I Was Angry with God
- I’m Thalia Van De Vendel, and this is my story.
I was practically raised in bars. When I was born, my parents weren’t together, and my mom had to work to help raise my sister Yasminda and I. So I was passed between family members to be taken care of. My grandfather owned a restaurant and bar. He would hide me under the bar, hand me candy, and make sure I stayed quiet while he worked tirelessly to keep the restaurant busy.
My mother divorced my father after finding out about my father’s infidelity, and my sister and I grew up in a single-parent house until I was 2 years old, when my mom remarried. I moved to the United States from Puerto Rico at 3 years old. As a military kid, I only got to go back home every 3 or 4 years. After my mom had my baby brother and then went back to work, she and my stepfather weren’t around much because of work. My siblings and I were raised by our babysitters.
I had my first sip of alcohol when I was around 10. A family member gave it to me, and it was “normal” in my culture to try alcohol young. During my teenage years I grew up finding out a lot about my family’s history, especially my biological dad’s. He was always in my life, and sometimes I would ask him to come pick me up, but he would often leave me waiting for him on the front steps until dark. My grandmother would tell me to come back inside because my dad wasn’t coming. This caused me to be very angry at my dad, and I grew up resenting him for being unfaithful to my mom and for the feeling of abandonment he gave me. I felt like because he didn’t love my mom anymore, he probably didn’t love me either.
As a teenager, I would sneak out to go hang out with “friends” and drink with whoever was old enough to purchase alcohol. I started to experiment more with drugs. I had a terrible relationship with my mom because I wanted to go out and party more than I wanted to be home. In high school I was ok with just making it by with my grades. I knew I wasn’t going to college and didn’t have the motivation to go anyway. Partying, smoking, and drinking were more important. Then I found out from my grandmother that my grandfather was very sick. He was having multiple surgeries, and I decided I was going to move back to Puerto Rico after high school and help take care of my grandfather. A year after moving back to Puerto Rico and taking care of my nephews, grandmother, and grandfather, my grandfather passed away. It was by far the worst day of my life. I was extremely angry with God and started questioning everything about his existence. I grew up Catholic so I had a slight idea of who God was but didn’t really understand much about what his role was in my life. I turned to doing more of the bad things I was already doing just to numb my pain. Every night I would go to bed asking God why he would take away the only man in my life that I felt loved me. My anger grew stronger towards the church. I made the decision I would never step foot in any church again. Until one day I met my would-be husband, Blaine. We had one dinner date, and in the very first couple of sentences he asked if I was willing to go to church with him. At first, I’ll be honest, I hesitated at the thought, but I agreed. The first day at this church I met Blaine’s mother, Brandi. She and I hit it off almost immediately, I felt so comfortable around her. After a few days of knowing me, she introduced me to the RU recovery program and gave me a Bible and a daily journal for Christmas. I didn’t know what to think at first, but the fact that I felt accepted and loved by Blaine’s family made me want to show up to church every Sunday. I thought “Finally, someone is willing to show me love, acceptance, and what it’s like to be like Jesus.” When I was doing my RU challenges and going to church I decided to start cleaning up my life. It was very hard, and every time I became tempted I went back into God’s Word and my temptations started to diminish.
After 6 months of going to church every Sunday I could and staying faithful in reading my Bible, I finally accepted Christ into my life on May 13, 2018, at the kitchen table of Blaine’s mother’s house with the help of Chaplin Alva Page using John 3:16. I was 21 years old and had completely broken the chains of my addiction. I remember the satisfaction and excitement I felt. A huge weight was lifted. Blaine had been gone on a trip, and when he came back and heard this great news he finally asked me if I wanted to start building a relationship that was more than friendship, and I accepted. In April 2018 I finally got baptized. I married the love of my life a year later. Meeting Blaine and Blaine’s family completely changed my life. Serving the Lord mended a lot of my anger towards my father and helped me become a better sister and wife. Ironically, serving God helped me get over my anger towards God.
I highly encourage you if you have not met the Lord, if you haven’t accepted him into your life as your personal Savior, please do so. You will never regret this decision, and you will be happy you did. Every wound, every heartache, every sin you ever had will be forgiven by the blood of Christ. No matter what you’ve done in your past you will be assured a place in heaven if you just put your trust in Jesus Christ.
John 3:16 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.
Romans 10:9 “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
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