My Testimony

[Deborah Doss]

I received Jesus as my Lord back in 1960 when I was 9 years old. My childhood was spent in church and I loved the Lord. But my love waxed cold when I became a rebellious teenager. I was also a bi-polar but back in those days, there were no diagnosis to describe my condition other than anxiety/depression.

 

I went thru 3 marriages in my early 20's. Experimented with drugs, sex, alcohol but never got "addicted" other than an addiction to "love"...forsaking anything and everything for that elusive feeling of "being loved" by someone...anyone.

 

I had my first child when I was 26. My 3rd marriage was on the rocks. I loved my daughter but wanted a stable man to help me raise her. With that marriage ending, I finally prayed to God for help. I asked the Lord to provide me a loving husband.

 

Shortly thereafter, a good and godly man came along, and within 6 months, I married him...my fourth marriage. When I was 28 I started back to church and over the course of a year had gotten very close to the Lord and found that He was so good.

 

Despite all this, my marriage had it's problems...I was still a rather "broken" individual...not the best of Christians, and I came to resent certain aspects of my marriage. There was strife in my marriage and I fell away from the Lord, even after having had experienced His Sweetness. At that point if you had asked me about the Lord, I would have said there is no way He will love me I'm sure because I have lost my first love with him. I was addicted to cigarettes and that was my chief excuse that I couldn't serve Him, because I was a "hypocrite" with my cigarettes.

 

But what really happened was I had developed bitter resentment towards my husband and it cost me my close relationship with the Lord. Then I had my second daughter whom I had intended to "raise in church", but never got around to it.

 

Fast forward several years...still backslid and bitter as ever, I decided I needed "love" again and had an affair. My guilt was so overwhelming, I began drinking heavily and became an alcoholic. I eventually ended my affair due to my conscience, and reconciled with my husband. But the consequences were: I became an alcoholic to "cover up" my pain. I had gotten so sick with alcoholism I eventually ended up bedfast, emaciated from lack of nutrition, cirrhosis of my liver, physically unkempt...long hair, hanging in knots.

 

My family begged me to go to the hospital, but I refused. I wanted to die. But I eventually felt so ill, I became willing to be hospitalized, just to relieve the pain in my abdomen and the severe nausea I was experiencing. They drained a gallon of fluid out of my abdomen where it had collected around my sick liver. In that hospital, I met a doctor who is a Christian and she felt led to be my doctor.  Meanwhile, my teenage daughter at home is being neglected during her most formative years, because I was a selfish, self-centered addict...occupied only with my own misery.

 

To make a long story shorter, thru my doctor, I came again to know my Lord. AA helped and Rehab helped, but it was only God who really got me through alcoholism. I started getting better as soon as I gave up my own way of doing things and let God be in charge.

 

The first thing I had to learn was forgiveness and to give up bitterness. And from there on, it has become a wonderful journey of rediscovering the love I had had for my Lord.

 

Meanwhile, my neglected daughter was struggling and ended up a heroin addict and was terribly, hopelessly, fully addicted.  With much tears and prayer, we went thru rehab programs with her. She went through 4 or 5 programs (expensive ones!) with no lasting results. But, once again our Lord came through and Jesus loved her into sobriety through counseling by our pastor. What rehab could not do, the Lord did. She is now drug free for 6 months and has a mighty love for our Lord Jesus.

 

I am so very ecstatic! The Lord is FOR us! Not AGAINST us! There is no reason in this world why Christ should love me. I loved Him and left Him and sinned mightily, hurting all those around me. Yet, my Lord came to me and saved me, then saved my daughter! My daughter and her two small girls are currently living with me and my husband and they are getting on their feet, and the Lord is so good. So good. Praise you Jesus!!!! God bless every one of you!!!

 

In Christ's Love

Deb Doss

 

[Deborah Doss]

awww! Thank you so much! Your prayers are greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Alexandra David]

Thank you so much my sister for sharing your testimony, wow... So many of us have suffered thru addictions, looking for love in all the wrong places and doing one "wrong" thing after another until we were so far up into a bad situation that we could not see a way out. But praise be unto God, HE had a way out for us.. Hallelujah!! Thank you Jesus!!

I am keeping you and you daughter in my prayers. Please give us updates on her progress. Glory to God!!