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Ivan Tait was at Abundant Grace this past week leading several services Sunday through Wednesday.  Watch and Listen to them all here.

Ivan’s Testimony:
Being born half Mexican, half Scottish and raised around black folks gave me a definite schizophrenic personality. My early years were spent in my grandmother’s house. We were very strict Catholics and I loved the mysticism and ghost culture that we were raised around. My grandmother, a war-like figure, would take me across the border of Mexico every Friday to purchase food for her Mexican restaurant. The crippled, maimed and orphaned would fill the streets with their tin cups. Beggars and street vendors were everywhere. The smells of dirt and poverty were everywhere. This was a very traumatic event for me, being only five years old and so I would often begin to cry. My grandmother finally figured out that if she would give me a bag of pennies to give to the beggars I would be quiet. I would take my pennies and walk around giving them away. Even at 5 and 6 years old God was forming my heart for my destiny. As I grew up my father left us which left me bitter and twisted inside. I became very tortured, rejected and angry, which led to me becoming very shy and anti-social. The only release I found was sports, so I threw myself into becoming the best athlete that I could be. I found temporary relief from the self-loathing and hatred but still became increasingly violent and explosive. Constant fights and fear plagued me because of my identity crisis. I felt unwanted after several heart breaking events and failed hopes at love and life. I became suicidal and found myself cussing at God in church. Threatening that if He didn’t do something I would kill myself. Two weeks later I was chasing a cheerleader down the street and when I reached her she turned around and said “you have mental problems”, which I fully agreed with so I said “yes I do, and you can fix them”. She pulled out a book, torn and battered and without a cover. She said “if you want to talk to me you will have to read this book”. I agreed of course. She told me to go sit under a tree and read it and that when I was finished I could come and talk to her. So, I found a mesquite tree nearby and sat down. The book opened to 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. Before I was half way through it a dam broke inside of me. A dam of pain, hurt, rejection, vileness and hatred poured out. It seemed to flow out of me unstoppable, uncontrollable. Relief began to flood my soul as I had not cried since I was 8 years old up until that moment. I had vowed that no one would ever make me cry again. I began to feel this urge to talk to God. I said, “Dear God please help me change. I can’t do it by myself. If this feeling will stay with me forever I will do anything you want”. I became a Christian that day and began my journey of discovering God’s will and plan for my life. That journey has taken many roads and been shaped through many choices but I now know why God gave me a heart for orphans and widows as a child. Because nothing in our lives is a wasted event when God puts His hands on it. Our lives are called by God to be significant.

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Purchase “His Glory Appears” From the Hillsong “Faith + Hope + Love” album.