"Let's go and make fun of the Holy Rollers"

I have posted this on a few forums: Lets go and make fun of the holy rollers" or How I came to know the Love of a Father

I have posted part of my testimony in the charismatic forums and testimony forums at Christian forums. How God healed me from Progressive MS after 2 heart attacks and being sent home to die. That is the latest miracle he has done for me except the everyday miracles, of living another day to praise him!

Although it was a great miracle, I don't think it was the greatest one, the greatest of all miracles took place 45 years ago this March.
I was born into a large family, my parents were divorced when I was 4 years old. We were children of abuse, in that my mother was attracted to and married men that were sociopathic.
My own father raised us three older girls most of the time, he was a good man, most of the time, but a weekend alcholic who hated me, as what he called "the blacksheep". I didn't know much about the love of a father growing up, beatings were a way of life.
My younger half brothers and sister suffered even more because they were beaten on a daily basis by our stepfather, when we lived with our mother we also suffered from these daily beatings. But we could always go back to daddy's they had no other place to go. That is until my Dad moved back to Kentucky by himself, when I was 13.
Life for us was not the carefree life that most children had growing up in the 50s.
Then in the winter of 1960 a pentecostal lady befriended my mother, and invited them to church. My mother and stepfather were delighted to accept her invitation and promptly took me to "make fun of the holy rollers". I will always be thankful for that.

When we got there I found that these people weren't people to ridicule, but simple people who loved God with all of thier hearts. They had something that I knew I didn't have and wanted with all of my heart. I had never known love except from my maternal grandmother in all of my life she was my only comfort.
My parents never went back, but I went back and after 3 weeks, I and my younger sister went forward to the altar to ask forgiveness for our sins. In July of that year we were baptized in Belleville lake during a horrendous thunder storm, I have never been afraid of storms since then.
I wish I could say that the beatings stopped immediately they didn't, and even got worse. We were put to work in order to get to go to church, we were beaten and made fun of as "hypocrits" by my stepfather. When I was 16 I and my sister went to live with my Grandmother, because my stepfather attempted rape. They were asked to leave the county to avoid prosecution.

When I was first saved, I felt Jesus was my friend, but I had no love for the Father who I envisioned as wrathful, and ready to kill me the first time I did anything wrong. He out of his love and mercy gently guided me into a knowledge of how much he loved me. I would read Jesus words, what man among you being evil if his son asked for bread would give him a stone? I couldn't relate to that at all the men who I knew as Fathers would give the stone.
Through the years. I have seen my brothers turn to drugs, two of them died in their 30s, my sisters drop out of school and get married as teenagers. Except for the grace of God that would have been my fate.

Because of Gods mercy and grace I was the only one who never used illegal drugs, who got a degree, and waited until I was 21 before I married. We celebrated our 36th anniversary this year.
We never had children, but God allowed us to adopt a son, it was during this time I found out more about the love of my Father Romans 8 became an important chapter of my life. The unnatural fear I had of him as wrathful began to melt away. I began to realize when a baby stumbled and fell it was not natural for the parent to kill it for stumbling, instead the natural thing would be to comfort the child, stand him back up on his feet and encourage him to try again. That is how I began seeing myself and my Father, I picture myself as that infant and my loving Father reaching down, with a helping loving hand and standing me back on my feet.

God gave me the privelege of being instrumental and seeing both of my parents come to him before they died. My father at 70 years old, asked me how I knew I was saved. My father as a teenager had once studied for the ministry, he knew the bible and could quote word for word from 4 translations, but he had never experienced "knowing" God.
I told him of my chapter of Romans 8 how the Spirit cometh in crying abba Father, and my spirit identifying with that Spirit. A few years later when he died he was ready to go on to be with his loving Father. Before my mother died of lung cancer in 1996 she prayed the sinners pray and was saved.
My heavenly Father is so good to me. I am always amazed how he has turned the bitter things in my life to such sweetness. Here lately I have been overwhelmed of his love and grace. Why me? I didn't deserve him. Why me? He first loved me, why not my brothers, my sisters, or someone who was more talented, more worthy? Why me? I can only say because His mercies are beyond finding out. I have been overwhelmed with the fact that if it had not been for my mother and stepfather taking me to "make fun of the holy rollers" I may have never known that Grace he is truly Jehovah-Rapha, the God who makes even bitter experiences sweet.
A sinner saved by His loving Grace

I will post the testimony of my physical healing at another time. He is Jehovah-Rapha