I was born into a family of criminals. When I got older and I started breaking the rules no one ever taught me about, "Thou shall not steal, thou shall not lie, thou shall not commit adultery," anything like that. When I became a runaway at 14, I was just a wild and lost child. I heard somebody tell me, "Hey, you want to earn some money cleaning this guy's kitchen?"
I went to this house on a different side of town than I was used to, someone kept giving me alcoholic drinks and being 115 pounds and 14 years old, it really didn't take much time before I was so inebriated that I had no control over what was going on around me. He took me to another location, another town and I was put in isolation. I would come out to be abused between three to eight times a day.
I was degraded, I was humiliated, that I had no value as a human being and I learned very quickly that what I felt and what I thought and how this made me feel did not matter to him at all. If I even thought about not doing what he wanted me to do, I would have a gun to my head and knife to my throat. There was one time in particular where he had been tormenting me psychologically and one day he said, "Oh, you will never kill yourself. You will never do it," and almost defiantly I was like, "Yes, I will." He handed me a big ole' handful of pills and I took them.
While I was overdosing and I had been overdosing all night, I cried out to a God that I didn't even believe in and at that very moment, in the most powerful way, God shone His light on me and He gave me peace of mind like I had never had and He let me know right then and there while I was on that bathroom floor that He was real and that He was love and that I did not know how at that time that He was going to help me.
A little less than a year later, I became pregnant at 15. I loved my son with my whole heart. He also became something that my abuser could use against me in order to pump more fear and coercion. I had finally got away from my abuser and I had finally built up a support system to help me stay on the move and stay on the run and I was at my grandmother's house and on my son's third birthday he took my son and when I called the police and said my son has just been kidnapped, they said he's the father, we can't do anything about it.
After my son was gone, I lost my mind. I started doing drugs and within a month and a half, I robbed a convenience store so I was sentenced to 70 months, five years 10 months, in prison. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I started attending the church services in prison seven days a week. It blew my mind. I was hooked and then we went through, it was Millennium of Prophecy in late '99 that just solidified my faith in such a powerful way and I knew that God was leading me.
Even the guards that commented on how much I had changed, and since I started doing the studies on Amazing Facts, I was so excited about what I was learning that I was coming back from there and trying to convert my hardened criminal friends with the Circles of Prophecy. Every question I ever had, every worry, everything that I ever wondered about, the Bible answered everything and it was so clear and so easy to understand.
It's been 11 years since I've been out of prison. I am married to an amazing, wonderful man. My first non-abusive relationship in my whole entire life. Before we got married, we watched the Millennium of Prophecy series together and it was just such a blessing to be able to see him learn and see him grow and I feel like my life now is just a gift that every single thing that happened to me bad in the past is nothing compared to the joy and happiness and stability that I have now. My name is Christine Fenonder and my life has been changed by Jesus Christ and Amazing Facts.