Intertribal Life Newspaper -

Everyone makes decisions that they wish they could change. There are things that you've done in the past that make you mad that you ever did them. Yet there's freedom from the hate that you have for yourself, there's freedom from the hate you have for that other person and it's a peace that would surprise you.

The freedom that I found began the night that my Mom and I prayed for the Creator to come into my life. I was only six years old and I know that I didn't understand everything about God-I never will-but I knew that my life was different that night. Asking the Creator into my life was only the beginning of a story that is still going.

I grew up in a Christian family, with parents who had accepted Christ as their personal Savior. It was because of the example of my parents that my brother, my sister and I all came to know the Lord. I can't say that my whole life changed overnight when I was six. I was still a bad kid with an attitude and a pout that Mom always threatened to make into a bookshelf. No, not too much changed in my life. I still played with friends but the difference was that when I was afraid of the dark or scared of something I knew that God was there with me.

It wasn't until I was 11 that things started to change and turn for the worse. Alcohol was a problem among the Native people I knew, and for this 11-year-old girl, it was no different. A party was being thrown, and I was the only girl and four years younger than the rest of them. Someone offered me a drink and of course I agreed because I wanted to impress these older guys.

Well, I got drunk and when these "friends" of mine realized it, they told me how cool I was. I wasn't just some young girl anymore; I was accepted. Their comments about how cool it was that I was drunk made me someone to them.

Nothing ever happened that day besides my overwhelming feeling of being without care. Yet it was the beginning of a struggle with alcohol, which for the next four years, off and on, got me into trouble.

During the week I was good, but I drank. I got my schoolwork done, but I still had a growing problem with swearing. I was one person during the week but once Sunday rolled around, I transformed myself into the perfect little Christian girl that I was supposed to be.

I had my moments of being depressed. I had my moments of anger (mostly at myself) but I managed to hold it all together pretty well. I can remember the parties and the people and I also remember holding onto a toilet. All you do is pray that God will forgive you. You promise that you won't do it again but you still do.

Isn't it amazing how much things like alcohol can rule you? You stand there looking in the mirror and you're disgusted with what you see. You promise yourself that this is the last time but the following weekend it's happening again.

Nothing should rule you but God. That's not to say that God will make you do things that you don't want to do. You've got free choice.

In the Bible it says that God knows everything and also that He wants to give you the very best, so why trust in things when you can trust in the one who wants the very best for you?

I was 15 when I gave it all up. I didn't want the alcohol, the swearing, the bad memories, the parties or the guilt anymore. I didn't want to hate myself and hurt myself like that anymore. And so I made the decision to get to know God a little more.

I was helping out a Kid's Bible camp that summer when everything changed. I knew the Bible stories. I'd been told how much God loved me-so much that He sent His Son to die for me-but I don't think I ever knew what that all meant until that summer.

I was on a break from kitchen duty and I decided to go and visit one of the female workers at her house. We just talked about things and about God when it hit me. I mean it hit me like I just ran full speed into a wall!

It was something that I had been told my whole life. Such simple words but I was blown away. "God loves you."

God loves me? God loves ME! The girl who lied, who drank, who pushed Him away? The same girl who should have meant nothing to God meant everything to Him.

Tears burned my cheeks so that I couldn't even see Lorraine but I didn't care. I didn't care if I looked like a big baby because for the first time I understood that if I was the only person in this entire world, God would still have sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross for me.

I'd like to say that after that night my life was perfect. I'd like to write that I never got drunk again and that I followed God's lead every step of the way. It didn't quite work that way. There were still struggles with alcohol along the way but God in His mercy forgave me. I didn't become super Christian but I did start to grow in Christ by reading the Bible, praying, and by looking at the trees and water and realizing that the Great Creator had created it all. Now a student at a Bible College, and 20 years old, I'm still seeking to know God more and it's exciting!

For people who say that the life of a Christian is boring and that we have no fun I beg to differ because my life is an amazing story and God is the author.

Nobody is perfect and God does not expect you to be perfect. You fall off the wagon and you do things that make you hate yourself, but you don't have to. God can do anything and He knows that you're going to mess up. What He wants you to do is get up, brush yourself off and climb back onto that track. And when Satan comes to rub your failings in your face (because he will) you just ignore him and keep following God because He forgives you.

Keep fighting the good fight of faith and you'll be amazed at what He can do to change your life. I know.

From The Conquering Indian, Vol. 2. To order, see https://www.indianlife.org/product/the-conquering-indian-volume-2/