agnostic and I also became one. I decided it was stupid to worry about God since I believed he was fake and I didn't wanna waste my time with him.

So after a while I started watching pornography like every single day and downloading as much as I could. I completely forgot about God and my soul. And I just sinned all the time and didn't care at all, I had had a bible since I was like 10 and I never read even a single page of it.

Then I met a Christian friend, he never tried to witness to me though cause I said I was a Christian (because my parents said I was). So I met a few more Christian friends.

... 1 day my old agnostic friend was on the net, and they started witnessing to him and invited me into the convo. And I acted like a Christian and tried to help witness to him. Finally he started to believe what we were saying. Then my other friend typed in a prayer for him to say, and told him to say it and mean it with all his heart (It was a prayer asking for forgiveness for your sins and for Jesus Christ to come into your life and help cleanse you of those sins).

And I just decided I would say it to, so as I was saying it I started crying and I meant it with ALL my heart. Then when we stopped praying I felt this awesome feeling, I felt really light and had this REAL good tingling feeling all over, it was the best feeling I EVER had. I didn't stop smiling for about 5 hours.

I deleted all the pornography, and I completely changed. All of my other friends freaked out, because 1 day at school I was cussing all the time and talking about porno and crap, and then the next day I was not cussing and I was talking about Jesus Christ.

At first it was hard to quit cussing and some other things, but now I haven't cussed in about 2 weeks or so. Haven't looked at pornography but 1 time since I was saved (it was because I invited an old friend over and I was next to him and he started looking at it and I just tried to ignore him and watch tv instead).

So Jesus Christ has completely changed my life and after I was saved I felt like a completely new person. I was saved October 10, 2001. I try to go to church every Sunday and now its actually really cool. I started out as a member of the First United Methodist Church, this church was the one that lied to me and told me I was saved when I wasn't, this church almost cost me an eternity in hell. LUCKILY my friends helped bring me to the Lord and now I attend church with them at the First Baptist Church, this is a good church and they don't lie to you.

If your not saved, don't put it off and plan on getting saved at a more "convenie... time. The time to come to the Lord is now, we don't know what tomorrow may hold.

Within a year after mom passed, I was virtually the only child left at home, as nearly all the others had gotten married or just moved out. I was not saved at the time, and my dad was really putting pressure on me (although I don't think he realized it) to do so.

Within a year a half, dad got remarried, and I was not at all comfortable with it. My relationship with my step-mother was not a happy one, mainly because I wouldn't let it be. I still had not "let go" of my mother, and I resented my step-mother, and also I resented my dad for allowing her to "take over" in "mom's place". We fought almost constantly, at one time my dad even had our pastor come to the house to mediate.

At 17, I told my dad I wanted to move in with my sister, and that if he didn't let me, I would just run away. He didn't, but I didn't run away. Instead, I realized that my dad must love me very much to not want me to move out, and so I decided to make him happy. So, at 17, I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior (or so I acted like I had) and was baptized.

I had a boyfriend, I'll call him "TC", who had moved away for a while, but came back to town a couple of months after I was baptized. One night, he called me, crying, saying that he was scared. He finally told me that he was going to Hell because, while he was living in CA, he had gotten in with the wrong crowd and wound up selling his soul to Satan, saying that he remembered signing a contract with his own blood. I felt that he was sincere and that he needed spiritual help, so I contacted my pastor, who went to TC's home and counseled him. After that, not a word was said about it, and I really didn't think anymore about it.

TC and I would go out on dates, and I had told him that I wanted to wait until I was married to have an intimate relationship with someone. As a teenager, I was still also very naive and gullable, and I soon found out that TC was a very smooth talker. One night on a date, we went back to his place and he talked me into "just lying beside him in his bed". I soon wound up a victim of "date rape", with heavy metal music playing in the background (To this day, I cannot stand heavy metal). I felt ashamed and worthless as TC eventually dragged me into a life of sin and fornication. He then turned his attention to my best friend, who was desperate for a boyfriend. They paraded their blatant tryst right in front of me, knowing that it would hurt me. She wanted me out of the picture, but he didn't and tried to talk me into having a "threesome". I drew the line and refused. He seemed to have some sort of "spell" over me, as I continued to go out and be intimate with him. And even though I eventually broke things off, he still seemed to have a hold on me.

When I was 18, my oldest sister and her husband introduced me to a divorced friend of theirs who was about 8 years older than I. When I had broken things off with TC, I had prayed to the Lord that he would send a good, Christian man my way to help me get over the emotional pain I had suffered at TC's hands. When I met "MC", I felt that the Lord had answered that prayer. We were immediately attracted to each other, and he was a good, Christian man (our first "date" was a Wednesday night Bible study at his church). He was all that I could ever have asked for in a man, at that time. I felt that I was ready to settle down and be his wife.

But Satan was still having a grand old time at my expense. When TC found out about my seeing someone else, he came around to see if he still had a hold on me, and, in fact, he did. Or, I should say, Satan still had a hold on me. I hated TC so much that I forgot about Romans 12:19 ("Dear friends, never avenge yourselves. Leave that to God. For it is written, 'I will take vengeance; I will repay those who deserve it', says the Lord." - New Living Translation). I set TC up and tried to get MC to beat him up for me. But my plan backfired on me, as my conscience told me that it was wrong, and I confessed to MC that I had lied to him about some things TC had said about him to get him to beat him up. I was truly sorry about what I did, and I begged MC not to break up with me, but he did. Feeling lower than a snake's belly, I felt that whatever happened to me after that, I truly deserved. Satan would soon make my life a wreck.

I stopped going to church. I no longer considered myself a real Christian, and felt unworthy of fellowshipping with those that were. I withdrew from my family, I started smoking, drinking, smoking pot and partying with the wrong crowd. My relationship with my stepmother was even worse, and after she threatened to leave, my dad told me I had to go. I left the only home I had ever known without throwing a fit. TC had also come back into my life, but I was now the "other woman", as my former best friend did not know that he was seeing me again.

TC would tell me that he loved me, and a part of me, deep down, wanted to believe him. I wanted no contact with my family at that time. It also wasn't any help that TC would lie to me, telling me that he had talked to members of my family and that they had told him how much they hated me for leaving the church. I had never in my life felt so unloved as I did at that time. TC knew that I was in a position where he could once again completely control me, and exact his revenge on me. Eventually, one night at his apartment, he raped and sodomized me. I wanted to go to the sheriff's department and have him arrested, but even though there was physical evidence, I hated myself so much that I felt that no one would believe me. So, I kept my mouth shut about it.

Once, I tried to see if MC would take me back, but instead found that he had moved on with his life. I was so devastated that I fell into my bed (which was in a mobile home), in the heat of July, with no air conditioning, and stayed there for two days, wishing I would die from dehydration. I lost my job over those two days. I entertained thoughts of suicide, but knew that if I killed myself, I would surely go to Hell. I was unable to find another job, and eventually my only mode of transportation was repossessed. I seriously considered hitching a ride to Los Angeles, or somewhere like that, to try to make a living as a prostitute (it seemed like sex was the only thing I was good at). Unable to pay rent, I had to move out of the mobile home. I lived here, lived there, lived off the kindness of strangers. I even tried to join the military, but after I had put down in my health history that I had had a nervous breakdown in the past, they wouldn't take me.

When I finally hit rock bottom, and felt that I could go no further without dying, I swallowed my pride and called my sister, who had a place of her own at that time. She let me come and live with her, and I really felt grateful. I would cook, clean, do the laundry and occasionally look after my little nephew. I still couldn't find a job, though. It seemed no one wanted to hire me, and I really can't say that I blamed them.

That Christmas Eve, we went to our family's get-together. I felt so out-of-place, like a stranger amongst my own family, and I resented it. I watched my brothers and sisters open great gifts from our dad and stepmother, as I opened my gift from them - a card with a $10 bill in it. It was the only gift I received that Christmas - or, at least, the only gift I THOUGHT I would receive. I smiled and thanked them, but after my sister and I got home that evening, I was feeling pretty down about it. I tried not to let it show, though.

My nephew went to his father's and my sister went out with her boyfriend, and I was left alone that night, to wallow in my self-pity on Christmas Eve. I found a bottle of cheap wine in my sister's refrigerator and commenced to drinking it. I thought about the past, about how it seemed I hadn't a friend in the world. In a drunken state, I dialed up my former best friend to "wish her a Merry Christmas", planning to tell her the truth about me and TC. But her mother aswered, and told me that she was out with TC.

I longed for the long-gone days of my happy childhood, the days of when my mother was still on this earth. I felt that the only person who had ever loved me was up there in Heaven, and that if she could see me right then, she would be so disappointed in me. I decided to go out onto the back porch for a cigarette, and stepping out into the cold night air I looked up at the billions of stars shining bright in the sky. I remembered the third verse to "Away In A Manger" and started to sing it very low: "Be near, me, Lord Jesus. I ask thee to stay close by me forever, and love me, I pray..."

I screamed out, "GOD, WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?!!!" And then, something very strange happened. To this day, I do not believe it was the wine, but the divine hand of God, that knocked me off my feet and to the floor that night. I was a wayward child, throwing a tantrum, in need of discipline. The fall did not hurt me, and I didn't hit my head or anything, but I was stunned, and as I lay there on my back, a sense of calm came over me that I had never felt before in my life. It was then that Jesus spoke to me. I didn't hear Him with my ears, but with my heart and soul. He told me that He had never left me, that through all these troubles in my life He had been beside me, keeping me from death. He told me that He loved me, and He said to me, "My child, I have never left you. It was YOU who left ME." I started crying again after that, great wrenching sobs. My soul was being purged and cleansed, and I asked Jesus to forgive me for all that I had done and said, and to come back into my heart. The calm lifted and a wondrous joy filled my heart, like I had never felt before. I jumped up. I started singing and shouting and praising the Lord. "Thank you, Jesus! I'm saved!" I shouted. That was truly the BEST Christmas gift I have ever received.

My stepmother and I get along just fine now.

And God gave me the strength to finally say "no" to TC.

Your sister in Christ,

Bev