AMAZING STORY
Forced to Choose Between Two Lives
By Randy Rudder
The 700 Club
CBN.com - “In my heart, something happened that day. I was realizing that he wasn’t coming back. I was never going to see my father again.” Christine D’Clario’s father passed away when she was a small girl. “That started growing a root, a very bitter root inside my heart; against God, against goodness, against myself, against all the good things that came from my family.”
Christine says her mom always took them to church, but her bitterness towards God only grew deeper. “It was just like this tornado of things going on inside of me, and the feelings of orphan hood of not having my father.”
One thing she did possess was a beautiful singing voice. “I first started singing in church when I was nine years old. I remember it was a children’s service. When I grabbled that microphone; something about it just grabbed ahold of my soul,” she says.
Christine began seeking her identity through her relationships with boys. “There came a point in which I did fall in love with this guy that gave me all the attention in the world. I was willing to allow myself to be completely sunken into his personality. He would say, ‘jump’ and I would say, ‘How high?’”
The relationship lasted several years, but ended in a bitter breakup after Christine went off to college. “That was when the blaming God for taking my father really took its full effect,” she says. “(I was thinking,) ‘If only God had not taken my father when He did, I would not have ended up here, I would not have met this guy, we would not have moved to this town. None of this would be happening and my heart would not be broken right now. If only…’”
By now she was an accomplished vocalist and led worship at her church, but it was all for the wrong reasons. “God had given me a gift to touch people’s hearts through music, and I was taking advantage of that gift. I was getting up on stage and singing all kinds of music; whether it was Christian music or not, whether Jesus was the center of it or just love--or even lust--was the center of it. It didn’t matter, as long as I was on that stage, behind that mic, getting the applause.”
For Christine, it was a stepping-stone to a potential career as a pop star. “I started mingling on weekends with church folk, and being the worship leader that everybody knew I was. During the week, I started frequenting bars or dance clubs, or hanging out with the atheist club, and just questioning the very existence of the God that I had been taught about my entire life. I wanted to make a statement – a rebellious statement - to God that He wasn’t in control of me.”
She started getting the attention of record labels and producers—but it left her cold. “I was still that girl that didn’t have a father. I was still that girl that didn’t belong.”
After several years, living the double life became too much. One evening, Christine asked God to prove Himself to her. “I just pointed my finger at God and I said, ‘OK God, if You’re real, if You exist, if You love me like the Bible says You do, You have until midnight tonight to show me. And if You don’t, I will understand that either You’re not real or if You are, You don’t care.’”
That evening, Christine went out to dinner with several members of the worship team. She was outside praying with one of them afterwards, when she heard footsteps, “I heard the voice of a woman say, ‘This says the Lord to you. Tonight, I lay before you two paths, of which you shall choose only one. The first is My path, My way, the way of My own heart and will for you. If you choose that path, it won’t be easy. I will have to operate in your heart. I will make you whole again. I will make you healthy again, and I will always be with you, because I am your Father and you are My child, and I love you.’”
Christine was stunned, but kept listening.
The woman went on to say, “’Then there is the other path, which is the way of your heart. If you choose that path, you will obtain that fame that you so crave. You will even have money and fortunes and millions of people around the world will come to know your name, and you will even be idolized by many. But if you choose the path of your heart, My Presence will not go with you.”
Christine knew than what choice she had to make.
“That day, it became so clear to me that I need God in order to live my life, I need God in order to have peace. I chose Jesus. I chose Him, and I truly repented in my heart. I asked Him to forgive every single one of those terrible sins that I had committed. The Lord used that woman to tell me, ‘Yes, I am real. Yes, I do exist. Yes, I do love you. And I have plans for you.’”
She turned her life over to Jesus that night and has not looked back. Today she and her husband Carlos have a music ministry and Christine is a popular touring contemporary Christian recording artist.
“I was broken, but He’s mended me. He has made me new again, and all of His promises have come true in my life. The Bible says that He is at the door and He is knocking and He is waiting. And if you open the door of your heart, He will come in, and He will sit with you and He will dine with you, and He will teach you the way to go.”
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