Jan's Testimony

I was given to my grandparents when I was three years old, and I lived with them until I was twenty-one. In 1963, I was married to a man, who made it clear after three weeks of marriage that he did not love me. For fifteen years he made it his job to let me know that I was stupid and ugly, and if he left me, no one else would want me. He and I had three children, one born with cerebral palsy, and she was mentally retarded. When she was two, he informed me that he was moving to Indiana, with or without the family. The children and I made the move with him. He got a job driving a truck, and was gone for a month at a time, leaving me alone to care for my precious children. When they were eight, eleven and twelve, he stayed off from work one day, to supposedly see a dentist. When I came home that day from my part-time job, all I found left of my fifteen year marriage was a note saying he had found someone else and not to make an effort to get him back.

Our divorce became final in September of 1978. In November of that same year I had to have back surgery. My ex-husband promised to stay with our children. There was a problem during surgery due to the loss of my spinal fluid, and I could not move from the waist down. I had to lie flat of my back for the fluid to build up again. When I had been in the hospital thirty days, I received a call from the school social worker telling me that my children had been left alone during my entire stay at the hospital. My ex-husband had lied about staying with them, and everyone had covered for him to protect me during my illness. Knowing how much my children meant to me and the urgency of the problem, the social worker decided to tell me that my children would be taken from me that very day unless I came home. I checked myself out of the hospital and went home to be with them. The next month my ex-husband left the state so he would not have to pay child support.

I hardened my heart and worked three jobs thinking I could make it on my own. My son did not tell me at the time, but he thought that he was the reason that his dad had left. His dad had told him that he was stupid because he could not play sports. He began getting into all kinds of trouble. At the age of thirteen, my son was arrested for being drunk and for breaking curfew. He then took the last forty dollars I had and intended to run way. He became afraid the family would get hungry without the money, and he decided to come back. At the age of sixteen, he was visiting with friends, and he sneaked out of their house and tried to get into someone else's car. Once again, he was arrested. He called me to come to his rescue as I had done so many times. This time I said, "No", and told him that I was going to get help for him. He went to court, and I did just that. They sent him to rehabilitation for troubled kids. As they took him away in handcuffs, he looked at me and said, "I don't have a mother anymore." I was willing to accept this if it meant he would live and have a chance to straighten up his life.

Being left alone with a retarded child, whom I was unable to lift, I made the decision to put her in a Home for Handicapped Children. I struggled through all of these and many more problems without letting God help me with my decisions.

Where I was working, I knew only one Christian. He kept telling me about the Lord still loving me and that I did not need to be there at this job. One day, something happened to my heart, and I told this dear Christian friend that I was going home to find God. What I did not realize at this time is that God was not lost. I was!

I went back home and started attending church. I went to the altar and rededicated my life to God. It was as if I could see Him standing there with out-stretched arms, saying, "I have been waiting for you to come back to me".

Later I met and married a wonderful man who gave me the self esteem that I never had. Since he was much older than myself, I only got to keep him for eighteen years. I did not want to live anymore without him. I planned to end my life many times. I was busy with my pity parties and would not let God heal my heart. My wonderful pastor preached a message about letting God take care of things that you cannot control on your own. The only way I know how to explain what happened is that I finally opened my heart and let God stir the grief and turn it into sweet memories of a loving and dear husband. I realized then it was not that I only had my husband for eighteen years, instead God had blessed me with this dear man for eighteen wonderful years.

My son that I was so afraid would die at a young age is now in his forties, with a wife and three great kids. He does not drink, do drugs, or smoke anymore. Instead of worrying about him, I had given all of his habits over to God. He worked a miracle in his life and made him want to stop being involved in all of these things. I am truly thankful that God never gives up on us, even when we turn our backs on Him.

He is truly an awesome God! There are so many other things that He has helped me through, but it would take a book to hold all of them. I just know that He is still walking beside me and catches me each time I fall. I praise the Lord every day for His mighty works!