This is the testimony of Alison Rachel, currently living on the West Coast of Canada.
My first concept of God was when I was around fours years old and realized that a source of power must have made the universe. My mother raised me telling me that I was born for a particular purpose in life.
My family and I, though living in our small town on an island, would travel across the ocean to the “”big city”” to monthly attend a church that considers itself to be practicing a renewal of Christianity, and the occult.
In about grade two or three at Pioneer Girls Club, and later Sky Force I learned about Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible.
In middle and high school I was part of a church youth group, and was on staff and a camper at a Christian camp. The summer I was 16 years old, during a candlelight service on the lake there, I asked Christ into my life. My life changed and I grew emotionally and spiritually over the next few years. I was writing poetry about experiences and life. I was trying to deal with a lot of New Age and gnostic beliefs that had been around me growing up. The most difficult topic to deal with was reincarnation.
I moved to Europe for five years when I was 20 years old and my goal in life was to party all the way from the age of 20 to the age of 30. While I was there I was part of a relationship that was abusive. I had totally lost sight of Christ in my life. I had turned my back on Him and lived Him out of my life.
When I was 24 years old, I felt myself falling into a depression. I would cry myself to sleep almost every night. I was also homesick for Canada and my mother. I never even thought to call on Jesus Christ.
I left Europe when I was 25 years old, and started the process of seperation for divorce from my first husband. For another two years I was in a downward spiralling depression, and was searching for the meaning of my life.
In the meantime, I had reacquainted myself with a childhood friend, with whom I moved to a town in the countryside, and later married.
During this time I still felt empty in my deepest insides. I consulted an astrologer, a psychic, and a counsellor about the lack of meaning in my life. After listening to me, the latter told me I was missing a spiritual life.
During a sermon and worship time at a summer camp nearby that my to be sister-in-law invited me to, Christ let me know what my part in helping Him and other people was going to be. It felt as though God’s Spirit pierced through me and Christ showed me the purpose of my life.
I’ve had the privilege of helping introduce a co-worker to Christ. I am part of a really caring small group of people from my church, and God is teaching me about His words in the Bible as the truth for my life. He is showing me talents and gifts He has given me to help Him further His Kingdom, and I’m writing poetry again.
The recent experiences of growth in my life are to be a better helper to my husband, to forgive a family member who is very dear to me, two miscarriages I have had, trying out my gifts to serve Him, being of service to my care group, and trusting and stepping in faith in the will that God has for me.
Jesus Christ is leading me to submit my will and control to Him, to accept love and help, to be vulnerable, to trust, and to rely on His grace because it is sufficient!
“”You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”” Jeremiah 29:13
“”But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ There for I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”” 2 Corinthians 12:19