BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

“Why are you spending so much time with her?” Janet’s fiancé asked. “Because you’re gone all the time. Don’t you want me to have friends?” “Of course I do,” he said. But the look on his face suggested otherwise. He was worried about Janet. Three months before their wedding, Janet went with her friend to visit the woman’s parents. They stayed late and ended up spending the night in the same bed. The women had a sexual encounter. God-Sized Void “I woke the next morning with a huge void in my life,” Janet recalls. “The peace I’d enjoyed since becoming a Christian was gone. I knew I’d grieved the Lord, and it felt as though He’d left me. I met with my pastor and told him what I’d done. He advised me to tell my fiancé, call off my wedding and get help. Janet took that advice. “I told my fiancé, and called off our wedding,” she said. “He was devastated and wanted to work things out. But at that moment, I walked out of life as I’d known it and embraced a lesbian lifestyle.” Janet admits that what drew her to that new lifestyle wasn’t sex. “I wanted a deep emotional connection with someone I could trust,” she says. “Deep down, I didn’t trust men. I had such a longing to be loved and to belong, but I had never dealt with the rape or the abuse I suffered as a child. They had festered for years. “Losing that sweet relationship with the Lord was indescribable. I felt a huge void and nothing filled it. Everything that happened to me after that night was awful, but the worst part was having no peace. I did anything to try and fill that void. I used drugs. I sold drugs. I drank. I got into relationships with women. Relationship after relationship fell apart. We fought all the time. It wasn’t a happy life. My friends got mad at me for going to bars and talking about God and quoting Scripture all the time. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.” Dying to Live Back home, the room spun like a carnival ride, and Janet felt herself floating. Had she died? Was she finished with the hell she called her life? From a distance, she heard sirens and realized that, once again, someone had called an ambulance. Although the paramedics tried to convince her to go into treatment, Janet had made up her mind not to go. The real race was to see which killed her first: bulimia or cocaine. Even in her wasted condition, Janet knew she was on a downward spiral traveling so fast it made her dizzy. In 1989, after 10 days in the hospital due to her eating disorder, Janet finally called her employer at Ford Motor Company and asked for help. “I’m a drug addict,” she said. Ford sent her to rehab and then to an aftercare program, where Janet was able to kick her cocaine habit and never used drugs again. But, it was another year before she’d start dealing with her eating disorder. “I started a cleaning service, cleaning homes and businesses,” Janet recalls. “I bought a house in Maple Grove where I lived with my girlfriend. For years, every time I passed Maple Grove Assemblies of God, I felt drawn to it. One day I told my girlfriend, ‘Someday, I’m going to attend that church.’ I sensed God waiting on me to turn back to Him, but I wasn’t ready. “I cleaned houses during the day and businesses at night. I worked hard and didn’t take breaks. But one night in 1998, I felt compelled to leave work at 3 a.m. and go to the grocery store. As I was walking into the store, a woman walked out with a cart full of groceries. I had no idea that encounter would change my life.” Divine Appointment “Ma’am, that’s a lot of groceries!” Janet told the woman. “You could be robbed out here in the middle of the night.” “I know,” the woman said, laughing, “our son is attending North Central Bible College and my husband and I are going out of town, but we can’t leave before filling up the refrigerator for our four boys.” “I took classes there,” Janet explained, “but I’m not walking with the Lord anymore. I live the gay lifestyle.” ***** article continues on next page ***** ********** ADVERTISEMENT ********** bvovn BELIEVER’S VOICE OF VICTORY NETWORK REAL. LIFE. FAITH. Hear the uncompromised Word 24/7 from ministers you can trust! watch on: dish® CHANNEL 265 apple tv® 4th generation Roku® bvovn.com YouTube® amazon fire TV facebook Apple® for iOS android ************************************** BVOV : 21

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