About

 

 

Ever since I can remember, I would say from the age of about three, my life has been chaotic and a mistake. From this early age, my childhood was full of abuse and violence, and my teen years continued in the same pattern. Discord and trouble seemed to follow me everywhere I went, and blame followed. So I had a bad childhood, and my teenage years were just the same. The only difference is the first was due to someone else’s fault, and the latter due to my own. So from a very early beginning, evil had its hold on me.

 

When I reached adulthood I continued in the same pattern, the degree of severity only increasing. My lifestyle consisted of clubs, alcohol, drugs, smoking, and sex. I tried everything and anything to make me forget my vicious past and to feel wanted. I wanted to run away from my problems, and the world. But none of these things helped, they only made it worse. And now I was left with this feeling of emptiness, a big black hole inside of me, a void. 

 

I thought having a boyfriend would fill this void, but it didn’t. I got a place of my own, but the void was still there. I got a new job, but the void was still there. I started studying for a degree, but the void was still there. No matter how hard I tried, I could never fill the void that was within me. And my irresponsibility got me into some pretty dangerous situations. God must have had a specific plan for me because without His protection I wouldn’t have survived. Without His intervention, I wouldn’t be alive to tell the story. 

 

So later in my adulthood, I began to settle down and seek after the good things in life, the righteous things. I decided to trade in my old reckless lifestyle for a new, clean and safer one. I don’t know why, but I felt a very strong “magnetic pull” towards the church. It felt like I was supposed to be there like I was destined to go there. There was just something so powerful in that “pull” that I cannot explain. So I started going to church, and that’s where I found Jesus. 

 

At the end of one Sunday service, the congregation said a prayer and I wholeheartedly gave my life to Jesus. From then on things were very different. My life was changed and for the better. That one, simple prayer, set a wave of events in motion. And my life has never been the same since. In the beginning, things started out easy. I had everything I wanted in the secular world. Nothing could have been better.

 

Then I started to forget about God and fall back into sin. Evil began to creep into my marriage and ended in separation. I was ostracised from the entire family, both his and mine. That was torture for me because I couldn’t live alone, without people. I was a “peoples-person”. This was the start of my downward spiral, which nearly cost me my life, again. Everything started to go wrong from there. I did manage to hold down my job, even though that too was deteriorating. I still went to church, though not as often. I didn’t care anymore if I missed the services. Obvious bad move.

 

I continued with this downward spiral, which took me into a state of anxiety and depression. I found myself in a deep, dark, black pit, that no-one could pull me out of. I hated everything and everyone. I believed every one of the enemy’s lies and fell for every one of his traps. I stopped eating, I stopped looking after myself, and I stopped caring. I just didn’t care about anything or anyone, anymore. “Who cares anyway? No-one does.” 

 

The next pitstop of the downward spiral took me into a state of psychosis. I began to see and hear things, some of them imaginary and, I must say, some of them real. I was stuck in a desert motel called “Insanity”. I had lost all sense of reasoning and logic by this time. I couldn’t have been any more confused.

 

At the bottom of the downward spiral was suicide. “My life is worthless. I am stupid and fat, and ugly, and I’m no good at anything. No-one would even miss me. Leave me alone world! Leave me alone so I can die!”. I tried to commit suicide, and thoughts of it plagued my mind many times. But somehow, I just couldn’t do it.

 

During all of this, a friend referred me to someone who was able to help. We corresponded via email and it did help for the basic issues, but still, it didn’t change anything. I did tell my friend and this person that I was having a bit of a rough time, but I didn’t let on how serious it was. They must have known it was serious because of the way they reacted. I think God told them. They rushed over to my aid and saved me from doing something very stupid.

 

God is so amazing. He saw when I was in trouble, and knew I couldn’t speak for myself, so He sent His helpers to come and rescue me. These wonderful helpers cared for me when no-one else would. They took me in when I had nowhere to go, and listened when I had no-one to talk to. When I was treated like a nobody, they treated me like a somebody. Through these helpers, God did something very miraculous in my life, and I am eternally grateful. If it wasn’t for God and His helpers, I wouldn’t be here.

 

During the next few months, I met with these helpers regularly, each time learning and growing, and becoming stronger from their advice. I started going back to church. I started to pray more and read my Bible more. I began to depend on God again as I should have in the beginning. I started to talk to God again, and trust Him with everything as I should have in the beginning. And from this point on, just because some Helpers obeyed the Father when He spoke, my life is now worth living. 

 

During this time I have been on so many amazing adventures, and through every single one of them, God has taught me something. Through all of these adventures God has shown me so many things and told me so much.

 

In these adventures, I travelled to places that I had never even heard of, or how to get there. I’ve got lost many times. I’ve landed up in many precarious situations. I’ve had people chasing me and trying to run me off the road. I’ve been to places where no human in their right mind would ever think of going alone. (But I did go, and it was one of the greatest things I ever did!). I drove a friend all the way to a strange town, a town I had no clue how to get to, just so that a counsellor there could tell her that God loves her, and so that they could pray for her and give her the help she needed. I’ve even travelled so far out of my own zip code just to throw a bondage list into a river. The repercussions of that journey alone gave me enough faith to last a million years!

 

But in all of these adventures, I was purely and solely led by the Holy Spirit. God was always with me, He always protected me, and He always brought me back home safely.

 

Throughout my life, I’ve seen extraordinary and remarkable things. The kind of things you hear myths and stories about, but never actually give any truth to them. I am grateful for everything I have seen and heard. I have learnt a lot and matured a great deal from them. I realised that my life wasn’t chaos or a mistake. My life was planned. Planned in detail by a God who loves me and wants to see me shine!

 

My life was a mess until God came to clean it up. When He did, everything went well and I had everything I ever wanted. Then I became ungrateful and started to forget about God, and everything He had saved me from. I started to doubt God, and listen to the world more than I would listen to Him. I started to care more about the things of the world, than the things of God. I became rebellious and started to fall back into sin. Back in the enemy’s lair.

 

I was at my utmost low, the lowest a person could possibly get, a place where suicide is as appetising as a hot fudge sundae. “Now I’ve done it”, I thought. “God will never forgive me now. He will never come to rescue me again. He can’t”. And what happened? God loves me soooooooooooo much, that he did come back to rescue me. He came back for one of His lost sheep, so He could take her back to the grazing fields.

That’s where I am now, and that’s where I’ll stay.

 

Annie Kriel - 01/05/2008