As a child i was raised by my mother and step father, my stepfather was the local lay minister if any ministers got sick or had to go away he would fill in. He was a hard man burnt from a previous marriage and losing custody of his kids made him very strict and uncaring i found this really hard going and very hypercritical preaching something yet practising something else. He raised us with an iron fist losing his temper often and in someways now looking back i understand why he was the way he was but was still a hard thing to grow up with while he treated us badly at home he dragged us to church each and every sunday there was no getting out of it. We were raised to go to youthgroups, sunday schools, cell groups, full gospel meetings, gideons you name it we were there. For whatever reason i have no idea but when i was about 8 several members of my family becan sexually abusing me whenever the chance arose so combined with the beatings and the sexual abuse i grew up to be very rebellious and defied my family whenever i got the chance i hated god for puttung me in the situation and not having my real dad come back and take care of me. My dads family shunned us like we were nothing to them and it was many years before i even got to meet them. At 15 i settled down and really tried to do what i was learning at church and do what i thought god was asking of me. So i started attending the area christian youth orgaination and by the end of that year i was running my own bible group and youth group but being so young and not having the support i let someone else take over when an opportunity arose for attending the OAC school of evangelism by this stage i was nearly 17 so i left home and went and did this 6 week course then i began the 3 month internship during the 3 month internship i started a relationship with a man and this ultimately ruined things for me and i turned from god i started hanging out on the streets getting high and drinking all the time hanging out with people everyone else considered undesirable, my mother and step father found out what was happening and decided to come get me and made me return home. When i returned home the beatings the history and everything else came back to haunt me once again and 2 weeks later i ran away and didn't tell anyone where i was for several weeks. The next 18 months were spent moving from house to house everytime i was booted out of one whether it was after sleeping with someone and the relationship ended or the house was to be sold or our behaviour was considered undesirable to the owner, or the fighting got me in trouble. finally i found myself boarding with members of family but they soon grew tired of my wild ways and booted me out again i ended up back at home with my mother and step father after i moved back in a got a job that 6 weeks later got me fired and they decided it was best of i worked for them and lived with them so they could watch me all the time, i continued not to attent church absolutly hating god for putting me in the situation i couldn't seem to get out of, i was getting more and more down and thoughts of killing myself kept persisting and for all the times i tried i just could not do it. Finally at 19 i met my husbands flatmate who i had a breif relationship but that ended badly and i took up with my husband that settled me he moved me in after 3 weeks and 3 months later i was pregnant with my daughter it was then i had to stop and think about someone other than myself and i stopped drinking and doing the drugs however my occult practises continued, then in 2001 i had my son and i got married. I won't pretend the last few years have been easy either with the difficultys in my marriage but it wasn't till a few months ago when i found god that i wanted to clean up my life and this is where i am at now.
