My Testimony

I just want to say that from reading this you may get the immpression that I have anger towards my parents.  This is not the case.  I am so greatful to have them in my life. They have done so much for me and continue to do so.  I am so thankful for their support and love.  Thank you for everything Mom and Dad.

To start off I am going to tell you a little about my background.  Throughout my elementary up until 4^th or 5^th grade my parents were married, but there were some problems with their marriage.  Alcohol was the main problem. It consumed my father, which in turn made it so he wasn’t there to raise me because his alcohol was more important. Along with the alcohol came the friends, parties, and bars.  All of which took time away from my father and I when I was younger.  Although this destroyed the relationship with me and my father, as well as the marriage, my mother contributed to the problems in the marriage also.  My mother was frequently frustrated and angry at my father.  In the midst of all the problems my mom began to use me as her personal counselor and in a sense carrier of her problems.  This went on probably from 4^th grade until 9^th grade.  This added stress I was receiving from my mother slowly ate away my happiness and motivation toward everything I did.

My mother drank as well during all of the problems that were going on with the marriage. I watched alcohol take my family away from me and my brother, who is four years older than me.  I didn’t see a lot of him during the problems because he was always at a friend’s house.  I was stuck at home most of the time. I was afraid to bring friends over to the house because I feared that my friends would see one or both of my parents drinking, I was afraid I would loose the few friends I did have.  This devastated me that I couldn’t have friends over for that fear.  So, the few kids my age in the neighborhood I would try to hang over at whenever they wanted to so I could get away from home.  I was trying not only to get away from the alcohol, but the many fights that occurred.  I saw my parents fight so much I feared that one of them was going to end up killing the other. 

From everything I went through and experienced, I withdrew to myself and became independent.  I started to be this way since I was probably 6 years old.  It was the only way at the time I could survive in this environment.  When I got into 5^th grade I started to focus on school and made that the most important thing to me.  I did this because I didn’t want to be like my parents when I grew up and it keep my mind off of the things going on at home.  Although this helped for a little while it couldn’t keep the hurt and depression from getting to me and affecting the way I thought. 

The other thing that I used to suppress my feelings was videogames.  I used videogames primarily because I had very few friends.  I would call my so called friends to hang out or do something, but they always had an excuse not to hang out with me.  I eventually gave up trying on them which caused videogames to be my only friend. They took my troubles and put them aside temporarily while I daydreamed of random things.  In middle school I had few friends, just like before.  I continued to try and focus on school but it was hard enough to keep my mind off of what was going on with my parents. My parents had got divorced when I was 9 or 10, I can never remember, but they still fought mostly over the phone.  When my mom wouldn’t call my father to speak with him about something or when she refused to call him she used me as a messenger.  I became my mother’s target to talk to my dad. This kept her from having to deal with the mainstream blow of an argument. I had to take the abuse from both sides.

When my parents had finally moved apart my mom moved into a condo with my future stepfather. This didn’t solve any problems with alcohol. My mother continued to drink more and more as time went on. My father did the same.  He would drink until he passed out.  This scared me because I was afraid that if someone broke into the house and tried to kidnap me my dad wouldn’t wake up even if I was screaming. 

On the other side of my life my mother now focused on my future stepfather and continued to ignore me.  All in all I grew up without having a mother or father there mentally as I grew up.  I learned to depend on myself and I lost all trust for my father and my trust for my mother was fading quickly.  Everything continued to worsen as time went on. 

This now brings us to the end of March 2006.  I had slowly grown more and more depressed from all I had gone through. I was starting to wonder if there was a god and if he knew I existed.  Deep down I knew there was a god, but I hadn’t seen him work.  I was starting to get fed up with my mom’s drinking and told her that I couldn’t deal with it any more. I told her that it she was doing the same thing that my dad had done. It pulled her so far away I didn’t even recognize her any more.  To me, I felt like I had no mother any more. My father had been sober since January of 2005 and still going strong.  I ended up telling my mom that she is an alcoholic and that she had a choice to make.  Either give up alcohol or I was going to move in with my dad.  She didn’t drink for the first week, but when I had come upstairs one day I saw her drinking again.  I told her that I was disappointed in her and I was going to move out.  She wanted one more chance so I gave it to her.  It didn’t last more than two days.  So I packed up my stuff without her knowing the next night. After everything was packed I told her that I was upset that she would pick alcohol over me and that I didn’t want to talk to her or see her until she stopped drinking.

Of course she still won’t admit that her problem with alcohol is the reason I moved out.  I didn’t talk to her for at least a month and didn’t see her for three maybe four months.  The alcohol problem was never fixed.  During this time school was ending and the stress and depression grew tremendously from dealing with her decision.  The added pressure from my father learning how to raise a teenager didn’t help.  My dad was still learning how to control his anger and old ways of thinking that he learned from the alcohol throughout his life.  There were many fights between my father and I.  When this would happened I would be reminded of my childhood of my parents fighting and the consistent lack of love that I hadn’t received from my parents growing up.  When I would talk to my mom on the phone after I had moved out it was always a fight. Which again reminded my of everything I had gone through and knowing that alcohol controlled her as it did my childhood. 

I fell into a downward spiral of depression and anger.  I had hit bottom shortly after. At the time I didn’t care what other people thought.  I was desperate for anyway to get rid of my problems.  So I thought about suicide.  I was thinking about suicide for probably about two or three weeks.  During this time I realized that if I were to commit suicide the pain it would cause my family.  So, I went to my last option in hopes of saving my family any pain.  If this option didn’t work, than suicide would shortly follow.  This final option was God.  I got on my knees and begged God that if he was really there to do something and pull me out of the pit I was in. 

A few weeks later there was a pool party up at the Tuscany Town Homes.  I believe this was on the 21^st of June.  I planned on going to it in hopes of finding a friend my age in the neighborhood as well as for the free food.  As it approached the time the pool party was going to start it had started to get cloudy and cool outside.  It looked like it was about to rain so I had thought about not going to it for that reason.  But I thought to myself, “Maybe I will go anyways for the food at least.” 

So I went to the clubhouse.  After I got my food I sat outside at a table by myself and started to eat.  After I had finished eating I got up to throw my paper plate away and a man walked up to me.  He introduced himself to me.  His name was Stan Felder.  Almost immediately after, his daughters walked up and introduced themselves as well along with his wife.  They invited me over to what they called kids club. I originally thought, “Yea, I will go. After all there are a couple of cute girls that look about my age.”  They said that it was a club for the kids in the neighborhood in the morning with games, food, fun, and a Bible lesson.  When I heard “Bible lesson” I thought, “Oh great they are probably going to force there beliefs on me if I go to it.”  So after they had left I went home and then eventually went to bed. 

When I woke up it was probably 9:25 A.M. and they had told me if I wanted to come over I could and it started at 10:00 A.M. As I lay in bed, I decided that I had nothing better to do and if I were to stay home I would just play videogames all day.  So I crawled out of bed, got ready for the day, and went over across from the clubhouse where they were having the kids club.  When I showed up they (the Felder girls and Stan) were so happy that I showed up.  This was a new feeling to me because I hadn’t ever had any friends be so excited to see me, let alone some complete strangers that I met the day before. 

As I was there we played some games with the kids in the neighborhood.  They sang some worship songs. I was too embarrassed to sing along.  After the games and songs they had craft time on one side and a bible lesson on the other.  When everything was done they had a snack then the rest of the kids in the neighborhood went home.  I was invited inside because it was hot outside and they wanted to get to know me.  During this whole time I was just in awe at how kind they were and the way they treated me.  After awhile I went home and went about my day like usual.  They had invited me over the next day because they were having the kids club again. 

So I went to it not only to help but to see if they would treat me the same way as the first day.  They did treat me the same way which was a bit of a surprise.  After everything was over I was talking to Karen (Stan’s wife) and decided to ask her some questions.  One of the questions was, “What do you believe in?”  She told me that she believes in Christ and that he is lord and savior.  At the time I really didn’t know what that meant.  She then asked me what I believe and I told her that I am LDS but I don’t really believe in it though.  One of the reasons I didn’t believe it though was when I was little growing up when I would go to the LDS church when I was there I had a weird eerie feeling that something was wrong.  This feeling stuck in my mind and the older I got and the further away I got from its teachings and environment because it didn’t seem like the whole truth was being told.  Something didn’t fit quite right in my eyes and I had had too many LDS members try and force what they believe down my throat.  I also got the impression far too often form the members that they were better than me because they were religious.  I didn’t think much of the conversation because she didn’t tell me what to believe or what to think.

About two weeks after meeting them they invited me to go to church with them.  I found an excuse not to go.  I really had nothing else to do but I didn’t want to go.  The next week I did the same.  Finally I agreed I would go with to church to see what they truly believed.  When the pastor had stood up to give the message I was surprised at how calm he was.   What really got me was that he taught only what was found in the Bible and he had even said, “If I were ever up here preaching and said something that is not taught in the Bible I would hope you would correct me and stop me from preaching.” 

One big thing for me though was that questioning was encouraged. That was something that I was never able to do.  I enjoyed church that day and came back the next Sunday.  I used one of the Bibles at the church to look up everything the pastor was saying to make sure he wasn’t saying anything false.  Sure enough there was not a single thing he said that wasn’t in the Bible.  Not only that but everything he stated was in the Bible as plain as day.  So around the end of July they asked me if I wanted to go with them to “Son Fest.”  I had no idea what it was, but they said that there was going to be a band, a guest speaker, and that we would go to Lagoon on one of the days.  I honestly at first didn’t want to go.  They kept asking me to go with and after I thought about it, deep down I wanted to go.  There was one problem though; I didn’t have the money to go to it.  I told them I wasn’t going to be able to go because of the money and I was sorry I wasn’t going to be able to go. 

The next day they said “Don’t worry about the money for now let’s just see if your parents would let you go.”  My parents said I could go and they would pay for my fee to go.  It was August 4, 2006 the day we were going to leave to go to Son Fest. That morning, my Dad and Step mom gave me a Bible as well as a small bible for me to take with me.  My parents were getting ready to pay, but the Felders said that I didn’t owe any money because it was taken care of.  My parents still paid for half of the fee for me to go though. Son Fest was being held at the Davis County Convention Center in Layton, UT. 

When we arrived in Layton we dropped off our luggage at the hotel.  We then went to the Davis County Convention Center it started off with the X-TREAM TEAM.  This was a group of people that broke bricks and did other feats that would take some extreme strength to do.  That was fun to watch and was followed by the band.  The band’s name was Abandon and they sang some worship songs in a contemporary style of music.  I enjoyed the songs but I didn’t sing the majority of them because I thought I was to cool. 

After this the guest speaker appeared.  His name was Jay Lowder.  He started off by introducing himself and a little background of himself.  After that he started to tell some stories about people that had heard the Word of God and the following results.  The stories all had one major thing in common that after they were presented with the gospel they rejected it.  This in turn led to that person dieing.  Some of which were an accident or in some cases suicide. This hit home for me because I had been thinking about suicide not to long before.  It was like he was talking to me one on one. Almost as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. 

Right after this he said that things don’t happen on accident.  That there was a reason for everything and that everyone that was there was meant to be there.  When I heard this it was like something triggered in my head and everything that had happened to me since the moment I asked God to give me a sign flashed before me. He was right; there was no possible way that it was an accident that I was there, in that room, listening to him speak. Too many things had happened in the perfect order for it to be an accident.  The next thing that Jay said would change my life forever. 

He asked, “If you were to die right now were would you go?”  My heart fell to the floor in a pile of mush as I realized that if I were to die right then that I would go to hell for one simple reason.  I was not in the grace of Jesus Christ.  On top of that I wasn’t forgiven for my sins.  I thought back to all of the thoughts of suicide and that if I were to have followed through I would have ended up in hell for eternity. All of these thoughts occurred in a matter of seconds. 

Jay then continued to say that God has given us a way to heaven.  But there is one catch.  You can’t earn your way to heaven. The only way to heaven is to accept the free gift of salvation which was made possible by Jesus dieing on the cross. And the only thing left for me to do was accept that gift.  All I had to do was admit I was a sinner, ask for forgiveness, and ask Jesus to come into my life as my Lord and Savior. He asked that anyone who wanted to ask for Jesus to come into there lives to walk up to the front of the room.  I hesitated because I was afraid of what other people would think.  I knew that Jesus was the one thing that was missing in my life though.  I then decided I don’t care what other people think because God was calling me and it may be my last opportunity to ask Jesus into my life.  So I stood up and walked to the front crying.   Jay led the prayer because I had no idea what to do.

 After I had accepted Jesus Christ into my life something indescribable happened.  I had a peace, a joy, a load taken off my shoulders, but most important a love came into my life.  This love was the love of God.  It was the one thing that I was missing in my life and I couldn’t do anything to satisfy this love that I needed.  It was the God size hole in my heart that was filled up that I was trying to satisfy before.

 I was crying harder than I had in my entire life.  It was like I was a walking waterfall I was crying so hard.  I was crying because I knew that Jesus came into my life and made me a new creation. I was no longer a slave to sin. He forgave me of my sins and gave me the greatest gift possible, the gift of eternal life. 

I once heard that God would move heaven and earth to save you.  How true this really is.  Think about it for a second.  God left heaven, came down to die for our sins, and rose again.  Not only did he do it for me and everyone else, but he went a step farther with me.  He sent people from Utopia, Texas to West Jordan, Utah to show me his word.  Through these people, I came to know Jesus on a personal level and accepted him as my savior.  If that wasn’t enough, God also used these people so I could meet a family that lives about a mile away from me.  Just so after they went back to Texas I would have someone to be a mentor to me.

God loves you more than you will ever know.  John 3:16-18 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”  I pray that if God is calling out to you that you will listen to what he is saying before its too late. 

I will end by asking you the question that changed my life.  “If you were to die right now were would you go?”

 If you have any questions or would like me to pray for you or ask God into your life, you can email me and my email is zlintz@hotmail.com   God bless.