Rebecca’s Testimony

This is just a short version of my Memoir “Time of Change”

In 1957 after already having 3 children, my parents move up to a small town of Keswick . It was once a small vacation destination. People from Toronto would rent a cabin and fish. My parents had six children, spread out in age over 45 years. My mother was 40 when I was born and 45 when she gave birth to my sister Penny. Penny was born with downs syndrome.

Do I tell about the time I was painting the picnic table with dark green paint? I was wearing my new white running shoes. Mum called me in for lunch. I jumped backwards off the picnic table forgetting about the green can of paint sitting on the ground. Both my small feet landed inside the can. Impossible, but that is how small my feet were. Even Mum laughed.

Between the ages of 8 and 9, transformative events occurred. A family of six girls lived across the street. Each one was my friend. It was a sad day when they moved away after feeling like I had a second family for a few years. I felt so lost and alone when they moved. That same year, my sister married and I remember sobbing when she and her husband drove away that night. I thought she was leaving forever too. My grandmother also had a stroke during that time period and we visited her in the hospital. She didn’t look like Grandma anymore. She stopped eating and she died. I don’t remember grieving her death. I saw my Mom crying. It was like Grandma went away to heaven or something. What did I know about death? Heaven sounded like it must be a nice place to go. My tadpole Molly died and I cried. Mum and I buried Molly.

My brother got married and his wife Sue came to our house on weekends. I was like her shadow. If she sat in a chair, I sat on the arm of the chair. My brother Larry and Sue had a baby girl. That year in December, Mum and I said our good night prayer in the usual way. It was a rhyming prayer that I still say with my grandchildren. That night was different, Mum received a phone call that Sue was hit by a car. Mum said, we need to pray to God that Sue will be okay. We did pray. The next day, at school I walked around the school yard by myself like I did most days. All I thought about was Sue. I prayed a childlike prayer talking to God. Which I did many times as a child when I was alone. This day when I went home, everyone was sad. Larry told me Sue had died. That was the first funeral I attended. Death became more of a reality to me. At Christmas Larry gave me a gift from Sue. It was a gold ring with initials on it. It was just like her ring. I always told her that I liked her ring. My brother, watched as I opened it with tears in his eyes. I tried to be so excited. I just wanted Sue back. However, I did cherish that ring. When it no longer fit one finger, Mum had it resized, and then I wore it on my baby finger. Years later during my honeymoon, I was washing the sand off my hands and the waves pulled the ring off my finger. My initials were no longer BW. I thought that was Sue’s or God’s way of saying it was time to let her go. I always wondered why God did not answer that prayer that Mum and I said.

My teen years all throughout high school, I was lonely. Too shy to build friendships. Didn’t have a best girlfriend like so many other girls had. I watched them walking the halls together. I desired to have a best friend. I was between 15 and 16 years old when a family bought my parents’ business. We moved to a cottage across the street. An older girl moved into our old home. When we met I really liked her. I finally had girl friend. Sure, I always played road hockey with the boys. It was not the same. I was not a boy. Then she moved to Germany. Again, I was so sad to say goodbye. It took me into depression and I cried for weeks. Separation anxiety. These events began a cycle of obsession for me.

When I was nineteen, I met my first serious boyfriend, who I would marry at the age of 21. While we were dating, I got a job in Toronto. The receptionist liked me and I believe she influenced her boss to hire me. We hit it off right away. Again a friendship grew. Then after a year she quit and again I felt such loss. Friends leave. A new girl was hired and replaced her. I did not want anything to do with her. My wall was up. However, one day we ate our lunch together and she said the magic words, “I bet we could be best friends.” It was not long before I truly believed we were best friends. We hung out all the time. We played music together. We dressed the same, cut our hair the same. We seemed a lot alike. She sang at my wedding. She grew up as a Christian. Whatever that really meant? She seemed emotional and cried when she asked me if I had accepted Jesus. I asked, “What do you mean?” I knew about God and had talked to God all through my childhood.  I had not heard about a relationship with Jesus. Mum always sent me to church. That message never clicked.

Our friendship became very toxic and compromising. That relationship truly brought confusion. I believe there was much demonic influence. Again, my obsession with having a best friend was harmful. It only led to more hurt leading to depression. It was a spiritual battle and our friendship ended. The effects of the toxicity plagued me for many years, even after I became a Christian.

The cycle of broken friendships happened every two years ten years. Each time sending me into depression. During those times thoughts consumed me as I replayed conversations in my head over and over again: words spoken bringing more hurt feelings, thoughts which kept me mentally absent from my family’s needs. Many years later, I learned that I had developed Adult Attachment Disorder. It can be related to childhood trauma exposure. It is also linked to relational patterns and emotional regulation. Eventually, I spiritually fought the battle for my mind, rejecting thoughts and praying against those thoughts. After many years, Jesus set me free.  

My husband and I moved to a new house, in Cookstown and started a new chapter together. Things seemed to go along good for a little while. I joined a competitive ladies baseball team. Started going to a church. Our two children started school. My children were christened. Many of our extended family came that day. That was the last time I would see my big brother.

It was 1989 when we received a phone that my nephew was in the hospital with bacterial meningitis. That week we prayed for him the only way we knew how with a desperate faith. Many people prayed. I talked to my brother Larry on the phone that week and he told me about my nephew. He told me he was taking medication to fight pneumonia. He was in his 44 year. That long weekend in September my Mum phoned, and I thought she was going to tell me about my nephew. She said he was doing a little better and stabilized. But she told me that my brother had died suddenly that Sunday afternoon.

My brother’s death sent me on a quest for answers. I was looking into reincarnation, reading Shirley Mclean books. I wanted to know my brother was alive somewhere else. Where did he go?

Then a neighbor came to my door. This bubbly woman with some cupcakes in hand, and big smile and introduced herself to me. Long of the short is she invited me to her church. I began going to the Baptist Church and joined their choir.  After a few months of evangelical teaching, I realized I was a sinner. I needed to repent and follow Jesus. I was convicted in my Spirit and prayed and received Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I was baptized a year later. My life changed. I stopped writing depressing songs. I was worshiping Jesus in my living room everyday while the children were at school. Holy Spirit gave me many songs to write and poems.

Then tragedy struck our family again as my brother in-law Steve and his wife split up. He was really struggling and always wanting to talk about it with everyone. One day in our kitchen he was saying he felt like he wanted to kill himself. I didn’t take what he said serious. I thought I understood what he was feeling because of the rejections I experienced. But I was not in his shoes. I said to him, “I have felt that way at times. With a thought of driving my car off road into a tree.” He said, “No, I would do it.” A week later he shot himself. We all went to the funeral. He had two young boys, now without a father. It was so hard on the family. He was only 28. He was a handsome young man. Though his world had crashed into a deep pit of despair, he had so much to live for. He didn’t see it at the time.

That same year, I had to go to my friend Tommy’s funeral. He was about the same age as Steve. He also committed suicide. I had just seen him at Larry’s funeral not that long before. Tommy and his brother Billy were my summer friends whose family stayed in our cabins. Our parents became really good friends. I owe some of my imagination to Billy and Tommy. We often role-played being good guys and bad guys. I remember gagging Tommy with my sock. We had a lot fun times growing up together.

Life went on and few years went by. The Airport revival happened. That is when I experienced the power of the Holy Spirit. Many others also felt this within the church. I left the Baptist church. I went to a place called the Upper Room. There, I moved in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and led worship to this small group of people. Things were happening. My sister Penny received a healing in her neck when a faith healer prayed over her. I also had a God visitation at the Upper Room Retreat. It was a Spiritual highlight of my life.

The message spoken to me- “Am I not calling you to a higher will, to a perfect will? In your will, you make allowances. In My will, I make perfection.”

Our family went to a new church for the next seven years. My husband finally became a Christian. Our children went to youth group. One Easter Sunday, my 80 year old Mom, my daughter and my husband were baptized. My little sister Penny yelling, ‘Praise Jesus!’ with no inhibition.

My husband and I had a few couple friends. Life seemed on the right tract. I was writing the first part of my memoir book ‘When Time Stands Still’. One day we received a phone that my sister in-law had died. Laurie was the same age as me ,43 years old at the time. There was a police investigation. We each had to be interrogated separately by the police as they asked many questions about her. There were many changes in her life at that time. Her health, her separation from her partner of 15 years, who our children called Uncle Willie. We were surprised to hear she was also six months pregnant with twin boys. The man she was living with called the police. We believe he was the father of the babies. He hired a lawyer right away so he would not be asked questions. It was all very suspicious and nothing made sense. We had a funeral with many unanswered questions which were never answered to this day. The message at the funeral was “How do we live the dash?” We have a day we are born and a day when die and the dash in-between.

Three months later at Christmas, Uncle Willy also took his life. I talked to him at my sister in-law’s funeral and again worried he was also suicidal. The grief he was clothed in that day was very dark. I even asked our Pastor to pray for him.

A couple months later, good news came and I received the first copy of my book “When Time Stands Still”. I wrote this book with prayer, tears, scripture verses and included a bible study of truths to live by. I thought this book would save so many people and bring them to Jesus. I held that copy in my hands. It was amazing. It was not long before I found out about my husband had been having an affair with another woman for quite some time. When I found out we told our children that he was moving out and why. At this time our son had gone off to tech school in Toronto. Our daughter was just about to finishing up high school.

He moved out that Easter weekend. I did hope he would come to his senses and come back. That didn’t happen. That same week my mother told me my brother had stage four colon cancer. That week, a young girl on our hockey team was in a car accident and died. She had just turned 23. Our hockey team went to the funeral and I had an anxiety attack standing at her coffin. So young and talented. So full of life. Again, I stood at another coffin of so many. My world crashing to the ground. I was angry at God. So angry. Why God? Why?

That anger lasted a long time. It never destroyed my faith. When I look back now, I can see how God has brought me through the fires of my life. This happened time and again. Sure, there were times when I felt God was not there. I thought, God never answered my prayers. I believe God heard every prayer. He heard and still hears every prayer. Sadly, there is evil in this world. The consequences of that evil and bad choices created many of these tragedies. God wept with me probably more tears than I wept. I wept a lot. The Bible tells us he catches every tear in a bottle. Maybe that is why it rains. I have come to accept that God’s way are not always my ways. God knows the full picture. I don’t. His ways are perfect as he is perfect. That lesson. In His Will He Makes Perfection.

I have to keep my testimony short. That was short. Laugh! My upcoming book has so much more. Since my broken marriage, I have had to cope with my feelings. These feelings included, attacks on my womanhood and the empty nest syndrome. Selling our home added to this burden. The broken pieces of that puzzle are put into the perfect spot for God’s glory day by day. God, molded me into such a stronger person because of what I went through. Stronger, than I was all the years before. He lets us go around that mountain again and again until we learn the lesson.

Our trials never end really. We all go through many trials along journey. I have sat again at the bedside of my precious dying sister Penny. I whispered in her ear as she was passing away. Another moment of deep sorrow was when I sat holding my mother’s hand the morning she gave her last breath. She suffered all night long. Again, I was angry at God and did not understand why he allowed her to suffer. Again, I eventually realized the true perspective. It took time for me to mourn and grief the loss I felt in my heart and life. God uses suffering for good, in ways we don’t always see or understand.

In it all, God redeems the time, just as he redeems my soul. Each day, I thank him for all the restoration he has given to me. A wonderful husband in Danny, a family I love and appreciate so much. Our precious grandchildren and so much more. I still struggle with things. We will struggle. Eventually, we will cross over into that eternal heaven. There, there is no more pain or sorrow or death. Until then, we use our testimony. We do not glorify our sufferings. We glory Jesus who walks with us through them all.

That place in my heart I tried to fill with other idols, belongs to Jesus and no one else. God has turned my mourning into dancing as I want to dance when I worship HIM, Jesus, my Savior. When I realize the depth of God’s love, I understand that His ways are higher than my ways. I rejoice, spin, and twirl because of His sacrifice for me. He paid the debt for all my sin, even in my anger and when I blasphemed God, lacking understanding. Through repentance, God’s love and grace he gives me life eternal and forgiveness. I don’t deserve these gifts. His mercy spares me from eternal death. My sin should result in death, but He offers me life. God has shown me His Holiness. Streams of tears flood my cheeks whenever the Holy Spirit pours onto me during worship with His healing balm of love. I can’t help but let my tears fall before the feet of Jesus. “His love is so true and it is more than I can say. I melt in His peace. It is overwhelming.” That is a song for my heart. He reached down and pulled me out of that grave as I slowly had to die to self and come alive in Christ.

We overcome through it all by HIS mighty right Hand. HE is at work to turn evil into good. HE transforms pain into healing. Death is turned into life. Hate is changed into Love. All we suffered, Jesus has suffered too. Why? God so loved the world. He gave His only begotten Son. Whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. Praise Jesus!