If becoming a Christian were by human efforts, I probably would not be one. It all started with a broken shoulder when I was born, and God has been molding me in the outside world ever since....

I grew up in a Christian family that was very dysfunctional. I saw things that no one should have seen. That was during the first 12 years of my life. The abuse was non-contact sexual abuse. We also had very poor communication. Those situations early in my life affected my emotions to the point where I have a hard time controlling them during certain situations when emotions can normally be controlled. I sometimes take things personally even if I know they are not directed at me. If someone I know is going through emotional and/or physical pain whether or not they are crying, I probably am crying. God has allowed me to express the sorrow He feels as a source of encouragement to someone else. It usually means that I can’t be consoled quite as easily. The abuse has also affected my thought process. I can picture things clearly in my mind. That includes the abuse that happened and the problems associated with it. In my family, the abuse stems from an addiction, and it mutated to become a different form of addiction for me. It’s better now than it was. It used to be more controlling. Now I have better control of it. However, there have been times when it is like a blackboard that does not want to erase and that gets frustrating. My memory for detail in many situations and my ability to picture things clearly add up to trying circumstances sometimes. God has used this experience to help me grow.

I accepted Jesus as my savior when I was 12 years old. I went to a Heaven’s Gate Hell’s Flame play. I had backslidden for about three years before I started to take my faith in Jesus seriously. When I accepted Jesus as my savior, I did not have the discipleship that I needed to grow in my knowledge and understanding of God because I was too shy to go down when the people were called forward to accept Jesus as their savior. That started changing in tenth grade when I began to see everything that God had created through using the media. I found a Christian television station that was playing music videos. One of the videos titled “The Voice of God” by 4Him showed the nature that God had created. I would change channels during that video and the commercial breaks to find the stations that were not commercialing. One day about a month later I had changed channels from the Christian station to another station because of the commercial break. After a few minutes I switched back to the Christian station and saw the video that I did not like. I was upset because I missed part of that video. God has used the music group that made that video to encourage me over the years. The change in my relationship with God continued at a slow pace for the next three years. When I was deciding which college to go to, I knew that I wanted a college that had Bible classes so that I could learn more about Jesus and what it meant to be a Christian. God has been helping me comprehend who He is and how to be close to Him. This was the discipleship that I did not receive earlier.

When I was in college, I had the opportunity to travel with the Symphonic Band on its 4 annual trips. I had a chance to see the Midwest on 3 of them. One of the Midwest trips took me to Canada and beautiful Banff National Park in Alberta. The trip through Canada was our time to learn about God’s amazing power and how to endure lasagna for all but 3 nights. We had an issue where the trailer hitch fell off the bus and sent the trailer into the center median of Trans Canada 1. Another driver saw the incident and flagged us down. We were able to get the trailer attached to a pickup truck and on its way to our next concert location. When we opened the trailer, none of the instruments inside had been damaged. There was also not much shifting of the instruments either. We set up for that concert in about 30 minutes and enjoyed our 3rd or 4th lasagna dinner after the concert. The final trip took me to Spain and Portugal for 2 weeks. I learned that I definitely love to travel, but Spain and Portugal were not part of it. I also learned that some of my classmates were not designed very well for international travel at least to parts of Europe.

I also had the opportunity to go on 3 missions trips the first and last ones were to North Minneapolis and a small church where the youngest member of the congregation that was not on staff or the immediate family thereof when the pastor started was old enough to be the pastor’s parent. The church was in an area where there was a lot of young people but was a church that was not reaching out to them. The first year there, we learned about issues in the inner-city and painted a couple of rooms in the parsonage that was a 3 bedroom apartment behind the altar and up a set of stairs. A single mother with 2 daughters moved in a few months later. The second year we met that family and helped clean the house of someone who lived a couple of blocks away. It was a good learning experience. The second trip was a very good learning experience for one of the professors on the trip as well. He lives in South Minneapolis but had never ridden mass transit in the cities. He got his lesson on how to ride a Metro Transit Bus and use their electronic system for bus transfers.

The trip in between those 2 literally took me around the world in 1 day less than 9 weeks. Over the six months prior to going on my global internship, God has been showing me His unending love for everyone. God will meet us where we are at. He loves us as a father loves his child and is there when we need Him. He has also been very patient with me as I struggle with problems in my life. He has given me hope in knowing that He will never leave me and always loves me no matter what I do. I know that he will always protect me although I experience bad things. I saw most of the northern hemisphere by night sky since all of our flights were overnight flights that landed either at semi normal hours or the one that was just after midnight with an early morning rising for a train trip to some waterfalls somewhere past the River Kwai. I learned a lot about God both in preparation for that trip and while on that trip. He gave me a co-leader that was very caring and yet direct when she needed to be. God helped me communicate with my parents about some things that needed to be dealt with. I also learned about his faithfulness and had some burdens lifted off my shoulders. My testimony up to that point was a blessing for my team as well. They did not realize all that I had gone through in my life. During my college years I saw the Hand of God protecting me while satan was trying to destroy me. To this day I see that happening.

One thing you will notice is that I never mention having any boyfriends during this time. The reason is that I never dated during high school or college. It has nothing to do with whether or not I was interested in guys. I just never took the time. I felt my schedule was busy enough. The fall after I graduated from college I met a guy who seemed rather nice. After the 3rd time we chatted, we went on our first date to an NHL game 2 days later. My dad originally thought that I worked with the guy since I met him at my job. He was actually a customer. We were engaged about 4 months later then got married the January after that. Our marriage started having issues right away.

Part of that were issues we both brought into the relationship, and part of that was how we handled our dating relationship. We did do some things right when we were dating, at least for awhile, such as doing a Bible study and devotions with prayer. That slowly stopped. Even while trying to do what God wanted the devil was driving in a wedge between us. My husband had brought up divorce a couple of sets of times since we got married. The last time really hurt since he seemed very adamant that he was going to do it this time. A little later that evening when I was putting our son to bed, I called my parents and let them know that I was moving home and to call my brother. My brother had suggested moving out earlier in the year. We had even talked with a friend of his that was a single lady needing a roommate.

Within the last year God has been slowly getting me more into his word. I find it is harder for me when I am running on a large quantity of lack of sleep for an extended period of time. Through my persistent intermittent prayer (I fall asleep first most of the time I do not pray), I have noticed my husband kind of coming around.
 
He still has his issues where his social skills appear to be lacking at the moment. We all do that sometimes. Over all, though, he appears to be more civil. During the separation, God has placed people in my life who have stood by me and supported me. He provided 1 prayer warrior from before the separation until God said it was her time to go. A couple of weeks before she left, while I was at the women’s retreat, God provided me with 2 crazy ladies from Duluth to faithfully fill the gap and be prayer warriors for my marriage.

My husband decided on Dec 1, 05 that he wanted to work on the marriage. I let him know that it was going to take some time and that we would need to do marriage counseling. I suggested individual counseling which I am already doing. He is against that part of it but was willing to do the marriage counseling. The other problem is the fact that my husband is impatient. He will admit it. If some things are not done to his liking in terms of time, he will call it off. That includes the marriage counseling because one of his conditions for working on the marriage was not met. Of course, we are back to working on things again. We took a step on April 8 towards reconciliation. It was a small one, but it was in the right direction. I’m fighting to keep that crack in the door open. That conversation we had was a good communication time for both of us. Through all of this, I have been reading several books on marriage that in part can apply to any relationship. I have suggested to him that maybe we can go through the 5 Love Languages or Love and Respect together. Both deal with communication in a relationship. That is something that both my husband and I need to work on. I realized, while reading Love and Respect, that even though I was showing my husband respect to the best of my abilities, he did not see it as respect. I was not using his love language or as I refer to it, his respect language.

God also reminds me of what my priorities should be: God is number 1, then my husband, followed by our son. In today's society it is not always easy to do that. I realize there are times where I forget to keep God first. Most of us do that without realizing it. He also shows me how He sees things through my son. My son states almost anything is pretty even if I cannot stand the color combination. But that is how God is. Everything that He created is pretty or beautiful. Sometimes we mess it up though. Marty Magehee of 4Him wrote a song entitled "Runaway Train" that shows us how our life is if we don't have the right focus or priorities. Here's part of the lyrics: Will we ever take the time to look back/ Will we ever realize we're not on the right track//(Chorus) We're runnin' out of control / Sellin' our souls/For a ticket on a runaway train/ No matter how far we go / We're movin' farther from home/ Bound for Babel on a runaway train//Bridge: We're in a deadly human race/ Conducting our own destiny / Only God's unchanging grace/ Can pull us off this crazy thing// Before it all crashes down / We've got to turn it around/ Run for cover from this runaway train//(ad lib) There is a faithful Father / He is a mighty tower/ He is the only way to escape / From this runaway train God has been using this song lately to remind me of that.

As I go through life, Gods always draws me back to Him and reminds me of His faithfulness and protection. Marty went through about 6 months of a severe rare form of arthritis that left him with swollen, painful joints and the ability to barely move until God healed him before a concert in March of 1995. He didn't realize that he was healed until after the concert. God kept showing his faithfulness through that time. If you ever hear his story or get his autograph, you will notice that he mentions Psalm 91. He saw God's hand through it all. In my own life, I have seen God's hand in it, how he has molded, shaped, and cared for it, providing the necessary protection at the right time. I have also embraced Psalm 91 for the same reason. Marty wrote a song entitled Sacred Hideaway. It is based on his own testimony and Psalm 91. It comes across as dark, but it shows the Light of God in a short section without saying a word. It reminds me of St. Francis of Assisi's saying of: Spread the gospel at all times and use words if necessary. I embrace those whole-heartedly since God has shown me that I'm a Child of God and the devil can't take that away. He has something planned for me that will bring the glory to Him and draw others to Him.
 
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