We all come from somewhere, from upbringings and circumstances that shape the decisions we make and the people we become. We are all different, as are the choices we make. Two people going through similar situations may react in very different ways. Therefore, to blame our own bad decisions on situations or other people is simply a denial of the truth. WE are each responsible for OUR OWN choices. I am certainly not alone in having experienced much pain in my life - we all have a story. But by allowing Christ into my life, my heart, I have found healing, peace, joy, and the ability to see the past through the lens of His grace. I have learned to take responsibility and to ask forgiveness for my own sins, rather than making excuses for them. We can choose to forgive, we can choose to be kind, and we can choose to show mercy. We can choose to love in spite of our circumstances. The power of God enables us to do that. With all of this said, I share my story, giving praise to the God who showed me mercy, and saved me from myself, for His glory.

My childhood is something I would not willingly re-experience. There was abuse - verbal, physical, and sexual. There was alcoholism. There was fear and loneliness. There was all the pain that comes with sharing life with parents who, themselves, grew up experiencing much of the same. My dad was not around much, so my mom was left to raise and discipline her children. She did the best she could, herself having been raised in very difficult circumstances. Due to things that happened to her as a child, she was an over-protective mother. She was unable to show affection, as she was not exposed to it growing up. Her discipline could be harsh, and my reaction to all of this was to become very rebellious and difficult.

When I was twelve, my parents got divorced. My mother soon remarried and I remember feeling such anger towards her for what I perceived as a betrayal of my father. It wasn't until I was an adult that I could understand how difficult her situation was. Their divorce began a terrible downward spiral for my life. I became exceedingly rebellious and very disobedient to my mother. We fought all the time. I starting smoking and I started sneaking off with my friends, friends who were willing to get into the same kind of trouble I was looking for. At the age of thirteen, I started experimenting with alcohol.

I had some neighbors who were my age, and we all basically grew up together. When I was fourteen, one of the neighborhood boys convinced me to sneak off and be a blind date for one of his friends. The four of us went off in his car to some remote area in the woods. He and his girlfriend didn't waste any time in the front seat doing what they had obviously planned to do. I was so naïve. I found myself in the back seat with a stranger who intended to do the same thing with me. He started to force himself upon me as I resisted. I kept begging him to stop - he kept telling me he was going to "make a woman out of me". The two in the front seat completely ignored what was happening to me. Finally I quit fighting and he did what he wanted to do. I never told anyone. I was so afraid of being punished by my mother that I just kept the whole incident to myself. This was my first experience with what God intended to be a beautiful act of intimacy between a husband and his wife. I spent a great part of my life believing that it was my own fault, that I just didn't fight hard enough. I felt such shame, such disgrace.

I was fifteen when my stepfather's son came to live with us temporarily. He was a little older than I was, so I tended to look up to him. I admired the freedom he had to come and go, and seemingly do whatever he pleased. I on the other hand was always in trouble and frequently grounded. He introduced me to drugs. The first thing he gave me was LSD. He then started to regularly give me marijuana, cocaine, and a number of other drugs. He then started to demand payment for the drugs that I was, then, unwilling to do without. He wanted me to do things for him and to him that I did not want to do. He threatened to tell my mother about my drug use if I didn't give him what he wanted. Because I was terrified of what she would do to me, he got what he wanted. This went on for about a year, right under the noses of my mother and her husband. The saddest part is that the very thing my mom was so afraid of happening to her daughters ended up happening in the very next room. By the time he finally moved out, I had completely lost any respect I had for myself. I felt dirty, and so ashamed. Again, I never told anyone until many years later.

After this, the boys in school started noticing me more and more. They were so "nice" to me when they were trying to get something from me. They would tell me that they loved me. I had almost never heard anyone say those words to me. Love and sex became the same thing to me. I would give them what they wanted, and I would get the "love" I was aching for. Drugs and alcohol were always involved. This became the pattern of my life.

At nineteen, I started singing in nightclubs five nights a week and I also worked a regular daytime job. I had the finances to buy all the drugs and alcohol I wanted. Being on stage, dressed in the outrageous things I would wear brought me all the attention from men that I craved. During this time, I sunk into a state of sinful depravity I cannot even bear to think about now.

Eventually I started a relationship with another musician. He was one of those "lucky" people who grew up in one of those "happy" homes - the kind I thought only existed on TV. We dated for the next four years. I really thought I had finally gotten my life together. The drug and alcohol use decreased, and my "party girl" days were over. Unfortunately, after four years, our relationship ended. Then, I found out that I was pregnant. It seemed like a miracle to me. Several years earlier I had been informed by a physician that I would never be able to have children. Because of the sinful lifestyle I had led, I had contracted an STD which left me scarred inside and supposedly unable to conceive a child. When I told my ex-boyfriend about the baby, he simply said he would pay for the abortion. He didn't ask what I wanted, and I wasn't brave enough to make the decision I should have. I felt alone, and believed the lie that abortion was my only choice. The emotional and physical consequences of that horrible decision were to follow me many years later. Immediately following the procedure, I remember the ache, the emptiness, and the regret. When I was home alone, I made a promise to a God I wasn't sure existed, a God I had always publicly denied. I promised that if He could forgive me for what I had done, I would never make that choice again.

(To read my abortion story, and for information about post-abortion healing, visit my ministry site, Danny's Song.)

Following this experience, I basically spent all of my time drinking, taking drugs, and engaging in risky sexual behavior. I spent all my free time in bars. It was in one of these bars that I met the man who would become my first husband. I should have had enough sense to know this is NOT the place to meet the man of your dreams! Well, he was one of those handsome, charming guys that everyone loved to be around – the life of the party. I fell head over heels in love, or what I thought was love. We were married a year or so later. Well, when the thrill wore off, the marriage was terribly painful - for both of us I'm sure. After four years, he asked for a divorce, his second. I was devastated. I felt so alone and so rejected.

So, of course, back to the bars I went. I ended up meeting another guy with whom I had a brief relationship. After it ended, I found out I was pregnant - again. What amazes me the most about this was the fact that I had tried all during my marriage to have a child, but I just couldn't get pregnant. To say that my life was a mess is a serious understatement. I was loaded with bills that my ex-husband left me with. I was working two jobs and could barely afford to eat. I was going to school at night, trying to make an attempt to straighten my life out. I was no longer involved with the child's father. I finally decided to go to my family and tell them what was going on. They told me to have an abortion. But I still remembered the promise I had made ten years earlier to the God I still didn't know. I decided to keep my child, but I had no idea how I would take care of it --- I couldn't take care of myself! But I made a conscious decision to believe that there was a God, and that He wouldn't let us starve to death. Somehow that gave me the courage I needed.

I then went through one of the darkest periods of my life. Twenty-three weeks into my pregnancy, I started to go into labor and ended up in the hospital. Stitches were placed inside of me to try and prevent miscarriage. For some strange reason that I can't fathom, my doctor saw fit to send me back to work a week later. A week after that I was back in the hospital, and there was nothing more to be done. My child was about to born. When the doctor came in, he told me that I would have to "just let it go." There was nothing he could do. I still thank God for the nurse who spoke up and said something like, "Wait a minute - we can save babies born this early." At that point the doctor decided to give me the option of "just letting it go" or allowing him to do a C-section to try and save the baby (she was in breech position and would not have survived natural delivery). My promise to God was tested right to the end! Well, I chose the C-section. My baby girl was born that day, twelve inches long, and weighing one pound, ten ounces. She was fifteen weeks premature. No one was being too optimistic about her chances of survival.

The next two days in the hospital, I had a lot of friends come to visit. My family also came. A counselor I had been seeing also visited. She told me that I should have my baby baptized in case she didn't survive. I didn't know anything about such things, but thought it sounded like a good idea, so I agreed. She told me she would take care of all the details. The third day was perhaps the darkest I have ever known. I was leaving the hospital the very next day, without my child. I didn't know what would happen to her. I didn't know what kind of future we had. I could hear other mothers out in the hall. They had such joy in their voices. They were going home with their beautiful new babies. For some strange reason, no one came to visit that day. Later, everyone said that they figured my room would be full of people, so they stayed away. All of them! I have never felt so alone or afraid as I did that day. Then this woman came in.

She told me she was Reverend Lucia, and that she had come to baptize my baby. I didn't think anything of it, as I was expecting someone to do this. For the next hour or so, she sat by my bedside and led me to talk about my life. For some reason, I felt like I could talk to her and I shared about things I had been through. Now and then she would stop me and say something like, "God was trying to get your attention there in that situation." As I poured out my life to her, I began to cry. She then came over and put her arms around me. I cannot adequately explain what it felt like. My eyes were closed and it seemed as if she disappeared and God himself was in that room holding me. I had never felt a love like that in my entire life. After this, she said we could go and baptize the baby. We went together to the "Special Care Nursery". She walked over to the water fountain and wet her hand. She came over to my baby, touched her head, and said it was done!

It wasn't until later that I found out that no one knew who this woman was or where she came from. My counselor told me that when she went to her priest, he didn't want to be involved. The hospital chaplain was strangely unavailable at that time also. So she never found anyone to baptize the baby. This visitor never gave me the gospel message, never recommended I go to her church, or anything like that. She did however give me a copy of the New Testament, the kind that leads you scripture by scripture through the salvation message. It was suggested to me at some point that she may have been an angel. I believe that maybe she was. What I do know for sure is that God sent her to me, in my greatest hour of need!

After this experience, I didn't doubt the existence of God any longer. I definitely believed He was real, and I believed I had been forgiven for my past abortion. I had a peace with regard to my daughter's future. Somehow I knew that she was going to be OK, even though everyone else was being so negative. But strangely enough, I still did not give my heart and life to Him until two years later. There was still one more thing I had to go through to convince me to do that.

My baby spent fifteen weeks in the hospital. Shortly after she came home, I started dating someone new. We were friends, and he was the sax player in the band I was singing with at the time. All I can say is that he is truly a gift from God. He was the only person on earth up until that point who had ever shown me what true, unconditional love looked like. God's timing is amazing! We eventually got married, and he is now my daughter's adoptive father. He is a wonderful father and husband, and has been the best provider I could ever have imagined. With all my heart, I believe God was honoring my decision of faith (even before I knew Him!) to believe he wouldn't let us starve.

The year 1995 got off to a rough start. My father became ill and had to be hospitalized with severe depression. He owns a large old Victorian house which has been converted into apartments. While he was in the hospital I became responsible for taking care of his personal affairs. I had to go to his apartment every week to pick up his bills, write checks - that sort of thing. On one occasion, I retrieved a message on his phone machine from a doctor at a prison hospital in Texas. My brother had been incarcerated because of his involvement in IV drug use. When I got home, I called this doctor, explained who I was and she then proceeded to tell me how gravely ill my brother was, that he didn't have much longer to live. She must have assumed his family would know he was sick. Being understandably shaken, I asked her what she meant. What was wrong with my brother? He was only 35. I'll never forget the calm, almost nonchalant way she said to me, "Why, he has AIDS dear." My heart broke that day in a way it had never been broken before. I had to tell my mother her son was dying. She had just lost her husband eight months earlier. I had to tell my father. In his condition, I feared losing him along with my brother. I had to see my brother before he died. My other brother wanted to go with me. This involved two round-trip tickets from Rhode Island to Texas. The finances were a hardship for us at that time, but we managed - we just had to.

When we finally got in to see our brother, we were not prepared for what we would find. I had seen AIDS victims portrayed in movies on TV. My brother looked worse than anything I had ever seen or could have imagined. He was little more than a breathing skeleton. He couldn't move or talk. The only recognizable thing about this once strong, handsome six foot tall man was the tattoo on his arm. It was an image of the "grim reaper." There is no way to describe the pain I felt seeing him like that. It is a blessing that at least he could recognize us, and respond to us. He could move his head just enough to indicate "yes" or "no". Because of difficult finances, and the fact that I had a three year old child at home, we could only stay three days in Texas. This may seem strange to you, but I begged God to let him die before we had to leave. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving him there to die alone. But it was not meant to be, and in God's wisdom, I'm sure it was for the best - even though my heart cannot agree. On the third day, there was a point when I was alone with him. As I sat there, I heard God speak to me. It wasn't like someone else talking, but a voice within me. It was unmistakable. He said to me that if I didn't turn to Him then, I was going to end up dying just like my brother. When I heard it, I knew it was God speaking, and I knew what he said was the truth. You see, even though I had been blessed with a precious daughter and a wonderful husband, even with the experience I had of God's love in the hospital, I was slipping back into the only lifestyle I had ever really known. It is so hard to admit that, to know how hard my heart had become. But in that moment, when I heard God speak the truth to me, I did a complete turn around. In that instant, I received Jesus into my heart. I asked Him to forgive me and He became my Lord.

To lose a sibling is a terribly painful thing. My brother died four days after I left him. I had to make all the arrangements as neither one of my parents were in a state to do so. There were many difficult days. But something in me was different. I sensed that I was not alone. I could feel God all around me, holding me together. As strange as it sounds, I had a sense of joy in the middle of the worst pain I had ever felt. My life was changed forever when I let my precious Savior in. You may wonder at how much it took to get me to that point. You may think how unfair it was for my brother to perish, while I on the other hand was saved. I certainly wondered about that myself. Six months after his death, I finally asked the Lord that burning question, "Why Lord, why did it have to be that way? Why did my brother have to die the way he did, and in prison, away from his family? It's great that I'm saved, but what about him? Why, Lord?" In His still, quiet voice, He gave me an answer: "It was the only way I could save him."  Well, I had to think about that for quite a while and it finally made sense to me. My brother sealed his fate when he stuck the first needle into his arm. He was probably sick for years before he died. But in God's mercy, he ended up in a prison where there was a strong Christian ministry. He had the gospel message given to him there, and I believe in my heart of hearts that he received the Lord before he died. He was wearing a cross around his neck when I saw him. If he had not been in prison, it is most probable that he would have died on the streets, without ever having the chance to hear the message of Christ and receive Him as his Savior. He is now free from the "hell on earth" he was living in, and he walks on streets paved with gold. That is the incredible mercy and grace of God!

So now, dear reader, I can only imagine your reaction to what you have just read. Maybe you think I'm brave - or crazy - to put all of this in writing and reveal it to the eyes of the world. Let me tell you, this has been difficult to write. My tears have been shed upon this page. But I am compelled by the Lord to share what He has done. Is there one out there somewhere who can see himself, herself in this story? Perhaps you believe that you are too far gone to be saved by the grace of God. I am living proof that His grace and mercy are available to anyone who will receive it. Oh, I pray that you, too, will hear the sound of His voice knocking at the door of your heart. I pray that you will open the door and let Him in. No matter how far you've gone, there is no place so far that the amazing grace of God cannot find you!

In His love,
Debbi