Carolyn’s Testimonial

I was a young bride, 17 years old. We had four sons in six years I was restless, angry, and had trust issues. This made my early years of marriage like a soap opera.

Our sons lived with verbal abuse from me being the angry person that I was. My husband was an active alcoholic for the first 8 years of our marriage. We were separated several times in the early years because I had a lot of fear. 

Only after an accident that landed him in the hospital did he look at his alcoholism. He was introduced to AA and asked me to go with him to an open meeting where I realized that was a lot of our problem, alcohol.

I started to attend Alanon meetings where I had to take a good look at my part in our marriage. We both attended meetings for a lot of years which helped us take a good look at our lives, but something was missing that was when we attended  counseling as a family. We tried everything to help our situation. We both believed in God and prayed but felt like we were hitting a wall. That something was a God sized hole in our lives.

By this time our sons were out of the house on their own. Our youngest son was in college and met a Christian girl. She was instrumental in his coming to Christ. He was introduced to the Walk to Emmaus which is a four-day, three night retreat to help you look at your life with a focus on Christ. He sponsored his Dad and I on that retreat.

I gave my life to Christ there on that retreat. I asked God at the altar what had kept me from Him, and fear is what I realized had gripped my life. I lived in fear of the past, present and future I laid that fear at the altar and began my walk with Christ. I had to learn that God loved me right where I was. I didn’t have to clean up my life, live in shame or regret anymore.

I had a lot of amends to make to the people around me especially my four Sons. I had to ask for their forgiveness for the verbal abuse and the chaos in our lives and then had to forgive myself. When I went to God and confessed He forgave me so I had to forgive myself. My husband and I had a lot of baggage that had to be unpacked and dealt with. Keeping Christ in the center of our marriage as he had accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior on his retreat. Together we got active in our church, still going to AA and Al-Anon and bringing our faith with us to the meetings.  My husband counsels alcoholics and addicts and I work with codependents.

Lately the Lord has laid it on my heart to volunteer with the teens,  they have a lot to deal with in this day and age. That is my new Mission field. I love working with the teens. 

We have fellowship with Christian friends who hold us accountable. I can say without a doubt that I love the Lord and thank him for sending his son to die for my sins. I’m forever thankful.

You don’t have to go on a retreat you can ask Jesus into your heart right now where you are. Pray to Jesus to forgive your sins and invite him to be the Lord of your life. I pray this for you in Jesus name. Amen