By Debra Sailer
In 1979, my husband and I began attending church. For a few years we were happy, but eventually feelings of loneliness crept in. I was aware that I could talk to God, but I wasn’t in love with Him.
In 1984 we left the church, and my life started to spin out of control. I began drinking when I went out with friends. Soon I was drinking all the time, turning to the bottle for support instead of God. One night, after a huge fight with my daughter, I realized that I needed help and checked into rehab. I quit drinking, and it seemed like everything was going to be okayBut I was wrong; the loneliness and emptiness were still there.
Over the next few years, I had four operations and was given a lot of pain medication. The pills seemed to make life livable. Anytime something bad happened, I would pop a couple and everything seemed better. I started taking them every day, and the more I took, the more I needed. One night my husband had enough of my behavior and left me.
At that point, I lost all hope. All I wanted was to make the pain stop; I was so tired. I knew I couldn’t continue on like that. I soon found myself sitting on the windowsill of my three-story apartment, with police trying to convince me to come in. The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital with 19 broken bones. My doctors told me I was lucky to be alive, but luck had nothing to do with it. I remembered that, as I fell, I prayed that God would let me live.
The next couple of years went by slowly. I was confined to a wheelchair and was feeling very sorry for myself. One day I was flipping through the channels when a preacher caught my eye; I began listening and liked what he was saying. My husband and I started back slowly into faith from home and reading our Bibles. When he wanted to go back to church, I was too scared. But one day my husband borrowed some DVDs called Millennium of Prophecy from a friend at church. I recognized the preacher as the one I had been watching on TV—Doug Batchelor. I couldn’t watch them fast enough. Soon my husband was rebaptized; I went to church with him that Sabbath and have been going ever since.
I felt peace for the first time in my life. I was like the Prodigal Son. The love I felt and still feel today is something I’ve never had before, and it gets better every day. No matter where you are in life, God loves you and wants you to be with Him.