How God’s unconditional love set me free
Before I came to Christ I was desperate for love and on a roller-coaster ride of self-destruction and criminal behaviour writes Lisa Warland
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Before I came to Christ and accepted Him as my Saviour
my life
was an empty mess. I was full of guilt, anger, pain, sorrow and
frustration. I’ve suffered two sudden tragic deaths
– of my
brother in my teens and mum when I was 20. These losses left me
desperate for love but led me to a roller-coaster ride of
self-destruction and criminal behaviour. This eventually lead to
several prosecutions and a number of short spells in prison.
Materialism seemed to have quite a hold of me and designer clothes and
money were a substitute for the love I was searching for. |
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I
was looking in all the wrong places and with the wrong people for a
thing called love.
I’ve been in several relationships which have left me with three children with three different fathers and two of those men weren’t even available to me, but then I’d been in several relationships like this before. I was looking in all the wrong places and with the wrong people for a thing called love. I’ve been addicted to recreational drugs and drank too much alcohol throughout my life as a way of escaping the mess it seemed to be in. I was so lost I couldn’t find a way back. I was broken and empty up to the age of 33. Over the last five years I have started to try to get know God, but this was only from afar really. I lived in a village and one day as I walked back from work I felt compelled to offer some help to a lady I had seen tidying the local church grounds. I manage to get myself an invite to the Sunday service and from here I met new friends who introduced me to an Alpha course.
I gave my life (or so I thought) to Jesus on this course but was still using recreational drugs occasionally.
I gave my life (or so I thought ) to Jesus on this course but was still using recreational drugs occasionally and could not quite break free from past habits and some of its people. I still felt that maybe I wasn’t feeling God’s will for my life in a definite way. However six months ago I decided that I needed to make a commitment that was worthy of God. I gave up all my bad habits and it would seem that because my heart was 100% sure that I wanted God, He stepped in and took away the difficulty that I thought I would face from withdrawal symptoms.
I have been made pure in Christ and God has given me vision of a future full of hope and glory.
God helped me to make the necessary journey backwards through all the mess inside my head, right back to the places that were broken. God’s pure and unconditional love set my heart on fire and His love, patience, kindness, grace and mercy all poured into my life repairing all the damage that fear, guilt and being chained to my past behaviour had caused. I have now been made pure in Christ and God has given me vision of a future full of hope and glory. I was baptized and for me it signified and put a seal on the amazing transformation that had taken place in my life since coming to Christ. I thank the Lord and feel honoured that I’m now worthy to serve him and look forward to every opportunity of doing this, in His Son’s name. Amen.
