My Testimony--Part 2

Please go back and read Part 1 (click here) of "My Testimony" here.

After many people, and some of the most important men in my life, had died in a very short time, I invented an imaginary world where that person who would love me and never leave, existed. I associated my fantasies with a boy I knew and made up stories in my mind that were part fiction and part truth, and told them to my friends. I partly believed them; the truth was too hard to bear.  My friends, who I'd grown up with, eventually grew tired of this, and one day, when I walked up to the lunch table in the cafeteria where we always sat together, there was suddenly no room for me. That was their way of telling me goodbye. They wanted nothing more to do with me. My parents were absorbed in their grief and sorrow and everyday trials of, first, my sister's illness, and then my brother's. My mother, who'd always been a stay-at-home mom, was working now in order to help pay the mountain of medical bills. They tried to maintain a normal homelife, but I got lost somehow. I was desperately searching for something, someone.

I had always loved dancing and music, and when I was 18, I made the decision to go to the ballrooms which were popular at that time, and dance. I was searching. I convinced a friend to go with me for awhile, but as she was not on a search herself, she stopped going with me after a few months. At the beginning, I didn't drink. I was there to dance and meet guys. I would go every weekend that I could: Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. I had some favorite nightspots, but was always on the lookout for something new. I was single-minded in my mission. Exposed to alcohol weekend after weekend, night after night, I eventually started drinking.
I had not been one of those who drank earlier in my life. In late junior high I formed a friendship with two girls from another school. They talked about Jesus, rather than God and faith, as though they knew Him. They attended a church group on Wednesday nights, and I joined, too. During this time there were seeds of truth planted. Folk Group, as it was called, was led by a young Christian man who truly walked the walk, not just talked the talk. This group was not just about having fun.  We practiced singing every week, and then went out and sang at nursing homes and for events. I began professing faith in Jesus Christ. During my first year or so of high school I tried to be a Christian, but I never surrendered my life to Christ. Hence, all my efforts were just that, my efforts. Of course, they failed. I became disillusioned and during my senior year of high school got into a group that drank some and partied some. I joined them and experienced drunkenness for the first time. Drinking did not make me happy; it only produced painful memories. But I thought I could drink socially, and control it.

My parents drank socially. They had alcohol in a cupboard at home, but only brought it out to serve at card-parties and holidays, like Christmas, to their friends and extended family. My brother and sister never drank, that I can recall. I thought that I could drink a little socially. I had no idea that alcohol would almost cost me my life.
 Please return for Part 3, the conclusion, of "My Testimony" tomorrow.

"I was sinking deep in sin, Far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within, Sinking to rise no more;
But the Master of the sea Heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me, Now safe am I.
Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help, Love lifted me."

Isaiah 1:18--"...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."