TESTIMONY
The Prayer of Faith
By Christine McWhorter
The 700 Club
CBN.com
– “I don’t know how it’s possible, but I missed him my whole life, even though I never even knew him, because he died when I was two.”
Faith Harriman was only a toddler when her father died. Soon afterward a family member began abusing her.
“It would just kind of come out of nowhere,” she tells The 700 Club, “and the person would turn into a fit of rage really and it was very scary. Things like pinches on the arm that would cause little bruises to having handfuls of hair pulled out or being thrown into corners, being kicked across an entire room almost.”
She craved her father’s love, but as she grew older, she simply wanted a man to love her.
She met someone when she was 15. He was 21. They began dating and moved in together. But after that, everything changed. She recalls, “I lost my virginity, then he left and broke my heart. I thought he loved me, and then he said, ‘You should date other people. You’re too young. See ya.’”
Faith decided no one would ever hurt her again.
“I broke up with people. I left people, and I realized I did everything I could do to not ever have to be left. I could live my life and be free and do what I wanted to do and never be vulnerable again.”
But isolating herself didn’t stop faith’s misery. She found a different way to numb her pain. It started with alcohol.
“What turned into have a drink turned into smoking pot, and then that’s just kind of a gateway. I ended up experimenting with drugs and getting sucked into the wrong crowd.”
Faith grew up going to church. She even prayed to become a Christian, but “it just didn’t stick.”
She continues, “I would give my life back to God or thought I’m not going to drink anything anymore. It wouldn’t last very long, because I wouldn’t take myself out of a situation. I felt like I left God. I think I was so disappointed with myself that I thought of course He was disappointed with me. I should have been stronger.”
Faith felt like God didn’t accept her, so she started dating someone who did. He was the perfect man or so she thought.
“He ended up being physically abusive, verbally abusive. Really scaring me. I was in a very fearful relationship, and I put up with stuff that I never would have.”
The two got engaged. Faith knew she shouldn’t stay in the relationship, but she was too much in love to call it quits. Then she discovered that she was pregnant.
“I knew that I could make stupid decisions for my life, but for an innocent child, she deserved the very best of everything that I could do. So I just got on my face and cried out to God to be there.”
She knew she had to leave her fiancé.
“I was crying out in my bed going, ‘God, I’m going to marry this guy, but if he’s going to ruin my life and this little girl’s life, set us free.’ So He gave me a clean conscience with leaving. I took off with nowhere to go, pregnant.”
Faith was alone again. But this time she decided to turn to God instead of a man.
“I cried out broken, ‘If it’s not too late for my destiny, if I haven’t ruined it, if You haven’t given my assignment to somebody else, then use me. Here I am.’”
Faith says when she prayed that prayer, God changed her life completely. An old friend gave her somewhere to live, and she joined a church. Now instead of looking to men for love, she looks to God.
Today, her daughter Elise is three years old. Faith and Elise spend much of their time in Peru, where Faith ministers to abused and forgotten women.
“I thought it was too late, because I’d wasted years. I thought it was too early, because I wasn’t old enough or holy enough or a virgin or married. I’m a single mom and a statistic to the world," she says. "Everything that you thought you lost or that the enemy stole as a child before you even had a say so, He can give and fulfill all those things. He can awaken those dreams.”
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