FROM REJECTION TO ADOPTION! Personal transformation

"GOD has revealed my value as a woman in His heart and in His work".  

I was born in 1962 in Paris, into a family of shopkeepers. My brother, Paul, was born in 1963, before our parents split up when we were still very young. Each of them moved on, making me the eldest of six children.

Our parents' separation and remarriage profoundly affected our lives. We lived in a constant state of imbalance, feeling at home nowhere. Every year we moved house, region and school, my dad desperately looking for a place where we could settle down, Psalm 27:10 .

My father would have liked a son first, but he had a daughter! My brother, in the grip of his malaise, attracted all our father's attention, often leaving me in the shadows. Dad kept telling me: "You're the eldest, you have to set an example and be strong. So I did my best to live up to his expectations. One day, my father decided to cut my hair very short, an action that seemed to me like an amputation of my femininity. He didn't realise the impact it had on me.

The years have flown by, filled with hope and disillusionment. As a teenager, I left home to live with my mother when I met my son's father. I thought that by getting married I would be able to fill the void inside me. The two years before we got married, between my 16th birthday and our wedding day, were marked by a deep malaise. For months on end, I slept all day and only got out of bed to eat, lost and not knowing who or what I was living for. We married in 1980, and my son was born in 1983. A few years later, I got divorced.

I lived with a feeling of rejection, fearing abandonment. I rejected others before they could hurt me. I didn't have a good image of myself as a woman. I experienced the contempt of men, and in return I came to unconsciously despise them myself. My life was a constant battle against my fears, seeing myself as an object, desperately seeking to be loved, needing to control everything. This led me into the occult, drugs and a tumultuous existence. Everything I built ended up collapsing or being destroyed by my own hands. That was the course of my life.

Then, in 1996, at the age of 33, my brother Paul died of a "false start". In 1999, my father committed suicide, and a year later my second husband almost died of pulmonary oedema, but thank God he pulled through.

It was during this period that I met my Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ. In deciding to follow Him, I experienced the new birth, receiving forgiveness for my sins and leaving my past behind. God welcomed me as His daughter, offering me new hope, healing my wounds, Psalm 147:3, teaching me to forgive and revealing my worth as a woman in His heart and work. In short, He has showered me with His love, John 6:37.

Today, I'm no longer the person I was. My transformation is underway, and I'm having some wonderful experiences. I have received much more than I could have imagined, because God is rich in love for His children who trust in Him.

Mireille

MIRACULOUS HEALING : When you don't have to die!

“because my mother's cheeks had regained their color”.    

The events that follow take place around 1953, when I was just fourteen. We lived in Pas-de-Calais. My mother had met my stepfather at the mine, when she was still working there. He was a coal miner, and his salary was modest.

We lived in precarious conditions, which prevented me from continuing my studies. So my mother placed me with some paper manufacturers not far from the Belgian border. I was responsible for cooking and looking after their two children, aged three years and six months. I only went home once a month.

The couple's little daughter always cried at bedtime. I couldn't stand her crying, so I discreetly took her with me. One particular evening, I didn't hear her crying as usual, which worried me. When I went to check her room, I discovered that she was sleeping peacefully.

In the middle of the night, at around 3am, I was woken from my sleep by a bright light, accompanied by a voice repeating: "You have to leave". I felt paralysed, unable to move. Then everything went quiet again and I went back to sleep without understanding the meaning of this experience.

That weekend, as I was due to take my leave, my employers, who had invited me to a wedding, had asked me to look after the children. On Friday morning, at around six o'clock, the telephone rang. I heard my employer arguing heatedly with the person on the other end. After hanging up, he knocked on my door and told me I had to go home, without giving any explanation.

When I arrived home, the family doctor was already there. He informed me that he would be back the next morning, as he didn't have the necessary document to draw up a death certificate for my mother, who had given no sign of life. She'd had a miscarriage, couldn't be taken to hospital and had lost a lot of blood. I didn't realise the extent of the situation: at the time, we were innocent children and our mother, who was very strict, told us not to ask questions. As for my stepfather, he could only express himself in an approximate dialect, as he was illiterate.

Once the doctor had left, in my naivety, I took my mother's hand and prayed the "Our Father" until late at night. The next day, when the doctor came back, he exclaimed: "It's a miracle", because my mother's cheeks had regained their colour, Psalm 143:1. He sent my father-in-law to the chemist's with a prescription for some medicine. His reaction suggested that something supernatural had happened.

My mother lived for another forty years after that and had a daughter.

Years later, after my conversion, I looked back on that day and realised that God had orchestrated my life in an incredible way. I was an instrument of his will, used to bring my mother back to life, Psalm 145:18-19.

Rolande

MIRACULOUS HEALING : "HE saved my leg"

“within 24 hours, we'd have to consider an amputation”.   

When I was 18, in 1957, I was living with my mother and working in a cotton mill in the north of France. One day, I contracted a serious infection from a faulty shoe. We were poor, and my mother was very strict: sick or not, you had to go to work. Over the next few days, my foot turned black and was extremely painful. A friend my age even came to pick me up, because the bus couldn't go up to our house because of the risk of landslides in the mines. She helped me walk to the main road to catch the bus to the factory.

That morning, the forewoman noticed my condition and refused to let me work. I was considered to be a hard worker, so she put apprentices on my machines before sending me to the infirmary. Once there, the nurses found that the infection had spread to my groin; my leg was gangrenous. They told me that if the infection didn't clear up within 24 hours, amputation would have to be considered. The nursing staff did everything they could to save my leg. I was given a course of antibiotics and my leg was immersed and kept in very hot water - a common method at the time, even though the pain was intense. I was kept in the infirmary. The next day, I received the same treatment and the infection began to subside, giving hope to the carers who continued the treatments until I was cured.

Given the state of my leg when I arrived at the infirmary, I realised that it was miraculous that I had kept it, and I was convinced that it was God who had intervened: it is He who forgives all my iniquities. Who heals all my diseases, psalm 103:3.

Rolande

FINDING MY IDENTITY

 From darkness to light!   

"I am a woman raised up by grace and a daughter of the living God, known, loved and called".

1 Peter 2:9 - "You, on the other hand, are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light."

What is my identity? Moroccan? Sahrawi? French?  

For years, I asked myself this question without finding a clear answer.  

I was born in Morocco, into a Sahrawi family involved in the fight for the independence of Western Sahara. When I was five, I left Morocco for France. 

It was in France that my childhood was marked by political effervescence: regular meetings at home, visits from journalists, ambassadors, influential figures... We were under surveillance. When the King of Morocco visited France, the police even searched our family home.

Very early on, I defined myself by my Saharan origins. Belonging to a large tribe gave me a strong sense of heritage, a place, a name.  

As a child, I visited the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria to try and better understand my people, my history and my roots. But as I grew up, everything became more confused.  

As an adult, I travelled to Morocco three times. Despite the geographical birth link, I never felt at home there. No ties. No recognition.  

I lived in France, a country that had taken me in as a political refugee, educated and naturalised me, tolerated me but never fully accepted me. Integrated, yes. Loved, no. In the administration, at school, in the world of work: I remained a 'foreigner'.

So who was I really? 

An uprooted Sahrawi? 

A Moroccan passing through? 

A rootless Frenchwoman? 

I was living between different allegiances, without ever finding my own.

An unexpected encounter 

One night, at the age of forty, assailed by a dark atmosphere that had lasted too long, I had a dream.  

I saw above my eyes a man of indescribable beauty, seated on a throne, calm and young, gentle and full of authority. To his left stood a huge being in a white robe, perhaps an angel? 

Both stared at me, but it was the man sitting on the throne who caught my attention most of all. I was puzzled and confused. The throne, like the being to its left, bowed down to bring itself within my reach. The man on the throne smiled at me. Then I woke up.

I was deeply disturbed by this dream. I knew it wasn't just an image. It was real! 

Who was it? It was God, I was told. But... it wasn't the God I'd learned to call.  

And slowly the truth dawned on me: the man I had seen was Jesus! Not a moral guide, not a prophet, but the Son of the living God! The One I had been praying to in secret without knowing Him had appeared to me. He wasn't far away. He was alive, powerful, personal! And He was calling me.

A new identity - Isaiah 43:1 

It had begun to shake up, not just my beliefs, but my whole identity. What I had always been looking for - that peace, that belonging, that spiritual DNA - I found in Him, in Jesus Christ! Looking back, I can see that His hand had carried me from the beginning. He had protected me, guided me, loved me, even when I didn't yet know His name. And when the time came, He revealed Himself. Isaiah 49:16.

A new creature 

Since then, I am no longer defined by a nation or a heritage.  I am a woman raised up by grace and a daughter of the living God, known, loved, called, Galatians 4:7.  I am a Christian and a follower of Jesus.  My identity is in Christ - and in him alone.  He is more than anything else: He is MY LORD AND MY GOD.  John 14:6: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Kroura

FREED FROM SLAVERY

 "It's never too late    

 I took 'Tramadol' for the first time when I was 11,  what I felt that day went far beyond simple relief. My body seemed to go numb, and I was overcome by a deep, almost unreal feeling of well-being. For the first time in my life, I felt at peace... almost happy. I've never forgotten that moment of euphoria. It became an illusory refuge, an escape from an inner emptiness I couldn't name.

From then on, I started taking 'Tramadol' regularly. Firstly to ease the pain, but also and above all to rediscover that fleeting feeling of happiness. Very quickly, my body developed a tolerance. One tablet was no longer enough. Then two, then three... up to eight a day. I juggled with the doses, looking for a balance that I could never find. The drug had become a prison. I was addicted, lost and tired.

The day I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, I was gripped by an immense fear. I feared the consequences of my consumption on her health, and I felt terribly guilty. But beyond this fear for my child, I couldn't take it any more myself. I was broken inside, unable to free myself. 

So I did something I'd never done before with so much strength: I cried out to God every day, I prayed to Him sincerely, sometimes silently, sometimes in tears, but always deeply. I asked Him to protect my child... and to deliver me too. 

And the Lord answered.

What my countless attempts, marked by suffering, violence and powerlessness, were incapable of producing, God accomplished with a single act of grace. Every time I went through withdrawal, I experienced excruciating pain in my back, muscles and joints, and this time even in my teeth. 

No pain at all. No withdrawal. 

I was delivered overnight. 

Today, I'm completely free. My daughter is in good health, and I live in God's peace, without dependency, without fear. What men couldn't do for me, Jesus did with a single gesture of love.

I bear witness to this deliverance to give glory to God, and to say to the person reading these lines: 

- It's never too late. 

- You are never too far away. 

- What God has done for me, He can also do for you. 

"The Lord is near to those who are brokenhearted, and He saves those who are discouraged. Psalm 34:18

Yacine

OVER 2000 YEARS AGO : mark 5:21-34

 The woman who had been suffering from blood loss for 12 years, mark 5:21-34

Jesus returned to the other side of the sea in the boat, where a large crowd gathered round him. He was standing by the sea.

When one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus, saw him, he fell at his feet and prayed earnestly, "My little daughter is at the end of the world; come and lay your hands on her, that she may be saved and live.

Jesus went with him. A great crowd followed him and pressed on.

Now, there was a woman who had been suffering from blood loss for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal at the hands of several doctors, had spent all she had, and had not felt any relief, but rather had got worse.

When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, "If I can only touch his clothes, I will be made well.

Immediately the loss of blood stopped, and she felt in her body that she was cured of her illness.

Immediately Jesus knew in himself that power had gone out of him; and turning in the midst of the crowd, he said, "Who touched my clothes? His disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing you, and you say, 'Who touched me? And he looked round to see the woman who had done this.

The woman, afraid and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and told him the whole truth. 

But Jesus said to her, "Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace and be healed of your sickness.

FEAR

 

A feeling that can destroy

"Today, I'm no longer afraid to live or to die."

Fear is a feeling we often live with without being fully aware of it. We live our lives paralysed by this emotion, which imposes its limits and dictates our actions. It makes us sick.

For my part, I was afraid of everything, although I tried to be strong for others. I was afraid of living, of dying, of what tomorrow held in store for me, of solitude, of expressing myself in public, of being in a group, of being rejected and of the way others looked at me.

My entrepreneurial spirit was hampered by the fear of failure, by the anxiety of not seeing my projects through to the end in the face of the unknown. I can't even begin to list the other fears that plagued my daily life. I lived for almost forty years in this prison of permanent stress.

That was yesterday!


Today, I'm no longer afraid to live, or to die, or of what tomorrow may bring. On the contrary, I feel more alive than ever. I can speak in public. I take on new adventures,  and I no longer feel stressed, Isaiah 41:13,philippians 4:6-7.

Between yesterday and today, there has been a decisive encounter with Jesus Christ. He lives in me, has conquered my fears and offered me peace, john 14:27.

All this is freely available to anyone who turns to Jesus Christ.

Glory be to God!

Mireille