I am the third and youngest child of (now retired) a college
professor/historian and an elementary school teacher, born and raised here in
IL. We went to church every Sunday (American Baptist), I went to youth group
every Sunday night, and choir practice on Wednesdays. While I knew how people who
believed should act from my parents’ example, faith didn’t really connect with
me. I never really prayed over situations, thanked God for blessings or asked
for help in serious situations. When I was baptized as a teen, I believed in
God, but I went forward only because all of my friends had been baptized, and I
didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t take communion on the first Sunday of
the month in my row. I hadn’t really accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.
My life was stereotypically normal of a middle-class,
Midwestern family. I went to school, to church, had a part-time job. My teen
years did have trials and struggles, but I just pushed my way through them and
did as expected of me. Graduated high school, and went to college. (U of I, btw
– Go Illini!) All this time, people
would have said I was a good Christian girl, but it was really just face value.
I didn’t have a personal relationship with God. After college graduation, I
started to break free a bit from what was expected – I went in to the Peace
Corps in Guatemala.
Here I was, a prim and proper Midwestern girl in a totally
unfamiliar setting, teaching people about family gardening in a language that
was the second language for both myself and the people I was teaching. Bit by
bit, I adjusted, became comfortable. By then, I never really thought about God
or religion/faith. I never even prayed at all. But then, I was raped by a
former boyfriend. For months I didn’t tell anyone, hiding in my house, cringing
every time a bus would come through the village. I wondered why God had allowed
this to happen to me. It was the first time in quite a while that I thought
about God at all – and it was only because of this crisis. I still didn’t turn
to Jesus for help, but instead I pushed through, only telling a few people
(because I needed some medical tests), and behaved in some ways of which I am
not proud, not realizing that what I was doing not only hurting myself but
others. Ignoring God.
I met my husband in Guatemala months after this happened –
Mark was attached to the embassy; we were married after my tour was up and I went
to live in Africa, where he was stationed after Guatemala, for a year before
returning stateside. While Mark knew what had happened to me, I still didn’t
really talk about it or deal with it, pushing it away. We tried to get pregnant
for a couple of years, even going through infertility treatments, but I never
could get pregnant. I started to think about God again, but not in a “let me
turn to You” manner, but thinking that He was punishing me for what I’d done in
response to being raped. I started praying again, this time asking for
forgiveness, pleading for a child in whatever manner possible. I still felt
like I was being punished, but finally He was starting to make me see that not
getting pregnant wasn’t a punishment, but a blessing. That our family was meant
to grow through adoption – with my wonderful children, [the prince], & my
sweet [princess].
Once we had the children, I wanted to raise them in a church
that looked like our family – multicultural. Honestly, I didn’t give much
thought to the faith aspect; I just wanted them to have a church home. We were
Catholic at that point (my husband was raised Catholic), but I didn’t care
about the denomination, just the makeup of the denomination – so I did parking
lot tours before services to see the makeup of local churches.
Then came the moment
which totally changed my life. We were invited by a neighborhood family to
attend their church. For the first time in my life, I really studied the Bible
because my friend took the time to go through the Bible with me, putting it on
a personal level. I started actually praying, not just thinking that the hard
times were punishments, but realizing God was just waiting for me to pay
attention to Him. Finally, after 30 years, I had a personal relationship with
Him. I was baptized as an adult – but this time, when I came up out of the
water, I truly felt reborn and the heavy weight I’d carried for so many years
was gone – the Resurrection became personal that day. From that day forward, I
was able to accept the forgiveness Jesus had always had for me. I forgave
myself for what had happened. I was able to let go of what had happened to me.
Jesus became real.
If I didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus, I don’t
know if I would have survived Mark’s death four years ago. It was sudden – one
minute, we were planning our 20th anniversary trip for two years
out, and a week and a half later, he was gone. The man who had known every
single thing there was to know about me, and loved me anyway, was gone. But God
had put us in this church, and the Resurrection became more than personal – I
started seeing it in others. People I hadn’t known before showed Christ’s love
to me at a time when it would have been so easy for me to fall away. Like [a
church couple] – they hadn’t really known me before, but they came to Mark’s
service to support me. When I didn’t want to leave the house, I had to, because
[the Princess] had youth group trips to attend, and [the Prince] would want to
attend IW. When I couldn’t bring myself to go to a Bible class by myself when
the children were in their classes, God stepped forward and had [Bible class
teacher] ask me for help she really didn’t need in Cradle Roll. When I couldn’t
bring myself to enter the worship service without Mark, God sent [my friend] to
tell me she expected me to sit by her and [her husband]. When I wanted to sit
at home and hide, He sent [my friend] to drag me out of the house to help her
with a women’s ministry function. And many, many more in this congregation.
