My name is Ruth MacCárthaigh and I was brought up in Blackrock in Co Louth, Ireland as a Catholic.

I never felt I had a close relationship with God. I lost confidence with the church and from my mid-teens onwards I began to think and believe that because the image of God I had been shown was wrong, that there was no God.

I moved to Dublin when I was seventeen, met and fell in love with Dave. We were very happy and over the next ten years bought a house, went on holidays and generally had a very pleasant and happy life together. When our marriage broke down due to his unfaithfulness I was devastated. I still loved him very much and found leaving him, selling our home and moving back to Dundalk very hard.

I thought I would never get over the break with Dave but with the love and help of my family I eventually did. After two years went by I met Sean. I couldn't believe it! We fell in love with one another, bought a house in Newry, got engaged to be married, planned for a family and once again I was looking forwards to a happy future.

Sean died in a car accident when I was six months pregnant. There is no point in trying to describe to you how I felt at the time, I don't think it's possible. I had my son, Sean, exactly twelve weeks after his father died. I had been afraid at the time that I might loose the baby so I tried as best as I could to keep the grief in. After the birth I was afraid I might get post natal depression, so I continued to hold in the grief so much so that eventually, eighteen months after Sean's death, I found I was getting worse rather than better. Although I did visit Sean's grave, I found no comfort there as I had been an atheist for years. I started to attend a bereavement group and once again, after two years, things began to look up.

Although before and after Sean's death my relationship with Sean's family had been good, it began to break down, so much so that eventually I left my home, leaving most of my furniture and belongings and moved back to Blackrock. I had hoped things would improve for me there but instead things got worse. I found myself at a point in my life that I just wanted to give up. I had lost Dave, my home in Dublin, Sean, his family, my home in Newry and now I felt as if I was loosing my own family. I didn't understand why all this was happening to me and on the night of my lowest ebb I cried out to God that if he was there, I didn't care. I asked him what was the point in living this life if you could trust nobody and have to be miserable all your life. Whatever bit of faith I had left in the human race deserted me at this time. I hated the world and everything to do with it. I wanted out. It's hard to admit it now, but right then, what went through my mind was the need for everything to stop, I wanted to end my life. It was really then that the full horror of my situation hit me. I wasn't going anywhere because I had my son Sean to care for. I couldn't leave him and make him an orphan with no father and mother. I felt trapped. Whatever lows I had reached up to this point in my life, this was the worst, and I knew I had hit rock bottom. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this proved to be the changing point in my life for the better and it would never be the same again!

On a Monday, my sister who attended the Dundalk Baptist Centre asked the women there to pray for me because she was going to ask me to go to a meeting with her the following Friday. The next day, Tuesday, my brother told me that if I wanted to believe in God that I should ask him into my life. That evening, I said something like this out loud, "Lord Jesus, please come into my life". To tell the truth, I felt a little bit silly and just went to bed and forgot all about it.

My sister asked me to go to the meeting with her on the Friday night and I thought "why not?" There were two speakers there and they spoke about Jesus and God and they started the meeting by reading some of the Bible. They explained why Jesus came here and why he died. That we are not, because of our sin, able to go to Him so instead Jesus came us. They explained the real love that God has for us. A love that cost Him a lot and cost us nothing. Nobody had ever explained the relationship between God and us and between the Father and Jesus this way before. In all the times I had heard it at school and mass, I had never had it explained so clearly and correctly as at this time. This was the first time I had ever heard the true Gospel, the true story of Jesus, how and why He had died to take the guilt of our sin and allow us to be close to Him. Nobody had explained to me that when God punished His only Son, the Son of God, He was punishing Him in my place. All my sins were placed on Jesus and God punished Jesus in my place. He also showed me the meaning of life, my life. 

One of the men said that he was going to confess his sins and that if anybody wanted to join him they could do so silently if they wanted to. He said that he was a sinner and I prayed in my mind to God that I too was a sinner. He said that he was sorry for his sins and I thought of some of the things I have done in the past, things I had long buried with the hope of forgetting, things I was desperately ashamed of. I prayed to God that I too was sorry and meant it. The whole night was upsetting for me and I left feeling down.

Two weeks later I went to the Baptist Church with my sister and thought it was wonderful! I felt full of peace and happiness and yet I also felt very bad, almost as if everybody there could see right through me to my sins. I came back that evening and felt the same again. A day or two later I got my mother's Bible and began to read through it. A few minutes later I put my two hands on it and I began to cry. God revealed to me right there that everything in His Bible was true. Nobody told me. Nobody convinced me. God, in a supernatural way showed me and convinced me. I just knew everything in it was true. I knew God was real, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I knew it was what I had been looking for all these years. I have to admit that I cried with happiness. 

Now I knew I was right with God, what the Bible calls saved. He revealed himself to me. There is such a difference between believing in God because somebody tells you, and God himself coming down and revealing himself to you. I was shocked! After all these years, to find out from God himself that He is real. 

Things moved quickly. I started to read the Bible and attend Bible study classes. I attended the Church. I asked Stephen, my pastor, every question I could think of and by referring to the Bible time and time again, and he answered them all. I began to pray. I sat up for hours at night reading and praying and just talking to God, it was the most wonderful time of my life. It was also a very hard time for me as I had to come to terms with what I was really like. It was as if Jesus held up a mirror and I saw what I should be like. It helped me realise how rotten and sinful I was and how much I needed God's forgiveness. Almost three months later I got baptised.

Since God saved me from my old life to a life of hope and to a life with a true relationship with Him, my life has changed completely. I am a new person. I am happy and loved. The best of times before are nothing to compare with the worst of times now! I am blessed because God has turned my life around. Even when I have trials, He is with me and helps me through them in a very real way. 

Everything I need to know about how to live this life, I find in the Bible, and with God's help I try to live by every word of it. He has healed several broken relationships that I have had with people over the years. He has changed me to the extent that I am not ashamed to tell people all about Him, something that I would never have thought possible. Not only have I His assurance of being with Him for eternity but He helps me to live this life here and now. Instead of trying to live my life my way, I seek God's will in everything. In the past I had tried things my way and if I am totally honest, it wasn’t a success. Since God has adopted me, so to speak, and I have allowed Him a free hand in my life, things have never been better. I am now happily married to another Christian, Niall. He and I are devoting our lives to God and part of that is to tell you what the Lord wants you to know, that He loves you and want's you, and He is waiting for you to turn to Him.

You know, you don't have to trust in your good deeds to get to God, you don't have to climb a ladder of prayer and penance to reach Him.

You don't have to wait until you are good enough for Him before

you go to him, He will come to you where you are right now, and the way you are right now. Just ask him! He will show you the way. There is nothing you have that God wants. Just you. Think of how you have sinned and realising who you have sinned against (God), ask Him to forgive you. Hand yourself fully over to Him. You will be in God’s hands. 

One way to find Him is through the Bible. You could start in the New Testament, say, Matthew, Mark, Luke or John in particular.

I believe that God loves me and has been waiting for me to call out to Him. I in turn was busy living a happy, contented life without a thought for God. Thankfully, with love, God got my attention (eventually!) by allowing my life to fall apart, bit by bit. When my marriage broke down I turned to my family for help and comfort. When dear Sean died I turned to his family for help and comfort.

When my life fell asunder I had nobody left to turn to. In desperation I turned to God, hoping that there was somebody or something that would help me, and found that He was there! 

I was an atheist for almost twenty years, but ended up desperately hoping that there was more to life, and God has proved to me that there is. An awful lot more! An eternity. 

There is a real peace in being saved. A real peace between you and God that nothing can shake. 

You can spend the remainder of your life getting to know Him and enjoying Him.