My paternal grandparents with their grandchildren. I’m the little baby in Grandma’s arms.

Born again as a little girl, it seems like I have always had a passion for the things of God, as well as for writing. As a little girl I was an avid reader and by 8 years old was writing my own stories. In high school I began writing poetry and even won a state-wide contest. I was chasing after God the best I knew and after high school graduation was accepted to a private bible college with the ministry I grew up in.

However, the program was restructured while I was in it and I was released at the end of my third year with the encouragement to “develop myself” through college or a career and reapply a few years down the road. I was personally devastated by the release, and felt not only humiliated and publicly shamed, but in a real identity crisis as I tried to understand who I was and how to function outside of the program. A few years later I was four months from my wedding, when the minister told my fiance and I at a counseling session that he could not marry us, because he could not, with a clear conscious, bless our union.

At a Christian Teen Summer School where I taught, led and did skits.

Again I was crushed and felt betrayed by God. I told God I no longer trusted him with my FULL heart. I told him I was going to take back just a portion of my heart and see how that went for me…well, that little bit of “heart withdrawal” led me down a road of sex, drugs and rock & roll. My health began failing soon afterward as I began to battle various health issues from then on. Ten years after I proclaimed to God that I was going to oversee “part” of my heart I attempted suicide after a night of partying alone followed by a break up with my boyfriend. I took so many powerful drugs that I spent four to five days in an amnesiac state before I “came to.” It seemed that “I came to” not only physically, but it seemed spiritually I awoke also, as I felt the only way I could have survived the massive amount of drugs I had consumed was by God intervening in my life somehow. I felt God must still have some purpose left for my life, so I began the long, slow road of recovery.

My High School Graduation

Three and a half years later at the end of 2011, I had several significant “God” incidents as God spoke into my life through a friend to say that He did still have a call on my life. But it was more than merely a friend’s encouragement, there was a power on her words that came through the phone line with a weight that dismissed all my arguments. I needed that weight and power on the words because I was an utter wreck and looked nothing like the words she spoke. I had become a regular at the local psychiatric wards where I had learned to check myself in to avoid harming myself. My health and body and mind seemed broken and in ruin in so many ways. I knew what my friend had said was true even though I had no idea how to become anyone who even resembled someone having a call of God.

At the winter formal in bible college with my date.

That began a journey with God where He led me to people and churches to discover healing for my mind, body, soul and spirit. I discovered that although I had remained an active Christian, even through my drug use, my personal relationship with Jesus had been missing since I was a little girl. I rediscovered Christ to truly have a relationship with him as my Lord, and not only as my Savior. All my life I had been exclusively faithful to only attend and honor the Christian ministry I grew up in and never, ever explored or followed any other Christian speakers or churches. I now am thrilled with the plethora of amazing Christian speakers, ministries and churches I have been honored to hear and visit personally. I now am able to see that the release from the bible college and my engagement in my twenties, events that seemed so devastating and painful at the time, were actually points of God saving me from far more hurtful things.

I am still on a journey of healing and greater discovery of who God wants to be for me. I continue to experientially understand more about Jesus Christ as my Lord & Savior, and how to respond to and work with the Holy Spirit. It is a process, not perfection, but I no longer feel like my life is going in circles, I now feel that I am moving forward and taking ground. Praise God. Thank you Jesus!!

Celebrating my birthday