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Pare's
Testimony
I
am 66, been married to Charlotte for 47 wonderful years. We have
three daughters who have blessed us with nine grandchildren and
one great-grandchild. I grew up in a Christian family, and at the
age of 17, I joined the Navy for a four year hitch. During that
time, I met and married my wife.
For the next
23 years I turned from my Christian roots and ran from God as far
and as fast as I could.
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After years of futile
searching for answers to life, God called me back to Himself at the age
of 40. I attended and then graduated from Faith Bible College on June 1,
1986.
I have been part of
a jail ministry for a time and have been involved in many small home-bible-study
groups. I believe God has called me to be a pastor, but not in the traditional
sense. I have discovered that my real heart is in personal one-on-one
witnessing and counseling.
As a result of my
past involvement in world religions, the occult and cults, and a span
of several years as a self-professed atheist, I have spent many years
on the studies of comparative religion, the occult and cults so as to
be equipped to give an answer to every man who asks of me a reason of
the hope that is within me (1 Peter 3:15). I have devoted many years to
the study of His written word to show myself proved unto God, a workman
that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Timothy
2:15), believing that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and
is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness (2 Timothy 4:16). God has blessed me richly by leading
many godly Christians to help and to be a part of this Internet ministry,
which has gone far past any expectations I originally had. Many have been
blessed through Open Arms Ministry, and those of us who have been involved
have been blessed as well. I thank God for each and every one of them.

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I'm
49. I don't have any children, but I do have two cats and a dog. I've
been divorced since July 1999, after being married for three and half
years (yes, I did have biblical reasons). I come from a Christian
family (I've been a Christian since I was 9) and my parents just celebrated
their 58th anniversary this past September! I enjoy working with teens
(I've taught high school Spanish and French for 20 years) and singles
(I was single until I was 36). I have spent many years in various
forms of Christian service, including 6 months in Paris as a missionary
working with a French church. Presently I teach high school, operate
a home-based company, Chalkboard Productions, and write, as
well as working with OAIM in my spare time. |
Officially
my job title in the chat room is the bouncer (to maintain an atmosphere
that is conducive to allow hurting people to share their problems, which
means I report trouble makers to Yahoo). I do many of the secretarial
tasks and am the webmaster for this site. Pare and I started this ministry
together in January 1998 and it's been a real blessing to me ever since!
It's been amazing to see how God has worked in bringing the two of us
together. Either one of us by ourselves would not be capable of running
a ministry like this, but Pare has the skills I lack and vice versa. God
has really blessed me by bringing me into partnership with Pare, one of
the most genuine, sincerely godly men I have ever had the privilege to
meet.
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I am proof
that psychology doesn't work!!!! I was diagnosed with chronic
depression, post tramatic stress syndrome, and anxiety disorder.
My doctor first prescribed Xanax and Pamelor. What did that
do? It sent me directly to the emergency room. You see, I
was abused as a child and just started to remember what had
happened to
me.
I ran
to where I now live to get away from the memories, but guess
what? They followed me, so I saw psychologists here along
with more drugs. They tried Serzone and Zoloft but they only
made me worse.
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Finally,
moved onto another psychologist who I really thought could help
me -- until He told me "God isn't sitting on your shoulder
telling you that everyone else should be happy but you." He
made sure that he told me that because He knew I was a Christian.
He also prescribed me Paxil which didn't take away the depression,
but it made me into a zombie. So not only did I still have the depression,
but I also couldn't stay awake long enough to enjoy life either.
Then
I found OAM, and within a month or two I was off the medication
(not on the advice from OAM) and living a wonderful normal life.
The answer was that I was blaming God for the sin of another person.
I would wonder, God why didn't you stop him? Why did you let this
happen? Then I realized that God gave us a gift of choice and the
person who abused me chose to sin by hurting me. Yes, God could
have stopped and judged him, but then He would have had to stop
and judge me for ALL of my sins that I had committed too. What did
I get for going to all these psychologists and the psychiatrist?
Hefty medical bills, drugged and NO help!!!!
Now
God is using what was a tragedy to enable me to help others who
have suffered like I have and I PRAISE HIM FOR IT!!!!
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On May 28th,
2005 I was in the garden planting my tomatoes. The sun was shining;
it was a beautiful day. I stopped for a moment, and thanked God
for giving me such a glorious day to plant. Then I thought, how
different this day was compared to just one year ago. I was planting
tomatoes then too, only I didn't notice the beauty, didn't stop
to thank God. I did stop not to thank God, but because I was crying
so hard I couldn't see a thing. I gave up and went to my room.
I did talk
to God that day but to beg Him to help me. I remember telling
Him, I couldn't get it right, and I didn't know what He wanted
me to do for Him to love me and help me.
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God was like
an obsession back then. I knew He was there, couldn't figure out
how to get Him here with me. I had tried everything, and God was
my last hope, but I wasn't good enough and that was why I was crying.
I knew that He could stop all of this if He wanted to with a blink
of His eye.
I was depressed.
It was not new; it had followed me most of my life. I'm 43 years
old, had been depressed since I was 13. When I was 22, I was hospitalized
for it. The following years were spent in and out of psychiatric
hospitals, on medications, in counseling. I attempted suicide several
times although I wasn't totally serious. See I knew that if I did,
I was doomed to hell. And even though I was miserable and hopeless
I was more afraid of the "lake of fire" than I was of
continuing to live.
By 1989, I had
lost my children, my husband, my home and everything I owned. I
lived on the street for a while and one day a kind person took me
in, cared for me, saved me, at least for a while. The years that
followed were ok, although I couldn't work. I was fine as long as
I lived quietly. But it wasn't enough.
I resisted the
pull of severe depression for several years, although it never left
me, just hovered below the surface. I thought of myself as a damaged
person, half, not whole. I eventually remarried, and we regained
custody of the children.
In 2000, my
brother died and the following year I found myself again in a hospital.
The doctor there had me on so many meds I was not a risk to myself
or anyone, I could barely function. My husband pulled me out and
took me to another hospital. The doctor there stopped the meds.
I managed to get by for a few more years.
Until that day
in the garden. After I left my room, I went to the computer. I needed
to talk to someone, anyone. The Internet is anonymous and this what
I wanted; no one could know me. I was looking for a message board,
somewhere to talk about this where no one knew who I was. I wanted
to find out why God hated me and thought maybe the answer was there.
OAIM was first on the list.
I read the front
page for the group, and went to the website. I didn't believe what
they said. Depression is a spiritual problem? Yeah right. All those
years of misery, medications, psychologists, wanting to die and
these people say it's about God? But I had tried everything else
so why not?
At first I just
watched, visited the chatroom and board but didn't participate much.
Things got much worse for me, and one day I decided it was time
to ask for help. Sending that first email was the scariest and best
thing I ever did. I had no idea how much my life was going to change.
I had no idea
how wrong I was about God. I saw Him as an angry, judgmental God
who expected me to always get it right, be good and then maybe He
would help me. As a child I would pray each night, afraid if I didn't
I might die before morning and would be in hell. As a teen the things
that happened I saw as God's punishment for not obeying Him. I decided
that since I could never be good enough why bother with Him? He
wasn't listening anyway. There was no hope.
I learned these
things in my church. The pastor taught and believed you lost your
salvation each time you sin. He taught about giving things up and
what you must do to be saved. It wasn't a matter of just believing,
it was salvation + service, tithing, forgiving, etc. I even believed
that taking communion without being right with God could mean literal
death. For years taking communion filled me with fear and I would
be physically ill. I know now that this is called legalism.
I look forward
to communion now without fear, without feeling sick and it's a moment
of pure joy, peace and love, a time when I think of how much God
loves me that He sent His son to save me, of what Jesus did for
me. I've gone from depressed to happy, from being afraid to being
filled with joy, turmoil to peace, wanting to giving, despair to
hope. That shadow just beneath the surface is gone, replaced with
love and peace. The things that used to drive me deeper in depression
now are just problems that need to be solved and if I can't, I leave
them to God. My thoughts are focused on God instead of my troubles.
The valleys don't last as long and the mountains seem to last longer.
Sometimes it feels like I could soar like an eagle and those times
sustain me when trouble comes, I remind myself that joy is just
around the corner.
Amazing isn't
it? From clinically depressed, miserable, hopeless skeptic to counselor
in 18 months. Becoming a counselor just seemed a natural progression,
I didn't think about it much. It just made sense to do it. I shake
my head in disbelief sometimes, never imagining I could do such
a thing. I said once, all of those miserable years were such a waste.
But they aren't. When I say to someone "there is hope"
I know it's true.
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I became
a Christian when I was 15 years old at a Billy Graham crusade
in Chicago, Il. Looking back now, I don't believe that I really
understood the importance of salvation, as it was not something
that was taught at my childhood church, but when I was at
the crusade, I felt an overwhelming urge to go forward and
pray that special prayer with someone else listening. Over
the next few years, without reinforcement of the choice that
I had made for my life, church still remained a weekly part
of my life, but the fire that had been ignited within me began
to flicker and sputter, and dimmed way down.
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few years later, I fell in love, got married, and had 3 beautiful
children, but all the while, it felt like there was something
missing from my life. After beating my head against a wall for
years, I met some wonderful friends on the internet who had
more love and patience with me than I ever would have had. I
discovered what was missing in my life, and one day, it finally
all sunk in, and I rededicated my life to Christ. I began attending
a wonderful church that focused on God's word, and not all the
fancy liturgies and services that many churches focus on. My
heart was so hungry for the straight word of God, not embellished
or fancied up, just good straight teaching straight from the
Bible. I sure wish I had been raised in that kind of church,
or, more importantly, wish I had found it in time to raise my
own children there. My middle son has accepted Jesus as his
Lord and Savior, and my constant prayer and the deepest desire
of my heart is to see the rest of my family become Christians.
Life has
been hard for me, as it has for many people, and I have given
up all hope on more than one occasion, but through it all,
God has been there, even when I refused to see Him or His
love and works around me. He has blessed me in ways that never
cease to amaze me. I still go through doubting moments, and
I often wonder if He gets tired of them, but through it all,
He continues to draw me near to Him, and He lets me know that
everything will be all right. What a blessing to be so loved
and cherished, when I don't deserve it at all. A friend from
my new church loves to tell me that God "delights"
in me. That concept took some real getting used to, I mean
how could anyone, let alone the God who created this entire
universe, from the minute to the magnificent, delight in me?
Well, I still don't fully understand that one, but knowing
that if I were the only person ever created, God still would
have sacrificed His only Son, just for me, makes me very humble
and so very thankful to be counted as one of His own.
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