Personal Testimony

Virgil Cormier

     While growing up, I had two loving parents and I was the youngest of four children.  We went to church often, but it didn't make much sense to me.  I had a troubled childhood, both of my parents were alcoholics and I had been abused by my father.  My mom turned to alcohol as an escape.  We moved to Canada for a year, hoping things would get better, but that didn't happen.  When I was 14, my mom died of a massive heart attack.  Life became very difficult for us children.  It was hard for my father to raise us, so my older brother and I moved in with my aunt and uncle.  Things were very tough.  As I was growing into my teen years, I started getting involved in some worldly things and getting into trouble.  I didn't have much care about anything.  I quit high school and was making all the wrong decisions.  Then I met my wife, Diane.  Thngs were starting to get better.  I asked her to marry me.  I finally found what family was all about.  Life seemed the way it was supposed to be, or what I thought it was supposed to be.  We had our share of bad things happen to us.  In 1988 whle we were on our way to Canada, we received a call from someone back home.  Our home had burned to the ground and we had nothing left but the clothes that we had packed for vacation.  We had two young boys and no place to go.  During the next few years we had more hard times.  Everything that could happen to us, did happen.  We had no hope for the future.  Little did we know that God had been working in our lives the whole time.  One day my brother came to visit; he had been saved for years.  He shared the Gospel with Diane and me.  My wife thought he was nuts, and I said the salvation prayer just to shut him up.  He continued to share with us the love of Christ, but we just didn't understand at that time in our lives.  Years later, my wife met someone that attended Calvary Baptist Church.  They invited us to a Valentine's banquet; which my wife and I attended.  We couldn't believe the love that was showed to us.  At that time, little did we know, that the love they showed us was the love of God.  We felt like we belonged there so, we started going to church there.  Our kids were attending the AWANA program, while we were attending the adult services.  We could feel God working in our lives, and for the first time in my life I had a sense of belonging.  There we heard the Gospel true and clear; I finally understood what my brother was trying so hard to tell me.  Then one day at lunch time, while sitting in my car, I started thnking of the way my life was going.  I was reading my Bible and I was studying the book of Romans.  Then I understood, I was a sinner separated from God by my sin.  I realized that Jesus was the missing person in my life and He died and rose again.  I felt convicted of my sins, so I prayed for Jesus Christ to come into my life and take away my sins.  That day I placed my faith in Jesus Christ.  I now have that special hope of knowing I will be in Heaven one day.  I began serving at church as an AWANA leader, seeing how God was working in the lives of all these children and changing their lives right before my eyes.  My life has changed over the years and God gave me a wife to whom I've been married to for 26 years and blessed me with 5 wonderful children.  I now enjoy serving as a deacon and a youth leader.  God has given me the gift of helps and the desire to serve Him in many other areas of the ministry.

My life verse is "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."  John 3:16

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