I grew up in a family that felt it was wrong to force religon on children. My parents figured when we (my brother and I) were adults we could choose for ourselves. I now know that is wrong!! Instead of feeling like I had a choice, I felt that there was no God. I felt like all the bad things that happened to me wouldn't have if there was a God. I was abused physically by my father as was my mother. I was molested my a boyfriend of my mothers. I was emotionaly, physically and sexualy abused by my first husband. (Dont ever let anyone tell you that you cant be raped by a man if you are married to him, no is no even if you are married, sorry had to say that). I had sex (I say sex becuase I know know, years later that there was no love there) three times in my life of my own free will, the first time was at 14 with a boy in the school my parents sent me to becuase I was a runaway. I got pregnant and was told I HAD to have an abortion. I had sex twice with my ex of my own free will in the early part of our relationship. My parents who were divorced when I was 4 never told us to wait, they never said anything. SO I didn't think it was wrong. I got pregnant the second time and had another abortion. But after those 2 times, sex was never of my own free will, but I stayed figuring he was telling me the truth, men treated women they love this way. I mean my father was abusive, why not my husband, right? (NO, but I didnt know that yet). I married him at the age of 17. I got pregnant and becuase if his drug habit and all the beatings I miscarried a baby girl, who I named Sarah Beth in Jan of 1990. I went into a church after that and I sat there and said to God that I know he doesn't exisit because if he did then he killed my baby girl. I thought I was being punished for the 2 I had killed...And this guilt over what I did still haunts me today and drives me to try to stop others from doing it too....I had finally got the courage to leave this awful man when I got pregnant with Ryan...I stayed 3 more years because I was scared he would steal my son...I was amazed I could love this little boy considering how he came to be, but I do. And the ex kept saying if I left he would take Ryan and run. I did leave him and he never had very much desire to see Ryan at all... Fast foward to Jan 2000... I had met and married my dh, Jason. We seemed to have a good marriage...Or so I thought. In Jan 2000 we haad been activly trying to have a baby for a very long time, I was on clomid, we were charting and everything..I thought things were great...He adopted Ryan Jan 7..I mean things were perfect..But I was wrong. My dh had started to have what he called a friendship with some girl he met in some game online..It turned out to be way more then a friendship...I won't go in to all the details as this is already very long and I still haven't got to my meeting with God. ..But he was leaving me and I was crushed... I had a friend at the time who I knew was a Christian. She talked about Jesus as if he was her best friend...But she never pushed me..She just talked about her life, how God saved her life on more then one occasion etc...Well, one day she asked how I was since we had spoken in over a week and I poured out the whole story to her and how every one was telling me to let him go since he was doing this..I couldnt..She asked me what I wanted, it was the first time any one asked me that...I told her I wanted my family to stay intact. She invited me into her house and asked if she could pray for me, with me. I figured it couldn't hurt, I mean things couldn't get much worse... So in her living room, we stood holding hands and she prayed. I can't tell you a word she said, I didn't hear it becuase something strange happened to me....All off a sudden a headache and backache I didn't even realize I had were gone, I could breathe and the floor was gone from under my feet...I hope that makes sense since I cant explain it any better...And I knew, I don't know how I knew, I just knew at that very monent that there was a God..He was as real as me... She gave me a picture of Jesus and a little booklet about how to except Jesus as my saviour...I went home, put the picture on my night stand and read the little book about 50 times...Stared at the picture for over an hour, then prayed the prayer at the back of the book...And then I smiled, for the first time in weeks.... Only for me to find a letter dh had wrote to this girl that made it worse....He left for work the next morning and I thought I was going to die. I was standing in my room at 5:45am and I felt someone, I say someone because I felt hands on my shoulders, and they pushed me to my knees, it scared me...And I said, "I am going to die today if you dont help me" I was going to kill myself..I hurt so bad..And as the words left my mouth it started to snow, but not flurries, a blizzard. And by 8:30 when Ryan should have been getting ready for school there was over a foot of snow and school was closed, and I was saved since I could never do that with Ryan in the house... Well I got stronger then and told dh if he was going to go..And he says he doesn't know what he wants..And so I have hope...I pray every day all the time about this asking God to fix our family...And in late Feb dh tells me he wants to save our marriage...and 12 hours later I find out I am pregnant with Dakota. Exactly 12 hours...If it had been the other way around things would have been worse since I would wonder if it was me or the baby he wanted....Well then I spent the next 9 months praying for dh's salvation which came on the day of Dakota's birth, in the instant she was born he knew..God spoke to him...And now a year later, he wants to become a minister and our marriage is a Christ centered one, and we try very hard to be what God wants, we mess up at times but we know what to do and God has never let us suffer..... He has taught us things and provided for us when we didn't know where our next meal was coming from...We have never done with out our needs being met and and have learned the difference between needs and wants, and God even gives us some of our wants...And I am proud to say I am a submissive wife with a great husband who can still be a pain in the tush LOL....SO if you are still with me, thank you...I am sorry if I bored you to tears LOL Wendy