Jesus called me to himself in 1980. It was love at first light yet, five years later, the wonderful, initial feelings slowly began to dissipate. No one could tell me why this had happened, so I kept my guilt locked deep down inside.

Prior to accepting Christ as my Lord and Saviour, and as far back as I can remember, life had been constantly painful and very difficult. I grew up in a home with dysfunctional parents. My father was an alcoholic and a homosexual, although I loved him passionately. He died when I was fifteen. My mother had been physically and verbally abused as a young girl. Her own behaviour emulated what she had experienced, as is so often the case. She remarried a few years after my father died. Unknown to her, until years later, my stepfather was a paedophile. I was just old enough to sense that his subtly sexual behaviour toward me was wrong, but not mature enough to realize that he was violating my younger sister. She was eleven or twelve when it began.

Guilt followed me wherever I went, like a heavy ball chained to my weary soul. When my father died, I thought his death was my fault in some inexplicable way and I experienced terrifying nightmares for almost twenty years afterwards. I believed all my mother’s pronouncements that I was bad, unteachable and disgusting, and subsequently became more introverted and rebellious. I married at the age of sixteen, had a child, divorced, remarried, had three more children, divorced, and married again for the third time. The cycle of abuse continued. I, too, tried to exert control over my own dysfunctional life, taking the hurt and frustrations out on my children and husbands. I honestly didn’t know how to love or interact with others. I’d only learnt to build solid walls around my heart and attempted suicide on more than a few occasions. The last occurrence almost succeeded. Jesus rescued me at the lowest point in my life.

Thus began a new journey of being healed and learning how to love. This did not take place overnight as the scars were far too deep. In 2001, I gave Jesus full permission to open up and sweep out the painful, tightly locked rooms of severe verbal, physical and emotional abuse - and the resulting guilt. God blessed me with the gift of strong faith but, up to that point, I normally applied it to others in my ministry of intercessory prayer, seldom exercising it on my own behalf. In retrospect, I now realize that I was afraid my ‘hidden’ sins were too dreadful for God to forgive and that my emotional pain was too well ingrained for Him to remove. Nevertheless, God gently, slowly and consistently turned my life right side up. God’s Holy Spirit shone his light into every dark and hidden corner and dug deep. He loosened the strangling bonds of hurt, bitterness, guilt and sin, using Gill Watson, a gifted and godly counsellor at my church. She listened, loved, prayed and counseled me once or twice a week for eight months. I desperately wanted to give up shortly after the sessions began, as my memories were so excruciatingly painful, but Gill refused to give up on me. And God did the same.

Jesus loves me so deeply that I weep with gratitude even now. Most amazing of all, He loves everyone with the same, unconditional passion. God took my mustard seed faith and grew it into a mountain, enabling me to apply it to my own desperate needs. I would live those dreadful years over again to experience my Saviour’s inestimable freedom, love and favour. Thankfully, I don’t have to. He turned me from a sinner to a saint the day I accepted Him as my LORD, my Saviour, my All. I’m free at last! Free to be me. Free to be loved. Free to love and share and serve.

I long for everyone to know this same joyful, amazing, life-changing faith in Jesus Christ. I ache inside for people who are too busy, too sceptical, too hurt or too hardened to let Him in. That is my prime purpose in writing this book. Like the apostle Paul I, too, committed unforgivable sins - or so I erroneously thought - but God did the impossible.

He can, and will, do the same for you if you only take the first step and allow Him in. Allow Him to guide you to the strong place of safety that I found: where He truly is our ongoing hope and mercy. He is more than worth it! Only Jesus can give life with a capital ‘L’ - starting from the moment you trust Him and His promises, the moment you have FAITH in Him.

The words I have written are from my heart but, more importantly, they speak the truth as I have personally experienced it.

This is the God who loves and cares for me.

This is the Christ I know so intimately.

This is the Holy Spirit who leads, teaches and guides me.