My testimony

I was born in a small fishing village in Newfoundland into a large family. I am the youngest of 11 children. I have 4 sisters and 6 brothers. My dad worked on a fishing boat as an engineer My dad was an abusive alcoholic, and when I was 2 or 3 years old, my mother had decided to leave Dad and took myself and two of my older siblings with her. We moved to a neighboring town and lived there for 6 months I am told. Then we moved to another town and stayed in that town for 13 awful years. Because mom was not educated, or had any employable skills, we relied on social assistance to keep us alive. It was really hard and I don't know how Mom did it, with no help. She was rejected by many people who blamed her for the breakup of the home. At this new town, I was an easy target for bullying. I would start to cry if the wind changed. In grade 6 a lot of kids started to call me a name that I will not disclose at this time. I distinctly remember it being at recess time that they first called me by that name. So, as you can probably guess by now, my self image was all messed up. I was fearful of walking down the street for fear of who might be there waiting to pick a fight with me. I got rocks and eggs thrown at me, people would not even sit on the bus for fear of being contaminated by me, thrown down flights of stairs and just about no one wanted to be friends with me. I got depressed often and had nowhere to turn.

My mother showed me love in her own way, but it never got through to me. She thought that taking me everywhere would prove that she loved me. But I didn't feel that loved. And my dad never came to see me, sent cards or called me. My other friends had dads in their lives and I missed that very much.

I spent alot of time alone in my room because the kids in the neighborhood bullied me and I often walked home as quietly and quickly as I could for fear that one of them would beat me up. At age 13 I decided that in order to fit in and make friends was to get a boyfriend and be a wild party girl. Maybe then, I would finally be accepted. Hang out with the cool kids and life would be better. Maybe. It worked for a while, even to the point that at the age of 15, I had a real boyfriend and we would hang out with each other and sometimes a group of us would party together. And then we moved again. This time it was out of province to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. I was back to being alone. But there was no bullying, so it wasn't so bad. I could handle being alone, I thought. My older brother had moved out of the house at that point and so it was just me and mom. I could walk down the street and not fear anything. Finally relief. Like a typical teen, I wanted to have fun. I had several so called boyfriends there who were much older than I was. I started going to the clubs and thought it was so cool. I lived there for 2 years and found some friends who liked to do the same things I did. At 17, I had figured it was time to get out from living with my mother and make it on my own. I'd almost finished school, but had enough of the fighting with mom. My brother had offered to have me come share an apartment with him in Newfoundland, so thats what I did. I moved in with him in the following August and got some part time jobs at various retail places.
Fast forward to 8 years and God was really starting to call out to me. He wanted me to come to Him, but I felt really unworthy to come to Him. I had enough of the party girl lifestyle and wasnt happy at all. I had made some drinking buddies and had gone to university and learned about all these interesting things. But I still felt unloved and desperately wanted to be accepted and loved. I'd had two live in boyfriends and they could not love me like I needed and wanted to be loved. A friend of a friend had become one of my friends. She was a single mother pregnant with twins. She loved me and accepted me and showed me that being a Christian was fun. I had gone to Anglican churches and United church and it was nice sometimes and I really felt God's presence at times. But it had never been fun. She invited me to her church and I don't remember anything the pastor preached. I cried almost the whole time. I gave my heart to Jesus to be my Lord the following week. A lady there wrapped her arms around me and told me that no matter what I felt about myself, He loved me no matter what. I have been a Christian now for 11 years now and have been so blessed. I am very thankful for all that God has brought into my life and for giving me that love that I desperately wanted and searched for all my life. I will never go back to that old life.