Sandy

My testimony is 24 years long in knowing Jesus Christ as my savior and Lord. I have had great times of miraculous workings of Him and very dry times and hard times of getting to know the why of many things.

I was born three months premature and spent two months of my life in an incubator. I was the oldest of three daughters. I perceived that my Dad didn’t love me from a very early age. I was a tomboy. My mother was loving yet controlling, and at many times seemed very distant. I couldn’t connect with her. I didn’t have friends until 13 and became sexually involved with my first girlfriend at that age. I dated boys but couldn’t connect with them because of the split in heart. I didn’t know what I wanted out of life – made mediocre grades in school – my only love was music and I played French horn very well only I had no confidence that I could accomplish anything with it. So, I just started to drift from one thing to another. That led me to Washington, D.C. and government jobs. I lived with my high school girlfriend and thought things would be great. I was totally miserable because some things were just not right and I knew it inside. I drank alcohol as much as I could – lived for another drink on the weekends. The drinking didn’t help my career attempts though surprising to me I would get promoted regularly. Inspite of the government jobs and potential for long service at different places, I needed more and didn’t know what it was. The beginning of my prayer life started at age 23 when I was in the hospital with a perforated stomach lining awaiting surgery the next day. As I looked up the prognosis of peritonitis I read “longevity minimal” and the fear of losing my life came to me. I clearly said “GOD, IF YOU’RE REAL”…and that’s all I could say.

I miraculously recovered and my life started to change for the better. I decided to go to college and was accepted at George Mason University on my desire only. My SAT’s surely didn’t get me in. I was accepted into the Business Administration Department but after the first crossing of the Music Department I knew my goal had to be to get into that department. I did. I asked them if I could borrow a French horn from the department and they let me. I auditioned in a short period of time after not playing some 6-7 years. I got into the music department. I made the dean’s list – the first time in my life. I knew that something beyond me was taking place but I did not yet have a name for it. I made friends with a woman and from all appearances my fortune was now going to change. She told me she loved me. There was something very different about her love. She appeared to have an integrity and honor about her to the likes I had not known. She called it Jesus and that her family was Christian. I was so drawn to her that I ended up dropping out of school and moving in with she and her family. There was one thing wrong with this picture – I became emotionally and sexually involved with her. That led us to move to a friends cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains. My friend was also a musician. It seemed angels were around her every move. I thought it a good idea to dedicate our relationship to God. Little did I know He would take me serious on that idea. A short time later we found that the cabin was being sold and we had to move. Divinely, we had the opportunity to move to an 87-acre farm just west of where we had been. This meant leaving everything and moving to a new community. It was rural, I was afraid of West Virginians, and the place needed a lot of work. We moved and I thought I was having a nervous breakdown. There was a little white church at the end of our road so I thought it a good idea to go and meet our neighbors. We went and they were having a weeklong revival. I sat there quaking in my shoes and didn’t know why. The nice ladies of the church welcomed us and after a few weeks asked us to come to a missionary tea. I had no idea what that was but wanted to be a part of this community. I went and Jesus came to me that day.

• I was saved in 1977 in Berkeley County, West Virginia, in the very rural community of bible believers. They knew of God’s love and lived it and were moved to show me the way. The day I asked Jesus in my heart I cried for three days straight. I felt His love and knew that He was real and alive.
• My new friends fed me with His living word and ways for many months – through prayer-gatherings-music-conferences-helping hands-and great expressions of love. I felt through them that if this was what Christianity was all about I really wanted it.
• My father, who lived in Pennsylvania, got brain cancer, and I moved home. I led him to the Lord before he died six months later.
• I was filled with the Holy Spirit and led to a Pentecostal church in my hometown and became friends with the Pastors daughter.
• My friend that I lived with in West Virginia had moved back to her family in Virginia. After I was saved I was convicted and felt we were to cut our sexual ties and we did.
• My new friend from the Pentecostal church was also a believer. She was recently divorced and had a little son of 9 months old. We were fast friends and then the old thing came at me again. I fell. Fell away from the church. Thought I fell away from the Lord. I felt shame, embarrassment, rejection, fear and love and hate and couldn’t understand why this had happened. After all, I was saved, filled with the Holy Spirit and telling everyone about it.
• It took about five years of this before my friend and I moved to Virginia (again) with her son. I helped her raise him. Taught him much and he and I prayed most everynight and day about one thing or another.
• I was so totally ambivalent during this I just couldn’t stand it any longer. The whole seven years while I was with them I would pray, read the word and ask God why. Ask for His help. Ask for His wisdom. Ask for His anything. No answers – just misery. One day I said to the Lord, “Well, I must be like this then”. I confessed my weakness. To my great surprise within about two weeks from that confession my friend and her son moved out. She found the perfect one and they left. I knew God was in on it.
• My heart condition got worse – for I basically just crashed and burned for two more years. I was turning 40 years old.
• As I was driving to work one day on the Washington beltway I heard what sounded like metal crashing or grinding – as I looked out of my window there was an 18-wheeler up against my car and moving on ahead of me. I watched it go until I couldn’t see it anymore. Miraculously I was able to pull over to the side of the road and get out of the car to take a look. There was a perfect circle ground into the metal of my car two inches from the rear tire. The lug nuts of his front tire must have ground into me – he didn’t feel it and kept on going. I was absolutely petrified. The first thing that I thought was “OH MY GOD, YOUR ANGELS HAVE PROTECTED ME” and the next thought that came to me was from a vow I made after I was first saved back in West Virginia “I WOULD RATHER DIE THEN BE 40 AND GAY”. I do believe that the Lord allowed for me to see the absolute hand of His protection and also His absolute TRUTH about the power of vows. This accident gave me the boost I needed to start getting my life straightened out. HIS miracle working power would now be clearly seen in my life in a deeper way.
• I moved into my own place for the first time in my life.
• I started having dreams from Him that would define paths that He would have me take.
• A man from work was sent to me to have “PURPOSED AND PLANNED BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF TIME” burned on my heart.
• The Lord led me to some spirit led women who prayed with me, over me, and through me. The inner healing began.
• By God’s divine power I was connected to EXODUS ministries in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, MD. and Fairfax, Va. I attended by first EXODUS Conference in 1992 in San Diego, Ca.
• Through that conference I was also divinely connected with FREE INDEED MINISTRIES from Albuquerque, N.M.
• The next two years I traveled to those cities above along with finding myself in Orlando; Phoenix; Denver; upper New York and all along Virginia.
• I found myself on CNN giving my testimony on a talk show. A worldwide event proclaiming the blood of Jesus Christ as the only answer to healing of homosexuals.
• Then the Lord asked me to again return to Pennsylvania. I thought He was wrong – and I fought Him – attempting to stay in that nice wonderful cozy place. He literally cut and burned the idols in and around my heart having to do with the love of Virginia and my friends and associates. This was so very difficult but again, now that I can look at, it so rewarding.
• I moved home.
• He sent me to Albuquerque, N.M. for six months to heal from the severing and nest kicking out of. I lived and ministered with the leaders of FREE INDEED MINISTRIES for that period of time. Then I moved back to Pa.
• I met my husband to be.
• We were married a short time later.
• I have been married for 5 years.
• It’s not easy. I depend on the Lord for every step.
• Recently, I feel that it is time to reach out to the one’s stuck as I was stuck. I went to the EXODUS conference in North Carolina just this month and met up with my friends from N.M. (Divine appointment)

A few days ago I had my first ministry gathering. There were 4 other women who came to my home. We talked all day about our lives and how the Lord was working. The day ended in praying over each one. As I listened to their stories I knew that the Lord had surely turned every bit of those trying circumstances of my past into His glory for He ministered to everyone that day. PRAISE BE TO GOD.