Her Beginning

For Dori, her testimony begins when she was a child.

She had grown up in a Methodist church with her siblings and parents, and as a teen she found herself distancing from God. She began partying and drinking, picking up on habits that were deemed as fun, rather than disciplined. She had an abusive boyfriend and became impregnated by him. At sixteen she went to consult a doctor about her options and he yelled at her, insisting that her child would be born with an addiction to drugs because of her life choices. Because her boyfriend didn’t want a child and her circumstances she decided to abort the baby.

Even though she believed in God’s existence as creator, she was under the impression that He would resent her and never forgive her for her sins. For years she masked this regret with drugs and alcohol, partying with her friends to kill the time. When her boyfriend tried to choke her, she left him. She kept turning to intoxication on her free time. She relied heavily on alcohol and marijuana; none of it truly sated her incompletion. She was inexorably lost and felt that God was being vengeful toward her for the situations she was being put in in her life. She was lost and searching for something that would fill the gaping hole in her life.

Division

But God had not completely turned His back on her. He kept putting people in her path to witness to her. He kept putting people in her path to witness to her, people like her coworker Bonnie who would not stop speaking of His unending, faithful love. Over fifteen years she had two children and when she felt she was pregnant with a third, her husband suggested they have an abortion. She strongly refused and he left her, not wanting another kid. The message she was taught as a child and Bonnie’s reaffirmation was exactly what she needed at a point like this and what made her finally ask God for guidance.

One day, she decided to visit her mother’s Methodist church pastor. He led her through the sinner’s prayer and was left feeling “bamboozled” as she called it, as if it were completely ineffective. She continued on her path for a while longer, raising her children and keeping on her lifestyle. She reached a point where she just asked God to show Himself to her, to make Himself evident. Her conviction for her choices led her to go to Living Waters church with her mother and sister. While entering that building, she heard a voice inside of her whisper, “You’re home.” At the end of sermon, the pastor called people down for prayer and to give their lives to Jesus.

Congregation

There Dori sat, convicted for her sins, conflicted with the options before her, and still resisting the urge that is tugging her down to that pulpit.

She glanced over at her sister, who as I imagine had an expectation painted on her face, and found herself saying, “I have to go down there.” She made her way down to the pastor and gave her life to Jesus Christ that day at the age of thirty-three.

Her family was supportive of her conversion, but her husband, whom she was still separated from, was convinced she was joining a cult. He assumed she was just being irrational. He never left his lifestyle and didn’t really want her to bring their three children (turns out she was not pregnant after all) to church, but where he worked on Sundays, and she couldn’t just leave them behind, they were introduced to the Lord at a young age. Her relationship with her mother was repaired and her life continued to look up from there! She still kept in touch with some of her old friends who never left their habits, but she could not partake in many of their choices anymore. Jesus was leading her to a life of fulfillment.

One day, she told God, “Lord, you know I love to sing. I have nothing else to offer you but my song.”

Not too long after she expressed that, the pastor’s wife approached her and said that the Spirit is calling her to worship. When that pastor left the church, his wife gave Dori her position as worship leader. God was fulfilling His plan for her in His perfect way that fills in all the blanks without a flaw. She is still worship leader at the same church, just in a different building and with a different pastor.

But life isn’t always easy, a point the Lord would continue to make just a little later in her life. At the age of forty-seven, she found our she had type one diabetes, which came as a huge shock to her. Regardless of her relatively healthy lifestyle, she still developed this hereditary disease! She tried to take it in stride though. She knows that the Lord will heal her in His time, for His glory, and in the meantime, she can take this as a learning experience. It has taught her discipline and how to be a better disciple to Jesus. It has given her a new sense of perseverance that she never would have had without it.

Jesus has graced her with His presence on many occasions where she has felt Him tangibly.

With her relationship with Jesus growing she has come to notice that the devil goes hard after worship leaders. At one point, she was going through a rough time, when she felt a prayerful, anointed hand touch her back. When she turned to look, no one was standing there. During this time, she felt a warmth coming over her and later, after speaking to a friend, she realized that it was while she had been praying for Dori. She had asked that Dori be, “Showered with God’s love.”

On another occasion she was overcome by the Holy Spirit during pastor’s sermon. It put her in a hysterical laughing fit where she had to slide down the wall behind the piano in an attempt to stifle it.

Conclusion

Dori uses God’s word for just about everything in her life and relates to Psalm 18:1-2, “I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.” This verse clearly shows, not only her love for the Lord, but her reliance on Him and His strength.

A song that she relates to would be Pour Your Spirit Out, a song that had made me cry when she played it during worship. She had already coincidentally chosen it before our interview to play during worship the following Sunday, and it truly touched my heart. I could hear her passion in her voice, and the way it moves her.

Writer’s Note

God bless all who read this far in this blog post! Thank you for hearing Dori’s story! I have been writing most of my life and have found my passion in sharing the stories of those unable, or unwilling to share it themselves. In doing this, I hope to open the minds of those who do not know the Lord, and to help in enacting His will. I’d love to interview any of you who have a testimony to share! Please, email or DM me on my Instagram that is linked in my bio!

Lord, I thank you for being with Dori throughout her life, for supporting her and guiding her. Praise you for being her hopeful light during her times of darkness. Your loving-kindness and faithfulness strikes me with awe every single day. Please, Lord God, be with all who read this post. Open their hardened hearts and minds, and move them in the same way you have moved Dori and I. Please spread this post far and wide, and give courage to those with testimonies to share it with my small chunk of the world. In Jesus Christ’s wonderful name, Amen.