A Marvelous Story of Redemption

Hands & Hearts ‐ Liliana’s Story

Have you ever thought that your hands can be a reflection of your heart? I mean what they do, how they look, can be affected by the storms or the peace that rules our heart.
Christ’s hands were nail scarred because His heart was full of love and compassion for the sinner. As a father, my hands can comfort and reassure a sick child or worried wife; if my heart is kind and unselfish.
When Liliana thinks of hands, immediately her memories swirl and draw her back to a dark time in her life ‐ before she met Christ and took His hand and free gift of Eternal Life.
Liliana worked in our OSY evangelistic camps during the month of June as program staff and female counselor. She was a long way from her first 25 years of life. The hands of her father and mother were bloody hands as she recalls her alcoholic father repeatedly beating her mother. He would pin her against the wall as his hands wrapped around her neck and slammed her and held her there under his force and anger. Her mother was a beaten
visage and the blood would trickle and find its way to her hands in a horrible scene that Liliana would watch. Another beating endured another brutal display of a wicked heart.
As Liliana was witness to these repeated anguishes of the heart, her heart became filled with fear. The beatings and abuse did not stay isolated on Liliana’s mother but spread to Liliana’s life and that of her siblings. Her father’s heart would be filled with such rage that he would turn on his
own children in his drunken rampages and throw them out into the streets where they were forced to survive on their own for days at a time. Liliana’s hands learned to find food from the garbage cans outside of local restaurants ‐ a desperate heart and desperately hungry hands.
At 20 years old and after experiencing continued abuse at the hands and heart of an alcoholic father, Liliana’s heart was now filled with hatred. She hated men, and her heart made a decision that no man would ever hurt her again. To find the strength to live such an isolated and guarded life her hands grabbed the same bottle that controlled her father and now without realization she began to fill her heart with the same poison. The alcohol abuse that would control her life for years to come had now begun.
With her hands wrapped tightly around the bottle and her heart numb to relationships with men, almost unnoticeably she entered the world of prostitution where her heart was telling her she was using the men for their money, they weren’t using her for the sex.
Five years into trying to escape the pain in her heart through drugs, alcohol and prostitution, Liliana became pregnant. Her heart was selfish, it was the only model she really had to follow, for her mother’s heart had been broken, but her dad’s had been to dominate.
Her selfish heart chose the drugs instead of being a good mother. The baby was born, but intervention had to be made in order for that birth to take place. Liliana would not leave the street and party life alone, so her mother would tie her to the bed and not allow her to leave until the baby was born. As soon as the baby was born Liliana returned to the streets.
Liliana continued to reach for the drugs and alcohol in an attempt to calm the storms in her heart, but it was killing her and she hated every waking moment of her life, which caused the partying to become even more intense and dangerous. After a night of partying she blacked out with a toxic combination of drugs and alcohol.
The three days of no memory that followed her blackout filled Liliana’s heart once again with fear. All she knew is that she woke up bruised, beaten and her clothes had been torn off. An empty heart, no memory of how this nightmarish image in the mirror - her image - got that way. But it was finally the break she needed. She was empty.
It was now that she sought something real - and through a friend she met Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. A friend who for years had told her there is more to life and His name is Jesus. Now she was willing to receive Christ into her heart as her personal Lord and Saviour.
Through serving at our OSY camps, we saw Liliana’s new heart, as her hands reached out to other girls that were walking down the same dangerous path of drugs, alcohol and prostitution. Liliana was gently
guiding them to the Saviour. Her smile and sparkling eyes are more proof to the change in this once dark, cold, detached heart that is today filled with the love of God.
Liliana’s message today for others like her; “There is a God who loves you very much and wants a better life for you. There is more to life - it is called God and He will help you change - allow Him to.”
This ministry is not only helping the lost, but God is using it to strengthen and heal His children. Hearts and hands once bent on evil and destruction today are reflecting and mirroring the heart and hands of the Saviour.

Please pray for our staff as we prepare for the 9inal OSY camps of 2009.