Testimony

My life began on 19^th January, 1961. My parents, Gordon and Mary Ridge, were working class. They were loving and caring and they taught my brother, Paul , and I the difference between right and wrong. They were not religious people, we only went to church for weddings and christenings. My father was, I thought at the time, very strict, but being a parent myself now I know he was only protecting me from the big bad world. My mother was my best friend.

At the age of four my granddad, my father’s father, died after battling lung cancer. This was to have quite a negative impact on my life; by this I mean that I had a very real fear of dying which stayed with me constantly right up to when I was saved. I did wonder at this point whether God might be able to help me, but that is as far as it went. I just wondered - I was lost.

When I was about 10 years old I did attend Sunday School for a short time at Mafeking Road Methodist Church. The reason I stopped going was when they said they were going to test us on the Bible my fear of failing the test was so great that I never returned.

My brother Paul was about 10 years old when he joined the Boys Brigade at the same church. He was having so much fun and meeting new friends that I decided I would join the Girls Brigade. I enjoyed the activities at Girl’s Brigade but I didn’t feel that I fitted in, so after about a year I stopped going.

My time in senior school was not the happiest. It was an all-girls school and I was made to feel inferior both intellectually and socially. I experienced bullying both from the school I attended because I was quiet and not always accepted by the “in” crowd and from girls who I had gone to school with in primary because I now went to a Grammar school and they attended the local secondary modern. They would call me a snob and lie in wait to physically attack me. It got so bad that I had to go to my auntie’s house and I would walk home with her because it was on her way to work. My parents did seek advice from a solicitor but there wasn’t any real kind of support. The police were informed and they did go to the school to speak to the culprits, but it only made matters worse and gave them an excuse to bully me more.

I left school at sixteen. I had had enough of school life and being unhappy. Life was good. I had a job in an office and I was making new friends. Going to an all-girls school and my father’s strict upbringing meant that I was painfully shy in the company of men. When I did start dating, my first boyfriend was seven years older. My father was not too pleased about this but he did allow me to carry on seeing him. At first things were good but as time went by I found myself being caught in the middle of two people I loved, my Dad and my boyfriend. After two and a half years it became too much and I had a nervous breakdown. I was prescribed tranquillisers and continued to take them for seven years. They were not good times.

At the age of twenty-six I went back home to live after a relationship lasting five years broke down. Little did I know that these were to be the last few precious months I would have with my Dad as he died suddenly whilst I was on holiday with my friends.

This was the point in my life when I really began to question, is there really a God and could He help me? Would He help me? I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. I had suffered a nervous breakdown at an early age and I had lost my Dad; he wouldn’t be there to give me away at my wedding; he wouldn’t have the joy of seeing his grandchildren; why, why, why had this happened?

On the rare occasions I used to go to church (which apart from weddings and funerals would be at Christmas time to attend a carol service), I always used to hope that God would talk to me… But why should He when I didn’t talk to Him?

A year later I went to work abroad. I gained a lot of confidence and became very independent, but I was also very selfish. I had run away from the grief I was feeling and left my Mom and brother back home, not giving them a second thought. With Dad no longer around to voice his disapproval, I had quite a wild time. Any thoughts of God and going to church were completely off the agenda. My wild days lasted for about four years.

When I turned thirty, I felt I had reached maturity. I was a woman, not a girl. I longed to settle down and have children. This was when I met my husband, Mark. We have been together now for twenty years, married for seventeen of them and we have a beautiful thirteen year old daughter, Emily.

When Emily was about eighteen months old, I had a bad time with my nerves, and at one point I had suicidal thoughts. I had counseling, which helped me to understand my thoughts about the past and how I would approach things in the future. It helped me at the time, but I knew there had to be more to life than just getting along and coping.

Three and a half years ago my Mom died. I had lost my one and only best friend. I felt very alone now both parents were gone, I remember saying I felt like an orphan as old as I was, but no matter how old you are it is still the fact that someone you loved very much and had always been there for you is suddenly no longer around. Now there was only Paul and I. We helped and supported one another, but sometimes the feeling of loss would be overwhelming. I was lost and lonely.

Christmas 2010 was when the Lord led me to Beeches Road Chapel. I came to the Carol Service. I remember thinking that it was a warm and friendly place. A couple of months later, I attended a Sunday service, but the main reason, I confess, was to meet my brother Paul because I owed him some money. In the service, Pastor Zenker announced that there was to be a testimony service, and I thought to myself that I would like to go to that particular meeting. Well, what a meeting that turned out to be. I sat and listened, and what struck me most was that these were people from different backgrounds of different ages, men, women, and children, but the wonderful thing they all had in common was finding their salvation in the Lord. This made me realise that becoming a Christian is not a choice that man makes, it is the belief in Jesus Christ. Half-way through the meeting I began to feel a warm sensation in my stomach; it came and went through the rest of the evening. I knew that something was happening to me in a good way. At the end of the meeting when Pastor Zenker asked if anyone wished to be saved, I didn’t put my hand up straight away, but on the second time of asking I knew I wanted to be saved. After the meeting, I went into the vestry with Pastor Zenker and Jon Hewett and Pastor Zenker read through a few passages from the Bible. I saw Jesus in my mind’s eye, he was next to me on my left. At that moment, it all made sense. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus died on the cross to save us all. I was very emotional because I knew I had experienced something so wonderful and had been truly blessed. I remember Jon Hewett saying to me, “Just think of all of the millions of people in the world tonight and the Holy Spirit chose you.” WOW.

My life now is so much better; I have a calmness and inner peace, something I never thought I would have. I no longer fear dying. My relationship with my brother has always been good, but now that we are both Christians it has formed a very strong bond between us and I know it will be for eternity. I enjoy learning from the Bible, the Word of God. I look forward to coming to church and listening to the preaching of the gospel. I am looking forward to my life and what God has planned for me and how I can help to spread the Word of the Gospel and show others the way to a Christian life. I can’t believe it has only been seven months since I was saved because I feel so much a part of the Beeches Road Baptist Chapel and I look forward to attending the church for many more years to come. Life couldn’t be any better.

Kay Bradley