God, Where Are You?

By Gorman Woodfin
The 700 Club

CBN.com – Lindsay and Randy Riddle make their home in America’s heartland in Indiana. With two beautiful daughters and two dogs they’ve built the American dream.

But life was not always so kind to Lindsay. Growing up she faced unbelievable obstacles.

"I had a bad attitude, a 'can’t hurt me' kind of tough. On the inside I was just scared. I never had a childhood. I felt like I was pushed into adulthood way too early."

At birth Lindsay was given up for adoption. While the mother who adopted her was warm and loving, several men in her "new" family made her life a living nightmare.

Lindsay as a young girl "I was molested from the time I was 3 or 4 until I was 15 by four different men, family and friends," she says. "Just to be able to control that situation, they were so domineering. I felt powerless. I mean, I felt less than powerless. By the time I was 12 or 13 I had had my first drink. It just kind of escalated from there. I was into drugs—pot, a little bit of everything."

Lindsay believed God was too far away to give her any help.

"I hated myself and I hated God because I felt like God was the reason that everything had happened," she says.

Lindsay felt totally incapacitated, so she decided to study the occult to gain the power she longed for.

"I was learning how to read them. With crystals they say that it’s a very powerful stone, almost like you can bring spirits into it," Lindsay explains. "I would wear one around my neck I had on a chain, and the angrier I would get, the hotter it would get, almost like it was filling up with my hatred."

Lindsay believes that one night the dark powers of the crystals brought an evil, demonic presence into her bedroom.

Lindsay as a young teen "It was just so angry and evil looking," she recalls. "I can’t even describe it. Needless to say, I jumped out of my bed and ran into my brother’s room and stayed there the rest of the night. I knew it was a spirit of hatred, a spirit of malice, and so I chucked the stone that next day. I haven’t seen it since."

At times, Lindsay remembered praying to God as a child. Then one day she prayed again while watching The 700 Club.

Says Lindsay, "Pat was on there and was praying for salvation. I’d been watching it, off and on, even though I wasn’t devout or anything. It was like, 'OK, we'll give this a try again and see if it works.' I tell you what, instantaneously, as soon as I prayed the sinner’s prayer, everything went off my shoulders."

While the freedom was instantaneous, Lindsay’s healing was a long process.

"God was able to start working through me because I was being obedient. I was praying, I was reading the Word, and I was worshipping and being obedient, so He was able to start a seven-year healing process," she says.

Part of that healing happened when Lindsay found out by accident about her birth parents. At the time of Lindsay’s birth, her mother was only 13 years old. Her father was not much older.

"He was 15," she states. "I'm glad that they didn’t because a 13 and a 15-year-old can’t raise a child. They’re just children themselves, so I wasn’t mad at him either. I was so excited to find them all."

Lindsay also needed to ask God some hard questions.

"I was so angry because I thought, God, where were You? He said, 'I was right there. I was right there crying, watching all that happened. I love you, but I love them, too. It hurts Me to see one of my children doing that to another one of My children, so what gives you the right to hate them and not forgive them when I love them and will forgive them if they ask Me? Are you bigger than Me?'"

Lindsay says she has learned some invaluable spiritual lessons.

"He is in control," Lindsay concludes. "He is supreme. Everything happens for a reason. Anyone who is a child of God He uses everything to your good. He just wants what’s best for you. He’ll never do anything to hurt you, though you may be hurt by others, you may hurt yourself. Now I can open up my eyes and hear the birds singing. I might not be fully functional in the morning before I have coffee, but I can be thankful for everything that I have. He has given me a peace that I had never ever known before."