Before I came to know Jesus, I was raised in a Christian home with two Christian parents. I often spent time with my father's parents who were also Christian. I had attended church with my parents and understood that Jesus was God's son and He was born in a manger, died on a cross, and rose again. Mostly however I was a typical boy, with little sense of being good, what you did to avoid being punished, or being bad, what you did when you got punished.  

During that time, I attended what our church called "Junior Church" run by two patient women while the adults were in the regular church service. One day in junior church when I was around 6 or 7, they talked about why Jesus had come to earth, why He had to die and how important it was that He rose again.

They told me that the Bible says that after God created the world, including man, man sinned, bringing sin into the world and separating us from God. That separation due to sin would become permanent at our death as we would be condemned to hell, a real place of punishment, torment, and separation from God.

At that point, as a child, they had my attention. I knew I didn't want to go to hell and if Jesus was the way to keep out of there I was all in. The women went on to explain that the Bible also says that God wants to be able to have a relationship with us again, but the sin needed paid-for. The punishment for sin is death, so He sent His only Son Jesus to die in our place, satisfying the payment. After He died, He rose again 3 days later conquering death itself. We just need to accept what Jesus already did for us.

I asked God to forgive my sins that day and accepted the gift of His son Jesus to pay for them.

I don't know how much my life changed to those around me, but on that day, God put His hand on me. While I still struggled with sin and temptation, there was always God providing people in my life when I needed them for spiritual reassurance. He also provided checkpoints, for lack of a better word, in my life when He asked: "Are you going to serve me now?"

The most real time that occurred was working a summer job at a graphite electrode plant. I was working with the plant's bricklayers one day and found myself alone in the mortar shed. That day I felt the Holy Spirit on me like never before, saying: "You served me as a child, now will you serve me as an adult?" My answer was, "Yes!".

From that point on, I could sense God directing my path. He made me discontented in my career choice, providing a clear direction for where to turn. He gave me a wife with whom I have shared many life changes and challenges. He removed me out of my stunted spiritual situation and challenged me to see Him anew and to see things like He does. I find the more I obey Him, the more He brings my way.

Seeds, seeds are dead. They look dead yet they are full of potential life. I am fascinated with seeds. A fully thriving plant must die in order to produce a seed, in turn that seed lays dormant until such a time that it is nurtured with moisture and warmth in the right environment, which allows life to grow. People like seeds have seasons, and must die to self, in order to be a fruit, or rather produce the seeds for the next generation of life. V
In a lifetime, we have many seasons, some longer than others. Some seasons are clear in purpose with what to do. Others not so readily visible. Perhaps in what appears to be a dormant season, he is giving us as an opportunity to slow down a bit and rest more in God's presence with prayer and reflection.

I wrote this particular testimony in 2004 - yes 20 years ago when I was in leadership at MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) and while my testimony of the past has not changed, my current season has. Now an empty nester, my purpose and focus is less obvious to me and yet I do have more time to be still in God's presence:

MOUNTAINS AND VALLEYS
(an abbreviated autobiography; i.e. MOPS testimony-2004)

NAIVE: I was this naive kid.. Basically did well in school, had friends, read books all the time. Then about 8th grade a friend of a friend introduced me to "the wrong crowd" during some snow days. I was the epitome of the phrase "if you stand for nothing you'll fall for everything" so my new friends and I smoked, drank, stole, skipped school.

ARGUMENT: I got in an argument with my best buddies and they dropped me just as fast as they had drawn me into their crowd. I was now a loner.

SAVED: But a quiet girl in PE class and her family befriended me and brought me to church. I got saved, I got excited, and I got mocked. My mom despised anything to do with church and religion.

MOVED: So I moved to NY with my dad and his catholic wife. I briefly walked with Jesus, then dropped him in a box and forgot him as I found new friends. I did the normal high school stuff, ran track, hung out at football games and bon fires, went to prom - all with a clean cut group who didn't smoke or drink. No temptation.

COLLEGE: I graduated high school and was ready for my "adult" life to begin. I was out of there and ready to leave it all behind. My first weekend a bunch of other freshman girls in my dorm and I were invited to a fraternity party. Beer, boys and no restrictions. Yep, I partied, did well in school. I was an independent adult.

SURPRISE: Pregnant, I graduated early in December of '93 and became a single mom in May '94.

SUPERWOMAN: I was a woman of the 90's. I was in control, I was a devoted mom, ambitious teacher, I lived with a man, and we got married, bought a house, the American dream 1990's style. I was driven to do it all and all I needed was coffee, lots of coffee.

CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE: I thought these were the highlights of my history. Then a coworker named Cindy, quirky, funny, and way behind on her paperwork, befriended me. She confessed her shortcomings, gave credit to God for all of her successes, and ate lots of junk food with me as we worked together. She was the hands and feet of Jesus.

BEHIND THE SCENES: What I didn't know is that at work there was this group of women who met each day at lunch to pray together and they had me on their prayer list.

CHURCH: So one day out of the blue, so I thought, I had this notion to attend this church not far from my house. My husband, boasting his open mindedness, said sure, why not. I went, I had to go back. I wanted the Jesus that Cindy had. I wanted to know more. I got baptized, rededicated my life to Christ and joined a bible study. My husband and family figured this would wear off, after all I had a history of changing lifestyles.

REALITY: It's been 6 years and here I am. I can't say that I've always been as on fire for the Lord as I was when I first got baptized. I have lots of ups and downs, inconsistencies in my prayer life and frankly I still have episodes of doubt, but I don't ever want to run away from God again. I tried not to spend too much time on the details of my BC life, but slowly and in God's perfect timing, I have had a lot of old baggage to wade through. (Doesn't everyone?!)

MARRIAGE: For example, I honestly had no clue about marriage and relationships when I got married. We were married for a year before we even discussed things like finances, parenting, and comparing what our priorities are. In my first year of marriage, I hated my husband. I despised being married and I was angry. I didn't realize it, but God was beginning to sort through those locked & broken, places in my heart. I prayed so much I was compelled to join the prayer team. I'm trying to give you the condensed version, so minus the details I would have left my husband, except the Lord put this desire in my heart to have a baby and be a stay at home mom (yeah, me the independent, career woman) And I began to look at my husband with love and I started to let him know about my complete lack of knowledge in the relationship department. 9/11 my first MOPS meeting, and I needed all the information I could get about relationships, family and God's direction on how to live. I was a sponge and Margaret Ann's talks felt like they were directed right at my heart. The love languages book was just what I needed. I had no clue how to attempt purposefully developing a relationship with anyone, let alone my husband. God brought be closer to my husband then opened my eyes that I was clueless as a wife partly because I had no role model from my own dad.

DAD: I had dropped contact with my dad in college much like he dropped me when he left my mom. I had no relationship with him. He has baggage I still don't think he's aware of, but God really put this strong desire in my heart to make amends with my dad and one day after much prayer I called him on the phone. I tried to have this normal conversation as if we always chatted on the phone and for the next 2 years or so I visited him whenever a cousin of mine in NY got married. I tried and expected us to have this normal father - daughter relationship. I think I've forgiven my dad for deserting me and never really having anything to do with me, but I haven't ever really talked with him about any of that. So God slowly showed me that what I really was wanting was my dad's acceptance and I wanted my dad to pursue a relationship with me, but that wasn't happening. I've let that relationship lie for now.

REVELATION: So normally when I share my testimony I talk about how I rebelled in Jr. high, got saved, ran away from God, rebelled more in college and when I supposedly had it all, God called me back, I always wondered did I really get saved that first time and I sometimes worry will I drop Jesus again like I did before? But recently God opened my eyes a little more and said to me "I let you go after you got saved because you needed to know that I was pursuing you all the time and that I always wanted you for my child even when you didn't want me."

I grew up in Tampa, Florida, attending a Bible believing church with my family every time the doors were open. My parents were very active in several ministries in our church. Since I grew up in church I was familiar with the Bible and Bible stories I heard in Sunday School. I was encouraged in my family to be a good girl and obey my parents and such. When I was about 6 years old, and we were having communion at church, I questioned what was going on. After the service, I was counseled by my Sunday School teacher who explained what communion was about and then about salvation. I prayed that night and made a profession of faith and about a year later I was baptized.

Years later, in my early teen years, we started attending a different church with an active youth group and solid Bible preaching. There came a time when I started having very vivid nightmares about dying and falling into a never ending pit. This became a frequent recurring dream that really frightened me to the point that I was afraid to go to sleep. I was also scared because I really didn't remember details of my salvation experience and I wasn't sure if they were just details that my parents had repeated to me over the years or my own memories. I didn't want to walk down the isle in a church since everyone thought I was already a Christian. I didn't want to talk to my parents because I thought they would just recount my previous experience and tell me I was fine. This went on for several weeks until I couldn't stand it any longer and couldn't think about anything other than whether I was really saved or not. So, on New Years Day of 1978, I went forward during the invitation, and was counseled by my Sunday school teacher. She shared the plan of salvation with me and asked me to pray. Two weeks later, I was baptized. This was monumental for me because I was sure of where my heart and mind was when I made this decision. I didn't have any more nightmares. And I was sure of my commitment to the Lord. I don't know that my behavior was very different after my salvation since I was a compliant child but my heart was very different.

I was very active in my youth group, which was helpful in my spiritual growth and provided good opportunities of fellowship with other Christian teens. This was vital since I attended public school. I'm sure that being involved in my church led me to want to attend a Christian college where I later met my husband and surrendered to full time Christian service and missions.

The testimony of how I came to trust in Christ:

I was born and raised a Roman Catholic in Denver Colorado in 1954. Having followed all of the protocol and required catechism of the church I received my first communion, then confirmation. I applied to become an altar boy and was accepted, then became the head altar boy at approximately 14 years of age. I had aspirations of becoming a priest, but changed my mind through puberty. I became a mediocre Catholic. My attention turned to the world.

My older brother, who I looked very much up to, died in an accident when I was 16; he was 20. I became bitter and skeptical. I questioned why God would take him so young and it scared me that he might not make it into heaven; I knew how he lived. Our family was devastated and were just existing. Nobody was going to church. My father moved us all to San Diego.

It was in San Diego that I met my beautiful Mary. Looking back, I know that God put her in my path. I remember that, in my wildness, thinking that she would be a wonderful mother to my children, that she would be a stable force for me. We dated a few years then married when I was 21 and she was 19. She was raised Catholic as well.

We immediately moved to Bakersfield, CA to begin our life together. I remember that we looked for and found a Christian church and began to attend. We both bought graded Bibles and began to read. It was not long after that we drove down to visit our families. We were excited to tell them about our new church and what we were learning only to have my mother cut us off and tell us that we would go to hell if we went outside the Catholic Church. No amount of debate would sway her, so we returned to Bakersfield rather deflated. We fell away from that church.

After a few years we moved back to San Diego and had our first daughter. We named her Danielle after my brother, Dan. It was about this time that we learned that my mother, a manic depressive, had begun to look into forms of spirituality for healing that I was not familiar with. There was table tipping, spirit calling, crystals, Hare Krishna, Hinduism, fortune telling, tarot cards, etc. My two sisters and remaining brother were into it with her and excited to share with us what they were learning. So we went. So we listened. So we allowed ourselves to be deceived.

We read books, went to spiritual retreats, we prayed, we chanted, we raised our daughters in it, our oldest daughter was married into Hinduism. It all seemed like love, peace and God. The convincing piece for me was reincarnation. It explained how we all are as God is and how we, not God, control the experience of the lives we lead, how there is no eternal consequence, how ultimately we are masters of our own creation, and how we ultimately come to spiritual bliss in the God Head. We did this for years and I was happy, not so much in the Hinduism, but in the "law" of reincarnation. It did solve the condition of my brother's death.

My father, raised Catholic, remained ambivalent to all that went on in his house. He didn't support it, nor did he forbid it. Eventually he returned to the Catholic Church and was faithful unto his death. My mother was surrounded by Jesus Christ and all of her beloved Hindu idols unto her death two years later.
 
I suppose it was then that I began to contrast multiple concepts of eternity. In addition to Hinduism, there was also the New Age "COEXIST" movement which allows that all religions are of the same or equal gods and that all religions therefore, result in eternal bliss in heaven or the equivalent. That all love is good love, that we are free to choose our own spiritual path as though a buffet. This is the origin of the "one's own truth" false doctrine. The Holy Spirit was giving me discernment; leading me back to true Christianity... I just didn't know it yet.

As the years rolled on I became numb, yet my heart yearned for God. As the lines between good and evil blurred in our culture, the God of my youth pulled me. Good had to be more than an unexplained, unfounded, subjective general ethos. It had to be more than a political movement. Good had to be an objective moral standard outside of the human experience provided by a high, holy, and solitary God. So again, the Holy Spirit made it clear to me; moved me to action.

We were devastated by the 2008 financial crisis. I struggled with our dilemma for months until finally discussing it with Mary. I announced to her that we needed to get out of California..... she agreed. We sold our house, closed our businesses, packed up our belongings and arrived in North Carolina 45 days later. It took another three months to find Hickory.

My oldest daughter, Danielle, has remained Hindu. My middle daughter, Dominique, has no allegiance; to anything. My youngest daughter, Elysia, for reasons only known to God, found herself a church at age eight, got herself baptized, read the Bible, always found occasion to gently tell her angry father about Christ  She maintained her purity and was married to a man who did as well. How does this happen in a house devoid of a Christian life style? The Holy Spirit clearly worked on me through her without ceasing especially in the last 14 years of my life. The Bible says that there will always be a remnant.

At last I could be away from what I perceived to be evil in California; although it meant separation from my daughters and our family. Mary started going to an array of local churches. I started reading the Bible. She found a Baptist church in Mountain View and I began to go with her as my work schedule permitted. It was during this first few years at church that we began to attend Bible study and it was during this time that I woke up one night with an epiphany. God had revealed in my heart that reincarnation is simply a restating of the serpent's tempt in the garden. That if we ignore the commandment of God, we can be God; and by being God, we can operate outside the accountability of His judgement and be subject to only our own. Thus the Spirit revealed the most egregious form of idolatry, the one I had been guilty of, making oneself equal to God.

It was at this Baptist church that we heard a sermon on the importance of being baptized as an assenting adult through immersion. Immediately after the sermon we looked at each other and said, "We need to get dunked!" We arranged with the paster to get baptized, not realizing that this also meant that we were joining the church. The pastor met with us in our home and laid out all that baptism meant, what the church's non-negotiables were, we agreed, and we were baptized into Jesus Christ.

We left that church when they, from the pulpit, ignored the moral issues at hand in the then upcoming presidential elections; advising the congregation to stay quiet and stay home. I humbly submitted letters of calmly stated inquiry to both the co-pastor and pastor, but received no response. We left. God has put it on our heart to speak good to evil, especially in a representative republic where we are responsible to respond as a government for the people by the people. It is my conviction that there is always a reason to vote because there is always a greater evil on the ballot. When we are self-righteous to the point of allowing evil to occur through our action or inaction, we propagate that evil through willful negligence.

My daughter gave us a website that identified Biblical churches and it was there that we found Vertical Life where we hope to pursue His word and share it with the community and beyond.

I love Jesus Christ. I am grateful for God's persistent grace. I remain humbled by my Creator who had no need to save one such as I, yet gave His Son in the ultimate sacrifice and resurrection for my salvation. Why; because he loves me even while I will never be worthy of Him. Praise the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; the triune, one and only perfect God; the Creator of all things. By the grace of God and faith in Jesus Christ; I am saved!

When I was 10 years old at a revival meeting at New Life Baptist Church I felt the Holy Spirit call to me in a message by Grady Parker on our need for God. I remember going to school the next day and telling everyone about God and how he had changed my life. "I now have the Holy Spirit living inside of me! I do not boast because it is nothing that I have done."

God is so good! He has been with me through everything good and bad in my life - He is my strength. He answers prayers. My mother came to Christ when she was 59 and I never thought that could happen. She made such a transformation and we were able to have a restored relationship. I see God's goodness and grace everywhere in my life.

I have found the older I have become the more I lean on His word and promises. Reading the following in in 1 Peter 2 stands out to me, "Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind." Reading God's word encourages me, guides me, and more importantly, I have become closer to God

I came to Christ at a younger age. In my early teens. I just felt a heavy heart one day and felt led to seek out my pastor and make it happen. God saving a sinner like me is hard to understand, but God's grace is sufficient. 

I have not been the best example every day of my life as sin always seems to creep back in somehow. I started trying harder when I met the Fosters and became a brother in Christ with them. Don't get me wrong I still have a lot of issues to work through every day but it seems the Lord puts the right people in our lives to help along the way. My wife of over 40 years has always been a good daily example as long as I can remember. She is a constant reminder of what I should be, not what I am. I hope to continue to improve as I have finally found my home and church at Vertical Life Church.

I've been saved for many years but my real eye opener is when my mom passed away in 11/2021. I felt lost and alone. No one around me could understand the amount of pain my heart was feeling. I just needed to get away from this pain. Run from it and make it go away. Nothing worked. I cried out to Jesus so many times. Begged him to bring me the comfort I knew that only he could bring. Nothing. I heard nothing and felt nothing. I couldn't understand where God was. Why He wasn't listening. Here I was broken and falling apart and I couldn't find Him. So many nights I lay crying and begged God, yet he was silent. I couldn't see then that He was carrying me. This went on for around 9 months. I went through all the motions. I went to
work and then school 2 nights a week to keep myself occupied, but I was drowning.

During the past year and 9 months we found out our oldest son had kidney cancer. They were able to go in and remove the one tumor and as of right now he is ok.  He goes every few months for a follow-up and is going to ask for a pet scan at his next appointment because of my cancer.

Praise God for his healing touch on his body!

I began to think about suicide. I prayed about this because I knew it was wrong and selfish. But I just couldn't see any other way out. All I knew was that I needed to get away from this pain I was feeling. So I came up with a plan to do just that.

After my son had surgery, I was coming home on Monday morning, I was still during this time, crying out to God to take this spirit from me. I still heard nothing and felt nothing.

That very Sunday morning sitting in Church, I still couldn't understand why God hadn't moved but at the end of service God pulled me to that altar and I'll never forget that day! God delivered me from that spirit of Suicide, Right there at that alter, at that very moment. I actually saw that black spirit flee out the side door. I will never expect someone else to believe what I saw but I know God was there and made that demon flee in His name! God revealed himself to me so Big that day and I haven't been the Same since!!  Not in my heart or mind.

My life was forever changed by what God has done!

At 70 years of age, in 2015, I surrendered my life to Christ. My son Peter was filling in as Pastor at a church one block from my house; and after years of intentionally avoiding entering a church, I found myself Sunday mornings at church with Peter. I told myself I was going to be supportive of Peter, not realizing that God was breaking down the walls of my resistance. As I sat there Sunday after Sunday hearing the Word of God, the Truth of the Gospel speaking to my heart, the hardness of my heart gave way. All the brokenness, all the pain, all the weight of those 70 years living a sinful life flooded out and I knew I had come to the end of myself with nowhere to go.

Christ came for me those Sunday mornings and lifted me up into a new life. One Sunday morning, standing on the sidewalk as Peter and I were leaving, I surrendered, and the Holy Spirit gave me the words to say, to confess to Peter, and to understand. The next words out of my mouth were "I have to go to Josh's church from now on" (that was Josh Kappes’ church that was just beginning the merger with Vertical)

There were times early on when my regret and shame caused me to doubt and think myself unworthy. I now know that I may be unworthy, but more importantly, I am redeemed! The Holy Spirit has taught me that and given me the strength to persevere.

Early on in my Bible Reading I came across Deuteronomy 8:2-6. “2 And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.” I could relate to that! It was the beginning of understanding of a sovereign God. A God that has a plan, and all our lives we are part of that plan. I can look back now and see that through all those years, God loved me, protected me, provided for me and despite all my resistance, humbled me and saved me. I see, with humility and gratitude, the hand of God all over my life. I am grateful that today I can give him all the credit and praise him for what he has done in my life and my family.

I was born into a broken home. A father that had deserted his family. A mother of four little girls, on her own and overwhelmed by all the hardships of her life; ripe for the pedophile that offered protection and support. A minister of a baptist church that sexually abused and terrified the girls for years. The mother's final denial and abandonment. I have few memories of my early childhood, and the ones I do have are not pleasant. I learned early on to disassociate from my life. At the age of seventen, after years of sexual abuse; being pregnant twice by the stepfather and taken by him for abortions; I left that house.

I carried with me then and for many years, untreated behaviors caused by all the childhood traumas. I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I was never "at home" with anyone or anywhere. I used to dream of "going to a place" that was peaceful and calm with no fear or sorrow. I became very guarded, unable to express or allow myself to feel love for anyone. If anyone got "close" I shut it down. I abused alcohol to mask the pain. It is only by the Grace of God that I am not an alcoholic. I was manipulative, selfish, driven by anger and shame. I had no value system, except survival. I had no healthy behavioral models to follow. My life went from one chaos to another.

When I was twenty-three, I got a job - with a boss who was a man of integrity and kindness. He taught me discipline, he held me accountable, taught me our trade and helped me learn to use my God-given intelligence. I learned from him and became ambitious and spent the next 40 years committed to advancement, money, and achievement. I sought counseling during those years and did get help with the intellectual understanding of trauma and learning coping skills; it did not change my life of sin or soften my heart however. God gave me success during those years, but I took all the credit, never giving him thanks or gratitude, no repentance.

I loved my children (but from a safe distance), and I took care of them. I was determined to never abandon them; but the only way I could show them love was by providing for them. I could give them things as expressions of my love, but not all of myself. I was still so selfish. In protecting myself, I caused them hurt and failed them in many ways.

When my grandchildren were born, an incredible first was that I finally learned to love openly and without reservation. It was the first time in my life that I allowed myself to love someone more than myself. My heart softened when I was with them. From them I learned how to show my children my love without having to buy them things. I learned to show up for them and be there with them and share my life with them. It is by the Grace of God that our relationship today is loving.

When I began planning my retirement, I moved to Newton in 2006. This was the last place I had thought I would go. I still cannot tell you the why/how of this, except again to say it was God's plan. Another first for me, I loved where I was. I loved Newton. I love being a day-to-day part of my family's life. My grandchildren were in and out of my home. I learned to value a home and share it with family and friends. Yet, I still took all the credit, none for God.

In October 2014, my Grandson David took his own life. When Peter called to tell me, my world came apart, my heart was in pieces. I had no anchor to hold on to. I could feel the chaos returning. I at once went into denial and disassociated from any feelings. I went out on my back porch and just cried out....”Help me!”  But I was numb to my feelings. Fear took over and I stayed that way for a long time that year. I never cried, I never allowed myself to grieve. I never shared with anyone what I was going through. Which brings me back to the beginning and Sunday mornings with Peter at church. I had rationalized my going as support for my son. The mind is deceptive. God took me to church those Sunday mornings and used Peter's words to speak to my heart. I will never forget standing on that sidewalk and hearing and seeing Christ show up and say, "It is time!" The joy of that surrender and the presence of the Holy Spirit as He gave words to my surrender have never left me.

God has been good to me all my life. In these last six years He has given me forgiveness, salvation, provision, joy, peace, healing, family, and community. He has turned my life right side up and allowed me to serve Him alongside fellow believers who love Jesus, strive to live life as He calls and love our neighbors as ourselves.

This is my witness: "So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him"; Surrender is all He asks of us. He will do the rest!

I've been saved for many years but my real eye opener is when my mom passed away in 11/2021. I felt lost and alone. No one around me could understand the amount of pain my heart was feeling. I just needed to get away from this pain. Run from it and make it go away. Nothing worked. I cried out to Jesus so many times. Begged him to bring me the comfort I knew that only he could bring. Nothing. I heard nothing & felt nothing. I couldn't understand where God was. Why He wasn't listening. Here I was broken and falling apart + I couldn't find Him. So many nights I lay cried and begged God, yet he was silent. I couldn't see then that He was carrying me. This went on for around 9 months. I went through all the motions. Went to
work & then school 2 nights a week to keep myself occupied... But I was drowning.

During this year and 9 months we found out our oldest son had kidney cancer. They were able to go in and remove the one tumor and as of right now he is ok.  He goes every few months for a follow-up and is going to ask for a pet scan at his next appointment because of my cancer.

Praise God for his healing touch on his body!

I began to think about suicide. I prayed about this because I knew it was wrong and selfish. I just couldn't see any other way out. All I knew was that I just needed to get away from this pain I was feeling. So I came up with a plan.

After my son had surgery I was coming home on Monday morning. I was still during this time, crying out to God to take this spirit from me. I heard nothing and felt nothing. That very Sunday morning sitting in Church, I still couldn't understand why God hadn't moved.

At the end of service God pulled me to that altar and I'll never forget that day. God delivered me from that spirit of suicide, right there at that alter, at that very moment! I actually saw that black spirit flee out the side door. I will never expect someone else to believe what I saw, but I know God was there and made that demon flee in His name! God revealed himself to me so Big that day!! I haven't been the Same since!!  Not in my heart or mind. My life was forever changed by what He was done!

I grew up in a very dysfunctional family in New York state. The norm in my home was anger, abuse, drugs/alcohol... it was not a good environment for a child to grow up in. A year or 2 before I was born, my dad came home from Vietnam with a lifelong disability and many health problems that kept him bedridden throughout most of my childhood until he died when I was 13. He drank pretty heavily and used other drugs to self-medicate for his medical issues, and I now can understand. My mom was a preacher's kid who had since left the church. She was his caregiver, and without any support being available, she was not in a good place mentally and was abusive as well. Mainly to me, since my other siblings were considerably older than I and all but one sister had moved out. My sister who was still living at home, was in her teens and was responsible for watching me most of the time, so she often took me to parties with her. As crazy as it sounds now... I was probably 7 or 8 the first time I drank alcohol and smoked.

Being at home was pretty awful, so as I became a teen, I began to look for ways to escape, especially after my dad passed and my mom brought home a new boyfriend. He was pretty creepy, and although he never touched me, he would make suggestive comments to me and my friends, which caused me to stay away as much as possible.

I did find escape in drugs, alcohol, and numerous other dangerous activities. I was quite the party girl. Inside, however, I felt so worthless and hopeless that I can now see I did everything destructive I possibly could with the thought in the back of my mind to end my life. I just didn't like myself much at all. During these hopeless and destructive years, I was always looking for someone who loved me and cared about me, which led to living a promiscuous lifestyle. Not only did I have many unhealthy relationships, but this also led to pregnancy and abortion in my teen years. It was such a hopeless time in my life, I attempted suicide several times as a means of permanent escape, and turned to other destructive behaviors like cutting.

During those years, I disregarded the value of life and was so hopeless that I couldn't even comprehend having a future. I didn’t want anything to do with God, who allowed all the pain and suffering I had already been exposed to.  During those years, although it didn’t happen many times in the culture I lived within, anytime anyone tried to mention anything about God I would immediately laugh and mock them.

By the grace of God, I did somehow manage to graduate from high school and college. By the time I had graduated from college, I was living on my own, and while I hadn't necessarily stopped following the destructive path I was on... It had slowed down considerably.Living on my own, I began to find a little peace after the home life I had as a child, but I was still far from healthy, and I still didn’t want anything to do with God. It was only by God's grace that I hadn't died or worse up to this point.

During my 20’s it was a slow process of my life settling down and leaving behind much of the destructive behavior of my past. During these years, I met my husband, moved to NC, and came to know Christ at the age of 27.

Although I did stop many of those behaviors mentioned previously, my thought patterns hadn't changed, and I was still walking through life as an angry, emotional wreck much of the time. I was very, very angry. Through these years, I got married, we bought a house, had two children, and lived what seemed to be a fairly normal American dream kinda life for several years.

After I moved from a culture in NY state that was rather hostile to any type of religion, but especially to evangelical Christianity, to the bible belt of North Carolina, God was finally able to begin to work on softening my heart and bringing me to a place where I eventually could not only hear the Gospel, but actually listen and Believe.    We began attending church a couple of years after moving to NC, although neither of us had any idea what being a Christian was all about. We church hopped for quite a while before finally finding one that was not only Christ-centered but cared enough to disciple us. We attended it for around 3 years, and I began to learn and grow in knowledge.  But underneath, it was still a lot of hurt, pain, anger, and bitterness from the past that needed to be dealt with.

I did a great job hiding it for many years. I ignored it. Pushed it away. I told myself to suck it up and deal with it, after all, the past is the past, right? That none of those things mattered anymore. I rarely allowed myself to even think much about those things in my past. I was quite ashamed of all that I had done and even what had been done to me in the past. Because of that, I hid my past and current internal struggles from those around me. In order to keep from facing who I was inside, I began following a path of self-righteousness and legalism for a season. I clung to it as a protective shield to keep anyone from knowing who I was. It's much easier to follow a bunch of rules than it is to face the pain of heart change. But God won't allow His children to live that way for long. He loves us too much to let us stay that way.

In God's mercy and grace... although I certainly didn't think so at the time, He removed ALL of it.He removed my new “Christian” friends, my church, my home, my mom(she passed away during this season), even my family's financial security.Anything I could have possibly clung to, He removed.  Even my marriage reached such a low point it would seem only divorce could have been the answer. But God. Behind the scenes, God was working.

After struggling with the fallout of all those things being ripped out of my hands... My husband had lost his job, and inevitably, we had to let our home go back to the bank. I wandered away from the Lord during this time, to the point I went back to some of my old lifestyle. I would even say at this time I snubbed my nose at God and ’the church’ (which was legalistic and without much grace). However, God, being the merciful and gracious Father that He is, didn't allow me to stay there long before He placed people in my life to start drawing me back to Him.  He began to speak to my heart and this time I listened.

God always comes after us. He is our Rescuer. He's relentless.Like the song “Reckless” says, ‘there isn't a mountain high enough that He won't climb, or a door solid enough that He can't kick down.’

But, up to this point, I still hadn't dealt with my past.

I was finally headed back in the right direction and not only a professing Christian, but also actively serving the Lord... life continued on. But let's face it.  Life is hard. Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it's so much harder than we can ever hope to bear. Sometimes it's so hard we just don't know where to turn, we lose hope, and we become desperate. This is where God wants us.

Thisis  where we are forced to choose and answer an important question. Who does our soul belong to??   Sometimes this is daily, sometimes moment by moment. Do we belong to God? Or do we belong to satan?
Are we going to run to God or are we going to turn away from Him and run back to the world?  A first, I made the choice to turn to God. I did on many occasions, but then it just seemed the struggle would never end. I grew weary, discouraged, and hopeless that things would ever change. I didn’t truly understand at that time that it was a daily battle, that we are in a war.  We would daily need to make these choices.

At the time, however, I began to have some significant questions and doubts about God, as:

• Where is He?
• Where was He when I was a child and suffering at the hands of others?
• Doesn't He see what's happening? 
• Doesn't He care?
• Why do I have to suffer so much? 
• Why do those I love have to suffer?
• Why was my life nothing but a long line of suffering, pain, anger, and abuse?
• Doesn't He care about the innocent suffering at the hands of horribly evil people? And the question I had secretly asked for many, many years - What is wrong with me?

If you've grown up in a dysfunctional home and survived a traumatic childhood, you'll understand that the dysfunction and trauma don't end just because adulthood begins. It becomes a part of you. It carries over and follows you. It affects your thought processes and emotions in ways that make life difficult and make it nearly impossible for those who haven't experienced it to understand. To try and put words it into words. It's like an anguish deep inside your soul that no one can see nor understand, and it's nearly impossible to express to others. But God can understand. He can hear the cries that come from our souls without words to express them.

I learned that we can't ignore it or push it away. Eventually, it will be brought to the surface. While it is true that we shouldn't dwell on our past, it is equally true that we can't, nor should we ignore it. Those hurts from the past do matter. They matter to God. The struggles of the past are what God uses to shape and mold us. However, it has to be dealt with and processed healthily, or it will forever continue to haunt you and color every aspect of your life in ways you don't realize, making your life difficult and dysfunctional while destroying relationships.

This cycle that had lasted much of my life rose up in a powerful, uncontrollable way one season as life circumstances became difficult for me once again. Circumstances beyond my control that triggered the hidden turmoil within my soul began to overtake my life. God seemed incredibly distant to me during this time, so I began to assume, as I had most of my life, that there was something wrong with me, and the deception began to creep in. I began to believe many, many lies.

Some lies that I didn't realize I was believing began to rise to the surface. One of the lies I believed was that although God may have saved me, I was not accepted or good enough because of my past. I was just this awful, sinful creature who had done so many horrible things in the past that He didn't even really like me, but since He's God, He had pity on me and saved me anyway. As long as I do all this ’stuff’ in payment for Him saving me, I will at least make it into heaven.

Another lie I began to believe during this period was that while God might be good to some people, He wasn’t to me and many other people. Only to a certain chosen few. I believed there were 2 classes of Christians. The good Christians who God loves and blesses, and then the inferior Christians that God chooses out of His pity, who are only saved to serve others.

At this point, even what faith I did have became very shaken and confused, and I began to have some pretty serious doubts about God. I was in a place where the gospel made zero impact on me. It was simply words on a page. It was meaningless. It didn't help me, nor comfort me in any way. To me, it seemed something that could help others, but not me. I wondered about that, and then I just figured that, like I said above, God had pitied me, but because of my past and who I knew I really was inside, He didn't like me very much, and He just tolerated me.

By this time, I was a staff member of a church.

I'm not sure what God was thinking, knowing who I was inside as well as all the ugliness of my past. I remember during this time that one of the reasons I felt great distress was because, since I worked fairly closely with pastors and other church leaders, I didn’t understand how I could feel that way. I tried to fake it, hoping this would change. But it didn't. Honestly, how could I even admit that to anyone? Trying to keep it to myself seemed to make things worse. I saw firsthand on a fairly consistent basis how I should be feeling and was told what I should be thinking, but my heart was not matching up with what my mind tried to believe was true. I was merely going through the motions most of the time and felt pretty awful because I couldn't figure out why I was still so crazy. I was struggling with depression and anxiety during all this.

But God didn't give up on me. At that time, the church I was attending began a biblical counseling ministry. I don't think it was a coincidence that God placed me in the middle of that. I was surrounded by biblical counseling information, training, and people who might be able to help me if I could just reach out and ask for help. I should have been able to help myself, or so I thought. But I couldn't. Shame and pride got in the way, and I just couldn't ask.

I was so prideful, self-reliant, and dependent upon myself that I couldn't let go of my pride, and I couldn't bring myself to trust anyone around me. It was as if I were trapped in my own mind, and the words needed to ask for help just wouldn't come. It took me quite some time before the Lord brought me to a place where I grew courageous enough to ask for help. I'm thankful that He placed me in an environment of so much love and grace, I didn't deserve, and even when I continued pushing it away, it didn't stop. He didn't stop pursuing, He didn't stop chiseling away at my pride and self-reliance.

Although it took me a while to ask for help, I did listen to all I heard with great interest. There is great pressure in a ministry and church setting to be ok. Or at least give the appearance of being ok. And since you know how you are supposed to act, it's most often easier to put on the phony church mask and pretend. Transparency is so important. We can't be effective in ministering to others if we hide what the Lord has done in our lives.

Praise God, He didn't allow me to continue in that condition for very long. During this season, I was having great difficulty controlling my emotions and thoughts. It was so uncontrollable that many times I couldn't hide it. It seemed everything around me triggered emotional reactions, and the people around me were noticing. I wasn't able to hide it. So I had to ask for help.

Through the biblical counseling ministry, and the long-suffering of several brothers and sisters in Christ, God showed me that even when life is hard, so hard you would rather just end your life than go on for one more day... God is good. He is there. He hasn't gone anywhere. He always shows up and has your best interests at heart. Yes, even when it's hard, even when it hurts.

He bound up many wounds in my heart during that season. He healed many wounds I never thought could be healed. It was an excruciatingly painful process. wanted to give up more times than I was able to count. And when I say give up, I mean ending my life, giving up. God has totally changed and transformed my life in so many ways. I didn't think I'd ever be free of some of the internal struggles I once had. I do still struggle, don't get me wrong... but now it's a struggle with a purpose. It's more of a battle that can be won.
I'm in awe of how He can take the broken, rebellious life of one whose innocence was poured out like water and use them in His Kingdom to bring Him glory.

I learned a few things in this process that I hope can be encouraging to anyone who is doubting God right now. Maybe you're questioning if He truly cares?

Psalm 119:71 ‘It is Good that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes. The things I once knew only by knowledge have now been written on my heart.

1 - Our prayers are not in vain. He hears and He answers us.
2 - He loves and cares for us more than we can ever comprehend.
3 - We can believe God's truths found in scripture.
4 - There are no second-class Christians. We are all the same at the foot of the cross.

We are all unworthy of God's grace... but He freely gives it to us anyway, because He loves us so much. It's only through Christ's death, burial, and resurrection that ANY of us can be saved!! And that isn't something we can work for and earn. It is a FREE GIFT!

Most importantly. We can Have Hope!

I am certain that if God can save ME and use me in His kingdom to help others. He can rescue anyone.

I give Him all the glory for taking this life of rebellion and chaos bent on destruction and using it in His Kingdom for good.