I was born 8 weeks early, weighing 2lbs 2oz. Three boys in the special baby care unit all weighed more. But miraculously for me, I was the only one who survived after six weeks in an incubator. God has a purpose for my life! I have had no health problems linked to being born early or having a mother who smoked and drank heavily throughout pregnancy.

My parents had no church or religious background, but my dad was in the freemasons later in life, and was Grandmaster for a year. God or Jesus was never mentioned, nor what heaven or hell was. So when my friend talked about them it was a big surprise and quite exciting!

I met Lisa at primary school. She told me about Jesus in the playground one day when we were about 7. I had to ask who he was. She told me he was God’s son. Then I had to ask who God was!

Lisa asked an adult from her Church to explain salvation to me. Using a simple child’s book with a red, a black and a white heart, she explained the red heart was mine, and the black heart was my sin – and if I prayed and asked Jesus into my heart then my heart would be white, all my sins would be washed away, and if I followed Jesus I would go to heaven one day. So God had been protecting me until that time when I was ready to call upon Him. I understood at all, and all three of us knelt on her living room floor and prayed. I was so excited – I was saved! I went home and tried to explain to my mum.  I asked if I could go to church, and nagged all weekend, and they let me go from then onwards.

Mossvale Church had been opened for just a year when I first went. I was baptised when I was twelve in Renfrew Swimming Baths, with many others at the same time. My parents didn’t come; they still thought I’d grow out of it and leave. My dad went to my sister’s baptism as a Jehovah Witness around about the same time, and that really disappointed me. I had to stand before the crowd and say why I wanted baptised, to strengthen my commitment to God – a commitment that my mum and dad wouldn’t recognise.

Until later in life, my Mum drank quite heavily, but as years passed, she began to ask me questions about my church life and God. When I was 18 I lead my Mum to the Lord, and I know she really meant it when she prayed with me. When God protected me as a baby I know it was for a reason, to give salvation to Mum and Dad.

As time went past I think my parents resepcted my descision of becoming a christian. When I was 19 my mum died, I was glad that she had become a christian and she told me she was sorry for all the pain she had put me through. God is good and He showed me that even through a very difficult childhood His hand was at work.

Many years later I was visiting my Dad at the nursing home he was in when I felt impressed to ask my dad to pray with me and ask Jesus into his life. I was very nervous as he didn't talk about God or Church at all. When I asked him to pray with me, he burst into tears and said that he would like to do that, I will never forget that. I know the Lord was with me through a traumatic birth and childhood, so that i could be there just for that special day. 

When I was 24 Hugh and I were engaged and married. Being a wife has changed my life. Having a partner for life. Someone I can love and trust. The godly man I had prayed for. Of course being married to a godly man will mean he serves the church as well as being there for you. Being a mum has also changed my life. When our oldest son was born, he weighed 9lbs 3oz – well over four times the weight of me! There are so many opportunities and places to spread your witness as a parent.

The true test of your heart towards God is in the home. You can put a good show on for church, but when your door is closed and you are tired, then you are really tested. God uses you first in the home. Being a mother is a difficult ministry. Preachers read and pray and then get up and preach, and then leave the platform. But parents are on call 24 hours a day, trying to be holy in the middle of the chaos.

What I have learnt from my life so far is that you can’t change the past. Its not that what happened doesn’t matter, but just that you can’t change it. I didn’t go through it for nothing. I came through a chaotic childhood and home life un-scarred and unscathed because I wasn’t alone. At the time I suppose I didn’t realise how bad things were, and even when I saw in my friend’s Christian homes, and their families show how home life can and should be, I could have resented my mother’s behaviour but I loved her to the end. God had His hand on my life from before my birth, and then from the age of seven I knew He was with me. And so I must always look forward in God.