March 9, 2004
XN/FSM 404
CM/FM
August 2003
Recommended reading for ages 14 and up. May be read to younger ages at parents' discretion.
Copyright © 2003 by The Family — CM/FM
Cover photo caption: Exploring a waterfall in the Guatemalan "outback": Tina (13), Gabriella (19), Angie (17), Suzy (15), and Linda (19). See Linda's and Angie's rejoining testimonies on pages 11 and 14.
(IN BOXES THROUGHOUT THE MAG:)
(Jesus speaking:) Many who have departed from your folds will return once again. You will see the beginnings of a great harvest in many ways, including the harvest of My ex-member children returning. There will be many, young and old, who have turned aside from My highest will in their lives and from following Me closely, but who, as the days grow darker, will be humbled enough to return. There will indeed be a great reaping of My ex-member brides—those who have been living only for themselves, but in whose hearts I will rekindle a desire to be of service to mankind and to reach others with My love. (ML #3349:100,102; GN 942)
(Jesus speaking:) There are many who will come back after they've tasted of the System's pleasures and found that they are but empty husks which do not satisfy or fulfill. There are many who will return much wiser and stronger in their convictions. They'll be purged of their foolishness and double-mindedness, and they will once again take their place amongst the children of David with pride. They will be part of the hope, the improvement, the power that has been promised to the children of David for their second generation. (ML #3306:26, GN 909)
("What the Future Holds, Pt.1," ML #3349:103-105, 108-112; GN 942)
(Jesus speaking:) As the days grow darker, those who know My words of truth will see the things coming to pass that My prophets have foretold, and they will feel the conviction of My Spirit in their hearts. They will feel and know that the words that I spoke were true, and that it's not true that "all things continue as they were." They will see through the veneer of the System and the sugar coating with which Satan has wrapped his pill of worldliness and carnal thinking—the pill which so many of your youth have swallowed, and in thinking they were being enlightened, brought great spiritual blindness upon themselves.
My powerful and mighty wave of anointing through My Family, with which you will reach the world and cover the corners of the globe with My message, will also touch on the shores of the hearts of these, My wayward brides. I will stir them with the warmth of My salty, spicy ocean. They will remember the freshness, the freedom, and see the depth of truth contained in My Words, and they will want to return to My service, at least in some measure.
Prepare yourselves for an influx of returning wayward brides, those who were meant to be Mine and serve Me, but whose hearts were distracted or filled with other things, and who therefore pulled away from Me and now feel the loss. Prepare to reintegrate those who have been very weakened, but who will see the truth and desire to fight for it by your side once again. It may take some time for some to be strengthened enough to be a blessing to others, and even those who return may not all become full-time elite troops, but they will become part of your greater extended Family membership—a part of My push within the Family to teach others to teach others.
I have said that you must pray the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth laborers into His harvest. I have many laborers chosen to send into My harvest. Many of these are "new" laborers, in the sense that they either don't yet know Me or at least have not labored in My service. Yet some of them are to be "recycled" laborers, meaning those who have already known My service and know much of My Word, but who have pulled away from Me, whether many years ago or in recent years. There are many whose spark I will re-ignite, whose eyes I will open, whose spirits I will cause to burn with the desire to break free from the chains of pride and selfishness, and launch out once again to live by faith and to serve Me and others.
Pray them in! Fight for them in prayer! This is one part of the great harvest of the future. This is a part of the era of action. This is a part of the Activated vision. This is a part of feeding My sheep. This is a part of the Last Days.
So many are becoming desensitized to the truth; but meanwhile others are seeing the signs of the times. Even if they don't know what they're seeing, they know that these times are significant, and they're looking for those who can answer their questions. Even My children without, the young and old who have left off following Me, will find those who will seek them out, feeling the spirit and knowledge within them, and desiring that they would teach them and help them find their way.
Seeing this hunger and vacuum in the world will be what causes some to return to Me. They will see that the light and spirit within them, as little as it may be, is desperately needed in the world as the days grow darker, and they will long to be filled with more of this truth and knowledge and spirit, for their own sake and the sake of others. It is coming. The Last Days are coming. A great reaping is coming. A wave of those who will return to Me is coming. (End of message from Jesus.)
(Mama:) Please pray these dear brethren back into the Lord's service. These who have left us are not just "former members"; they're someone's mate, friend, brother, sister, boyfriend, girlfriend, child. We need them—and they need us and the Word of the Lord! So please begin to prepare for this influx of disciples as the Lord instructs us, and let's make a way for these important and needed laborers to fight this last great battle by our sides!
Have you joined or rejoined recently?
If so, please write up your experiences and send your testimony to FSM@wsfamily.com. We'd love to hear all the Lord has done in your life, as we are sure there are many more moving and miraculous stories out there, like those in this FSM. Please send us yours!—With pics! We love you, and will be praying for you as you write.
By Theresa, Canada (written April 2003 while en route to South Africa)
Age: 22
Nationality: French Canadian/Mexican
Children? Yes, one—a girl, Danni
How long have you been in the Family: 18 years. I rejoined three months ago.
I was born into the Family in 1980, and although my participation was halfhearted, my life started off well. I used to read a lot at a young age, and so I read any book I could get my hands on, which was basically all Word, so I had a good foundation. But as I grew older I started developing attitudes and my own strong opinions.
I was in France with my family in '93 at the time of the persecution there. Afterwards a lot of families went to other countries—ours went to Switzerland. Things were pretty lenient in Switzerland at the time, as it was before the "Back on Track" GNs came out. Although I thought I'd never give up my values, I eventually found myself slipping in my convictions. I started listening to System music, sneaking TV, and I found myself wondering what smoking was like. I was 13 at the time and still pretty innocent.
Our family then moved to Canada where, although I was happy at first, spiritually things went from bad to worse. At 15 I decided I wanted to leave the Family. I had to wait a few years till I was old enough, so I ended up leaving when I was 17, and moved in with my older sister. I feel bad about how I treated my parents, because during those last years in the Family I put them through a lot. I didn't mean to be bad; I just wanted to party, have a good time, and find a hot guy.
Life out of the Family was at first the scariest thing in the world, and then I got my first job and boyfriend. I started to think, Wow! I finally have an independent life!
I got fired from a couple of jobs because of my independent nature. I like to speak my mind, and it sometimes gets me into trouble. I always found new jobs, though, and I worked in coffee shops, in a sports store, as a waitress, as a nanny, and as a security guard. I went through jobs fast sometimes, because I'd get bored fairly quickly.
One thing that I found, which kind of freaked me out, was that it's hard to find a man in the System. I always thought guys were just scarce in the Family, but it was really hard to find someone out there. I found that I could have relationships in the System, but they usually didn't last! And I've always been into the "bad boy" types, which got me into a lot of trouble.
Eventually, I started going to raves* and popping pills, mostly Ecstasy. I got my first long-term boyfriend (who was a drug dealer), got pregnant, and had a kid. She is adorable, by the way, and her name is Danni. Of course, all of this happened over about a year. The Lord started speaking very strongly to me. However, I kept trying to shake the conviction, because the thought of rejoining seemed way too big a sacrifice. [*rave: large-scale party or club event at which techno music is played, lasting sometimes all night (slang)]
Once at a New Year's Eve rave, my younger sister Angie, Lee (my baby's father), and I were partying. I was on Ecstasy, and all of a sudden the Lord started speaking to my heart very clearly. In the Family, you're told that drugs are bad for you, though sometimes you don't know why. And initially when I started doing drugs I felt like, "Why do they think this is so bad?" I thought maybe it was because they never took them or knew how great it makes you feel.
But that night the Lord suddenly started speaking to me, and it was almost an audible voice, except He was speaking to my heart. The voice was saying that drugs would destroy my body and brain—which I found out for myself later. Your body is your temple, and God only gives you one. So you can't afford to mess with it.
That was like an epiphany to me; it hit me like a lightning bolt. Suddenly I looked at all the kids partying and dancing, and I knew none of them knew Jesus. The Lord put this aching in my heart for them. They were all lost and probably weren't going to Heaven, and that thought made me very sad.
I couldn't enjoy the rest of the party, or any more parties after that, because every time I popped an "e" (Ecstasy) or "X," as some people call it, the Lord's Spirit would speak stronger and stronger to me. His voice would speak to me so loud and clear; I couldn't run away from it. The Lord would basically say, What are you doing, wasting your life away, when you know you are supposed to be serving Me? You know I have a plan for your life, and I can't use you this way.
I stopped partying soon after this started happening. Not only because of that—there were other things too. I started understanding what slavery to money and the worship of money are, and how this attitude affects people. Out in the System, people work for money, and money is their God—nothing else. That thought made me very sick.
When I got pregnant, I didn't know what to do. I was scared, and still wasn't sure what I was doing with my life. Even though the Lord kept speaking to me, and His voice was louder and louder, I kept trying to ignore it, hoping it would go away. But it didn't.
I worked at a sports store till I was nine months pregnant, had my baby, took a year off for maternity leave, and then I rejoined the Family. I have now been back for almost three months and I'm very happy and excited, which I haven't been for a long time.
I'm not saying that everything out there was bad, but there was a verse that always came to me that described the feeling perfectly. It goes, "He gave them their requests, but sent leanness to their souls" (Psa.106:15). That's how I felt: The partying, guys, and fast-paced life were sometimes fun in the physical, but my spirit and soul felt very, very lean. My spirit felt dead or at least half-dead, and eventually even my physical countenance changed. I couldn't experience happiness by doing things that were supposedly fun because my heart wasn't right with God.
The worst time was during my pregnancy—not so much because of my pregnancy itself, as physically most of it went well. But that was the time when the Lord was really working in my life, and I was going through what turned out to be some of the worst spiritual battles of my life. I felt like I was losing my mind and going insane. I'm pretty sure it had to do with the drugs I'd been taking before I was PG. But whatever it was, the Lord used it to draw me closer to Him and His Word, as that was the only thing that sustained me through that time. No one around me knew anything was wrong, because I'm the kind of person who will talk about basically anything to anyone, but when it comes to things that I'm really going through at the time, I usually keep it to myself because I guess I'm embarrassed and I don't want to bring anyone down.
When I was at the hospital after having the baby, a friend gave me one of those Get Activated booklets called Dare to Be Different. When I read it, the Word came alive and spoke to me like never before, and that really helped. Plus my parents came back to Canada from Brazil at that time, and I knew that was the Lord, because it was a crucial turning point in my life. I decided to rejoin at the same time that my parents were leaving for a new field, so here we are, all leaving together to South Africa! Angie rejoined with me. The fact that all this is happening is a real miracle!
All in all, the Lord has been very good to me, and I'm honestly thankful to be back in the Family again, for the right reasons for the first time in my life. I just feel happy. I'm not scared or fearful any more, which is something the Devil had been hitting me with.
I had to give up my boyfriend too—not the baby's father, but a nice guy who was good to Danni and me. It was hard at first, as I wasn't used to not having sex when I wanted it and not having someone. But surprisingly, it's been getting easier and easier, and I know that the Lord's in control. I just have to trust Him that He knows best. And as my mom keeps telling me, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Mat.6:33).
By Megan (22), U.S.
I was born in the Family on May 17, 1981, in the States, the youngest of four children—two brothers, one sister, and me. I don't remember much of the period before my parents separated; I was only two. We were living in Japan when my dad decided, after ten years in the Family, that it wasn't the place for him anymore. I didn't realize what was happening at the time and neither did my mom. My dad had my oldest brother call my mom from the airport to tell her that we were all leaving and going to Guam.
My dad didn't want us to have anything to do with our mom after that. He had a new wife, and he wanted us to have a "normal" life, so any contact with our mom was forbidden. We never received any letters from her even though she sent many, as she told me later.
For the next two years I stayed with my dad until his new wife decided she couldn't take care of us anymore. So my older brother and I were sent to the States to live with my grandma. I was four and my brother was five. We traveled alone by plane with luggage tags on our arms, so we wouldn't get lost, and the stewardesses watched over us. We arrived in the States where my uncle picked us up and drove us three and a half hours to my grandparents' house.
For the next eight years I lived in a small town in North Carolina. I had a pretty average childhood, considering that I lived with my grandparents. I did all the normal things such as going to school, attending church, and had all my physical needs met. My grandma wanted us to have a good foundation in the Lord, so every time the doors were open I was put in church; we also had devotions and nighttime Bible stories.
During this time, Dad would visit every three or four years, and in the process my two older brothers would switch places between Guam and North Carolina while I stayed with my grandparents in North Carolina. My older sister never visited the States, so all we could do was write letters to each other.
When I was 12, my grandma decided she couldn't take care of me any more either, and that I needed a younger "mother" in my life to teach me everything I was going to need to learn. So I moved to a different city in North Carolina to live with my aunt and uncle, who had two children.
With my aunt I was treated like Cinderella. I lived in an unfinished, unheated attic. I did my school, babysat her two kids, and did housework incessantly. When I didn't do things up to her standard, I would be hit, or punished for up to several months at a time. I remember one time when I was told to wash a load of laundry, and by accident I washed one dress that wasn't supposed to be put in the washing machine. She got furious, screamed in my face, and grabbed my arm, digging her nails in till the blood ran down my arm. All I could do was stand there and look her in the face.
Despite my home life I still managed to maintain good grades in school most of the time, and was in the choir. I started taking art classes, which is where I found my escape. When I turned 15, I got my first job working in a bar/bingo parlor. I saved money, and when I was 16 I was able to buy myself a car and begin another job. Although I got a new job, I had to keep my first job in order to pay for everything—the car and all that I needed. I worked these two jobs while still going to school full time.
Around this time, I also started experimenting with new things—drugs, excessive drinking, hanging out with new friends, etc. I stopped going to church and got as far away from religion as I could. I didn't want to hear about it anymore from anybody. I thought, If there really is a God, then why would He let my life be this bad? So I decided I didn't need Him.
All this time, I had never talked to or seen my mom, who was doing missionary work in various countries. One day when I was 16, I went to visit my mom's mother and there was my mom standing in her living room. At first I thought, What is this woman doing here? Does she think she can just jump into my life? I was resentful and confused from all the stories I had heard about her and her "religion." Then I came to the realization that I shouldn't listen to those stories, and I should just try to get to know her.
So I gave her a hug and we began the long journey of getting to know one another—and my nine younger siblings she'd brought with her. I found out that she had come to the States to help take care of her mother, who was deathly ill with cancer. She had not seen my grandma for about 14 years.
Around this same time my eldest sister turned 18 and moved to the States from Guam for the first time. I finally got to see her after 12 years of my life without her. My sister ended up moving in with my grandma. I was still living with my aunt about three and a half hours away, but every chance I got I would visit her.
While I was visiting my grandma one time, my mom came over to find all of us, her older kids, there. We all visited for a quite a while, talking with one another about our lives.
Later that night my aunt told me that I would never see my brothers or sister again because they were a bad influence on me. Unbeknownst to her, I was already a bad influence to myself, and they were just trying to get me on the right track. A couple of weeks later I ran away from my aunt's home. I thought I could make it on my own without her. I had just turned 17.
When I left I didn't tell my aunt I was going, and didn't contact her for a long while. I moved in with a girl who, instead of paying the rent, took the money and bought new clothes for herself. After a month we were evicted from the apartment.
Of course, during the time I had the apartment I went through a lot of things—it wasn't all nice and perfect. I had to deal with life and go to school and work two jobs to pay for the apartment. I also had to deal with my roommate's friends, who weren't the nicest people, and once I almost got raped.
When we got evicted I had to return to my aunt's house, because it was my only option. We ended up talking about a lot of things, and she promised she would change, so I didn't mind moving back in with her.
At my jobs I was moving up fast—so fast that the managers even told me they were scared that I was going to take over their jobs. Over time, I had quite a few jobs, all of them different—cashiering, bookkeeping, customer service supervisor, and also keeping inventory for stores. When I felt like I couldn't learn any more in one job, I would move to the next where I could feel more challenged. I enjoyed the challenges and experiences that came from working at different jobs.
While all this was happening, I only talked to my mom, who was now living in the States, on my birthdays and at Christmas. Some relatives told me a lot of negative stories about my mother and even more about the Family. Who was I to believe, since I didn't know her so well? After hearing the stories, I decided I didn't really want to have much to do with her.
When I turned 18, I met a 24-year-old boy at work. Things at my aunt's house were getting worse and worse, so I moved out again, this time to live with my newfound boyfriend. I lived with him for two years, and as much as I was attached to him, I was getting more and more unhappy all the time. My life seemed to go from bad to worse. My boyfriend decided that since I was living with him, it was okay for him to date other girls and go out all the time, but it wasn't okay for me. The girl he chose to date was a girl who had been my best friend for six years. During that time I was at home, taking care of his parents and him. I lived on an emotional roller coaster for the whole two years I was there.
Then on September 11th, 2001, I got a call from my older sister. She was living in Oregon at the time but was visiting our mom in South Carolina with her two-year-old daughter. She was hysterical, as her husband was on the other side of the States while the dramatic events of that day were taking place. She was at my mom's house and wanted me to come and help her, because she was panicking and just wanted me to be there with her. That would be the first trip to my mother's place in a long while.
I was pretty reluctant at first, but for my sister's sake I decided to go. Over the next couple of days I was able to talk to my mom more in depth, get to know her, and get a firsthand opinion about what I had been told. After my older sister went back to Oregon, I continued to visit my mom's house. I got to know all my younger siblings, among them my younger 17-year-old sister. Once I met my younger sister I wanted to get to know her better, so I started visiting her every time I was off work.
Things with my boyfriend kept getting worse, to the point where I could no longer take him and his mind games. So I talked with my mom and asked if it would be okay for me to move in with her.
My mother and her husband and children were part of a larger Family Home, living communally with a few other people from the Family. She agreed, and I moved in with her. At that time I was 20 years old.
I had been told a lot about the Family as a child and all through my life. Most all of it was bad or seemed weird to me. So when I moved in, I was a little skeptical and a little on guard. I was waiting for one of the stories to be true. I watched everyone closely, but as time went by I began to really hate the lies I had been told. I had been told so many stories so that I would be content with the life I had and just accept my fate there in the world, because according to my relatives there was no other way to live.
After watching everybody very intently, all I could see in the Home was how different everyone acted compared to the people I had been around my whole life. They were so caring and loving in all their actions. I didn't have to worry about saying something that was on my mind for fear that I might get in trouble or be yelled at. All that I said was heard, but not judged. It was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen.
The way the parents and others spent time with the kids, how smart the kids were, how loving they were with each other and there was so much that inspired me to want more. They talked to me with such gentleness and sweetness—I couldn't believe this was for real.
I saw the Lord in them. I saw the way they praised the Lord so openly and how they weren't so "hush-hush" about religion. It inspired me to want to know more about the Lord. I started attending devotions and Bible studies, and my life changed from there.
I could have gone back to work and done well at it, but I thought that the job they had in the Family was better than any job out there. I wanted the relationship with the Lord that they had, and I wanted to serve this wonderful Lord I had grown to love in the couple of months since I had first come.
Don't get me wrong—it wasn't the easiest decision of my life. After all, I did have my family and old friends who totally resented the Family. I had a very hard time making the decision to join, but in the end, all I wanted was to serve the Lord, and I had never seen anybody serving the Lord so openly and completely before. I wanted the freedom that they had in loving the Lord and having a relationship with Him.
Before I decided to join, I wanted to see if all this was real, so I visited another Family Home to see what they were like. To my amazement they were the same—so open and honest, and they really loved the Lord.
So on January 24, 2002, I decided to join the Family, and it was the best decision of my life. I did still have battles after I joined the Family. I had my ex-boyfriend calling me, offering me the world to come back to him, but little did he know I already had everything I could ever want.
I have been in the Family for over a year now, and I have grown so much in the Lord. I am truly grateful for everything the Lord and the Family have done for me. The Lord, through the Family, opened my eyes to so many things, and I have not stopped learning and growing for Him. I have never been happier or felt safer than I am now.
[Pull quotes:]
"All I could see was how different everyone acted compared to the people I had been around my whole life. They were so caring and loving in all their actions. I didn't have to worry about saying something that was on my mind for fear that I might get in trouble or be yelled at. All that I said was heard, but not judged. It was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen."
"I had never seen anybody serving the Lord so openly and completely before. I wanted the freedom that they had in loving the Lord and having a relationship with Him."
By Linda (19), Costa Rica
A lot of things inspired me to come back to the Family. Here's a brief story of how the Lord gave me a second chance and the privilege of again giving my life in service to Him.
When I was 14 my parents left the Family. All of us kids went with them, except for my older brother, who my parents thought was old enough to stay. I'm the second oldest in a family of ten, and at the time the youngest of my brothers and sisters was only a year old.
A little while later we moved, and us kids started going to System school. My dad started working in another city, and we'd only see him on Saturdays and Sundays. That's when the problems started piling up. Every one of us started acting very weird, doing things we had never done before. My brothers and I started having lots of problems at school.
I wasn't getting along with my parents or with any of my brothers, and I was going to leave to go live with a friend. My parents were always fighting and arguing; they were going to separate. My mom was going to go live at another place with only my youngest brother, and everything started getting very weird.
I got extremely bitter and resentful toward Jesus and couldn't understand how He'd let all these things happen. I really wanted to be in the Family, and couldn't understand how the Lord could have taken away my greatest desire all of a sudden, the thing I wanted to do most. I started blaming the Lord for every bad thing that happened. I couldn't understand why my family was falling apart and everything was going wrong and He wasn't doing anything to help (or so it seemed to me).
When things with my family started going from bad to worse, I got to the point where I actually hated Jesus and couldn't even stand to hear His Name; I hated the Family too. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with Him, much less the Family.
But in spite of everything I did to try to block Jesus out of my life, at times I couldn't help but wish I still had those "days of Heaven" again. Sometimes people from the Home nearby would come on road trips to where we lived, and they would stay at our house. They would be on fire, always witnessing, reading the New Wine. And even though I totally ignored them and acted like I couldn't wait for them to leave, deep down inside I envied what they had—that happiness that shone in their faces, their place of fulfillment that I wished I still had.
Finally Jesus had to let me get very sick. My back started hurting so bad that sometimes I couldn't even walk, and then my whole body began to hurt. I was very weak, my hair was falling out, I couldn't sleep at night, and the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me. They said they didn't know what I had.
But I knew exactly what I had: The Lord was trying to get me to listen to Him. It was like a Job situation, because I was questioning the Lord in a self-righteous way, wondering why He had let things happen as they had, and why He didn't (or at least I thought He didn't) help us out when He could have. In spite of this sickness, though, at first I was still so rebellious that my head was "bloody but unbowed."
Finally I started getting the point, and, like Jonah, I said, "Salvation is of the Lord." Immediately I felt a lot better, and then things started going better with my family too. It was so cool how this happened as soon as I yielded and made a commitment to look at the silver lining of situations. Above all I began to want to look at things through the Lord's eyes, asking Him what He thought about them. When I did that, He helped me see the situations differently, and I understood how everything did have a reason.
He had to crush me in order to teach me lessons that I would have otherwise never learned. He had to show me that "all things work together for good," and that all these things had happened for a purpose, even the bad things.
Little by little He brought me closer to Him. He gave me the gift of prophecy, which was very special for me. I started reading the Word more, and things started picking up with my family, my parents, and at school.
Then the opportunity came for me to visit my brother at the Home in Guatemala during school vacation, and so I went. At first I was just going to stay there for a month or so, because I had to be back when the school year began, and had planned to start my career the following year. But like the verse says: "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16); I knew the Lord had chosen me to serve Him again. I stayed at the Home and rejoined there.
I was 17 then, and it was very cool for me to see how the Lord is leading the Family, how He's given us the keys of the Kingdom, which was something new for me then, as well as all the other spiritual weapons He has entrusted us with.
One of the things that convinced me to return was seeing that things in the Family are so different from the System—how much more advanced we are spiritually, how He's parted the veil now and revealed to us the secrets of Heaven and much more. What the Family has is so much better than what the System can offer, much more than a little career where in the end you just end up being another one of the bunch. All that the Family has to offer was more than enough to make me want that crown, to convince me to stay—and so I did. I had a lot of catching up to do.
Now I'm here in Costa Rica, doing my best to serve the Lord and do the most I can for Him. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Family is the best place in the world to do that, and my goal in life, the career I have chosen, is to be a professional disciple. That is what I want, and that is what I'll do to the best of my ability. I pray to God that He'll help me and give me the grace to do it, to hang on to my crown, and most of all to fight for it. Even though it's sometimes hard and you have to give up a lot of stuff to serve Him, you'll find in the end that it was worth it.
There's no better place than the Family; appreciate it! Trust me—I've been there and I know what the System's like. It's not at all like they paint it. Hang on to your crown!
[Pull quotes:]
"What the Family has is so much better than what the System can offer, much more than a little career where in the end you just end up being another one of the bunch."
"I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Family is the best place in the world to do that, and my goal in life, the career I have chosen, is to be a professional disciple."
By Angie (17), Guatemala
I lived in the Family for the first part of my life. In 1992, there were some problems with my dad, and he wouldn't let us kids leave Guatemala. Since we had to stay in Guatemala and there was no Home here, we left the Family.
I started going to System school, and from that point on everything began to change. I was already a total Systemite by the time I got out of primary school! I spent a lot of time with my friends, at parties, etc. My mom kept on teaching us the Word, but after a while I didn't want to hear it anymore. I thought it was old fashioned and I wasn't interested.
I had all kinds of problems. Nothing seemed to be working out right for me, and I was going through a lot of battles. I didn't want anyone to know what I was going through, so I tried to hide it. I became desperate, looking for answers. In 1999 a Family team came from the U.S. and invited us to work with them in El Salvador. I saw that as a possible solution and chance to change.
My dad let me leave the country, and I went to El Salvador with my mom. I was willing to give it a try, and everything was fine at the beginning. Jesus started to try to take out everything that was in my heart and change me, but I still had not really forsaken all in my heart, so that's when the battles started. Obstacles, tests, and difficulties came, and I didn't want to forsake my pride and many other things.
I started to get far away from Jesus instead of holding on tighter to Him, so everything started to go downhill. I had taken my eyes off the goal and off of Jesus, so everything turned out bad, and before I knew it I was back in the System.
I returned to Guatemala in 2000, but since I was underage my mom had to come with me. During the next year Jesus started opening my eyes, and it really shook me up! He started to show me that He didn't want me to give up. I had to go through a lot of other tests, but this time I realized that it was for my own good, to help me get my eyes on Him.
One of the most difficult things for me was the death of one of my friends. It was terrible to see everything that happened and how it happened.
Every Saturday my friends used to practice Motorcross (dirt-bike motorcycle racing). We used to go see them riding bikes and just chill there. One day we were having fun, and my boyfriend, Axel, was one of the boys racing. He lost control of his motorcycle and collided with a rock on the side of the racetrack. The bike landed on top of him and he was seriously injured.
We ran to him, and when we got there he was still conscious. My friends went to call an ambulance and they left me with him, telling me to keep him awake. I was very nervous and didn't know what to do. I couldn't do anything to save him. My friends came back with an ambulance and it took him to the hospital. As soon as he got to the hospital, they rushed him to the emergency room, and an hour later he passed away.
After that, I was really depressed and mad with myself. I was there at the last moment of his life, and it really hurt me that I had never told him about Jesus. I was so mad at myself that I had been so selfish, and could not forgive myself for having spent so much time with him and not leading him to Jesus. It was on my conscience, and I fell apart emotionally.
I realized that I couldn't keep on pretending that I was strong. I realized that the System has nothing good, nothing that I wanted. I asked myself what I would do when I got to Heaven and looked into Jesus' eyes. What answer would I give when He asked me what I did for Him on Earth?
It was then that I realized that I was doing nothing for Jesus, nothing for others, nothing with my life. My life without Jesus was nothing!
I had to learn the hard way, but how easy it would have been to obey the first time around. If I had only kept my eyes on Jesus and not on what was happening around me, I would have saved myself and others a lot of time and heartache.
All those battles, obstacles, and tests made me more mature and closer to Jesus. The neat thing was that He was always there talking to me, even though I wasn't listening. He was trying to help me, even during the time when I wasn't obeying. After that, I went to Honduras and lived there for almost a year, and then joined my present Home in Guatemala, where I have been for two years now, TYL!
Well, the Devil didn't give up there. He keeps sending lots of obstacles and battles my way. I know it's going to continue to be difficult, but in reality that's what helps me keep going. The difficult things are worth it; the tests mean something. I know life in the Family is hard sometimes, but it's because it's a training school.
If you can only remember one thing from my story, remember this: "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you" to be one of the brave warriors of the End. Keep your eyes on Him and His Word, and you'll rise above all the obstacles. If the Enemy puts traps and obstacles in your path, it's because you're worth a lot to Jesus and to the Family and to everyone around you, and he knows you are helping to change hearts and will continue to change them. He knows you're going to accomplish a lot now and in the Time of the End, and that is why he attacks you.
Don't give up! I know it's hard, but that's the life of true fighters. But hey, you're not fighting alone! You have Jesus and all your spirit helpers. You have a reason to live, and it's to conquer the world! Don't get discouraged, just keep fighting and soon the sun will come out again and all the darkness will flee!
[Pull quotes:]
"The difficult things are worth it; the tests mean something. I know life in the Family is hard sometimes, but it's because it's a training school."
"If the Enemy puts traps and obstacles in your path, it's because you're worth a lot to Jesus and to the Family and to everyone around you, and he knows you are helping to change hearts and will continue to change them."
By Justin (20), U.S.
First, I would like to thank the Lord for giving me such a wonderful Family, with such loving brothers and sisters, all here with the same passion and desire to serve the Lord and each other. I couldn't have asked for a better place to serve Him.
I have been back in the Family for almost a year and a half now. I was raised in the Family until I was about 14, when my parents returned to the States and left CM status. Though I may not have realized it, as time went by, I started to veer off from what I had been taught about the world and life, and started to figure (like I am sure so many do), "Wow! I can really do my own thing now and be my own guide." It's amazing how fast it sucks you in once you make a decision like that in your mind.
I have a passion for music and I had such high ideas. I eventually created a band with some guys and figured that if I were to put my all into this, one day I could make it big in the world. We made an album and were playing at clubs and doing what I always wanted to do. We were where I thought it was all at.
Only now do I thank the Lord for everything I was taught as a kid—all the Word, all the input of the truth. I didn't even realize it was there, but it was constantly burning my conscience.
The only way I knew how to avoid this feeling at the time was to make up reasons about how the Family was just so "wrong." In order to fulfill my own wants and desires that didn't even satisfy me, this is what I had to do.
I still believed in God, and deep down I knew that I had another calling, but I fought it continually, picking out this and that—how I was mistreated and got so many spankings, and how this person was such a jerk, and how Family doctrines were not right. It's amazing how "logical" some of these arguments can be when you're on the Enemy's territory. You're having him give you what you want to hear, and then feeding off of others' reasoning. It's a means of justifying why you should do your own thing and live to please yourself.
As I went on, I got sucked in deeper. I started to see how the music world works and how it can get you off spiritually, as you watch, talk with, and listen to certain musicians. It started to scare me, as I knew that if I kept on like this, somewhere down the line I would have to start rejecting everything I once stood for, little by little.
I ended up getting heavily into smoking pot and listening to certain very spiritually "in tune" music—in tune with the wrong channel. That got me thinking about a lot of issues of life, and I started to realize how ridiculous everything I was doing was. I had a job. I had a band. I had a "cool" life, but I started to see no purpose in it. What the hell was it all for?
At this point, I decided to go even further with my band, and thought that then maybe this feeling that there was no point to it all would go away. But it ended up getting stronger. It's so true that you can't serve God and mammon. You're going to either serve and love one or the other. Being in the middle was not very fun either.
I started reading my Bible again, trying to see what God wanted of me, but at the same time I was not willing to give up the life and ideas of happiness that I had. Through reading the Word, the conviction I had already burning in me happened to grow even stronger, to where eventually I broke down. I found out that you can pretty much go crazy when you fight against God.
The Lord had to break me and kill my wrong ideas to show me how pointless anything that this world had to offer is. The funny thing is that I knew the whole time that it wouldn't satisfy me. I knew I was headed towards completely rejecting God in order to cover up this voice in my head that kept telling me what I was supposed to do.
I finally determined to seek and find out what the Lord wanted of me, so I drove to the nearest Family Home to have the shepherds hear from the Lord for me. In the prophecy they received the Lord said that He had been preparing me for this time, and that everything that I had been through was for this purpose—to bring me to want His desire and His plan for my life even more than my own plans for my life. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was the Lord, because it made so much sense. What the Lord was offering was real, more real than anything I could have become or accomplished out there.
The next morning I returned home to quit my job, quit my band, and say good-bye to my friends. It was like the Lord pulled the cover off my eyes to finally see that nothing out there, no matter how great it might have seemed, was worth spending the rest of my life working for.
During the time I was making these choices in my life, the Enemy tried to throw everything he could into the picture to try to make me turn back. Right at this time my band was offered a regional record label for further promotion. But at this point, no matter how tempting, nothing could turn me back.
So now I'm back in the Family, and I praise and thank God for bringing me through all of the breakings and those times I didn't think I could make it, because without those I wouldn't have realized what I had and what we have in the Family.
The Family is so blessed. I used to say we were brainwashed, and if there's anything I would want to be brainwashed by, that would be the truth of the Word that we have and not by all that the world has to offer, which is all brainwashing material as well. If you think about it, there are two choices: Be brainwashed by the world and its fairytales of life, or be brainwashed by the Word, the truth, and the purpose and meaning of life.
I know of some people who have left the Family because of something someone said or did, and they ended up despising and blaming the Family for it. I'll tell you that I'm not in the Family for this guy or the next guy. I'm here to serve Jesus, because that guy could do something sometime that would irritate me or stumble my faith, or I could even do that to someone. Don't get me wrong, I love and respect every brother and sister in the Family, but I'm not going to put my entire faith in someone who is full of mistakes and faults like we all are. I'm putting my faith in Jesus!
And when someone is weaker and doesn't act according to the pure and beautiful Law of Love that the Lord has given us, I'm not going to look at the Family to place blame. I know that what the Lord has given to us—every gift, every revelation—if used in the way intended, is beautiful and perfect, which makes the Family and its ways and beliefs beautiful and perfect. But if one of us disobeys and fails to walk after these, like we all have done at times (even YOU!), I think it's wrong to blame the Family. After all, that is blaming the Lord for what He's given us.
We should look up to those who are stronger and more mature spiritually and learn all we can from them, but I think we each need to have that strong foundation and faith in Jesus through the Word and our own personal connection with Him. Because when one of our brothers does fall and may do something not according to the standard, then it will not weaken our faith in the Word and the Family, or cause us to stumble.
We have so much truth in the Family. I guess for people like myself, a route like mine is what it may take to open their eyes to see the truth and its full beauties, riches, freedom, and love. Before, I was just hanging out in the Family because I was born in it, and I didn't realize what I had. The Lord had to wake me up and show me. Even though at times I may still go through breakings and testings which seem like they will never end, I know that because I'm serving the Lord there's a greater purpose in those hard times, much greater than going through it out there for absolutely no purpose. At least in the Family, you know what it's for and you can look at the end result of what the Lord can make you into through it all. It's all for a purpose.
I guarantee that this same conviction will hit many others out there who have left the Family. The Lord will show them how pointless it all is and that the pleasures of it all will never satisfy.
I love you all and thank the Lord for giving me this wonderful Family where I can live to serve Him.
[Pull quotes:]
"We have so much truth in the Family. I guess for people like myself, a route like mine is what it may take to open their eyes to see the truth and its full beauties, riches, freedom, and love."
"Some people have left the Family because of something someone said or did, and they ended up despising and blaming the Family for it. I'll tell you that I'm not in the Family for this guy or the next guy. I'm here to serve Jesus."
By Claire (20, of Lynn), Sydney, Australia
Hi, everyone! I just rejoined the Family after being out for four years. The Lord has shown me a lot over these years. He's taken me to the bottom of the pits of the System and back up again, with a stronger and more definite connection with Him.
I'm 20 years old—21 soon. I'm an Australian, and my mum is Lynn (Lamb of the 1992-93 Australian court case).
I left the Family when I was 17. I was bored at the time. I didn't have a strong personal connection with the Lord and didn't see any reason for me personally to serve Him. It seemed to just be something my parents were into. Besides, I had started smoking cigarettes and getting into a few other things that weren't Charter standard.
I had already been working at McDonald's for a year or so, and was making my way towards management. I suppose I just wanted to live my own life and do my own thing. My boyfriend Steve and I left the Family together, and not long after we left we broke up. We had been together for three and a half years.
I hadn't totally turned away from the Lord; I just left Him on the back burner. I still prayed occasionally, and if there was a "too good to miss" chance to witness, I would, but I wouldn't go out of my way for the Lord. I definitely didn't want to give my life to Him.
Everything seemed to go quite smoothly. I was quickly progressing to management at McDonald's. I also worked at the Sydney Olympics. I had heaps of friends and went to plenty of parties, just basically having a great time.
Not long after I broke up with Steve, I met Geoff and started going out with him. He seemed nice enough, and we got along well. Geoff introduced me to a totally different scene. We started going to rave parties together, and I started trying out different types of drugs.
Geoff was a manager at McDonald's, and he told me that McDonald's wasn't worth sticking to. So just after I got promoted to management, I quit and started trying out different jobs. I was never satisfied with any of them. They were okay to begin with, but after a while I found them monotonous and frustrating. I was always used to going somewhere and accomplishing something, but it's very hard to find a job like that out there, unless you study for years. Even then, chances are you will hate your work.
So I was getting into the party rave scene and was involved with drugs and drinking. About that same time I started having problems at home. I was still living with my mum, who was raising four kids, and I wasn't being the best of samples. I basically lived for the weekend, when I went out with friends partying. I was very selfish. I smoked pot quite heavily as Geoff had started dealing, so I had it every day in the morning before work, and all day long if I could.
One night when I was partying with some friends something happened. We had been partying all night long, when I took one little pill too many and had quite a scary spiritual experience that changed my life forever. We were all talking and having fun, when all of a sudden I got gripped with a spirit of fear—like being strangled. I had never experienced something that extreme. I didn't know what was happening and I was so scared. I couldn't communicate with anybody, as there was nobody there that I could talk to or counsel with. They were all too busy "having fun," and weren't too concerned about anything else. It was a real live attack of fear and oppression, and it all happened in an instant, at the snap of a finger. I had usually been quite a strong person, very sure of myself and not easily scared, but I was very frightened.
I was in a state of shock for the next few days. After I went home, at one point I sat outside on the front balcony in tears for hours. I couldn't talk to anybody or communicate why I was so upset, and to this day it's still hard to explain. My mum ended up taking me to a hospital for counseling. That didn't help much, except to get out in the open the amount of drugs I had used over the previous few months, and the effect it was having on me.
After that I started seeing things in a new light, instead with the selfish viewpoint that I had had before. I saw that the Devil is really out there and working his evil magic in such force, in a huge way.
The Lord started to show me different things that the Devil was up to. Another time I was going through rough things and was pretty upset, when a friend of mine who was a musician comforted me. I felt warm energy from him, but then after he realized that we didn't want to go out clubbing with him, he turned into something really evil. The Lord opened my eyes to what was inside of him—the spirit of drugs.
He was totally overcome by an evil spirit, and it was speaking to me through him. He started fluently singing a song made up on the spot then and there (which was unusual for him). The song was about a big storm coming, and how it was too late for me because they'd already got me, and they were winning the battle, etc. It went on for a bit, and I can't remember it all. His eyes were popping out of his head, and they almost looked red! Quite an experience.
I saw that it's a real battle out there, and the Devil is getting converts and getting decisions. These things left me shaken, but thank God I had the experience and background of the Family. I started getting serious about my life and what I was doing with it, because where I had ended up was not a very nice place to be, and I knew that it was my fault. I had put myself in that situation, I had made all the decisions up unto that point, and I was in a mess. I had drifted far away from God's will, and He wasn't very happy with me. Through all this I got very discouraged and fearful, just the opposite of how I had felt and what I had learned in the Family.
Little by little the Lord started teaching me some important lessons; the main one was that I couldn't afford to stay out of touch with Him, no matter what I was doing. I was on the Enemy's territory, so I needed the Lord more than ever. By this time, I had asked Jesus to have His way in my life. I knew I couldn't stand on my own, so I asked Him to take my life into His hands and to do with it as He willed.
Not long after this, Geoff dumped me. I hadn't expected the Lord to work this quickly or drastically! It seemed like the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I had fallen in love with him, not realizing how selfish people can be in the System, so I was in a pretty sad state. I had built my house on the sand, and it had washed away.
Everything that I had been working for seemed to be going wrong. All my friends seemed even more lost and desperate than I was. I didn't see an end to it or why the Lord was doing all this. After these life-changing experiences, I gave up drugs. I can see now that the Lord was working and changing my life in order to make me dependent on Him. I got desperate with the Lord for answers; I could see how weak I was in my own strength.
Most of this time I was staying at my mum's place, so I had access to Family literature and started reading the From Jesus with Love book and a few of the old Letters. It's incredible how bright the Word was at that time. I had sunk into the depths and darkness of the System, but the Word was a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. It stuck out like nothing has ever before; I don't know where I'd be without it.
Not long after that, my mum read the GN about Pan and Bacchus with my sisters and me, and it was very interesting. (Editor's note: As explained in the Charter, non-CM teens living in a CM Home with their parents are not eligible for CM or CM/FM literature. However, their parents or teamworks may read certain Letters or pubs with them if they feel they would be beneficial in their lives.).
I realized that Pan and Bacchus were attacking me quite strongly through music, my mind, and my addictions. I couldn't listen to System music anymore, even if it was "nice" music, because when Pan gets behind it, it's nothing but evil. So I started listening to Family music, the stuff that I used to "bag out," or analyze when I was younger. It was full of the Lord's Spirit, and that's all I needed! It was beautiful and still is.
It's scary when you turn your back on the Lord and His will. I was disobeying the Lord and He took away my health, both physically and spiritually. I went from 63 kgs down to 53 kgs, which for me was too thin as I'm quite tall. I wasn't looking after myself at all. I was skipping meals, sometimes barely eating for days. I was never much of a drinker, but I started drinking to forget my troubles. I was always pale and very gaunt. I looked and felt terrible, and I was totally unhappy and fearful.
I read this the other day from "Sex Works," which explains what the Lord was showing me and what could have happened to me at that time:
"Men can believe the lies of the Devil and rebel against God and disobey Him and refuse to believe His Word and go their own way and suffer the consequences of violating His health rules and His mental and spiritual laws, rebellion against which and disobedience to which bring ill health, misery, pain, suffering, man's inhumanity to man, cruelty, atrocities, wars, economic ills, unhappiness, mental anguish, insanity, and finally death and Hell hereafter, as punishment for violating God's laws and His rules, which were made for our health and happiness!" (ML #306:22).
So pretty much from there I had a real fear of the Lord. I started growing closer to Him until I finally followed His call to be one of His laborers for the final harvest. The Lord had to smash me down in order to mold me and remake me into the vessel He wanted me to be, and it hurt.
When I look back now, I see how Jesus has answered every little prayer and heart cry of mine. Even though it was not exactly the way I wanted Him to, in fact most times totally the opposite, it was all according to His plan. Yes, it hurt me a lot sometimes, but He taught me how to grow and make the best out of every situation.
I suppose I didn't know how good we've got it in the Family till I saw the other side. The System has its fun and its pleasures, and they are all very enticing, but they are nothing compared to the love and the blessing that Jesus gives us here in the Family. I had to find out the hard way.
Jesus knows what is best for us, although sometimes we may not see the reason for some of the things He's doing or why there are all these "rules and regulations." It's better to trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy. The world hasn't got much time left. It's getting darker and darker out there, and people are so lost and desperate—especially the young people. They urgently need the love and light of the Word. So I hope that if any of you are deciding to try the System, you'll take this to mind and really get desperate and seek the Lord.
I can say that prayer is one of the most important things that helped me. I knew my mum was praying for me, and I don't know where I'd be without those prayers—possibly even dead. I'm glad to be back in the Family!
[Pull quotes:]
"Jesus knows what is best for us, although sometimes we may not see the reason for some of the things He's doing."
"It's incredible how bright the Word was at that time. I had sunk into the depths and darkness of the System, but the Word was a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. It stuck out like nothing has ever before; I don't know where I'd be without it."
By Stephen (20, of Paul and Joy), Sydney, Australia
Rejoining the Family was something I always thought I would end up doing. When I left at 17 years of age, I wasn't unhappy with the Family; I just didn't see a reason for me to be here. I thought Family education wasn't that good, and I wanted to see if life without all the rules in the Family was better.
So I left and studied for one year and got a job in the restaurant/nightclub business. For the next three years I worked a variety of jobs, and worked my way up in one job to night manager of a bar complex. I thought that I had made it, but it wasn't all that great. Soon I found myself smoking and drinking a lot, and it was starting to take over my life. I felt I was working just to support my lifestyle and spending all my money drinking.
The Lord seemed to be on my case a lot!—I lost my license due to drunk driving, my car was stolen, and then I was arrested for carrying drugs. But I never realized what the Lord was trying to tell me; I just thought, Man, I have bad luck!
I started to wonder where it was all going and began thinking about the Family again and the meaning it brings to life through helping and living for others. But it wasn't an overnight decision. For months I was questioning if it was going to be the right move. As I became more involved, and started reading and getting into the Word again, I began to see results. It's amazing how much the Word can speak to you and change you when you are hungry for it!
There is so much love and peace in the Family that you can't find anywhere else. You can just be yourself without trying to put up a front or an image of who you think you should be.
I rejoined about two months ago and I'm very happy with the decision. I can't wait to get more involved and active in the different ministries we have to offer in the Family.
[Pull quotes:]
"There is so much love and peace in the Family that you can't find anywhere else. You can just be yourself without trying to put up a front or an image of who you think you should be."
By Faith (22), Australia
I was looking at my choices in life: I could continue to live the way I had been brought up in the Family, or I could move on to something new.
I wanted to be able to go places and have what looked to me like greater freedom, and felt I wasn't able to live by the CM standard. It was around the time of S2K, when everyone was being asked to sign the Charter membership contract. I was tired of trying to live a double life, and didn't want to lie to my parents or anyone else anymore. I thought that if I confessed all that I had been up to, I'd be excommunicated anyway, so I felt leaving was the only choice I could make.
So I left with my best friend, and we got a temporary place together. I decided I wanted to live in the city, have a job that would pay more than AU $500 per week, and find the man of my dreams.
Not long after that I met a fantastic guy who swept me off my feet. He was everything I thought I'd ever want in a guy—tall, muscular, handsome, charming, sweet, and funny. He was a lawyer and an officer in the Army Reserves. We'd been friends for almost a year when we decided to move in together. We got a beautiful apartment in one of Sydney's exclusive areas overlooking the harbor, with a fantastic view of the city. He asked me to marry him. My life was perfect, and I had everything that I thought I wanted.
In the months that followed he started taking steroids, though he knew I didn't like it. He gave me reading material about it, hoping that I'd approve, but I still asked him not to inject around me. He promised that he'd stop taking the dosages at any time if I thought there were any bad side effects. But he slowly started to change. Little things would make him angry and unable to control his temper.
One night we had a disagreement on the phone, and by the time I arrived home he was crazy. His eyes had changed—they were black and cold. He knocked me around, shredded what I was wearing, and when I tried to call for help, he smashed every phone in the house. I was terrified! I thought I'd been dreaming, but woke to smashed mirrors and a bruised body.
I pretended like nothing had happened the night before, and went to work that morning just so I could get away from him. I moved all of my things out later that day, once I was sure that he'd gone to work. My fairytale had ended so quickly.
So I tried to move on. I got an apartment with a girlfriend on Sydney's party street. I did everything I could to forget about my shattered heart, while slowly climbing the corporate ladder at my job. I was introduced to "fantastic" people who had it made in every way, great parties, great friends, but I found many people to be so plastic. Everyone was smiling on the outside but crying inside, just like I was.
I'd never had so much, but felt so lost and empty. Everything I'd aimed to do when first leaving the Family, I had done. I was now looking for inner peace and happiness, something to really satisfy. I was tired of the party scene, and sick of artificial highs that left me feeling worse than I had before.
It was around this time that a friend of mine was talking about rejoining. I looked at her in shock and disbelief, "Not the tribe!" Even though I'd never had a problem with the Family when I left, I felt returning was not an option for me at that moment.
A couple of weeks later the September 11 attack happened. I thought about the poster "When the Towers Fall," and it got me digging into my past. When a lot of my friends started asking me what was going on in the world and what I thought the future would hold, I started quoting verses, and things came to mind that I hadn't thought about for a long time. It then dawned on me that these people that I loved so much, my friends, had no idea as to what the Bible says about the coming of the Antichrist and Jesus' return—things which were so familiar to me.
Around this time one of my stepsisters, Renee, returned from Africa and came to visit me. She invited me to Africa. I told her there was nothing in Africa for me, that I had no interest in the people or culture, much less AIDS or anything else one could catch there.
During her visit, unbeknownst to me she dropped off some books, which seemed to me to then "mysteriously" turn up on my bookshelf. A selection of Heaven's Library books. The one that caught my interest was Betrayal, so I skimmed over the back where it explained how the text was received in prophecy as told by Delilah. I was kind of intrigued, and kind of skeptical too.
Not far into the book I found myself bored and was going to put it down, but a little voice told me to keep reading. So I figured it was about time I read and completed a book after not reading one in five years. It was Sunday morning and I had been asked to do overtime for the IT company I worked for. I only had to monitor any emergency phone calls, so there was really no work to do. I had roughly 12 hours to fill, so I started reading.
I got to the part in the book where Delilah talked about her life, the choices she'd made, and how instead of betraying Samson, she could have saved him. How different her life could have been. How she could have changed history had she chosen not to betray him.
Right at that point, everything froze. It seemed that time stood still while I thought about my life. What if I had to stand before the Lord today, and He asked me, "What have you done with your life?"
I'd have a list: "Well, Lord, I had a great job, lived in a trendy area, had a lot of friends, went to some fantastic parties, took some drugs, and generally lived ‘the good life.' But I'm sorry, Lord. I didn't have time for You, or for others." I thought about that real hard for about two minutes and almost reached for the phone to call my sister and tell her I wanted to go with her to Africa.
But then I thought, "Hang on! Do you really know what this means? You'll be giving up your job, your apartment, your freedom—to step out on a limb and saw it off, and you won't be sure where you'll land!"
Just then my eyes fell on a picture of Renee in Africa with David, a friend of hers who had been a missionary in the Ivory Coast and had passed away. The words underneath the photo read, "I may pass this way but once. If there is any good that I can do, let me do it now, for I may never pass this way again."
With that, I picked up the phone. Renee answered. "Renee, I'm going with you to Africa!" She was a little surprised. From there the Lord started moving. Three days after I decided to go, my apartment unit was broken into, trashed, and all my valuables stolen. The next night I got a call from the police to come down to the station, as they had found some of my belongings.
I arrived to find my suitcase, citizenship papers, birth certificate, and Medicare card (which would enable me to get the shots I needed to go to Africa). This was a confirmation for me, as everything was stolen except what I would need to go to Africa.
In the days that followed I told my friends of my desire to be a missionary and plans to go to Africa, many of them were shocked and a little concerned for my welfare. They would ask, "Are you sure this is the right choice?"
I would tell them, "Well, my place was broken into and all my valuables stolen. Normally nothing would have been recovered, but the only things that were returned to me were the things I need to travel." And that answer would suffice, as they too knew it wasn't just by chance. Three weeks later I was on my way to Africa!
What can I say? It was a split-second decision, and I know that in that moment my life could have gone in a totally different direction. I'm just so thankful I chose the Lord and that He's chosen me.
I want to encourage anyone with loved ones still out of the Family that the Lord is nearer and dearer to them than anyone can be, and in His time He will fulfill His perfect plan and bring them home!
By Faith, Australia
A child I was, sent with so much love,
Heaven-cherished from up above,
Wisdom granted from its halls.
But I could hear the far-off calls!
I'd always sought much more from life,
Not expecting so much strife.
I left behind all I had been,
Hoping in the world to be a queen,
A star with glamour, oh so bright!
But instead I was in for loss and fright.
Good intentions I'd hoped to sow,
But was lured by a foe.
A friend to me, or so he seemed,
Offering everything I had dreamed.
He knew about my rugged past,
And promised our new life would last.
I can't forget his patient stare;
He waited for me my soul to bare,
Hiding from me his jagged knife,
Waiting for the moment to take my life.
A voice I'd known from years before
Whispered, "He's leading you to the green door."
I laughed it off. "You know not what you say.
"He is my friend, and with him I'll stay."
Parties and laughs we had together.
I never suspected his love would waver.
One night he raged and I saw in his eyes
Something I did not recognize—
The hatred, the lies, the bitter deceit,
And upon my body he did beat.
With no one around to hear my cry,
I remembered the mercy of One on high.
His loving arms enveloped me.
He wished so much to set me free,
Never looking at the pain I'd caused
In running from His honorable cause.
Angels watched close, and when I'd cry,
They'd wipe the tear away from my eye.
As I slept they'd whisper, "Dear,
"You've been so sad. Won't you let Heaven near?"
I again rejected Heaven's peace;
I sought worldly things for my release.
The faster I ran, the harder I fell,
Nothing I did would break the spell.
Confusion and darkness all around—
Everyone I turned to was also bound.
With every quest and source I sought,
Nothing of this world could be bought
To ease the emptiness inside,
For all the love I had defied.
Bare and broken, I let out a groan.
Angels said, "Your true Love won't leave you alone!"
I had been stripped of all my pride.
Only in harmony did I wish to abide.
On that day a voice called me Home:
"You're always welcome under love's dome.
"I have rest for your soul, truth and care;
"All you need to do is stay close in prayer.
"Do all you can to unchain those bound.
"You've been there—send this rescue around."
Only through Heaven can you find this light.
My brothers and sisters, hold on tight!
Stay true to the cause, never give in!
And through His power we will win.
[Pull quotes:]
"I'd never had so much, but felt so lost and empty. Everything I'd aimed to do when first leaving the Family, I had done. I was now looking for inner peace and happiness, something to really satisfy."
(End of File.)