Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of which I am the worst (Timothy 1:15 NIV).
Sharon remembers reading tarot cards to her classmates when she was only eight years old. All the kids in the lunchroom would gather around her, begging for their turn. She even read the cards for a teacher who swore she was never getting married. “No, Miss Smith,*” Sharon said, “You are going to get married and have two children.” She ran into Miss Smith years later and learned that she was, in fact, married with two children.
At the age of ten, Sharon and her aunt levitated her father, who was a big guy weighing two hundred pounds. At her young age, she recognized this was impossible, and she knew there was a supernatural power at work, which intrigued her.
Sharon’s interest in the dark side was inspired by her mother, who had dabbled in the occult, thinking it was fun and games. By the time Sharon was thirteen, she was deep into witchcraft and considered herself a witch.
Sharon felt invincible as a teenager. Her confidence in her identity as a witch, and the fact that her father, who had ties with the teamsters, pulled strings to get her out of any trouble she was in, led to full rebellion. “I was on the wild side. I would stay out late drinking and doing drugs. I would skip school and hang out with a motorcycle gang in a local park. I was a parent’s worst nightmare,” she said in a recent interview.
Sharon was raised in a Catholic home, but she rarely went to church and didn’t take her faith seriously. “By the time I was sixteen, I had broken all but one of the ten commandments.” You probably don’t need to guess that the commandment she didn’t break was, “Thou shalt not kill.”
At the age of nineteen, Sharon fell in love with a young man during a drug deal. Sharon and Terry had a whirlwind romance as they bonded over getting drunk and high, and they were married six months later.
Their destructive lifestyle continued until her husband came home from work one day and said, “I met Jesus.” A co-worker asked him if he knew where he was going when he died. He explained to Terry that Jesus died for him, and that he could be forgiven for his sins and have an eternity with God. A new start sounded great to Sharon, and by the end of the night, she knelt in prayer, asked forgiveness for her sins, and invited Jesus to live in her heart.
The change was immediate, just as described in 1 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (ESV).
“We woke up the next morning and flushed our drugs down the toilet; we never did drugs again. And we lost all our friends.” But God had that covered. They made new friends when they started going to church with Terry’s co-worker, who had introduced him to Jesus.
Sharon tried to tell their families about their new faith, but they thought they had gone over the edge and joined a cult. They called them “Jesus freaks,” and they were forbidden to speak of their faith at family gatherings.
But God started working in Sharon’s life in ways that demonstrated His power in undeniable ways.
Sharon and her husband tried to have children from the time they were married, but Sharon had four miscarriages. Medical tests showed she had a rare condition—a bilateral uterus, which made her able to carry a child only up to three or four months. After their encounter with God, Sharon got pregnant again. Her doctor told her she would miscarry, so she should consider adoption.
When she was about three months along, Sharon was home in her trailer when their antenna hit a high-voltage wire, which blew out the fire department's alarm, melted their water pipes, blew out their electrical sockets, and started a fire. Her friend was blown off the trailer; her husband’s hair was singed, and his fillings were ruined. But Sharon, who had been standing in water from the melted pipes and escaped onto a metal porch, was unscathed.
The investigators told Sharon she should be dead. She had endured a surge of 7,800 volts of electricity.
After the incident, Sharon started bleeding. She called her doctor, and he said she was probably miscarrying. “If you make it to Monday, come in and see me,” he said.
Sharon and Terry called their pastor. He said to turn on praise music and pray, and that he would be praying as well. All weekend, she rested, praised, and prayed. On Monday morning, she was examined by her doctor, and he said everything looked fine.
Sharon believed she was healed, and she would be able to carry and deliver this baby. Throughout her pregnancy she struggled with doubts, which she credits with the enemy trying to regain his influence in her life.
Six months later, her beautiful daughter Krista was born by C-section, becoming the first baby on record to be born to a mother with a bilateral uterus. Even the medical personnel could not deny that this was a miracle!
This gave Sharon and Terry the courage to try again, and two years later, they were blessed with a son.
Sharon is now retired from her career as a nurse, and her beloved children are grown and thriving. She is active in a local church and volunteers at Willow Network as a client advocate. She is so grateful that God intervened and delivered her from a life of sin and destruction. Looking back, she realizes God was watching out for her all along, even before she was born. She is encouraged by the Bible verse, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalms 139:13).
Every chance she gets, Sharon tells young people not to go down the path she did. “Don’t dabble in the occult. It may seem fun at first, but it will suck you into darkness. And stay away from drugs and alcohol,” she tells them. She also points out that no matter how much you have messed up your life, no matter how far you have strayed from God, Jesus is waiting with open arms, waiting to forgive you.
“I am sharing my story to show what God brought me out of, to give hope to others, and to give glory to God.”
*name has been changed