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CBN.com – ““The interesting thing is that when I was born my mother laid me on the altar, gave me to the Lord and said, ‘I’m going to give You Lorna that her life would glorify You. Use her in Your work,’” recalls Lorna Effler.
“I grew up in the church all my life: Vacation Bible School, church Sunday, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Then my parents marriage broke up.”
Lorna Effler’s father wasn’t around, and her mother gave her a lot of freedom.
“I was out and about all hours of the night,” Lorna says. “My home life was not at all going to church or anything like that. We had basically quit doing that.”
Although Lorna loved art, she decided to major in business.
“I thought I would like to go into the business world, manage possibly bands and go into the entertainment field. I just wanted to dive right into that type of lifestyle.”
A lifestyle that had too much of everything – including drugs.
“Some days during that time especially in my early 20s, it had gotten to the point where we would just do drugs for days,” Lorna says. “It was always a time of wanting more of that. You couldn’t get enough of it. It seemed as if you were never satisfied. So you would get up the next day and go for it again, go for it again, go for it again.
“There were many times that I shouldn’t have made it through and I did. I wanted a purpose and none of that gave me a purpose. After the hangovers, after coming down, after doing everything and ending up with Lorna at the end of the day, I was so unhappy with myself. I didn’t like myself at all. I hated myself actually. I used to think I wish that I could die.”
Lorna thought back to her childhood. She realized that a relationship with God was the only way out of her despair. She started watching The 700 Club. But for a long time, nothing changed.
“I continued watching The 700 Club, continued saying the sinner’s prayer, but going on living my life. Then one Sunday morning after a weekend of just heavy partying, I woke up filled with so much anxiety and so much fear that I thought that I have got to get to church. If I don’t get to church I’m going to die. But I felt like the Lord was getting ready to take His hand off of me. Some people say that His hand is always on you. I felt like in my heart God was saying, ‘Lorna, I’ve called you over and over and over through the years. I’ve protected you, and I’m lifting My hand, and you’re going to be on your own.’
“I got to church as fast as I could, as bad as I felt. When they had the altar call I went up and rededicated my life to the Lord.
“I was carrying the heaviest burden in the world. It was just like a sack full of rocks with another one connected and another one connected and another one. It was unbelievable how much baggage I was carrying of guilt, shame and everything else. After I left there and gave my life to the Lord, it was like somebody had taken scissors and clipped that off my back. I walked out of there, and I wasn’t physically sick anymore. I was full of peace. I felt like I was walking about three inches off the ground, and I just felt lightheaded. I completely lost my desire just for that lifestyle. I used to have such a strong urge for that lifestyle. Just everything about it. I couldn’t imagine not living that lifestyle. I just didn’t have that urge at all anymore for those things of the world. It was just gone.”
When God took away Lorna’s desire for her old way of life, He replaced it with another desire – one she’d given up long ago.
“In the beginning of doing my art, I really got involved doing the wildlife art. Then after I gave my life back to the Lord, I asked Him one morning during my Bible study, ‘Lord, if there is anything You’d like me to paint just tell me because I want to do what You want, what You created me to do.’ I went back to reading my Bible, and He began to give me visions of paintings right then. He continues to give them to me today.
“I finally found my purpose. So that was my purpose. He basically told me that He wanted me to have an art ministry and to call it ‘Revelation Art.’”
Today, Lorna’s life is completely different than it used to be.
“God does know what will make you happy and what He created you for. There is a void there in you that is only for you and that only God can fill in you.”
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