Sister Loretta

I was born in 1968 in Jacksonville, Florida where my father was stationed in the Navy. My mother was born and raised in Italy and met my father when he was stationed in Naples, Italy in 1961. They were married in 1962 and came to the US shortly thereafter.

When I was three years old we moved to Norfolk, Virginia and that’s where I grew up. I have one sibling - an older sister. My sister and I had a very happy and sheltered childhood attending a Christian private school and going to church every week. I have very fond memories of walking to the “Bookmobile” with my sister in the summertime to check out library books. My mother did not work outside the home so I received lots of attention and I spent many happy days climbing trees, riding my bike, having piano lessons, playing with friends, and reading. My father did not like TV - he felt it was a waste of time, so I believe that’s how my great love for books developed.

When I reached my teenage years I was very busy with piano, basketball, school, and youth group at church. This was a time when I started to seriously question the trinity doctrine that I was being taught. I remember going to my teachers and posing this question to them: “You teach that God loved us so much that He sent his son to die on the cross and save us. If He really loved us that much - why didn’t He just come himself and die? Who would send their child to do something like that!” Their answer was always something along the lines of “Loretta you need to just accept it by faith - it’s a mystery.”

I was also frustrated with the concept that everything I saw in the Bible about God was powerful and miraculous - parting the sea - raising the dead! But in my church nothing exciting ever happened. It was downright boring.

I began to rebel and got into quite a bit of trouble. I met my husband, Mike, when I was 16 years old and he was 21. He was from California and in the Navy, stationed in Norfolk. We fell in love and wanted to get married but of course I was too young. As soon as I turned 18 we got married. Mike was out of the Navy by this time and we were living in Redding, California.

We settled down and were busy raising a family. We had two little girls and I decided I needed to go back to church. I tried many churches but none of them seemed like they had any power. I was now 27 years old and I was getting desperate for God. I prayed and asked God to please show me the truth and to lead me to the right church.

We were homeschooling our girls when  I met an apostolic lady named Debbie at the homeschool skate day that we would go to every week at the skating rink.  We became friends because our daughters were playing together. We started getting together at each other’s houses and talking about God. I thought her church sounded really odd. I did not want to go to church with her but I did agree to let her teach me a Bible study called “Exploring God’s Word.”

Through that Bible study I started to see things that I had never been taught before in all the years of attending Christian school and going to church. I was a bit shocked and I remember I put the brakes on and told Debbie I wanted to just stop and think about this. She said that’s fine but she asked me to just please read my Bible with an open mind and ask God to show me His truth. I said I would.

I started with the New Testament. By the time I got to Acts, I called Debbie and said “I’m reading Acts 2 and this verse 38 . . .Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. . . that kind of sounds like the plan of salvation in a nutshell.” She was laughing and said “Yes it is!!!”

Another time I decided to test the “mystery question” on Debbie. So I asked her the same question I had asked my teachers at school when I was a teenager.

I said “I was told that God loved us so much that he sent his son to die on the cross and save us. If He really loved us that much - why didn’t He just come himself and die? Who sends their child to do something like that!” She answered “God DID come himself and die for us! Jesus is the flesh of God. Jesus is God!” I just stared at her. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I said “Does your whole church believe that?” She assured me they did. I asked if there were other churches that believed that too and she laughed and said “Oh yes!”

It wasn’t long after that I went to church with her and repented. May 25, 1995 I was baptized in Jesus’ name, and on June 25, 1995 I received the Holy Ghost. I wish I had been raised in this precious truth but I am so thankful God shined His truth on me as a young adult and brought me out of false doctrine and into His Marvelous Light. Living for Jesus just gets better and better and I wouldn’t miss this for the world!