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My name is Marquita and I am so in awe of what the Lord has done and is doing in my life, and that I can share it with you. I was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1955. And yes, for some of you who will read this, that does seem like a reallllly long time ago. My mother was 18 and my father was 44 at the time of my birth. I am the oldest of 7 children-- 5 girls and 2 boys.

My childhood, up until the time I was about 5, was fairly normal. My family was middle class and we lived in a very big house, so big that years earlier my grandfather had divided the house into apartments. Four to be exact. We, that is my mother, father and siblings, lived on the first floor and my grandparents lived upstairs.

My mother worked at a V.A. hospital and my father as a long shoreman at Navy Pier. My grandfather was a pastor who loved the Lord and tried to teach us about the Lord. My grandmother was a bitter but very religious. person who only got worse as she got older.

Every Sunday we went to church. My grandfather was "old school" when it came to church. I can clearly remember him saying if you are too sick to go to church, you are too sick to go outside and play. Church was very important to my grandfather, he taught us to respect the house of God. Every Saturday we had family devotions and my grandfather saw to it that we learned to read the Bible on our own and taught us how to pray. You would think that I would have gotten saved at an early age, but that did not happen.

When I turned 5 my father changed and he began to abuse my mother. Domestic violence became the norm. My childhood went from bad to worse. Children were mean to me. I didn't fit in anywhere. Every thing I did became the brunt of jokes.

My parents divorced when I was 8 years old. My father only came by to pay child support and every time he was there made it very clear that he did not love me. When I was 13 my grandfather allowed me to get baptized. I had made a profession of faith but didn't mean it. At 15 I was drugged and raped. At 17 I was attacked again by a teacher at my high school. By this time my self-esteem was no where to be found.

It was also about this time that I began to have physical problems. I found a tumor on the left side and a year later one on the right. I got pregnant a few months later and two weeks after my 18th birthday I had a son. My son's father had left long before he was born, but I was reintroduced to an old friend and we began to date.

It is here that my life really began to sink even farther into sin-if that is at all possible. Without going into details, I followed my boyfriend into drugs, alcohol and immorality. I became more and more immodest. And during this time had two miscarriages and three more children.

Because of the drug use my boyfriend and I could not keep a roof over our heads and we were constantly moving; sometimes into places that were unfit for habitation. And then something happened that would forever change my life. I cannot tell you all of the things that we went through, for there is not room. I will however tell you this-- sin destroys

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