My Heart Story is really my public testimony of God’s redeeming love. I believe that every life is a story unfolding waiting to be told. I pray you find encouragement as I share mine with you:
“Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time. “ ~ Oswald Chambers
Freedom for me has come by way of full out rebellion, prodigal living and pure desperation. To be honest, I never in my life knew one could really be FREE. I mean, yes, of course I know we live in the land of the free. Christ died to set us free and, well, that freedom is not… Free.
The truth is that life in this fallen, outside of Eden existence, teaches that freedom is the absence of rules and responsibilities. When we launch ourselves in the direction of Freedom we are looking for that day when we are not obligated to do or be something specific. Freedom though, when we consider what we are looking for, is not found in what we do, nor in how we define ourselves or our circumstances – Freedom is actually the life changing presence of God at work in the life of those who yield themselves to it.
When I first began to seek this kind of freedom – I was looking for a quick fix to some life-long problems. I found myself in my second marriage, spinning into self-destruction. It left me wondering why nothing in my life ever seemed to work out. The year was 1999, my husband spent three months of our first year of marriage working out of town. We spent several hours calling each other over and over again to take advantage of the twenty minutes for ten cents long distance rates I dialed into. On this particular night I asked God to set me free from yet another dysfunctional relationship.
I sat in my bathroom that night asking myself why no one in my life could ever seem to meet my need to be loved. Loved deeply, loved long and loved – IN A HOPELESS ROMANTIC SORT OF WAY. I had just found out my husband had misgivings on our wedding day which had led to a wicked fight and him being withdrawn and distant through much of those early days in our marriage. His reason he gave for not telling me these things before we walked the aisle and said, “I Do” was that he did not want to lose me. My heart ached with that familiar feeling of breaking when my hopes and dreams for something new had been dashed to the ground. I just wanted one part of my life to look like the ideal I had in my mind as a little girl. Before that night I had been very certain that marrying Scott was my fairy tale come true.
The problem with fairy tales? They, more often or not, are never based in truth.
A few months later after my husband returned home from working out of town for those three months we began to attend church with his grandmother. May I say that at this point in our relationship I was “pretty sure” he was saved. I mean he had been responsible, hard working and respectful before we married. He even attended church with me when I asked him to go. He had all the “virtues” of what I thought a Christian man would be.
One night after we had returned home from confirmation classes at the church I confessed that I could not agree with the pastor’s teaching on predestination which led to a lengthy monologue of my baby believer’s perspective of the topic. At one point I looked at Scott and stopped mid-sentence. The look on his face gave me pause. His eyes were distant, and he nodded vacantly acknowledging what I had said, but what I saw in his expression indicated just the opposite. He had no clue what I was talking about.
So I threw it out there. “You have no idea what I am talking about.”
He looked like he had just been released from a heavy burden. He smiled that sweet, lopsided grin that captured my heart before I even knew his name and said. “The closest I ever came to God was jumping the fence in the backyard to attend church at Easter or Christmas.”
NO WAY. I began to emote and respond in high dramatic fashion. At first I told God I wanted out, right that minute. I did not want to spend one more minute of my life with an unbelieving husband. I had experience with one unsaved husband and one very unsaved fiancé – I had no desire to try this out a third time.
THIRD TIME IS THE CHARM AS THEY SAY.
Eventually I calmed down and my prayer became: “Lord, please… Please… Please… Save my husband and use me to do it. Amen.”
Neither Scott’s will, nor God’s will concerned me in those months and weeks that followed. All I wanted was to have a Christian husband. I was determined to pray Scott and God into submission with my will – how ever long that took.
We visited other churches in our area, but nothing really settled on me as being a right fit with what I had been raised to believe. Fast forward a year and you would find my kids in an after school program offered by a church in the neighborhood where I worked as a School Cafeteria Manager. My heart was sinking fast believing Scott, and my kids for that matter, would not come to the Lord short of a Road to Emmaus miracle.
One Wednesday I picked up my kids from the after-school program and they eagerly begged, “Can we go to Bibleville tonight P-LEEE-ASSSSSE?” I declined the request that night telling them we would have to talk about it on the way home. My dejected daughters slunked over to their basket and retrieved their backpacks before glumly dragging their feet out the door to our ride home. I assured them I would let them go to Bibleville after we had visited the church. My closing statement went something like this: “I want to check it out. Just because it says ‘church’ on the outside does not mean there is ‘church’ going on on the inside.”
After a couple of more weeks of begging, I relented and asked Scott to visit the church with me on Sunday morning. We went to the “high tech modular building” settled in a gravel parking lot on five acres behind the intermediate school. The site was the home of the new church building that was being planned and paid for in those waning months of the year 2000.
That night I told Scott I did not expect him to return for the evening service, but I wanted to go. When I came out of our bedroom to leave I found my husband in the front seat of our pickup along with the kids waiting to go. The next few months found us at the doors of the church each time they were open. By Christmas, we were well acquainted with the many people we had met that first day.
One of our younger children, was acting and singing in the Kids Music Theater Christmas play that year. The day of the play arrived and found us late to church. But, God had a plan. My husband made his way to the front and prayed to receive Christ that morning after leaning over to ask, “What should I say when I go up there?”
My heart overflowed. I could barely grasp the truth of that moment. I still get emotional when I think of it. In our seven years at that little Baptist church in rural North Texas we discovered God and began to rely on Him in every way. We eventually stepped into youth leadership, and the following fall I was helping to facilitate women’s Bible study with the Pastor’s wife.
During these years of searching out my relationship with God in the tissue paper pages of scripture, I found my first taste of freedom. I had issues. I believe if we are honest, we’d find that all of us struggle with sin and soul wounds in a variety of ways. Truth is, if we’re breathing we likely struggle with sin in some way. I definitely had skeletons I wanted to keep locked away in the closet of my own mind. I did not want anyone else to know about them, but, really… I didn’t want to deal with God about them.
I eventually had to come face to face with the depravity of my own soul and God’s grace and love that covers my sin. That was the beginning of the end – that made way for all things to be made new. Since 2009 I’ve been learning to walk dependently and humbly with my God and unlocking the unlimited potential and freedom He created me to live in and from – rooted and grounded deeply in His Word and His Presence.
Since those early days of finding my roots in that small country church, we have attended several other churches both non and varying denominational. I find the greatest joy in serving others – loving them from God’s heart – whether they know Him or not and imparting a glimpse of the Kingdom in the lives of those I touch – no matter how brief.
So, today I am living in my place as a daughter of the most high King of all creation. I am beloved, redeemed and forgiven. My identity is based on who God says I am. My God-given identity allows me to fulfill all the roles of life He has planned for me: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Mimi, Sister, Friend, Artist, Coach, Wildflower, CEO, Freedom Fighter and Prayer Warrior – even my seasons of grieving as a bereaved parent and empty nester. I pray more than the story of my life you will find on this website the glory of God revealed through the discovery of Freedom that has been my journey and the Truth that has set me free.
I currently work as a self-employed coach and ordained minister in Granbury, Texas. God has recently planted a seed in my heart for planting a new work of ministry in our region – to build a Kingdom Focused church where people may find a place to believe, belong, become, and build together as we seek first His Kingdom and righteousness in our relationships and city. Thank you for taking the time to read my story, I pray you will find much here that encourages, inspires and lifts you up. Let me know how you are connecting to all the things God has shared through my life.