Jesus took the plank out of my eyes.

Hi, I have a strange testimony. I have always believed in the power of love. But I wasn't always loving or lovable. I grew up in a southern baptist family, my parents are excellent, they love and support me, now that I am an adult in my 30's I still live with them. I had trouble at birth as a baby I wasn't breathing till the nurse gave me oxygen. When my parents told me the story, it made me feel proud an special. I believe God saved my life for a special purpose, some mission of faith he wants me to do for Him. I went to southern baptist church and a fundamentalist Christian private school that was really strict from preschool to after second grade.

My second grade teacher at the private school was snobby and strict. my poor elder sister was spanked by her first grade teacher, this upset her and our mom. Mom said the teacher should have called her on the phone and discussed the matter with her first before hurting her child. I was never spanked at that school, but was spanked sometimes, rarely, by my parents at home. They did it to discipline me when I did wrong, to teach me right from wrong, my mom never hit me too hard. She hugged me after spanking me and told me she loved me. My parents also discplined me and my sister by grounding or "restricting" us, as my mom called it, or we would not be able to watch TV.


As a kid I liked fairytales, which would be a problem for me because I still like them as an adult. I grew to like magic and fairy tale creatures, unicorns, fairies and mermaids, liked Disney movies, especially the Disney princesses. I wanted to be a good sorceress or fairy godmother. I thought that with magic I could end world hunger and wars all over the world, could bring about world peace and an end to poverty and suffering. I was just a kid, I did not know that the Bible forbids magic. I heard there was good magic and bad magic. Then I read in the Bible that witches were to be killed. Anyone worshiping idols or practicing magic, divination to see the future or communication with the dead, putting curses on people, were to be killed.


Then I heard about the witch hunt paranoia and inquisition, the terrible cruelty so-called "Christians" did to people they thought were witches, brutal sadistic torture to get them to confess, then burnt at the stake, set on fire to die a horrible, painful death with no mercy.

I thought, would Jesus want this? Didn't Jesus forgive people, tell us to love our enemies and give them food and drink? Didn't Jesus tell us to treat other people the way we want them to treat us?

I heard the medieval people thought that witches signed their name in blood in the devil's black book, selling their soul to him for power. I would never do that!

I went to a public school in third grade when I was 8. I had trouble finishing my school work and homework because they loaded us up with work in the private school. I had a man teacher, he was an ok teacher, but the school sent me to the school psychiatrist because I acted weird. The kids in that school could be somewhat wild, rude and mean. They picked on me. In public elementary school, there was one mean girl who picked on me particularly, she was a bully and made fun of me because I was different. I had some trouble with math.

In fourth grade I was sent to the special education teacher, for kids that were slow learning. I also saw psychiatrist. I did not see psychiatrist regularly until middle school, 6th grade. My 4th-5th grade teacher was a wonderful teacher. She really inspired me and that's when I first started writing stories. I struggle with my writing because I am so picky, I often delete several pages if I am not happy and see something wrong or if I think something in the story is immoral. my mom started me and my sister with art lessons, and I took off and loved art, really became interested in art and loved to draw and paint. My sister was not so good with art, but the art teacher helped us make our pictures look good.

I wondered why I had to see psychiatrists. I was shy, and my family went back to church in middle school. I was/am a dreamer. I loved unicorns and wanted to draw them. I also liked fairies with butterfly wings. I liked the movie the little mermaid. I read Greek mythology, then Norse mythology, and the King Arthur stories in 5th grade. I realized the myth gods are horrible, and the Christian God better, true and perfect.

I liked reading, and sometimes I would read or watch cartoons instead of doing my homework. I saw the psychiatrists because of my imagination and my problems concentrating in school. I starting taking psychiatric medication. my parents were not to thrilled with the idea, but they thought the doctor knows best. One of my doctors was a jerk, my dad and mom did not like him. I learned about sex from 10-11 years old, in 5th grade and 6th grade, 7th and 8th grade kids talked about sex and some did it. I remember those bratty boys asking me if I was a virgin. At that age you had better be a virgin! I am a virgin, not ashamed to say it.


We had to move in 8th grade. My dad's job was why we moved. In summer when I was 11 I had to wear glasses for the first time. I hated it and felt like a nerd, my dad teased me and said, "Welcome to the 4 four eyes." He said that because there are 4 people in my immediate family and we all wear glasses. In middle school, I stopped the fantasy thing for a while, and my family went back to church. The middle school kids would tease me because I had few friends, asked me who my best friend was, I would say, "Jesus"


In 7th grade I had appendicitis, my appendix burst. It was on Saturday, I felt sick and was lying down in bed. My mom came in, sensing something was wrong. She took my temperature, I had a high temp, and then my parents decided to take me to the emergency room. I brought my drawing stuff, and drew a living room design, a couch with rose pattern. the people at the er liked my drawing. the nurses did tests, they found out it was my appendix. I spent the night in the hospital, the doctors would do the surgery to take out the appendix in the morning. I think my appendix burst that night, it was very painful I couldn't sleep. Mom stayed with me, dad went home to take care of my sister and pets. my sister is 2 years older than me, only sibling I have. In the hospital I saw a preacher on TV. I don't remember what he said, but he encouraged me. I had to go to summer school later on, becasue I missed a lot of school, and had trouble with math. It was intimating. I got over it , learned a lot of math. in 8th grade the middle school had another slow learning teacher, for special education. SHe was nice. I did better than the previous year. I had a few friends.

Then my family had to move to another Florida town. It was because of my dad's job. The town was strange. I had to get used to it. It seems to be a lot of people from this town come from some where else. Some of the young people have been born in this town. I finished middle school, went to high school. I had problems in high school. My mental illness, depression, bipolar, were getting worse. I regularly saw psychiatrists and counselors. I also took medicine. The side affects of the medicine made me sleepy and thirsty, which was bad for school. I hated having to get up early to go to school. The other students made fun of and picked on me. I was in the special classes, but then in10 grade I had normal English, history and phys ed classes. I took special math and science classes. I had art class, computer class, and in my freshman year home ec. I became more depressed, I would cry for no reason. I started having a thing for bondage, it started when I was a kid watching cartoons, like He-man and She-ra masters of the universe, where they get tied up. So I started drawing pictures of people tied up, and looked at pictures of people in bondage in libraries. I also found great fantasy novels in the school library. Books about dragons and adventures, fights between good and evil. I found some magic, witch new age, religions books in the library. I wanted to know what other religions believed.

I had trouble with school work because concentrating was hard. I didn't like it when the other students drink alocohol and did drugs. When we first moved to this town, we went to a large baptist church and the first sermon we heard was about hell. In Sunday school class the other teens giggled and laughed at me and my sister. I found out they had a private school owned by that church with the same name as the awful private school I went to as a little child.

So, my dad decided we would never go back to that church again.

We went to another first baptist church. I went to a Christian club at school. The boys in charge of that club were really weird religious fanastics, one was a pentecostal, and they did stuff they were not suppose to do. THey but their hand on a girl';s chest, as part of "laying on of hands" and she started crying/screaming/moaning, and they said it was the holy spirit. I should have said something, that is incredibly inappropriate for a public school. Somebody else did say something, it was a girl who was a friend of mine. She said they were acting ridiculous because they started saying all this stuff was a sin, that fantasy movies are sinful. One of the student leaders of the club said that he liked the movie, "The Never Ending Story" but that it was sinful and wicked, we watched that movie in creative writing class, and he started shaming himself, saying he had sinned, should not have done that.

There was a more normal and relaxed Christian club that met in the mornings before school in a classroom. They performed skits and read Bible verses.


I read a book about god being a woman, started getting into feminism. I read horrible verses in the Bible about genocide, they destruction of the Canaanites living in the Promise land when the Israelites came to conquer it. God ordered them to kill every living thing in the Canaanite cities, men, women, children, babies, old people, animals. I was shocked. I read about a boy stoned to death for cursing, a man stoned for gathering sticks of wood on the sabbath, a man and his entire family killed because the father stole a fancy robe and gold and silver from the loot of cities they had conquered, the treasures belonged to the Lord. There were worse things, the law that a virgin who is raped must marry her rapist, and laws against wearing clothes made from different kinds of fiber/fabriuc (no cotton-polyester blends) and they could not sow their fields with different kinds of seed. Also, there was slavery in the old testament among the Hebrews. A woman slave could be used for sex by her master, but he has to let her go free in the year of Jubliee. It is legal for a man to beat his slave, if the slave dies, the man is in trouble, I think he has to pay some sort of tax or sacrifice at the temple, if the slave rests on his bed, then gets better and gets up and goes back to work, everything is fine. If the slave loses and eye or ear, or tooth or hand, the master must let him go free at the price of the lost body part.

It was quite shocking when I found out all of this stuff in the Bible. I was seeking to know the true God, I wondered if there could be a God outside the Bible. My heart was breaking. I saw great suffering on the news. Why does God have to have such harsh, cruel laws? No wonder the Israelites broke his laws and worshiped idols! They did not understand God. The laws were so detailed, they had no freedom. it really hurt, I felt like God was mean, and that he didn't love me.

Sorry I'm being stupid today


really though life is to short to sweat the small things Do the best you can today let God handle everything else

I graduated from high school and was very happy, it was like getting out of jail. My mom saw that my mental illness prevented me from getting a job or going to college, so she helped me get social security disability funds. I have enough money for food, clothes and sometimes art lessons. Why would I want to go to college? It's just more school after getting out of school. I heard a lot of college student do not study, they party, drink alcohol, use drugs, have wild illicit sex. I ddin't like that stuff. I played computer games, some with magic, some with combat fighting, violence. I hate violence. I thought of God in a new age, universal way, but I loved Jesus Christ and wanted to obey his commands, he is wise and peaceful. I tried think that god does not punish people that much.

Then a hurricane came, there was rumors of a voodoo curse some west indian people in town were trying to put on rich people, and at first I brushed it off, thinking God would protect me. I worked a lot preparing the house and potted plants, I got overheated. I became nervous, and was feeling guilty for my bad behavior, drawing nude and bondage pictures. Of course I drew plenty of other pictures with nothing wrong with them. I also got involved with dragons on the internet. I thought there were good dragons, they fought on God's side during the war in heaven when Lucifer rebelled. I went to dragon websites, drew them and wrote stories about dragons and fantasy adventures. I thought of myself as a dragon with jeweled scales. I thought dragons could be good, kind and beautiful.


So I was doing wrong, and God is not going to protect me when I am doing wrong and majorly sinning. I was being a hypocrite, I still called myself a Christian. I got bad off and had to go to the crisis center. I eventually got better. Our house suffered only minor damage, and we repaired it. My sister started having mental problems, she denied it and did not want to admit it. She finished 2 years of community college, and went to a university but had problems with shyness, nervousness and paranoia. I think her room mates were mean to her, played mean tricks.

I developed a weight problem, got it from my mom, we tried to loose weight and went on diet, exercises with each other. I got depressed and cried a lot because of the pain, suffering and sorrow in this world.

I realized God is love. I read the new testament, remembered the stories about Jesus Christ I heard as a child. The love, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, kindness...I knew Jesus Christ is the son of God, and IS God in the flesh, He taught us the true, good and right way to live. I remembered when I was a child, my innocence and sweetness, kindness, manners. The Lord drew me back to Him with love. I realized only god could heal, my wounded, aching, broken heart and soul. I hated the cruel world and it's evil lies that judged people as "not good enough."


My favorite song became "Amazing Grace" because I realized I am a wretch and I need God. Before god could use me for His great purpose, He had to humble me and get rid of my pride and silly fairy tale nonsense, when mostly i wanted to be a princess and were beautiful old fashion princess dress and jewelery and flowers. I must give up such selfishness. I am no longer a child. But I have been renewed, Jesus gave me the faith of a child.


I must no longer be lazy but read the Bible and pray daily so I do not fall away. I am human and a woman, I am glad God created me as I am. I no longer believe in dragons, I think fairies are like angels, maybe they are the devil's angels. Unicorns are mentioned in King James' Bible. They are symbolic of Christ in medieval art. Butterflies are beautiful and spiritual, fairies could be angels with butterfly wings. Dragons could come from left over dinosaurs, crocodiles, large snakes, lizards, bats, vultures. I no longer draw bad pictures or anything perverted. I use my art gift to praise the Lord. I paint landscapes, flowers, cute animals. I draw costume design, medieval to Victorian, sometimes modern or Biblical fashions.


The Lord Christ has set me free from sin and evil. I will not judge anyone else who struggles with sin, I will pray for people who think living in sin is fun and funny, that they can do whatever they want with not rules or boundaries. I once judged people who had sex a lot outside of marriage or had children outside of marriage, drunks and drug addicts, nutty violent people who get into fights, foul language used repeatedly on TV or on radio, gangster rap, ugly tattoos, all tattoos, and piercings, stupid people, people that lie. really extremely huge fat people, goths who look scary and creepy with all the black clothes and black lipstick, eyeliner, obnoxious commercials harrassing you trying to force you to buy what you don't want. crazy hypocrite terrorists. scummy business people who are thieves

I discovered the God of the Bible is a God of love. he loves us enough to send His son Jesus Christ down to Earth to die for us on the cross. God saved my life and my soul, and my mind and heart. I was sad and broken-hearted, he healed me and shone the light down upon my gloom and shadows. I was angry with people who hurt me in the past, then angry with my self for things I did that were wrong. God took away my anger and pain, helped me to forgive, especially forgive myself. God taught me how to love, since he is love, I realize God loves me, and so I love him, then I love my family and friends, I love myself, my neighbors and even my enemies. I pray for the Lord to fill me with his love and show those around me His love. I am thankful for the talents god gave me, and i must use them wisely. I must be a good servant of the Lord. I am learning to be light and salt of the Lord in a dark corrupt world.

Thanks for your testimony, it gave me a lift to read it today.