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My History as a Believer in Christ
I first became a believer at the age of seven in 1960, when my mom was called through a dream from a very obscure life style. Jesus came into our lives and our lives changed 100% for the best in every sense of the word in my place of birth, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
I was very young, but I loved and feared God, so I was very faithful in my denomination, and my mother was a woman of prayer and a great Bible student. One day, she questioned the pastor about certain practices that did not match the Scriptures and about Jesus’ divinity. The pastor was not pleased with my mother, and she got expelled after six years as an active member of that church. I didn’t understand the problem and I remained there until they expelled me also for speaking what my mother taught me. I was only thirteen. After all that, and more, I became cold and confused, but not dead toward the things of God. Under my mother’s prayers and counsel, the Lord sustained me. In 1969, most of my family and I came to USA. I was almost 16. At that tender age my heart longed for the Lord, but I had lost my trust in religion. However, back in Jersey City, New Jersey, I was invited by some young people to their denomination, where I enjoyed being for the company and the activities that I was used to as a young Christian, but the full joy was not there. In 1975 I got married; five years after, I was tested, as never before, with two children. My despair was so bad that even my spiritual mother could not help me out of the pit that I was in, and even less, my pastor, who just felt sorry for me.
But I cried out to God every night, not to let me perish after I came that far, and He heard me and took care of me in a sovereign way. Somehow, weekly tapes began coming to my mother’s house where I was staying. They were from a place called the church in Santa Ana, CA. Just by listening to those people I never met or heard before, I began to gradually regain my strength. Praises be to the Lord! All I wanted, after two months of feeding on those tapes, was to be in Santa Ana, California, singing those living and uplifting songs. They were not fancy, but they were real.
So the Lord made my joy full by sending the very person that was sharing the word in those meetings to my house. To me that was nothing less than divine intervention. Hallelujah! Two months after that visit in 1981 I was in Santa Ana with my children, and my husband joined me a year after. I must testify that through the local churches, I gained my own personal experience with the Lord. He brought me to nothing to give me everything. My negative experiences no longer devastate me. I’ve learned to enjoy the Lord in the midst of pain, because His presence is in my spirit. So I call, “Oh, Lord Jesus.” He’s always there. I now meet in the church in Orlando, FL since 1988. I no longer have to roam since in the local church I found my home.
M.R.
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