As a child I grew up in a little village. I knew my father as a drunk most of the time. He was very aggressive especially against my mother, my brother and me. I was always afraid, my father could get very angry all of a sudden, and then he was completely blinded by anger, so the best thing we could do was going away. We were terribly ashamed by him. Everybody in the village knew about the situation, and looked at us as a family, like it was our fault. But nobody did something. Through this I was very insecure, had very low self esteem, and I only wanted one thing, to get out of here!

I hated my father and I couldn’t understand why my mother put up with this life. Because most of the time we were mentally abused, this was on a daily basis. Especially to women he was very rude, and he humiliated us in every possible way.

When I was a sixteen years old girl I ran away from home, and felt this as a huge liberation. This was because I came to live in an other city, where nobody knew my father. I didn’t talk about my experiences, mostly out of shame and because I had learned that it resolves nothing.

For years I suppressed it all. It was very difficult for me to trust men, and from time to time I was so angry with all the men that I couldn’t get a normal relationship with any man. It was normal for me to be treated weirdly or different by people, so I went to act like that.

Very soon I lived in Amsterdam, and travelled all over the city on my own. By doing so I met a lot of different people. The more extreme they were the more I was attracted to them. I was drinking too much and used various drugs to feel good. A lot of people thought that I was strange but I thought it was “cool”. Rest I didn’t know. I didn’t like to be alone, so I searched for my pleasure at the parties and bars in Amsterdam. I lived everywhere but never for long, that’s the way my live was. Deep inside of me I longed for a place of my own, and for somebody that was there for me. It attracted me and at the same time it pushed me away. Some times I was so sad, but I hid it by acting the way that peolple were used of me: always cheerful, though, and ready for anything. I was getting very tired of that, and I couldn’t keep running away for my past.

Everything changed at the birth of my daughter. I was on my own, lived in an empty home where I wasn’t allowed to live in. And for the first time I made something like a home to live in for just the two of us. I didn’t know it anymore… All I wanted for my daughter was to get a better life than I had.

Then for the first time in my life I shouted it out to the Lord. Just a cry for help: “Help! …when You exist, proof it to me!” I couldn’t do it any more and I didn’t want to do it alone anymore. And since that day God began to work.

I “coinsidently’ ran into some people that knew God, and I got a house of my own and these Christians helped restoring it. Nearby that house, at about hundred meters, there was a big (evangelistic) church where every Sunday about two thousand Christians came together. Secretly I went there sometimes. The worship was so pure and real, I felt such a love that I had to cry time and time again, and then I left because I had learned that crying gets you nowhere.

But God never stopped working. Very slowly was He changing me. This needed time because I was used to deciding things on my own. I was very distrustful by all the experiences I had with men and people, that I found it hard to let God into my life. I didn’t know a normal family life, and I had to learn what this was about. My entire way of thinking was focussed on surviving. God changed this too. It has been a process of years where God has really shown Himself as a loving Father who really was with me all the time and helped me in several ways.

Back to the “Kempen”

At a certain moment I decided to go back to the Kempen (the area I was born). There I came in touch with Rehoboth, the full gospel church of that area the Kempen. Seven years being a mother who was supported by the social security, I looked after three young children, and God was always there. He heard my prayers; only mentioning all the times that a basket with food was delivered to me “just like that”!

I have received bikes, boxes with toys, also all in holidays where offered to me. Somehow new clothes came, directly from the store, just my size! Sometimes money came trough the mailbox, exactly the amount that we needed. I have managed to get my drivers licence, when I was still being supported by the social security. This is an unknown luxury, because lessons are very expensive. And when I graduated for my license, a week later somebody “just” gave me a car.

Peace and rest came into my heart. In those seven years God has healed me inside step by step! (In our Rehoboth church I have received very good pastoral counseling).

God was not only my Creator far away in the heaven, but He was my husband. (look at Jesaja 54:5), very close and touchable. The Best there is! I received so many blessings. There is so much more, but it’s too much to write it down.

I have been married for three years now with my lovely husband. We live in a nice house, have good jobs and together we are looking after six children. We found our place in the Rehoboth church. I am in the children’s work (Sunday school) and I am part of the evangelising team.

We know God as a Fulfiller of all His promises and we experience His presence again and again in good or bad times. God is good! God is alive!

Kitty

Click here to go back