My name is Barbara Lenoy, but I like people to call me Barbie, it’s shorter. I have a joke with them too, you know? Sometimes they forget. I say Barbie, you know, Barbie doll! That’s easy to remember.

I was an alcoholic. I knocked around in the parks. No, it was good. My partner, we were drunks, but my partner wanted to go to sleep but I had my plan, I wanted to go up to the mission to look around for more drink.

I asked for a smoke and I sat down and had a smoke and I can hear this pastor preaching in the church. When I went in, I didn’t go sit on the chairs. I went over in the corner, dark, where I can just sit there and nobody can see me because, see, I was still drunk and I was dirty. So I sat there listening. I was standing next to another Christian lady. And I said to her, “Here, sister, can I go out for prayers?” And she said, “Yeah, no, that’s all right, go out, go on!” But there was a lot of people there, you know, wanting to go to the pastor.

There was only a couple who were next to this other bloke on this side. I said, “I just want prayers, please. I’m an alcoholic. I want to stop drinking.” And when he prayed, I don’t know why, I cried. I was crying. He had to give me a towel.

My friend saw me sitting in the front there after everything finished. She came and she said, “You’re coming home to my place tonight, Barbie, you’re sleeping home tonight.”

She said, “We go to church tomorrow.” So next day we went, she gave me clean clothes for church and I went to church and the church was packed. When pastor Jessie finished talking, the other bloke I saw the night before, his name was Reg. And he said, “Do you want to say something?” He said, “It’s lovely to see you this morning, Barbie.” And I felt shame because he said my name in front of everybody and I thought “Oo-ah, you remembered my name from all the people last night.” And he said, “You’re looking nice this morning” because I was clean, see, because the night before I was drunk and I was dirty.

My partner, I live with him for 30 years – we fight, we drink and everything, and I’d run away from Peter. And I said to him, I said, “I want security.” And I know that this is the security that I was seeking for all the time.

Lord Jesus, he was my security that I was searching for and I thank him for my life today because he brought me from nowhere. He saved my life. He saved my life. If he didn’t find me, I’d be either still out there in the world, drunk. If not, I would be dead. If I died then, at that time, I’d go to hell from what I learn from reading the Bible. I’d go to hell because I didn’t know the Lord Jesus, I didn’t know about him.

So when we went back and I shared with Peter I said “I can’t live with you no more”, meaning “I can’t sleep with you no more, it’s wrong.” He said to me, “We get married.” I was willing to walk away from all that 30-odd years. Because we honored God, all doors were opened.

So we got married down at our little camp on the 18th of August, 2001. These are blessings that come from God!

One day, he said to me, “Barbie, mate, I want to come to church with you.”

I thank the Lord for Peter’s life because he gave his heart to the Lord before he died. I lost my husband.

My sister lives at Mt Isa. And when she came for a visit with me – this was a few years ago – and she brought her grandchildren with her. And Naomi said when she walked out to go to the toilet, she could see like a tunnel, and when she looked back to the camp, she said it was like a white covering was over the camp. And she said it looked like crystal. I said, “You know, the Lord Jesus looks after us. So he put that over us to keep us all safe at night.” And I thought, “Lord, Let me see that too, please!”

I love John chapter 14, verse 6. Because Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” because he showed me the truth and because he is the truth. And he showed me the way and the way is to him. I just live for him daily. My salvation is with the Lord today – not yesterday, it’s finished. Not tomorrow. We don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring. Make your life right today. Be prepared – like that little battery, you know? Eveready battery, you know, Everready, eh? Yeah, that’s it.

Barbara Lenoy, Palm Island, Qld, by 40 Stories is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0