Born Again

One summer day, when I was a child, I went to stay with my my cousin, who lived in a village in Manitoba (Canada), and she took me to her church. For the first time in my life I went to Sunday School and heard about Jesus and His love for me and that I had to make a choice to accept him in order to be a child of God. The teacher related to us, in a parable, in order to explain the salvation message – She said there were 2 different camps and that we belonged to either the camp that belongs to Jesus which was full of life, joy, healing, peace, abundance, and everything that is good, or the enemy’s camp (the devil’s) which was full of lies, diseases, famine, depression, murder, addictions, and everything that is bad. While she was speaking it was like the whole world stood still and all I heard was her voice and it seemed like a spot light was on me and everything else was blurred around me and her words were marching towards me. She said that if I wanted to accept Jesus and everything that belonged to His camp (or kingdom) – this acceptance would give me eternal life with God, in Heaven. (She said Jesus was like a bridge that would lead me to God) but I would have to ask Him to come into my heart (or give him my life) and that if I wanted I could do that myself. I remember, as if it was just yesterday, kneeling at my bedside that night, and making my choice to accept Jesus.

Because she never told us the exact prayer to say (being a child and Catholic that was important), all I knew to do was make a door on my heart and pretended to draw it, and then open it and I said “Jesus I choose you and I ask you to come into my heart”. Joy and peace surrounding me and I jumped up into bed , but , I thought “what if he tries to get out” so I said “Jesus I am locking the door and throwing away the key, you’ll never ever get out of my heart.” – I MEANT IT! I felt different, my spirit was born again, I did not even know that I had become a brand new creation in Christ. Then I fell right to sleep.

At that time my family were not born again and I had no one to teach me the Word of God, except of course the Holy Spirit of God, which I did not know lived inside of me when I accepted Jesus. Growing up some awful things happened to me, such as, sexual abuse and verbal abuse and by the time I was a teenager I was a full blown rebellious young lady because of it.
Our church never taught healing or righteousness, in fact most of it was just repeating a bunch of memorized prayers. I remember having to chant “Lord I am not worthy to receive you, …etc.. and all kind of lowly statements like that. I did not like church anymore… in fact because of the abuse I suffered I thought God must have hated me. (I did not know the scriptures that said God was love).
I graduated and married an abusive man. He hurt me and our baby. I continued to live in fear and humiliation with him until I had my second son and my heart could not, emotionally and physically, take it anymore. I was under so much stress and fear that my heart began to go into atrial fib. often. One day (in the middle of the night, when my husband was in the bar), I took my children and left. I had no money, no job, no clothes, no furniture. I went to my parents for refuge. Thank God for them taking me and my sons in. Thank God for my family’s support. They kept us there for 3 months while I got physically and emotionally well. Here I was only 23 years old, 2 children, and a wrecked marriage.

The emotional & physical torment from my ex-husband continued even after leaving him, in fact it was worse as he was desperate to get me back. My oldest son got abused during visitation. Little did I know that it was the enemy (the devil) that was doing all these awful things to us, not God, and if I had only been taught in the word of God, in the word of faith, and knew how to come against those forces of darkness, then my children and I could of had a good life.

One summer I decided to send my sons to Bible Camp hoping that maybe God loved them and would heal them. Their little hearts were ready to receive Jesus and they had watched and heard me crying in the middle of the night for help, and they were just as desperate for God as I was. They too got born again while they were there, but unlike me they got taught in the word for a whole week and knew that they were born again. They witnessed to me about Jesus, not knowing that I was already a child of God and I was so numb from abuse that I did not even hear what they said to me.

The lifestyle that I was living by then was not conducive to being Born Again because my mind was not renewed to the things of God due to lack of teaching. After several weeks of them going to church and me staying home with a hang over on Sundays, I finally gave in to their pleas to go. The service was none like I had ever, in my Catholic life been to. There was no “we are not worthy” chants in fact the pastor said I was worthy to receive Jesus! He said God did not want those bad things to happen to me and God wanted to heal me. The pastor said if anyone wanted to make Jesus the Lord of their life, not just Savior, to come forward. My son, who was sitting next to me was praying fervently (for me) I felt a tugging at my heart to go up to the front. I knew in my heart that it was time for me to let go of the hurt and to let God into every area of my life (not just part of it). I leaned over to my son and said “I want to go up there for prayer”.

My son took me up to the alter, and when I told the women up at the alter that I came to make Jesus Lord, they cried, (I thought what is all this crying about, as, over the years of hurting, I had become hardened-I did not like to cry). I prayed with them and I meant business – it was time to let go of my old life and make Jesus the Lord over my life. Everyone was rejoicing but I still really didn’t know why they were so emotional until I got back to my seat. God flooded me with His love and the healing that I needed began, and in front of all those people, I tried to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t cry, because I thought it would hurt too much to much to allow my feelings to come out, and that if I started crying I thought I would never stop, but His love was so strong, it healed my heart and I began to sob and it did not hurt. I cried like a baby and it felt so good!! I felt the love that I needed for so long. God was washing me with His love, with Himself.
My sons and I rejoiced. That night we thanked God that we were all going to be in Heaven together.
What a difference that experience, of making Jesus Lord of my life, and being baptized with His Spirit, made in my life. I now knew I was forgiven, and I knew HIM! I was so in love with the Lord. All I wanted to do was tell people about the Jesus. I had never read the Bible before and I couldn’t put it down and I could now understand most of what I was reading. My eyes were opened to the things of the Spirit of God. I remember thinking “Look out devil, you have been found out, you were the one destroying our lives all along and making me think God was punishing me”.
I want you to know that God brought a wonderful born again, Spirit filled, Christian man into my life and I married him. God told us He was putting us together as a team to help people, pray for people and love them. He was giving us a second chance and we are to “Go Forth” together to do the great commission.

If you want to begin the emotional healing you need and want to begin a new life, clean, forgiven, and on your way to heaven, you can. The Bible say that you must be born again to enter into Heaven (see the book of John – Chapter 3 verse 3).

The Bible says it is easy but you must mean it. Acts 2:21 says that “Whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved”. And in the book of Romans chapter 10, verses 9-10 it tells you how to do it – SAY out loud or confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead then you will be saved. And that you don’t have to get your life all in order before you do it. The Bible says that Jesus did not come to condemn us but to save us… and that Jesus came to be our “scapegoat” for sin if we would only BELIEVE AND ACCEPT HIM. Jesus tell us He is the only way to God – read John 14:6 where Jesus say“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

If you would like help to pray, you could pray this prayer for salvation, so you too could be born again:
Heavenly Father, I ask you to forgive me of all my sins. I accept what your son Jesus did for me on the Cross. I accept Jesus as my Savior and my Lord. I believe that he died for me and was raised from the dead so I could be saved and enjoy life. I accept your forgiveness and I give my life to you right now, fill me with your Holy Spirit. Come into my heart Jesus,heal me, change me. Help me to live for you. Thank you for saving me and healing me and setting me free. In Jesus Name, AMEN.

I would be very encouraged if you would let me know that my testimony encouraged you. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected]