Christine Caine tells her testimony about how she came to Jesus, years before a family secret was reviled, and how her revelation of God’s love helped her stand.
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I cannot remember a time in
my life when I did not struggle
with shame thinking, there
is something wrong with me.
I kind of wasn't even the
daughter that my mom wanted.
She wanted a sweet
little ballerina that
would play with Barbie dolls.
And she got a girl
that loved to read,
loved academics, and loved
to play soccer with the boys.
And so I remember
all the time, I
would grow up
hearing, Christine,
why can't you be normal?
Why can't you be like
every other girl?
I was born second
generation migrant
Greek in Sydney, Australia.
So I went to school with my
little feta cheese sandwiches
because all little Greek
girls had feta cheese
sandwiches at school.
But the Australian kids
had Vegemite sandwiches.
The Australian kids
would laugh at me
and already then
it would shame me
because I ate different food.
But what people didn't
know, that shame
was exasperated by the
fact that I had already--
by the time I'd gone
to kindergarten--
been the victim of
abuse in my life.
And when you're abused,
it's very devastating.
Because when the abuse first
starts to happen to you,
you think, what is
happening is wrong.
This is shameful.
This is wrong, this
should not be happening.
But when no one
comes to rescue you,
when it continues to happen
week in and week out,
year in and year out,
eventually you start to think,
there's something wrong
with me and that's
why I'm being abused.
I grew up in a very rigid
Greek Orthodox Church
but I certainly had no personal
relationship with Jesus Christ.
I did not know
that you could have
an intimate personal
relationship.
For me, because of the abuse
that happened in my life,
because I grew up
in a culture which
God was this big bad guy in
the sky with a big stick that
was waiting for you
to do something wrong.
Every time you did
something wrong,
he'd hit you over
the head and somehow
had some joy out of all of that.
When I was 22, someone
took me to church
and it changed everything.
I really heard the
gospel from the Bible.
I was told that Jesus loved
me, that there was nothing
that I had done that was
too big to separate me
from the love of God.
That even with a past
like mine, Jesus Christ,
he died for that on the cross.
That he shed his
blood and I remember
the day when the revelation came
to me that the blood of Jesus
was sufficient even for my sin.
It was the game changer.
I got a phone call from
my brother, George.
He told me that he had
just received a letter
from the government department
that said that he was adopted.
Well, we went to
my mother's house
in order to ask her about this
document from the government,
and my mother began to just cry.
And when confronted with
this, she said, "I'm so sorry.
George, before your
father died, one
of the last things
that I promised him
was that I would never tell you
and so I tore up the paperwork.
I threw it away and just never
thought you would find out."
My mother is crying, my brother
is crying, the dog's crying,
and everyone's going crazy.
So I think, what do you do?
So I go into the kitchen,
start making some Greek coffee
and some food.
My mother comes in
maybe 20 minutes later
and she's standing behind me.
And, in Greek, she
says to me, Christina,
since we are telling
the truth, do
you want to know
the whole truth?
I turned around, I'm two
weeks from my 33rd birthday,
and I said to my mom, my
word, I've been adopted, too.
And in that moment my
mother just starts to weep,
and she says, yes.
I was stunned.
I remember I didn't say anything
for a few minutes and then
the very first thing that I
said, I went, am I still Greek?
I felt like I was
called a lot of names
for a lot of years I wanted to
know there was a reason for all
of that persecution.
But then, the next thing that
came out of my mouth right
in that kitchen.
I said, oh well mom.
Before I was formed in my
mother's womb, whoever's
womb that was, he knew me.
He knitted together
my innermost parts,
he fashioned all of my
days before as yet that
was one of them.
I'm fearfully and
wonderfully made
and regardless of the assault
that the enemy sent against me.
He sent an assignment
when I was still
in my mother's womb to still
kill and destroy my life.
And then when I was
three years old,
he sent another
assignment into my bedroom
to try to destroy me through
abuse and through over a decade
of abuse.
When I went to school,
he sent an assignment
into my life to try to quieten
me, to try to shame me.
To tell me that you're
not good enough,
you're not worthy enough.
You're the wrong gender,
you're the wrong nationality.
And all through my life,
there was this persecution
of just trying to
put shame on me.
And yet, God is a Redeemer.
Now, when I came to
faith in Christ at 22,
I discovered that I was
created in the image of God.
That I am not the
workmanship of a rape.
I'm not the workmanship
of an adulterous affair.
I'm not the workmanship
of some one night stand.
I'm God's workmanship.
And he has created me, in
Christ Jesus for good works.
And no matter what was
done to me, ultimately,
what Jesus did for me is bigger
than what anyone did to me.