My Testimony

by Betty Bolden
(Bucyrus,Ohio)

I have known most of my life that God gave us all a free will,

we all have choices and the people that wronged me had a choice to..and they chose to do what they did..

I'll start here with this and its long so bare with me..

God says to honor and obey your parents..I think I have respected them pretty much since I was 18, but have had a few falls before that..

My dad was a mig welder as I was growing up..he provided for us all just fine, food, clothes, bills and he use to take us fishing alot as kids..

Later I remember dad drinking alot and coming home drunk and abusing mom in not so noticeable ways. I remember one time when he came home and cut up our chair and calling mom bad names, it was said he had a child by another woman and we met this child but the mother tried to get social security from dad but I told her to let me see the birth record and i'll try to help her, she never came through and we never heard from her again..any way..

Dad put a gun to moms head and she ran out the door and got help...just alot of little things like that he did..I'll make this shorter..when I was 16 dad came into my room and didn't make physical attempts but did ask me to have sex with him, he even bribed me with money and clothes..I told him no...and things went on for days when I told my sister she called me a liar, until now she said she was sorry and some things happend to her and she'll never tell but take them to her grave, she is a angry person..dad's dicsipline was hard, he left welts on my back and legs when he spanked us. but you know what I never had a problem forgiving him, this is really strange, but I never really new forgiveness and something just inside my heart let me forgive him, no matter what I love him so much..

Any way dad got cancer in 1977 in his lung,and they removed the lower left loab..seven years later he started having really bad headaches and he started vomiting when he had them, the eye doctor treated him with glasses, it didn't work, he went back to his cancer doctor and they found a brain tumor behind his left eye..they removed it, for some reason he and I became close, he would not let me out of his site..a few months later his spine was giving him trouble and they found tumors on his spine and said they couldn't operate, it went to his liver and bones..we set up a bedroom for him with oxagyn tanks..when dad died I was sitting by his side, holding his hand and I KNOW the peace God gave him, I felt he went to heaven, I saw his eyes just glaring at me and he stopped breathing, and God took him home, he had such a hard life as a child...my daugther was 14 months old when he died, he loved her so and he named her Bonnie Marie..she isn't my husbands daugther biologically, he raised her since she was three..

Ok, now...when she was 10 months give or take I was seeing this man named Jerry, for two years we dated, I got with child...he was mostly always drunk, but he never ever abused me..I couldn't see me with two out of wedlock kids and no husband, this man wasn't husband material because all he did was drink. I had a abortion and it killed me deep inside..the affects happend about two years later..I'm still so hurt over it and think of it all the time..

Mom use to send us to church on the bus. I remember sometimes it was a yellow bus, and sometimes it was a blue van. I remember sitting next to a man which was my mothers nieces husband which drove the blule van. I could always see her long silk black hair hanging down because I was in the middle of the back seat, she was the driver. He always sat behind her and me by him and a child in a car seat by me. I never noticed who was in the passengers side. Anyway this man use to touch me and fondle me everytime I got in the car. Not so much comes to memory but I remember being kissed and fondled which I kept to my self until just about a year ago, mom acted like she wasn't to surprised. It's strange how things now can seem like dreams of the past, like we can see pictures of things that happened in the past but they seem like dreams.

I was very sexually active as a teen and took drugs and drank alot..I have been almost raped, slapped, cussed out, called dumb, been told I will never be no body..

I always thought I wasn't worth someone loving me,until Jesus came into my life..

I read the psalms alot, this verse below always touched me,

Psalm 86:5

You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you.

His love is inside me now, and his love keeps me standing.


You know when I look back on my life, I see so much...so much sadness and laughter, and tears and anger, and I see how God has led me to this point..sometimes I'll hear things like,
you know God isn't real, and I know now he is, most of the time he does seem far..the reason I KNOW God is real, because when i look back, I see his hand leading,
I mean the things he has done we don't see until he's finished..this part amazes me,
because alot of times I have tried to give up, but he won't let me..he won't leave my mind and my heart...when I fell away as a teen, I tried so hard to get thoughts of GOD out of my head..

I would try to cover his voice and say no that's just you talking to yourself and i would get high or drunk, or just keep active in parties so I couldn't think about it..buttt...God didn't see it this way,
He saw me, the one deep deep inside my heart..he saw me, even the one i can't see....I know we go through so much, but he has gone through so much more..for us...
I wouldn't dream of speaking this way before i met Christ, my speech was not good, I didn't understand scripture, now I write..I only new the verse John 3:16 as a child..

GOD works amazing things.
Well, enough of my jabbing,
I pray your led always by God's direction,and that His Spirit is always there leading you in ways only He can do.

In His love,
your sister in Christ,
Betty B.