My Testimony

I've been trying to write me testimony for months now and I finally found the courage to do it and to share it with you. If you have any questions, please feel free to PM them to me. My PM box is always open.

Blessed be, Lisa



In order to know where I am going in my life I need to tell you where I’ve been and the best way for me to do that is to start at the very beginning. I was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on November 17th, 1975. I made my entrance into the world seven weeks early, weighing in at a whopping three pounds, five ounces. I remained in the hospital for two weeks in an incubator before I was able to come home.



I grew up in a two-parent household where both parents worked. My dad, who is 57 years old, has been a correction officer in our local Detention Centre for the past 30 years. My mom, who is 55 years old, was a stay at home mom until my sister and I were enrolled in school full time, and then she went to work in the school system as an Educational Assistant.

I have a younger sister who is 29 years old. We have not always gotten along. I blame that a bit on my parents as they always put her on a pedestal and I could never compare. For years I heard statements like “why can’t you be more like your sister”, and “how come you can’t do as well in school as your sister”. Comments like that stay with you for a very long time and I believe that is part of the reason for the animosity that is between us, but that is not the only reason.

As kids, our parents never took us to church. The only time we went to church was for weddings and funerals. When I was about 8, my mom enrolled my sister and I in a program run out of the local church called Pioneer Girls. We met weekly and learned how to cook and sew and we put on plays and sang but the one thing I do remember very clearly is each week we were given a slip of paper with a bible verse on it and it part of our weekly routine was that we would be awarded points for having our uniforms on, our dues and knowing our assigned bible verse. I enjoyed going to Pioneer Girls but the program ended once you started high school and that ended my church going days.

I had a rough time in elementary school. I enjoyed the learning part of school but I did not enjoy the way some of the other kids treated me. I had days where I was shoved into locker doors or pushed into an open locker and had the door locked behind me. One day on the playground, in front of all of my peers, I had my skirt pulled down. I was teased a lot. Elementary school started the downward spiral of my self-esteem.



Where do I start with my teenager years….. My relationship with my parents became even more strained. They continued to put my sister on this pedestal and I just never felt good enough. My grandparents seemed to pick favourites as we got older and I just never seemed to be good enough for them either. My sister and I fought al the time, but that is because I didn’t approve of a lot of choices she was making. I found out in high school in that my younger sister at 14 years went to a family planning clinic to have a pregnancy test done as she was sexually active, she was also smoking and doing drugs. Even with everything she was doing, she could do nothing wrong in everyone’s eyes. I was always the one having to prove myself to everyone.

At the age of fourteen I had my first part time job. It’s also when I started to rebel. My parents would go away and leave me home alone for the weekend because I was working. I would call them and tell them I was in for the night and then I would take off with friends, most of which were guys, coming home sometimes with just enough time to get myself ready for work.

I hated high school worse than I hated elementary school. I found that as kids got older, they were crueler. I was tormented in high school. I had a boy pin me against a wall and write on my forehead with black magic marker and then push me down a flight of stairs. Super-sized articles of clothing would be hanging in the school cafeteria with my name in large letters underneath it. By grade 10 (high school for us is grades 9-12), I had stopped going into the cafeteria and fell further into depression and my self-esteem plummeted even further.

In order to try and pick myself up, I became a huge flirt. I was rarely without a boyfriend. My relationships would last a few months, some lasted only a few days. I sought out attention in any way I could get it.

I had a strained relationship with my parents that just got worse as the years went on, as did the relationship with my sister. That’s when my aunt and uncle stepped in. They would listen to me and offered their home to me as a place of refuge. I even had my own key. I could escape there any time I needed a break from my home life. For years that was where I felt that I was loved the most.

In grade eleven I started to realize that the endless string of boyfriends who meant nothing to me was not healthy and I tried to find someone who I actually had feelings for, on a deeper emotional and spiritual level. It was during this time of searching that I met up with a girl that I had taken a babysitting course with many years before. Through her I joined Scouts Canada – an adult section of 18-26 year olds. My friend and I hung out at school, outside of school and of course with our Scout Group. Neither one of us had our license so we relied on her brother to pick us up and drop us off places. Because my friend and I spent so much time together and her brother was always there as chauffer, we became friends. Our friendship blossomed and by grade twelve we were dating.

I graduated high school with high honours and was the graduating class valedictorian, which surprised me as it was done by nomination and vote by your peers. I went on to a two year college program where I graduated again with high honours, receiving a diploma in Legal Administration. After graduation I was hired on full time in Human Resources at a large rail car manufacturing plant. This leads me to my adult years.



At the age of twenty I moved out of my parents home into my first apartment. I was still with Charlie and after some time on my own, I realized that I didn’t like being on my own as I was too nervous so Charlie started staying with me. He slept on the futon in the living room and I had my bedroom.

After five years of dating, Charlie proposed and we married the following year. When we returned from our honeymoon, Charlie officially moved into our apartment. Two years later we bought our first home.

Three years into our marriage I decided that I needed a career change and Charlie and I discussed starting our family. I found a new job and got hired as an Ambulance Communications Officer. With a promising career and higher wages, we decided that it was a good time to start our family.

Time continued to pass and we had not been blessed with children. After years of trying and failing in our attempts, I became depressed and took to hanging out with co-workers who enjoyed partying. I was out more than I was at home and all of my nights out, were nights I was out at a bar getting drunk or at a friends house drinking.

My grandfather then fell ill with terminal lung cancer and things around my family started falling apart. My mom moved out of her home with my dad and moved into my grandparents home to help care for her ailing dad while her sister, my favourite aunt fell apart at the seems. She refused to see that her dad was terminally ill and that started her downward spiral into a severe depression. She stopped talking to all of us – her mom, her ailing dad, her sister and me. I stood beside my mom through all of this as she needed all the support she could get. My younger sister took my aunt’s side against my mom. It was a hard time for us all. My partying got worse.

I was invited to go on a ski trip with some co-workers in February 2005. The weekend they chose to go worked in my favour as I had a work training course 30 minutes from the resort so I decided to go skiing and have my friends who were driving me drop me off at the hotel for the training and another co-worker who was going to meet me there would drive me home at the completion of the course.

I knew things were not going well with my grandpa. You could see him getting weaker every day. I told my mom I would not go skiing and would remain home to help out as I had been doing. My mom told me to go, told me I needed the break and that my grandpa would not die while I was away for the 5 days.

So I decided to go. It was a weekend that changed my life forever. It was the weekend where I gave up on God as I felt that he had given up on me. It was a party weekend and I knew that going into it. What I didn’t know is that I would end up being a victim of a sexual assault by two paramedics that I work with. The assault left me feeling such a deep sense of shame, embarrassment and guilt. I had a very hard time getting through the remainder of the weekend and when my co-workers dropped me off at the hotel I begged them not to leave me as I knew that I was in a dark place and I knew I needed help but they couldn’t stay and left me on my own.

I received a call that night from my grandfather who for the first time in weeks called me by my name. He had forgotten names at this point and had been referring to me as “that girl”. I knew it wouldn’t be long before he was gone and with the deep sense of shame I was feeling because of what had happened two days prior, I decided to take my life. Luckily my friend and co-worker came when she did and I believe now that by God’s grace she found me before I was able to complete my task.

My grandfather died the next day while I was still away at a training course. I was a disaster. I was in tears constantly and told everyone it was because of my grandpa’s death. I didn’t even tell Charlie what had happened while I was away. I didn’t want to unload my shame and guilt on him. I suffered in silence for a very long time.

Because I felt that God had abandoned me and let this happen to me, I turned far away from my faith and tried to find something that I could find comfort in because I found no comfort in a God that would let me be hurt in the way I was. I turned my focus to Paganism and Wiccan beliefs. I experimented with different spells and tried to learn as much as I could about the different Goddess that Pagans worshipped. After some time, I realized that I was only doing this because of the dark place I was in and that Wiccan beliefs fit with my dark place. But I wasn’t ready to accept Christ back in my life.

Things between our family continued to get worse and my Nanna thought it would be a great idea to take my sister and I to England to try and bring us closer together. The trip only managed to push us further apart. My sister wanted no part of trying to get back a friendship with me. What I didn’t know while we were there was that she had gone through my stuff, found and read my journal and then began to blackmail me, putting her own spin on the events of the ski weekend. That forced my hand and I told Charlie everything that happened.

Things in my life just kept moving along. We were still trying to start our family and I was just going through the motions of being happy. I was great at hiding behind masks. I could look happy even when I was feeling hurt and sadness inside. During this time, Charlie joined {CS} and wanted me to join with him. I was not ready to do that. I had given up on the Pagan / Wiccan beliefs but was still not ready to accept Christ back into my life. I would hear Charlie talking to guys on vent and laughing and having fun while in game. But I wasn’t ready to accept Christ back into my life and sat in silence for almost two years before I decide to join the {CS} forums.

Through the help, support, guidance, counsel and friendship of those that I have met at {CS}, I was able to accept Christ back into my life and have re-started my walk with Him. When people ask me, I tell them I am new to my faith, because I see things differently now and have so much to learn. I know that God never abandoned me that night. It was a test, a test I almost failed, but He never left me. I still struggle sometimes with my faith but will never give up on it. As I continue my journey to motherhood, I have to always remember that it will happen but on God’s time, not mine. I admit, most times I forget that and become resentful, but I’m learning as long as I stay strong in my faith, read scripture and pray, that my heart won’t hurt as deep. He is always with me. He hears my prayers.

I now believe that it was God that lead me to join {CS} and that I have a purpose at {CS}, I am blessed to have made the friends I have made here and even though some of those friends have now left {CS}, I still hold a place in my heart for you all.

Your testimony really touched my heart. Thank you for sharing, Lisa.

I have been waiting so long to see this day.....speechless....Glad you decided to share what Christ has done.