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.