Friday 8/01/2008

Testimony for Lisa Reimer
7/28/08

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there’s just something about that name. Kings and kingdoms will all pass away, but there’s something about that name.” Oh, the words I had heard and the songs I had sung as a child and on into adulthood. How could Jesus die for me, a sinner, a drunk, someone so unworthy of love? Everyone else was worthy of His sacrifice, but not me. Those were my thoughts most of my life.
As a child growing up in a dysfunctional alcoholic family, I thought that abuse, divorce, DUIs, and suicides were normal. I turned to alcohol and drugs to kill the pain and depression that ruled my life at an early age. At the age of 18 God intervened in my life and told me that I needed help and led me to AA. After 6 months of attending AA meetings and having only white-knuckle sobriety, I asked to be baptized in the Methodist Church. I wanted to give my life to Jesus, let him take away my sins, and try to live like He did. Even after my baptism, I still couldn’t let Him be Lord of my life. In a matter of months, I was doing drugs and went back to drinking. For three years I was caught in a cycle with no relief. At the age of 21, on September 20, 1982, I could no longer take the insanity. I wanted a better life, and I finally surrendered my will and my life to Him. At that time he lifted my obsession with alcohol and drugs, and I haven’t had to go back to that lifestyle since that day. He had performed a miracle for me, but for some reason I still doubted His love for me. I still felt unworthy and guilty of the torture He endured and His sacrifice. I didn’t know the joy of being a Christian because I still wouldn’t let Him into my heart.
At the age of 33, I hit a new low in my life.  I had a miscarriage, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Kidney Disease, and my marriage was falling apart. I felt like God had abandoned me, but I didn’t understand that I was under attack from the Enemy. You see at that time, I didn’t believe Satan existed. I was in total denial. I stopped attending church and in a short time, I was back under the control of Satan. My 10 year marriage ended in divorce and within months I had a man living with me. Not too much later, I married that man. I returned to church, was teaching Sunday school, and trying to be a good Christian. We had a happy life for a few years, but then my husband became preoccupied with worldly things and he left me after 6 years of marriage in 2002.
Again, the abandonment issue reared its ugly head. I felt lower after the second divorce than the first! I repeated the cycle I started after the first divorce – not going to church and making a relationship with a man my priority. I was back to running my life again. Two years later I was back to living with a man in hopes of marrying soon. But something happened differently this time. I returned to church and wanted to let God back into my life. I knew that I was living in sin, and wanted to change my life. I truly wanted to repent. I knew I needed to get married soon or live separately. Then the walls came crumbling down.
In the end of November of 2005 at the age of 44, I was told that my Polycystic Kidney Disease had progressed to the point of kidney failure. I would need a transplant within the next year if I wanted to avoid dialysis. My doctor told me to ask my family members if they would be willing to donate a kidney to me. Due to fact that I have only two siblings, my choices were limited. My sister was unable to be a donor, but my brother was willing to go through testing for me. God had brought me to my knees before Him. Self-reliance failed me, and I was humbled. I had to put my life in His hands because this time I had no control. My illness and other circumstances brought me to the decision to end the relationship with the man I was living with.
Due to my illness, I couldn’t go to work some days and just lay in bed. This is when I invited God to spend time with me. I began to listen to contemporary Christian music, something I hadn’t really done before. Lincoln Brewster’s song “The Everlasting God” became my hope. The song is based on Isaiah 40:31 “…but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”  I had met a young woman in AA, who took me to my first Christian concert. Something remarkable happened there. I had never been with so many believers in one place. As we listened to Aaron Schust, Audio Adrenaline, and Mercy Me, I felt the Holy Spirit move me. At that point I made a decision to rededicate my life to the Lord. I started to read the Bible for the first time in years and prayed for God to bring me a spiritual guide.
 I left the Methodist Church and started to attend an evangelical church. There God brought me my spiritual guide. She was a leader of a Christian singles Bible study. She taught me so much about the Bible and I was really starting to feel the love of Christ. I finally felt the forgiveness that I never could feel before in my life. My life was starting to be transformed by Jesus. I was able to put my trust in the Lord and give Him all of me.
At this time my brother did not pass the final test to be my kidney donor and I had no donor, so I was left with my only hope being in Christ. I accepted the fact that I would probably spend an average of 6 years on dialysis while I waited for a cadaver kidney. This would mean I would probably have to quit my teaching job which I had done for the past 20 years and that I wouldn’t be able to do the things I needed to do as a single mother of a teenage daughter. I trusted Him to take care of all my needs because he had done so in the past. This is when I took the steps to forgive, ask forgiveness, and repair family relationships. I was finally at peace and was ready to meet Jesus or continue living in His will, whatever He decided.
One day I got a phone call from Sue Sharbono, a fellow teacher. Sue and I had taught in another school district years before, and had recently been reconnected teaching together again in another district. Sue and I shared something in common – we both had kidney disease. There were only about 20 teachers in our building, and the odds of having two of us with kidney disease there were astounding! It was a Godsend. Sue knew my plight and called to ask me what my blood type was. I asked why she wanted to know. She said that her husband Bruce wanted to know because God had moved him to try to be my kidney donor if we matched. Bruce couldn’t give Sue a kidney because their blood types were incompatible, and he thought he could help me. I started crying. I couldn’t believe a man I didn’t even know would even consider this! I told her my blood type was A+ and she said that that was his blood type too! What a blessing! God had started to work a miracle in my life beyond my wildest dreams!
Bruce started to go through testing for me. Amazingly our antigens matched and he passed all of the other tests too! There was only one problem – Bruce had to lose 50 pounds before he could undergo the surgery. At this point I had stayed off dialysis for a year and my time was running out. I had healing hands placed upon me several months earlier and the progression of my kidney disease slowed. Everyone was praying that I could stay off dialysis and continue my teaching career until Bruce could lose the weight. Bruce worked very hard losing the weight by changing his diet and exercising more, not something easy to do for a 48-year-old man. It took him about 6 months to lose the weight because he got stuck at the last 6 pounds and the doctors wouldn’t let him have the surgery until that was lost.
I kept getting sicker, so I had to quit teaching in the first week of May 2007 to undergo surgery so I could start dialysis. He finally lost the weight and we were put on the surgery schedule for July 18, 2007. So I only had to do dialysis for less than 3 months, so that was a blessing. We had to travel 500 miles to Denver because we live in Montana where there are no transplant centers. Bruce’s surgery went very well and he was out of the hospital in a few days.
 Things did not go so well for me. The new kidney did not want to work. I kept getting sicker each day that it wouldn’t work. I spent 7 days in ICU. The doctors finally said they would have to do a biopsy to find out if the kidney tissue was able to function at all. Everyone was praying for me, and I called them and asked for them to pray even harder. I knew if they did a biopsy the next day that it would be more pain for me to endure and that it might damage the new kidney. God answered their prayers and the next day my kidney started to show signs of functioning so they didn’t have to do the biopsy. I was in the hospital for 17 days before they could release me to a transplant house. The average transplant patient stays in the hospital 7 days!
During my hospital stay I was very depressed and homesick. I missed my daughter, my family, and my friends. All of these people called me and sent cards and gifts, but it wasn’t the same as being with them. I had been seeing a clergyman everyday for prayer and encouragement, and I continued reading my Bible. I just felt like I was under attack from the Enemy. You see I had made a promise to God that if I lived I would tell everyone about the miracle He performed in my life and I knew this made me Satan’s target. One evening when I called for the clergyman, a young woman named Faith came in his place. I told her how homesick I was and frustrated that I wasn’t getting better. I let her know that I felt that Satan was attacking me. She was sincere and listened to me and understood my pain. She held my hand and let me cry and then said a powerful prayer over me. That night I woke up in my darkened room to find a white feather floating in the air in the streams of light that came through the blinds. It floated toward the source of the light and faded into nothingness. I felt the presence of something. I believe it was an angel sent to help heal me. After that night, my condition improved tremendously. Within a few days I was out of the hospital!
It was a long period of recovery, but by October I was back teaching again with a new enthusiasm to share with my students. I have also returned to coaching track, golfing, walking the dog, mowing the lawn, and all those things I had taken for granted when I was healthy. I have also been involved in three Bible studies this year and coaching basketball for my church’s community outreach youth program. I had coached basketball for many years and I never knew that devotions and basketball would go together, but it was awesome! I have lived to grow in my relationship with God and to try to follow the example of Jesus. I don’t do it perfectly, but I try my best each and every day. The verses that I try to exemplify are from Isaiah.  They are Isaiah 38:16 “Lord, by such things men live: and my spirit finds life in them too. You restored me to health and let me live,” and Isaiah 38:19 “The living, the living – they praise you, as I am doing today; fathers tell their children about their faithfulness.” These verses encourage me to share my testimony and the miracles that God has performed in my life with others. I want to share the hope that all things are possible with God.
Do I still feel unworthy of Christ’s sacrifice? No, not any longer. God has proved his love to me over and over again. I just couldn’t see it and feel it before, but now I can. Jesus is in my heart - He is my husband and God is my father. I just want to share the power of God’s love with the world and by giving my testimony I am working toward that goal. There is only one God and I am His!