Sherry Ruddick

Jesus has done so many wonderful things for me and I have many great testimonies but the most profound is how he saved me.

My mother was 17 yrs old when she had me and 19 when she had my sister. We never went to church growing up except occasionally with friends. My grandmother had died when my mother was 12 and she practically raised herself. She was raised in a very violently abusive home. Her mother had been a morman but thankfully my mother wasn’t involved in that when we were growing up.

My mother was abusive. Especially to me. I remember as a child waching the clock in my classroom and dreading having to go home. My father is a very quiet man and would sit by while she would scream, yell and throw anything she could. She would line my sister and myself up and she would search our room. It didn’t matter if it was actually dirty or not she would find anything with that white glove inspection. She would scream and yell, and throw anything we had breakable against the wall. She would take her arms and rake everything off our dresser, throw things around the room and then demand we clean it up. She would always come to me at the end of this tirade and begin slapping me repeatedly. She would curse me and call me all kinds of curse words. She would tell me that I was dirty, stupid and worthless.

I remember once when she had finished slapping me and cursing me, I turned my face toward heaven and I asked Jesus “Why do you let her do this? Don’t you love me?” But, Jesus did love me and had given me a wonderful christian grandmother. We would go to her house anytime we were permitted and she was our safe haven. I think she had an idea things were going on at home but didn’t know the extint. All the years of her life she told me of Jesus and the wonderful things he had done for her. My life went on and my mother remarried. My step father was as bad as she was about degrading me. He did make my mother stop her “fits” as I call them.

As a teenager I was very wild. I smoked cigarettes, did drugs and drank alcohol. I was 19 years old and by that time would stay gone for days before coming home. I would sleep out in the car in the woods. I would be either high or drunk nearly 24 hours a day. One day I decided I had, had enough of that life. I prayed and asked god to send me a christian young man that I could date and try to “fix” my life. Not 3 days later I met a young man. He was a backslidden preachers son. His dad made him invite me to church. I was amazed out how much love these people had.

One night not long after I started going to church there, I had a dream that changed my life forever. I dreamed of Jesus standing before me. He was glowing white and had blood coming from the wounds on his hands. My boyfriends dad (the minister of the church) was beside him. Jesus cupped his hands together and he said “There is everylasting love, life and happiness through the taking of the blood of Jesus Christ” then he poured the blood into the pastors hands. The pastor smiling at me, poured the blood into my cupped hands. After this dream, I asked the pastor about it and he said he believed it was from God. He told me of the blood of the lamb in the old testiment and then how Jesus became that lamb and what his blood means to us.

I asked Jesus into my heart and he saved me. That boyfriend has been my husband for 11 yrs and that pastor has been my father in law for 11 years. My husband rededicated his life to the Lord and we have two wonderful children. My mother has asked my forgiveness for her old ways and even though she still needs the Lord she has changed and is so regretful for the things she has done. She is a wonderful grandmother and we have a good relationship today. Jesus did love me when I was a child and he has shown me in so many ways that he has always and will always love me. Who am I that God would show me in a dream how to be saved? I knew that He did indeed love me very much to come to me in a dream that way.

Thank you for letting me share

Sherry Ruddick in Arkansas