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This Level 5 page contains encouraging life stories of people's journey towards God

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THE AMAZING TESTIMONY OF DEBBIE RENNIER

I was born Deborah M. Oestermyer in LaPorte Indiana in 1953, the daughter of Norman and Jeanette who presently reside in Roswell New Mexico. I had one brother, Vince who was three years older than I. He died drunk in an automobile accident in 1975.

Much of my teenage years were spent away from home. I was a very rebellious youth. At the age of fifteen I was sent to a place for troubled teens. It was run by Quakers and they had chapel daily, but I refused to have anything to do with God. I didn't learn anything about God there, but I did learn how to survive on the streets.

When I finally returned home. I really wasn't there as I would stay home for two or three days and then hear of a party and be gone two or three days. It was at such a party that I became pregnant as the result of a drunken one-night stand.

Shortly after this I moved in with another guy in a city about 20 miles from my home. I had no contact with my parents and no desire to speak to them. The guy that I lived with was a pimp and it was here that I began selling my body for money. This man liked to knock me around and one night in the sixth month of pregnancy he knocked me down a flight of stairs. I went into labor as a result of this. I was rushed to a hospital where they notified my parents at 1A.M. This came as a great shock to mom and dad as they had heard nothing from me for over six months and did not even know I was pregnant.

My daughter spent three months in the hospital due to being so premature and I moved back in with my parents. My rebellion and desire to live a wild life did not end because of motherhood. Consequently I gave my daughter up for adoption when she was sixteen months old. She would be 33 years old now.

After my daughter's adoption I left my parent's home. I stayed with a very violent man and became increasingly involved in drinking and prostitution. I was with a man involved in a bar-room shooting.

We fled the state and I ended up in Chicago. It was here at the age of twenty that I started to use heroin. I became involved with a very dangerous man and started hooking on a regular basis as I had a two-hundred dollar a day drug addiction. After a violent quarrel from which I barely escaped with my life I ended up living on the streets. At one time I even lived in a cardboard box.

At this time I received word that my brother had been in a serious accident. I returned to LaPorte and found him in an irreversible coma. While he lay dying in the hospital with my parents at his side I robbed my parents home to buy drugs. When my brother died it convinced me that there was no God and I became a complete atheist.

I drifted all over the country continuing to drink, drug and prostitute. One day I couldn't stand my life any longer. I moved to Oswego New York with a man. I married him, managed to get off heroin and found a real job. The bad news was that I didn't stop drinking and this man was just as mean and abusive as all the others.

Wanting to be near my parents we returned to Indiana in 1988. The abuse became intolerable and rather than end up dead or in jail for murder, I divorced my husband. My drinking continued to progress and in July 1989 I had a serious automobile accident. The accident scared me so badly that I began to attend AA meetings. I quit drinking, but still wanted no part of God.

In the fall of 1990 about 10 months after my last drink I was diagnosed with cancer. I received chemo and radiation to combat it. It was on my way home from one such treatment that I had my first encounter with God.

I had decided to end my life by hitting a semi-truck head on. I could no longer cope with the misery of cancer, death seemed preferable. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder and a voice spoke "Lo, I am with you, you will be all right." The urge to end my life ceased immediately.

In July of 1991 my oncologist told me that there was no more that could be done. She told me that the cancer was terminal it had spread to my liver, stomach, bones and lung. She said it was slow growing but resistant to treatment. I was given 1 or 2 years to live. As the cancer progressed I went from a cane to a walker to a wheelchair.

As my illness neared termination, I decided that I wanted to be with my parents in New Mexico. So, in September of 1993 I went there to die. By this time I was bedridden and unable to care for myself. My suffering and that of my parents increased to the point that I decided to end my life. This would be facilitated by a friend of mine who was a nurse.

We planned to overdose me with the morphine that I was being given. It was planned that we would do this on a Wednesday afternoon while my parents were at lunch and she was sitting with me. Several days before this was to happen, I was lying in bed praying to the Lord, late at night. When suddenly Jesus appeared to me in an intensely bright white light. HE spoke: "You will be alright. I have plans for you. Trust ME."

This very same night a friend of mine had a dream in which he saw me walking, with Jesus walking behind me. This friend had never seen me walk. When he related this to me the following day, I was more convinced that perhaps I wasn't dreaming or hallucinating.

A couple of days later the doctor who was attending me called to give me the results of some tests that had been run a couple of weeks earlier. He could not explain it but the tumors in me were shrinking. I was excited; he was incredulous.

After all of these events I was laying in bed praying several days later. I was asking the Lord if what I had seen was really Him. I knew that Satan could come as an angel of light. He suddenly appeared and said, " I AM the Great I AM." Since that moment I have had no doubts.

The cancer in my body completely disappeared and after a few weeks of rehab [I had not walked on over a year] I returned to northern Indiana and my fiancé. We married in November 1994. From November 1993 until May 1996 I was free of cancer. During this time I continued to have what I refer to as "visits" from the Lord Jesus.

At this point let me explain a little bit about what I refer to as "visits from the Lord". The Lord appears to me most often while I am in prayer or contemplation. HE usually appears in an intense white light. HE speaks and then HE is gone. I am speechless during these visits and all I can say by way of describing HIM is the eyes. They seem to look right through me; nothing is hidden from HIM.

I have no conversations with HIM. HE talks; I listen. I only write what HE tells me to write and I only tell who and what HE wants me to tell. There is nothing of me in any word from the Lord.

In May 1996 I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. This began a period of almost seven years of cancer and cancer treatments. During this time I was pronounced terminal three times and sent home to die. The Lord and the Lord alone has healed me every time. I have many witnesses and medical documentation of this. I don't want to go into great detail here because this is already becoming a long testimony. I will sum it up quickly as follows.

I have been terminally afflicted with three entirely different kinds of cancer. Ovarian, Lymphoma, Ewings Sarcoma. Pronounced terminal four times. I was part of an experimental protocol and one of the first people to have Gamma Knife surgery. Ultimately all four times I was sent home to die, there was nothing more medical science could do. And four times I was HEALED BY GOD!! ALLELUIA!! Anyone who wishes to know more about these healings is free to call or inquire. I have been cancer free since the Lord last healed me in January 2003. Much more that I would like to share, but this is enough for now.

Now to the more important part of this story. I continued to have "visits" from the Lord periodically from 1993 onwards. HE would come at intervals that might be one two or even three months apart. Most of what HE would say was encouragement or guidance for me. HE had a word a very few times for others. This remained the pattern until mid 2002 when the frequency and purpose of His "visits" began to change. After my last healing in January 2003 the Lord has began to speak to the church and the nation.

There is not much more to say. I am as obedient and submissive to my King as I am capable of being. I believe in the virgin birth, sinless life, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that HE died for my sins. HE is my Savior and my King.

I believe in the triune Godhead as it is manifested in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I believe that there is no way unto the Father except by the Son, [John 3:18-Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.]

With His love I give this testimony to the world.

Deborah Rennier

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