TESTIMONY: FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM
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Here's what you have to say...

Thank you for sharing your story with me. Now I understand you better.    - Bonnie
 
You have a lot of courage to tell your story out in public like that! 
I congratulate you!  ...what a difficult journey you have had in your relatively short lifetime!!  But more amazing than that is to see the grace of God active in your life!!  I especially liked your relating the episodes of His unconditional love coming through for you..despite the circumstances and mistakes made.  For me that is the crux of the whole thing, that he accepts us as we are, warts, sins, dysfunnction, crippleness, brokenness and all....and gently puts the pieces back together....  He knows our frame and our weaknesses and as we let Him mold us, He does something no human could possibly do....a real live 'heart-transplant'.

May Jesus touch many by way of this story and the challenges you put out there. 

...you really laid your heart bare in a way I've not seen before....bold and refreshing, Margaret!!!  It is obvious that God has done a work in your life and is still alive and active in and through you.      - T. Stime
 
[Note:  It is God's grace that saves us, not His 'unconditional' love.  I knew God loved me long before I was saved.  Yet that did not save me.  Until I experienced His grace I couldn't apprehend His love either.  John Newton experience this at his conversion too that's why he could have written and sung, "Amazing Grace."  God grace is truly amazing.  By the way God's grace is Jesus.  Because the scripture tells us that we are saved by grace and we know that it is Jesus who saves.]  - Margaret
 
Congratulations.  I'm so glad to see that you've posted your biography...You've done an excellent job - the story is very well written,  and is extremely interesting to read.       -Mal.
 
Margaret, I just finished reading your book. It was very interesting and enlighting. You truly have been though alot. And have come such a long way! Truly amazing!           -A. Frisk

Hey Margaret,
 
You are full of grace and God's love.
I read the entire 15 chapters of your webpage yesterday. And I have just about felt every human possible emotions that there is. I feel truly blessed that you have shared your life story with me. And since it has awakened a lot of thoughts and emotions within me, you will receive a response with the respect it deserves. You are a brave and strong lady, who has chosen the harder and more challenging way to grow with the love of God. And for your courage to face the past experiences and challenge yourself in wanting to understand God's purpose in all of that, you will get richly rewarded.
 
Sharing what you have will make everybody that reads this a better person, it also allows me to be challenged in asking myself very pointed questions about my past. Our God is an amazing God.
 
May the Lord bless you. In so many parts of your lifestory, I could only nod, since I believe I know in some areas how you felt. I know what a life is without the communication of love, I know what sexual abuse is. I know what it did to me not being able to talk with people about certain things. I do know what "blind obedience" does to one.
 
Thank you for sharing. In many ways I have taken the same journey as you have. 
 
Blessings & Prayers     -  Stephan
 
[Note: The Lord impressed on my heart to write my story. When I sat down at the computer it just flowed. Most of the story was finished within a few months. Nearing the end of it I became discouraged and angry because of the way I saw the grace of God being peddled in the Christian marketplace. I stopped writing until one day I took my dad to his eye specialist who happened to be a Christian. When he asked me for my testimony I came home thinking that this was a message from the Lord to finish what I started because He had use for it. If my story has helped one person, then it has served the purpose for which the Lord had me write it. My story will never be sold for money - I received freely from the Lord and freely I will give.] - Margaret
 

Hi Margaret, Wow!!! Yours is an amazing story. You have been through a lot. And your faith journey is an incredible and inspiring one. As I think you already know, I have a great  love and  reverence for the Catholic Church so must admit some disappointment in the fact  that She was not a stronger source of strength and inspiration for you. It’s wonderful to have a close and intimate relationship with God as you have found (and so few really do!). I also believe it important to recognise all that His Church has to offer. She is rich in tradition and insight. We were intended to live and worship as a community. Scripture is rife with this message. After all, it was Christ Himself that instituted His church (both the mystical body and the human ‘organized’  fraternity) and surely He will never abandon it despite its sometimes checkered past.  It was also Christ who instituted her sacraments, like Baptism, and most especially the Eucharist, which is the summit of her liturgical celebration. And what marvelous gifts these are. They are not the only way to receive God's grace of course. As you well know, God is omnipresent and so is his grace. But Christ himself, in his immeasurable generosity, gave us sacraments like the Eucharist as a special gift, as special occasions of grace, as spiritual food,  and as a living memorial to his death and resurrection - a literal and tangible giving of himself bodily and spiritually as He did on the cross. It's also sad that the church has fractured so since the reformation (interestingly, that was never Luther's intention) and perhaps one day it will re-unite. We Christians will always be one Church as the mystical body of Christ, so it would be so nice if one day we also could re-unite the human institution he created for us, which, despite its own frailties and warts has survived through His grace, steeped in a rich tradition. And it has been a tremendous guardian of the Truth, weathering many centuries of heresy and attack. And this continues today. Pope Benedict points out that the  philosophy  of relativism, which holds that your ‘truth’ may be different than my ‘truth’, and that ‘truth’ is not absolute somehow changes, or is relative to, the time and culture that we live in.

  

Forgive me Margaret if I have come across too preachy here. I honestly feel that you have some sadly misguided perceptions about ‘organized’ Christian religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular. It has a human dimension, and is therefore imperfect as you and I are imperfect. Yet it was created by Christ for a reason and continues to offer us a valuable wellspring of growth if only we will allow it to.

 

Thank you for sharing your incredible story. You have been through a lot and have come a long way in your journey. May God continue to bless and to guide you, and may your eyes, ears and heart continue to be open to His wisdom.   …bill

[Note: Christianity began as a movement until Constantine merged pagan Rome with Christianity and Roman Catholism was born. Organized religion serves a purpose in any society, whether that religion is true or false. Look at Islam for example. Jesus had a few things to say about religion and the traditions of men and not all of them positive - we would do well to heed His warning. I have not endorsed Catholicism or Protestantism but Orthodox Christianity (which transends denomination to the individual's personal accountability to God), not to be confused with Greek/Eastern Orthodox, etc.

When I was receiving my instructions in Catholicism I asked the preist teaching the class a question on the Book of Revelation. His response, "We don't believe any of that will happen. It was just a dream/vision, it will never happen." So much for heretic! The real crime here is not that he told me this, the real crime here is that the rest of the class went home that day beliving this lie from this great "defender of the truth." The Catholic church putting Herself above the authority of God's infallible Word. Many protestants believe that the "Mother of all Harlots" described in the Book of Revelation refers to the apostate Christian church. Now if the Catholic church is the one calling Herself THE church, do the deduction for yourself.

Too many of my Catholic friends are so steeped in their religion that they cannot see the forest for the trees or see their religion objectively rather than subjectively. Nevertheless, I was baptized in the Catholic church.  I attend a non-denominational church, Nashville Road Community Church.  As a community of believers we hold fast to the whole counsel of God's Word, the Bible. The Bible is taught, within its context, every week in church. We don't pick and choose what we're going to believe and what we're going to discard. Our ears, eyes and hearts are open to God's truth. 

We celebrate the sacraments and reach out to others with the Gospel and the love and grace of Christ. We are Christians!  True Christianity began as a movement and that is how it will end and if you want to know what happens in the end to the false church, the Mother of all Harlots, read Revelation with open ears, eyes and heart.

Much love, respect and prayers.] - Margaret



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