My Path to God
My name is Lea Foresta, from West Virginia in the USA. I am 43 years old, and I have a call to preach and get a Bible education at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about online Bible classes, Click Here).
Challenges
I grew up poor. My mom didn’t have an actual job. She was a “woman of the night.” The day I was born, they had to do an emergency c-section to get me out. My heart had stopped. It took them nearly six minutes to revive me. That day, they also told my mom I would never walk because I had short legs. By the grace of God, at 8.5 months old, I was running around my doctor’s office. I also died when I was four years old from pneumonia. When I was 16, the doctor told me that I would be in a wheelchair by 25. By the grace of God, I’m not.
My journey has not been a pleasant one but a necessary one. At the age of five, my mom’s boyfriend molested me. At 23, I married and had my first daughter. Then a few months later, my mom died, and I ended up very depressed. During that time, I became furious. Angry at myself, mad at the world, mad at my mom, and mad at God. I ended up cheating on my husband and getting pregnant with another man’s baby. Finally, my husband left me and took our daughter.
I ended up homeless and had to give my youngest daughter up for adoption (the best thing for her since I didn’t have a home). After that, I was homeless off and on for six years, in and out of bad relationships. Then, at around the age of 28, a man raped me. I do not see myself as a victim but as a survivor. It is only by the grace of God that I didn’t end up dead.
Call to Preach and Get a Bible Education at CLI
At the age of 38, I met my current husband. I told him all of the above, and he asked me to come to church with him. He said to go one time, and if I didn’t like it, that was okay. So, I went to church with him. While there, I start having a panic attack. In the middle of the attack, a calm feeling came over me. The panic attack stopped. I felt better. That’s when I knew it was God speaking to my heart to calm down – everything would be fine. That’s when I knew my anger at God was nonsense. So, we continued going to church.
We got married in the middle of the Covid pandemic. Oddly for most of my life, I knew I had a call to preach. At around 20, I had called different churches to find out how to become a preacher. The last one I called just laughed at me. So, I gave up after that. My husband helped bring me back to God. He also helped me realize that I can be a preacher. That’s when he discovered the Christian Leaders Institute. I did a google search. Now my husband and I are on a ministry path together. God is good!
