My name is Megan Williams and this is My Life:
Well, I am not exactly sure where to begin. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. I didn’t know who God was. We never talked about stuff like that. I have to tell you now before I begin. My testimony has my mom’s life mixed in it a lot.
Before I was born my mom got married and had my older brother, Jeremy. When he was little he got in my grandfather’s pool and drowned. My mom found him and did C.P.R. on him. He was in a coma for two months, I think. The doctors said he would never walk, talk or eat solid foods again and would be retarded for the rest of his life. My mom didn’t believe that, and neither did our family. After a few months he was talking and eating solid foods again. He still can’t walk and he has a mental problem.
Now I have to tell you about Jeremy’s dad. He was a guy who had an anger problem, and who took his anger out on my mom. He refused to get help. I am not sure why. So my mom got a divorce and took Jeremy and told my brother’s dad he couldn’t see my brother until he got help.
Then my mom met my dad. She got pregnant with me (out of wedlock). He also hit her, but she didn’t want to leave the father of her second child, so she tried to make it work. They were planning on getting married, but when I was about 18 months old my father decided he didn’t want to have anything to do with me, my mom or Jeremy. So he made up a lie about her, saying she was cheating on him and that I wasn’t his child. He got his whole family to believe that lie. My mom moved out of his house and decided to raise me and my brother on her own. She had her family for support.
When I was about three to three-and-a-half years old Jeremy’s dad came back in the picture, wanting to be his father. He had sought help and was getting better. He has been the fatherly figure (I guess you could say) in my life…until recently.
That really is just the background of my testimony. You see, when I was young my mom hit me and my brother. She would yell at us and call us horrible things. She had taken the anger she had toward our fathers out on us because we couldn’t defend ourselves (like she couldn’t with them). So I had this anger building up in me from her.
By the time I was five years old I knew almost every cuss word and I stole things like crazy. If we went to the store I would steal a candy bar or something small just out of anger and rebellion towards my mom. Then when I turned five we moved from Riverside , California (where I was born) to Phoenix , Arizona . My dad, as I called him, still lived in California and still lives there today. He has a wife and two little girls. I didn’t see him that much after I moved and he didn’t play a “parental” role in my life. I lived in Phoenix for two years, building more anger and learning more bad words and sayings. I even tried a cigarette at the age of seven (my grandpa smoked).
My mom decided to go to college so we moved to Flagstaff so she could go to N.A.U. ( Northern Arizona University ). While we lived there my mom got cancer in her leg. She had surgery and got it removed and then she had chemo. We thought they had killed all of it. At this time I was still a rebellious little kid. I thought I hated my life, and I thought about running away several times. I still stole. I got very good at it, sad to say. I even worked my way up to stealing money, I still cussed, and I used God's name in vain.
Two years of this happened. I was slowly getting worse and worse. I liked it because it was dangerous and I could get away with it. I was so full of pride, it was horrible. During this time someone called the child abuse people, and my brother and I almost got taken away from my mom. We went to a counselor and got some help. After that my mom never abused us.
At the end of the two years, when I was ten or eleven years old, my mom dropped out of college and we moved outside of Flagstaff . She started to get really bad back pains and went to see her doctor. He said, “Oh it’s just a pulled muscle. It will go away after awhile.” So she waited a while. It slowly got worse. Any time she went to see the doctor he would say the same thing, “It will take a little longer to heal” or something along those lines. She asked him to do cat scans and tests and stuff on her to see if it might be cancer. He said it wasn’t, and those weren’t necessary. She believed him. Then the back pains got worse to the point where she couldn’t walk and had to crawl then even worse, to where she couldn’t even do that. We went to the emergency room and they did some tests on her and found out that it was cancer. They transferred her to a hospital in Phoenix , and I believe they did surgery on her. They said they would give her three days to live. After those three days she was still alive they gave her three weeks. After three weeks they said, ”Wow! Okay maybe three months max.” When she survived that, they were amazed and they decided to start doing chemo on her. They moved her from the hospital to a hospice house.
Eventually she started to recover enough that they had to kick her out of the hospice house. She and I moved in with my grandpa. Jeremy wanted to stay in Flagstaff , so he moved into a home that took care of him. We went and saw him when we could. By this time I had started 6 th grade.
At this point we thought my mom might survive. We had high hopes. Then she had to have another surgery, this time on her head to get rid of a tumor the size of a golf ball that had grown behind her eye. She kept struggling on trying to fight the cancer.
While in 7 th grade I tried smoking again. I had three packs of cigarettes (I had stolen these from a gas station). I didn’t like to smoke them, but I wanted to be cool. I wanted to fit in. So I only smoked when I was around people who did or when I was extremely mad or upset. I still had no idea at this time about God or Jesus. I mean I used God’s name. I thought you had to be a good person to get in heaven. I even tried praying to God to heal my mom - a desperate plea that I thought wouldn’t work. But I didn’t truly understand or know.
Well, towards Christmas in the 12 th year of my life my mom took a turn for the worse. She had to be put back in the hospital. They didn’t think she would come out again. She fought her hardest to be there for me and my brother for Christmas. She was determined. She was very weak but alive that Christmas. I will remember it the most because it was the last Christmas I spent with my mom. She died that January, a month before my birthday.
I was so sad and upset because I had lost my mom. The only parent of my life - of my raising. I was so inflamed with anger towards God for letting her die that I didn’t want to be involved with God at all. I blamed him for her death. (At the time I had not known that my mom had talked with Sandi and my mom came to Jesus as her Savior, so I praise God for that.) I started to do more of everything I was doing before. I started to sneak out of the house even. I didn’t want anything of that life. I wanted to escape, go away. Do something to help me forget my pain. I didn’t run away or do anything like drugs or drink or have sex. I never wanted to go that low. I didn’t have the “courage” to go that low. Thank God. I did, however, do bad things. Things I don’t ever want to talk about. That was only for two months.
It all stopped somewhat when I moved. I moved in with my 2 nd cousin in Oklahoma . I didn’t get along with them at all. They didn’t want me for me, or like me (at least that is what I thought). I mean, they loved me, but I wasn’t accepted into their family. They said I did things I didn’t do, like they said I stole two hundred dollars from them. They said I was spreading nasty rumors about them and getting into a ton of trouble at school when I wasn’t. I was doing great in school. I didn’t steal, or spread any rumors. I thought that was the new life I was looking for. I was still hurt and I still cried all the time when I thought of my mom.
They talked with Sandi and she said that they would take me, because it wasn’t working out with them at all. So I moved to Gainesville June 4 th, 2002 . As soon as I got here, you know what Sandi and David did? They cared for me and loved me and tried to treat me like one of theirs. Anna, Amy and Chuck weren’t very happy I came. You can ask them and they will tell you that at the time they thought it to be the worst idea in the world and that it wouldn’t work out. Anna probably thought this the most. I mean, I don’t blame her. We fought all the time. I was a total brat to her and we were like two rams butting heads. But even with the fighting with Anna, I saw something in this family I had never seen before. It was something that looked wonderful and I wanted to have it. I wanted to have what they had. I thought, “Surely this is the real thing I have been looking for and wanting.” It was something I had never seen before and now I know what that thing was.
I remember coming to Gainesville like it was yesterday, and I remember coming to this church and just having all these people come up to me and love me without even knowing me. I remember them caring for me and being so nice. I wanted to have that and to be a part of that. I was just too prideful to admit that to anyone. So late in July after I had come here, on a Wednesday night I decided to ask Sandi to pray with me. I had figured out that what I wanted was God - that I wanted Jesus in my life. Sandi was so happy, and we cried together and I prayed the prayer.
I have been a Christ-follower for a little over two years now. I look back at how far I have come, to where I am now, and I am just amazed with what God can do in a person’s life. He gave me a new family, new inspiration - a new life. Now I can share that wonderful feeling with them, and I want to share it with others. I want to share it with kids who were like me and might be doing worse things than me. That is my testimony.
