GOD Gave Me a Second Chance After I Thought He Was Done With Me 🥺 (Testimony)

[Music] well I was brought up in a home with my mother and my father um I have three brothers and two sisters and we're kind of like the Mexican Brady Bunch and um from when I can remember 5 years old my mom she did take us to church for like a year uh it was a Pentecostal holy spirit filled Church uh my dad never went with us I remember us taking a family picture my dad wasn't in the picture although my dad lived with us my mom I remember her praising God worshiping God and she

was a daddy's girl so like she had been praying for her dad to um to get healed because he was really sick and um her father ended up passing away and she stopped going to church so I had I only went to church from like 5 to 6 years old that's all I remember but I remember within that time like God revealing himself to me you know because I saw like the little church uh Bible stories where Moses to you know taking the rod parting the Red Sea you know Jesus sitting down with the little

kids so that always stuck with me but whenever uh my mom stopped going to church uh she just fell into this really dark pit and uh she started becoming really really abusive Tower do and um I remember one morning her really uh losing control and beating up my older brother he managed to somehow get away from her and run to school so there was bruises all over him he ended up getting taken away from us I didn't see my brother for almost a year my mom went to jail and uh but she she was still

abusive to us uh I remember me fell in the first grade uh because I didn't know any English and every day that summer she just beat me beat me um it the abuse was really bad and it was hard for us to tell our father because the threat was if you tell your father I'm going to beat you up even more my father was hardly ever home because later we discovered that he was a big time drug dealer and although he was a loving father I canot say anything bad about my father my father was

loving he was kind he treated us well you know he never abused us he always took up for us if I got sick he was the one taking us to the doctor I think he chose to drug deal because he was working for a meat market they retired him he got this lump sum of money and a friend of his told him hey why don't you flip it he started selling drugs and so we hardly saw our father um by the age of 12 I thought love was abuse because I was abused by my own

mother so I started getting high you know smoking weed that was a drug of my choice by the age of 14 I wanted to leave the house I didn't want to be there anymore I had a best friend that was always telling me you know how good sex felt and uh you know just I just wanted to lose my virginity I didn't realize how precious my virginity was I didn't realize the value of my virginity I just wanted to fit in so I met this guy at a skating ring you know we started talking and

we had sex and I told him well now you got to tell my parents that we had sex so I could leave the house it wasn't even that I wanted to be with him I just wanted to leave the house so he goes and he tells my parents you know with his parents that we had sex and so of course my dad was like okay we'll take care of her then and left I was only gone for about two and a half months and little did I know that that was not something that I wanted

I wanted to come back home but my dad no longer saw me as that little girl that that I once was so my mom had to beg him to let me come home he didn't want me to come home he said I was a disgrace to him because I had scarred his name but because my mom was a single mother with my first brother I guess she had compassion for me because she saw that I was going to be left out there by myself and she had went through that so she convinced my father to

let me come back home I come back home I see the distance between me and my father as I said this time I'm 14 and you know I'm because I unlocked that door of of having sex and and getting high you know I wanted to keep talking to guys so one one night I was on the phone underneath the covers my dad catches me on the phone and he tells me what are you doing that's all they want from you and that that right there scarred me because it made me realize that that's all I

was at the age of 15 my sister my that I'm very close to she had went to juvenile and me and my dad would go and see her in juvenile and uh there was this guy there and he asked her hey what's her what's your sister's name can I write to her so my sister's like okay so she gives him the address I had no intentions to write this guy but he kept on writing kept on writing and um I started writing him out of B borom cuz bordism because my dad wouldn't let me go

nowhere anymore he didn't trust me the guy comes out of jail and and he tells me hey come to my house he skips school I'm with a friend of mine and I tell her let's go skip school I was starting to skip school a lot the same anger that had wrapped my mother started to wrap itself around me for some reason I was always angry and uh I went to his house that same day he convinced me to have sex with him and I felt within myself that I needed to prove to my father that

that's not all all all that a guy wants from me so I stayed with this guy even though he was abusive even though he was a cheater I stayed with this guy because in the back of my mind I wanted to prove my father wrong I wanted to let my father know that's not all that they want from me so at the age of 15 one day I'm at this guy's house my dad had no idea that I was messing around with him because he had a sister so we would use his sister to see

each other so my dad thought I was going over there to hang out with the sister I get over there I'm hanging out with the guy my parents were supposed to pick me up that day and I call the house and all of a sudden the line is just busy busy busy and I'm like what's going on my parents were very strict with me they had they didn't show up so that night I couldn't see sleep I just I knew there something was wrong so I was watching the news and all of a sudden I

see on the news my house and I see them uh taking my daughter my I'm sorry my my father out of the house uh and he he's murdered and I see all these news stations I couldn't get a hold of my parents I spend the night there the next morning early in the morning my older brother picks me up and he tells me hey we got to we got to take you to the hospital cuz we don't know if Dad's going to make it he had lied to me my dad was already dead I get

home I was the last one to find out that my dad was murdered my sisters my brothers people from Mexico they were all at the house the house was packed and they tell me that my dad is murdered you get home I see bullet holes everywhere and basically what happened was that some hit men were hired to go into my house and to murder my father they had been watching us leave the house one by one my older brother had left with his girlfriend my sister had left to Galviston my little brother had left next

door and I had just left to go see this guy so they had it all planned out that day we we actually had a house uh regular bars it was the biggest house in the neighborhood cuz like I said my dad was a drug dealer we lived a really good life you know we traveled you know and people from the outside are like they're the they're they're the Mexican Brady Bunch you know like we from the outside we look like we were put together we were always very well-dressed and so um people knew that we

had money and so they came in there they disconnected all of the phone lines they had uh FBI vest on my mom says that they went in there and they started beating my father up with crowbars they beat him so bad that my mom says that if he would have survived that he would have been paralyzed uh my mom says that they made her walk the entire house even the back house and they couldn't find any drugs they kept asking for drugs they kept asking for money my dad didn't have the drugs there he didn't

have the money there and I guess he didn't want to be a snitch he didn't want to tell them where the drugs were cuz he knew he was going to lose his life either way so then they put the gun to my mom's head and they tell my mom and my dad if you do not tell us where the drugs are we're going to kill your wife first at that time my little sister was there my little brother was there and they did this in front of my little brother who was only four years old

at the time with the little bit of strength that my father had he pushed one of them to the side as they were counting to three two um blow my mom's brains out basically um he pushed them and they freaked out and they their first reaction was to shoot my father they shot him six times and they all ran out and at the same time and my mom says that she ran after them and they were shooting at her and not one bullet hit her she says that she went next door because we had um

some neighbors that were par paramedics and they she tried to get my dad help but he was already dead he was dead from that moment so when I lost my father at 15 years old it shattered my world completely shattered my world and not just my world my brothers and sisters world too we all went into a rabbit hole of our own Darkness I stayed in that abusive relationship at the age of 16 I was pregnant with my first daughter I had no education I had dropped out of high school I had no friends I

remember being in a room while the father of my girls was uh out with other women and just being in his room and my dad had like I said had just got murdered and I remember crying out I didn't know there was a God I had forgot all about God from the little girl that I somehow knew about God at 5 years old I remember uh looking outside the window and crying out to my father and saying father if you would be here you would defend me look at everything I'm going through now that you're

gone and I remember crying out to my dad by the age of then I had my daughter I was still in that abusive relationship by the age of 18 one of my friends she said she knew the situation that I was in and she said why don't you become a stripper with me you're going to make really good money you don't have to you know put up with him anymore you can have your own independence you can have uh you know your own house your own everything look at everything that I have and she painted

this really beautiful picture that I was desperate to like have you know so I go I in my mind I'm thinking you know I'll I'll be a waitress you know I get there and um the manager looks at me and says You're beautiful your name could be caramel like why don't you become a dancer you can make a lot more money and I was like you know what I'll do it I remember getting drunk so drunk so that I won't think about what I was doing and before I knew it I was hooked on the

money I started I got my own apartment I got my own car the father of My Girls He you know he was angry that I had become the stripper but I didn't care it was like my heart started to become so cold I didn't care what he thought thought I didn't care what my mom what anybody thought I had finally had power I had finally saw that I can be in control now I had finally saw that nobody is going to abuse me anymore that I was going to be the abuser so I began to

look at men as just anybody that I could use my heart was so hard that I couldn't fall in love with anybody I had guys left and right you know trying to bind me things and I didn't care for none of them you know me and the father and my girls we were off and on off and on I became a club junkie I started doing cocaine I started drinking a lot and all I wanted to do was party all I wanted to do is drink all I wanted to do is go to the clubs

and in the meantime I was neglecting my older daughter that right there to this day still hurts me I was was neglecting her she was you know my my ex-mother-in-law at the time she would take care of her but I wasn't being that mother to her that I needed to be to her because I was so wrapped up in my own sin I was so wrapped up in my own darkness and I couldn't even love her I I I was so selfish so self-centered and one day one of my friends that I was really close

to she started calling me in the middle of the night and she started telling me that she was having dreams that the devil was raping her I didn't know what to do with that every night she would call me and she would tell me the devil is raping me I remember going to her house and seeing scratches all over her thighs and just you know the sincerity in her that she was telling me the truth and I saw this desperation on her and although I had not been to church since I was 6 years old

there was a church on the same street that my mother lived in and I told my friend I said if you want we can go there maybe they'll pray for you I don't know what to tell you so I went with her to that church by my mom's house there was a lady there during the day she was cleaning the church and she saw us and my friend told her what she was going through I didn't want the lady to touch me I felt like I was just there for my my friend for moral support

I didn't know I didn't know what God was up to none of that so the lady says I want to pray for both of you so we're like okay so she starts to pray for us we feel the presence of God you know we felt this peace over us but all we knew was dysfunction our whole world was dysfunction everybody around us drank everybody around us cheated every all our friends were strippers our homes were dysfunctional so that same night we went right back to the strip club but the crazy thing is that I don't

think that lady ever stopped praying for us because we would go to the strip club and before we knew it we started seeing that place as demonic the music became demonic we were like something is wrong here we weren't making any more money it was like the Lord had dried it all up we would be in that locker room and we would be like what are we doing here we're not making any money like we're just wasting our time here we knew that we needed a shift in our lives and like I said I had

no education nothing no experience but I remember my sister Erica telling me hey they're hiring at this place eron's rental why don't you go apply I get there they give me a job right away you know I'm I'm working now right and I'm I'm I'm stopped dancing but I still have the mentality of using people I still have the mentality of you know so here I am still using people I remember one of my customers he told me he said he said uh cuz I wasn't making that much money at Erin's Rental he said he

felt sorry for me and he said you know if you want I can pay your bills as you you know make more money and he really this this customer was like really in love with me and the crazy part is I had never slept with him nothing he just he always told me that that I never look like a girl that should work at the strip club he just always saw greatness in me in a crazy way you know he paid for my for my my bills but I was still I still even though I

was out of working I still had the mentality of a stripper I was you know talking to this other guy and one night you know he he tells me look I'll support you the only promise that I want you to give me is that you'll never return back to the strip club I said okay that's fine I I'll never return back so one night you know my friend's like let's go over there let's just go hang out with the girls I'm like okay I go well this guy his friend owned a limousine company and his

friend saw me outside in the car with a guy talking to a guy so this guy cuts me off completely but the crazy part is that some way somehow I was still paying my bills and then you know I started really thinking about my life and I remember getting into this serious relationship with this guy that really fell in love with me I got pregnant by him he used to work the night shift I wasn't dancing anymore more none of that and um I was still struggling with you know who I used to be I

guess and one night uh I was a big people pleaser one night my friends were like I was pregnant already and they were like let's go to the club and I knew it wasn't supposed to go I had no business being there I'm pregnant you know and I see the father of my girls there and he tells me your mom told me that you're pregnant and I'm like yeah and he's like it's it's so crazy how this happened he's like well let's just hang out this and that so my friends are like hey the guy

had bought me a brand new car and everything and uh my friends were like hey let's go to this other club so I'm doing all this while this guy is working the night shift and I'm like okay yeah let's go to this other club and my friends were like let's can can we drive your brand new vehicle and uh you can just ride with your baby daddyy over there meet us over there I sat there and did that and my friend and my friends ended up getting arrested because they were they were drunk and they

were driving drunk and I got stuck with the father of my girls and he told me that night I'm not going to take you home until you get an abortion I was confused I was like I don't know should I just go ahead and just stay with him instead he is the father of my daughter so I ended up getting an abortion he paid for it I went back home to this guy I had to face him because I had all my stuff there it shattered it shattered this guy's world it was going to be

his first child and I I mean I was still messed up because I didn't have Jesus in my life still I hadn't surrendered my life to God so I was still hurting people because I was still hurt so then you know we we leave each other you know the guy hates me after that you know I go and I live you know with with uh with with father of my girls and then me and him don't work out because of course he just didn't want to see me happy or with anybody else so I go

and I live with my brother and uh then um I finally get my own place eventually but I'm still clubbing still partying one of my friends who was a former stripper she um calls me one day and she starts talking to me about Jesus and she starts talking to me about God and how she's a Christian now and she's like let's meet up and I told her okay that's fine so we meet up right where I get in her car and she's like do you see the this the sky how blue it is and the

grass how green it is like her eyes had been open and I was looking at her and I was like you got some weed cuz I want some of that I thought she was high because to me that was foreign like everything that she was experiencing you know it was just I thought she was crazy I thought she had lost her mind and she was persistent like go to church with me go to church with me and so um I told her okay you know what I'll go to church with you I go to church

with her and it's a holy spirit filled church people are dancing people are clapping and I'm looking at I'm looking around and I'm thinking this has to be fair fake these people have to be fake there's no way that people can be this happy there's no way that people can be this joyful like it was foreign but I kept going to church with her and one day but I was still you know even though I was going to church with her I was still going to the club I was going to church with her one

day she she says I want to sit down with you and I want you to watch this video with me it's called the spirit of python so in this video I see this you know this girl on there and she's dancing and and all these demons are surrounding her and she dies and she goes to hell and that like really really caught my attention because I was like whoa I don't ever want to go to hell I don't want to spend eternity in hell like I want to go to heaven you know so I go

to the altar the next week weekend and I'm like God I don't want to go to hell like here I am you know I had finally surrendered I was 23 years old and I I said you you can have my life you know cuz I didn't want to go to hell the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom right so um I go to the altar people are praying for me and everything and come back home at the time I had this roommate and uh you know she was still going clubbing and we

had started Bible studies at my house I mean I was on fire for God you know God just started shifting me you know and you know God just started removing people from my life you know my including my roommate she was like I got to leave a father of my girls comes back into my life we're still sleeping together and all of a sudden I feel this conviction I feel this conviction to like not sleep with him I'm crying after we have sex and I'm like I can't do this with you I don't know what's

going on with me but I can't do this with you so he thinks I'm crazy just like I thought my friend was crazy you know and I tell God look I can't stop like you're going to have to remove him out of my life you know so he goes to jail he goes to jail for two years and here I am just gaining this relationship with the Lord you know after two years of him being in jail um he had had a baby with another girl and um I wanted nothing to do with him but

my little one my who is my first born she started um telling me I want to see my father I want to see my father so he would always write me and I would never write him back and one day for Thanksgiving I said okay I'll take you to see your father so I take her to go see him I wanted nothing to do with him I was like look I'm just here because she wanted to see you I had no intentions to get back with him anything like that little by little he starts talking

to me about Jesus well I've changed my life you know I've had an encounter with Jesus I just got out of these Bible studies and Jesus Jesus everything was Jesus for him while he's in jail so I'm thinking in my head maybe I'm being too hard with him maybe I need to give him another chance because if God changed me then maybe he changed him too so he comes out we get married right away at my pastor at that time tells me don't marry him wait to see if he really has changed I wish I

would have listened to my authority at the time so we get married a year and a half later we're both going to church Faithfully a year and a half later I get pray pregnant with our second daughter I think things are good you know he's acting right for the first time you know we're both acting right you know I think I have a family here six and a half months into me being pregnant with our second daughter he disappears have no idea where he lives find out later he got with another woman I remember so

vividly what the enemy tried to do with that situation I was 6 and 1/2 months pregnant and one of my siblings was working for an abortion doctor and she told that doctor about my situation he told her I can do the procedure in two days even in payments the enemy tried to make it so easy for me to get rid of this baby I was already showing I was huge already wow but I was already a Christian so I had convictions now you know so I was I thought about it you know of course I

thought about it because I was afraid that I was going to end up a single mother all over again I didn't have any family Port here I am back at swear one but my convictions were stronger and I said you know what I'm going to keep this baby I kept my baby had my baby at five mon he comes back home at five months of my baby being five months old I leave him because I I just can't trust him all this time I had been going to church and everything still but at that time

I just all I saw was nothing but shattered pieces in my life so I had became bitter I had became angry at God in some way because I felt like I gave him a chance because I thought he had changed and here I am a single mother all over again now with two kids so I lost hope there for some time I started getting in this relationship with this guy that I should have never gotten a relationship with you know and I stopped going to church but God was still chasing me down um out of

nowhere my former pastor Pastor Armando Garcia he reaches out to me and he tells me he hadn't seen me in church in like a year he tells me why don't you come visit us and I had this defense mechanism and I was like for what so y'all can judge me I was married at your church everybody saw us get married and now I'm a single mother with two kids I'm going through a divorce I'm not going to your church cuz all you'reall going to do is Judge Me Like I said I had become bitter he

said we're not going to judge you we're only going to love you come and show up the church so I said okay I will be there but if I see that anybody judges me I'm going to say something and he's like nobody's going to judge you just come come back to church we miss you I get to church everybody's just loving on me everybody's just loving all my daughter you know both of my daughters so I get back you know connected with God I get this fire back for God I'm going to the strip clubs

ministering to women about God I'm sharing my testimony I'm a prayer partner I'm on the praise team I got this fire this Zeal back for the Lord um but here I was you know I had finally the divorce was over with and then I get into this other relationship with this guy that's supposed to be a youth pastor and um we start sleeping together and I remember vividly one day I was driving to his house and I was listening to that song I give myself away so you can use me I was just worshiping to

that song and I heard the Holy Spirit say are you going to give yourself away to him so that he can use you or are you going to give yourself away to me so that I can use you and I knew it was God and I wish I could tell you that I turned that car back around but I didn't I went to his house and the next day the Lord showed me that he was truly just using me and my friend calls me and she tells me hey Patty would you like to come over

to worship God and I hear the Holy Spirit tell me again are you going to give yourself away to him so that he can keep using you are you going to give yourself away to me so that I can use you the the voice was so strong that I call this guy up and I tell him hey you know what I'm not sleeping with you no more I'm done if you still want to be with me then you know we're going to have to get married or or you're going to have to wait till we

get married or something he tells me then stay with your God then so you know God clearly showed me that that was not you know from him and this was the youth pastor yes that was telling you that wow yes so um at that time you know I had a lot of favor with with with my pastor at that time and at that time I I knew God was calling me to singleness I knew he was calling me to singleness he wanted me to be single for some time but I was struggling I was struggling

with the idea of really being single I didn't know what that really looked like coming from where I had come from I had no one to disciple me no one had really sit down with me and and uh share with me what that what that really meant you know but I did I I did practice celibacy and in in 2012 I go to this Bible study and people all around me are telling me this man is going to be your husband he was an evangelist he was a a full-time Minister he was 16 years older

than me everybody around me when they saw us together were like that's going to be your husband that's going to be your husband he was an evangelist I knew God had called me to be an evangelist so I I fail for for the prophecies we got married we after two and a half months of knowing each other we got married well that marriage only lasted 4 and a half months and he ends up leaving at that time you know my older daughter wants nothing to do with me because she sees that I'm not making wise

choices she goes and she moves in with her father and I'm just here you know like man I'm going through a second divorce you know and I just felt defeated I remember I feeling so defeated because I feel like I had failed my daughter I had failed myself cuz I thought I was on fire for God I thought I knew the word I thought you know I'm finally at this better place how could I have fallen for all these prophecies you know so um my friend starts talking to me about this counselor the one that

my my best friend the one that led me to Christ she starts talking to me about this counselor and uh she starts telling me hey I want you to meet her maybe she can counsel you so uh Pastor Mich Martin she uh meets me she falls you know totally you know in love with wanting to disciple me and she's just like you know what I'll sit with you I'll sit with you for the next seven months because at that time in my life I was at a crosswalk I felt like am I going to just

go back to the world or am I going to continue in this Faith walk because I just felt like here I am believing all these people and where are they at now where are they at now my daughter's left the house and I'm walking through this all by myself and I'm going through this all because I believed people in the ministry so she sits with me and she tells me hey no matter what you're going through God is still going to use you so you know here I am wondering if this is true or not

can God really use someone like me although I was in the world all messed up and now in the church and I'm still all messed up can God really you know use someone like me cuz the way I was looking at myself was there's no purpose for someone like you you messed up in the world and you messed up in the church nobody wants to hear from somebody like you you're even though God had given me a dream in 2003 the crazy part is God had given me a dream and and I remember going to

a woman's conference in 2003 when I had just given my life to God and the lady goes write down what you believe God has called you to be I didn't even know what an evangelist was but I wrote down evangelist and after I wrote that down I was only 23 years old God put a fire in me and I was in the streets just talking to everybody about Jesus I had to Zeal I had this fire for God I was always talking to people about Jesus but I just felt like such a failure like why

am I talking to people about God look at my life it's all mess up you know and how old were you at this point now um that you're talking about whenever I got married the second time uh no when you found yourself in that position of feeling alone feeling like uh you know because of you trusted the ministry or Ministry leaders uh founding yourself in that place of just hopelessness I was 33 wow I was 33 years old I'm now 44 I was I was 33 years old like I said I was in a crosswalk

I didn't know if I was going to continue on and the things of God or if I was just going to just exist you know just I just felt hopeless and I remember the counselor telling me you still have purpose God still wants to use you and I remember uh that Minister you know I had told him that I was going through counseling and you know he sat down with us with the counselor and the counselor asked him a question that I would never never forget she said I understand why Patty married you because she's

still growing in the things of God but why did you marry her if you're in full-time Ministry you're 16 years older than her you know way more than she does and he said you know us evangelists are known for marrying young beautiful wives and she said oh so you married her to make your ministry look good and he didn't say nothing he just kind of was like this PR over him you know and and one thing that I learned from that was that people can have the gifts of the Spirit but not the fruits of

the spirit you know and I remember he was always putting me down and counseling and you know her defending me and being like do you know what she's been through you know like and so um you know 7 months into the counseling or whatever me and him finally end up getting a divorce through it cuz we just couldn't see eye to eye and any that's where I end up meeting my pastors that I have now Pastor Juan and Pastor Ruthie Martinez because they heard what I was going through and they heard how I felt alone

through this process so they called me up one day and they said hey we would like to sit with you and this evangelist and we would like to help you in your marriage so we sat with them before I get this divorce we sat with them them this was before I go to their church or anything we sat with them and um it wasn't a good situation so um like I said I ended up getting a divorce at the time my pastors they didn't have a church but I remember they got their church and they

called me up and they were like hey we start our church if you would like to come visit and I knew that the church that I was at where I was getting counseling at I knew that it wasn't going to be my home church I knew that God had just sent me there to get healing there so I show up to get wrapped church and man I just feel this presence you know and I just know that you know God wants me here so I ended up staying at get rap church and my pastor Pastor

Juan he looks at me and he says you're going to lead the women's ministry and I'm like me and he's like yeah you and you know all throughout this time I'm still kind of like wow Lord you want to use me you know like he God didn't forget about all the the seeds I had sown God wasn't going to throw me away God still had a planed what that counselor was telling me was the truth so I end up leading the women's ministry I end up teaching these ladies and then there was times where in

the beginning I was kind of like Lord are you sure and I all I kep all I would hear in my spirit was the way that Jesus spoke to Peter and he said Do You Love Me then feed my sheep but God knew that I had to fulfill a purpose so that I can forget about all of my pain and this is where where this book comes in shattered yet gathered because it's about the broken pieces of my life and how God kept me together through it all so everything that I had went through God

be to show me at get WRA church that all these shattered pieces they had purpose all these shattered pieces if I would just give them to him and trust him and surrender all of my life all of my pain to him that God was going to blow on them and God was going to give them purpose and that's exactly what I saw God do I started leading the Women's Bible studies and I would I did the singles Women's Bible studies God started putting me on TBN television put me on the radio I started creating women's

conferences doing women's Retreats and now I speak at all these different women's conferences tomorrow I'm speaking in Austin Texas ministering over there and I'm just in awe that God never really cared about everything I had done like he all he wanted was my heart all he wanted was for me to believe that he could do the impossible you know but that did come with a sacrifice because now God was calling me to singleness and to really really be on the path of being a single woman and just serving him wholeheartedly with all of my heart

so I stayed here at get W church and I didn't date for 7 and a half years then I started getting involved in the Spanish service here I was a substitute for the Spanish Pastor little did I know that he had a son that lived in Bronzeville Texas and uh I was just serving here Faithfully doing everything God had called me to do and I was just like Lord I'm I'm done with making all these mistakes whatever you want from me like here I am I Surrender I surrender all of myself to you and I

just got really busy in the ministry and one day my husband that I have now he walks into church here at this church he had just got out of a men's home and um he had just given his life to Christ I remember seeing him and just I just saw like a strong anointing on him I saw the purpose God had for him I just I was like God allowed me to see who this man was you know but we we didn't talk none of that you know but because I was his father's substitute I

I was always having a meet with his father and and him because he would take him along with him to do ministry stuff and so me and me and my my husband that I have now we we started talking and before you knew it we were married and now we've been married going on four years and and it's been a blessing my daughters love him and I just feel like God has restored all of my life he's restored all of my life you know right when I thought God wanted nothing to do with someone like

me right when I thought like Lord just throw me away God was like no I'm going to use everything you've been through everything you've been through I'm going to use it if you just let me what was that um that process like with your husband um you know you were in this cycle for a long time and I'm sure that the seven years of uh not dating helped a lot but what was that process like now finding yourself again in a this will be your third marriage yes what was that like in the beginning it

was hard because I was single-minded you know and so I was still used to running in the ministry but the greatest advice that my pastors ever gave me Pastor Juan and Pastor Ruthie was you know to take this time to build my marriage up that Ministry was always going to be there but that I needed to build my marriage up first because my first Ministry is my husband and so I took that time to really build our our marriage up you know and so now he supports me 100% in the ministry but I think it

took a lot of dying to self on his part and on my part for us to really really become one you know because he was also used to being single for so long and I was used to being single and so we had these certain expectations but little did I realize that God uses marriage not to make us happy but to make us holy you know so definitely it was another level of being crucified it was another level of uh dying to self and and and not being selfish you know I think being married has

been the best thing for me because iron sharpens iron you know and so um in the in in the areas that I didn't even know that I was still battling in or whatsoever they were all shown when was married and I had to deal with those things of being selfish and always thinking about Ministry and stuff you know it was just really putting him first and him putting me first and now thankfully we both have a a very great marriage thank God With Jesus at the center of course amen Jia who is Jesus to you

man Jesus Is My Savior for sure he saved me from the pits of Hell uh he is my first husband because he taught me um that he is my husband in Isaiah 54:4 he said to me the Lord is your husband and so I got to know God on a whole another level when I was single so he's he's definitely my first husband he is my best friend he's my father you know like I said I left from my father passing away and him being um disappointed with me for the decisions I was making at

the time you know one of the questions that Pastor Juan asked me uh when I wrote my book and and we had the book Lounge here was if your dad was alive like what would you say to him and I said you know at the time my dad was murdered I I was I know he was very disappointed in the decisions I was making but now I would like to know if my father's proud of me you know and Pastor Juan said he is proud of you and so I feel like that's what I live

for to make my heavenly father proud of me you know like I really love God and I just want him to be proud of me not by works but just as a as a a an attitude of gratitude I'll I'll do anything wherever God wants to send me whatever he wants to do with my life because when everybody walked away God always stayed when everybody failed me God never failed me you know Justa could you pray for this those who are in that same place feeling that same way and are Desiring a relationship with God

yes Father God we just come before you Lord and um I just lift up everybody God that all they see God is shattered pieces right now Lord I pray God that you give them the grace to look up just like you did with me God that you give them the grace to look up God so that they can give you all of those shattered pieces so that you can blow on them and give them purpose help them to see God that their pain is their purpose help them to see God that you still give Beauty

for Ashes joy for our tears and the spirit of praise for the spirit of heaviness God help them to see God that although the world may cause some of us garbage God you still see treasure in us God lord I thank you God uh that you see us Through The Eyes of Grace help them Lord to understand your love to encounter Your Love Lord reveal yourself to them in Mighty ways father that they would no longer father live out of the pit of the despair or make choices father out of their pain and out of

their disappointments God but that they would begin to make choices out of their purpose their god-given purpose because you created all of us with a plan you created all of us with purpose then we all have a purpose in this life but so many of us are still parked in our pain so Lord I pray that you would visit them wherever they are that you would meet them right where they are God and that you would reveal yourself to them and show them just like you showed me God that you have a plan still that

no matter what they have been through or what they have done God that you can still use everything for their good and For Your Glory father in Jesus name we pray amen amen yes any any last words for those who are watching your testimony right now I just want to say keep your eyes on Jesus don't look to the right don't look to the left Don't Look Back keep your eyes on the Lord and He will lead you to where you need to be as I stated people will fail you people will walk out on

you you will feel the hurt even in the church but God loves you trust in his love trust in his goodness believe in his goodness believe in his promises believe in his word because if he did it for me he can do it for you God is not a respector of people he is only a respector of Faith so let your faith arise through all of this and know that God wants to finish what he started in you let him finish what what he started in you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] two [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

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