God has worked in amazing ways in my husband's life, as you've read if you found this page. God has changed my life, too---our stories go together. Here is my story.

• Background
• Religious Training
• Looking for God in All the Wrong Places
• The God-Shaped Hole
• Seek and You Will Find
• No More Excuses
• Jesus is My Housekeeper

Background:

On the surface, my family was a normal, all-American, church-going family, but underneath was an almost unbearable tension. My parents fought a lot, about everything from what to have for dinner to my dad's changing jobs so often. They couldn't talk to each other, so I, as their only child, became their sounding board. Mom would complain to me about Dad, and Dad would complain to me about Mom. I was the repository of all their philosophies, dreams, disappointments, hurts, and resentments; the peacemaker and go-between.

My father was undemonstrative, distracted, and irritable. His impatient brush-offs of my bids for his attention and his frequent criticisms of me translated in my child's mind to a lack of love. It wasn't until I was in college that he would be able to tell me in a precious letter (that I still have) that he loved me. As I was growing up, I was nearly convinced that he hated me.

I was teased a lot as a kid---only child syndrome, I guess. I had friends, but spent a lot of time alone. I did all the normal kid things, had a lot of fun, and had lots of relatives who loved me, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that I was unloved, unacceptable, an outcast. When my brother, Doug, was born when I was eleven, I was thrilled. I had always wanted a sibling. I loved to take care of him, play with him, love him. Here was someone who loved me unconditionally, who looked up to me and wanted to be with me, who didn't care how I looked or what I weighed. Here was someone who needed me, not for any complicated psychological reasons, but for basic love and care.

Religious Training:

I was raised in the Lutheran church and baptized as an infant. When I was a child we lived in New Jersey, next door to the parsonage of our church. My uncle was our pastor for awhile, and that was fun! Later we would be good friends with the new pastor and his family. The new pastor felt that mature children should be allowed to take communion early if they understood what it was about. I was happy and proud to be chosen.

Later, at our church in Connecticut, I was confirmed, though late and in an unusual way. I never finished the seventh-grade confirmation classes, so in ninth grade I took the adult membership class, and my "adult membership" was counted as my confirmation. It was not a decision to follow Christ, it was just something everyone did. I had no clue what it was about (I was told I was "confirming my baptism", whatever that meant). The gospel and the idea of who God is escaped me. The liturgy made no sense to me. The readings, chants, and responses seemed like magic words that everyone droned on automatic pilot with little attention or understanding, and the hymns were sung in the same way. To me, the Bible readings rarely seemed to have anything to do with the sermon, and the sermon rarely seemed to have anything to do with life. I'm not picking on the Lutheran Church, I'm just relating what I felt at the time.

I knew God was real, but He seemed far away and inaccessible. When I met Barry at age 15, we both thought (even though we weren't believers) that God had brought us together. There were times when I really wanted to get close to Him, to "find God."  I gave up on trying to read the Bible. It was hard to understand, and what did stories of people dead and gone thousands of years ago have to do with God? My ignorance of the Bible caught me once at a youth group retreat. During a Bible exercise, my group was given the task of finding evidence in the Bible that God has a sense of humor. Unfortunately, the rest of my group was just as ignorant as I, and had no interest in actually doing the assignment. Shy, follower-not-leader me had to do all the searching and reporting. I had no clue where to even look. The Bible I was using opened to the parable of the shepherd leaving 99 sheep to look for one lost one. All I could picture was 99 sheep wandering all over, and the shepherd having a time rounding them all up again. I knew it was a lame answer, but how lame I didn't realize until I saw the look in the youth pastor's eyes. She never said a word, but that incident bothered me for years. I still yearned for a way to be close to God. At another youth retreat, we had a mock auction of things we wanted most in the whole world. Among things like a fancy house, good grades, athletic ability, and a Porsche, was the item, "a full day with Jesus." I bid ruthlessly and blew all my "money" on that single item.

God was faithful to His promise, "seek, and you will find" (Matthew 7:7). Though I wandered for several more years, the Lord was repeatedly revealing Himself to me. During my junior year in high school, Dad lost his job and didn't find another for over a year---a very difficult time for all of us that nearly tore the family apart, during which my only comfort was my brother, Doug, and when Barry came home from college. In January of my senior year, Dad got a job in Kansas and moved out there. The same month, I turned 17, the space shuttle Challenger blew up, and my best friend's brother committed suicide. I had a lot to think about, and a lot of questions for God.

That May, Mom joined Dad for a week to go house hunting. She took Doug to my uncle's in Virginia, and I stayed home alone. I went to church that Sunday only because I had nursery duty. They didn't need me after all, and I couldn't sneak out, so I went to the service. For the first time, a sermon actually seemed to deal with real life---mine. In spite of my anger and bitterness with my dad, I wanted above all else to have a real relationship with him. The pastor talked that day about forgiveness. I have no idea what he said, but it just socked me between the eyes---I had to forgive my father. So, I did. That made it easier to be nice to him, which in turn made it easier for him to be nicer to me. It's been a bumpy road, but things are much better between us these days. And it was stunning evidence that God was there, and was interested in my life. Now, if only I could feel close to Him...

Looking For God In All the Wrong Places:

My search would go on through college and beyond. For awhile, I hung around with the Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship. I hadn't had much contact with Evangelical Christians before (though at the time I didn't know that's what they were). They were weird. They did aerobics to "Jesus music", argued semantics at their Bible study, prayed all the time, and they were emotional, unbelievably goody-goody, and incredibly pushy. The rest of the campus called them the "God Squad". I went to one Friday-night meeting. Everything was so foreign to me, that I felt like the walls were closing in. I left as soon as it was polite and never went back. After that, I seemed to run into a lot of "weirdo Christians." I decided I didn't want anything to do with Christianity and looked elsewhere.

I appreciated the Eastern religions that Barry was studying. Zen was fascinating, and so was the idea of finding and being your true nature in Taoism. Still, those Eastern religions all seemed a little too cerebral and distant for me. I fell in love with Native American religions and how they permeated every aspect of life for the Indian. The simplest natural things were given profound meaning. Their religion was their life---not like church, where you went once a week and it had nothing to do with anything else. I liked the idea of God being in nature, in every thing and creature. I felt that if I spent enough time in nature or managed tobefriend and touch a wild animal, it was like "touching" God. I devoured books on Native American history and religion. I admired the dedication of the participants in the bloody Sun Dance. I wanted to go to a reservation and participate in the sweat lodge and go on a vision quest. Eventually, however, I realized that these Native religions could never be real to me. All I would ever be was a white girl playing at being Indian.

The God-Shaped Hole:

I constantly looked for something to satisfy, to fill the emptiness inside. In high school, I thought having lots of friends and boyfriends and going out every weekend (none of which happened for me) would make me happy. In college, I drank---and found out it was fun. I tried pot---that was fun, too. But I knew partying was meaningless, a quick fix. The more I drank, the worse I felt, and not because of hangovers---deep down, I knew it was wrong. I wrote bad poetry. I longed for musical talent that might have expressed and maybe assuaged the feeling inside. The emptiness seemed to grow the more I tried to fill it.

I remember this thought crystallizing one night when I was at Eons, an under-21 nightclub. The place was packed with people dancing to ear-splitting music. It was impossible to talk, so everyone just moved and danced. Some tried to talk with their eyes, but I noticed that the majority let their eyes slide away from contact. It seemed that each person was a separate island in a sea of noise; that if the music was loud enough, it would drown the cry of the void inside--- for the moment. I realized that that was what I was doing, too---trying to silence the pain of emptiness.

Disaster struck in late October of my junior year in college. I discovered I was pregnant with Barry's child. For various reasons, including embarrassment, pride, convenience, and fear, we concluded that our only sensible option was an abortion. I knew the baby was a baby and not "tissue" as they referred to it at the clinic. I had gone with Mom to her ultrasound appointment when she was pregnant with my brother and watched the funny movements on the screen. I had listened to his heartbeat. I had seen pictures of developing babies in books. I knew my baby had fingers and toes and a face and a heartbeat and brain waves. But it seemed to me that my baby would be better off dead than the other options. Hadn't I thought the same of myself on occasion? So we opted for abortion. Physically, the procedure was not difficult (I was asleep), but there were deep emotional scars for both of us, worsened by having to conceal it from everyone but my roommate. After awhile, life went back to normal, but neither of us were the same again.  I began to feel more empty than I'd ever been.

Seek and You Will Find:

I graduated from college and determined to be independent, but could not find a good job. I chafed at having to live at home with Mom and Dad, now in Pennsylvania. I worked hard as a substitute teacher by day and a waitress at night to save up money, and Barry and I married two years later. He was in graduate school, and I was working in the mailroom at a Du Pont site in Wilmington, DE. Money was tight. I had no friends outside of work, and work was boring and miserable. I was lonely and depressed. Barry was having a crisis of his own, and took a leave of absence from grad school to teach high school.

It was a miserable year. I worked at Macy's and was disgusted by the commercialism and greed during the Christmas season. We were plagued by fears of what we called "The Pipeline"---the treadmill that carries you from breaking your back in college so you can get a good job to breaking your back at your job so you can have a nice house, nice cars, 2.5 kids and a dog and keep up with the Joneses, and then you retire and move to Florida and drive a golf cart all day. To us, it reeked of enslavement. Besides this, Barry was seeing the fruits of his cherished philosophies in his students, and it wasn't a pretty sight. His disillusionment with moral relativism affected me, too. After one year of teaching in Pennsylvania, we moved back to Maryland, and he went back to grad school.

There, Barry continued a friendship with fellow student Kenny Wantz, a born-again Christian and a member of the Church of the Nazarene. Kenny and his wife, Beth, had been at our wedding. I was cordial with Beth, but her unashamed "Praise the Lord" every other sentence put me off. Eventually, her sweet nature and real desire for a friend won me over. I was very lonely and grateful to have a friend, even if she was annoyingly Christian. But her faith and the things I heard from Barry about his conversations with Kenny stirred that old hunger for God. I read a few powerful Christian novels that sparked more conversation about faith with Beth. I was cautious, not wanting to be vulnerable, and not wanting to appear too interested. The aftertaste of my experience with the "God Squad" in college was still strong. One day, Beth showed me Matthew 7: 7-8. "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." It made me want to cry, because I wanted God so badly, but I refused to show it. Here seemed to be the answer I needed. I had been searching for so long.

I decided I'd better find out about this Jesus. I started reading the Gospels every day while eating breakfast. Other Bible-reading attempts in the past had always ended in frustration, but suddenly the Bible made sense! Around this time, Barry and I cautiously agreed to a Bible study with Kenny and Beth. Just the four of us, we went through a study on the Apostles' Creed and the basics of the Christian faith. I was still unsure and hiding behind many excuses, like the hypocrites in the church, the "God Squad", and not feeling "good" enough.

No More Excuses:

At the time, I was working at Wanamaker's and hated retail work as much as I had hated all the other McJobs I'd had. One day, there was a special extra discount for employees. I bought some Estee Lauder skin care, stuff I would never buy except on discount. The sales associate accidentally rang in the employee discount twice. I noticed it when I went to sign my credit slip and knew I should settle it on the spot, but, giving myself the excuse that she was busy with other customers and I was tired and wanted to get home and could fix it tomorrow, I didn't say anything. I never did take the slip back in, and after a few days began to have the attitude, "if they're too stupid to catch the mistake, that's their fault. How many customers come back in to fix a mistake in their favor?" That day Security called me down and informed me that my "mistake" was considered theft, and suspended me until the disciplinary board could decide my fate. They fired me a week later. I was devastated. Me, a petty thief? I'd never been fired before, and the acute embarrassment of having to explain it to family and friends and most of them agreeing with the termination added to my depression. I felt dirty.

That week's Bible Study lesson just happened (by God's grace) to be on sin. I finally understood that I was a low-down sinner, and that my sin separated me from God, and that Jesus was the only One who could wash me clean. Part of the lesson used the illustration of housecleaning---letting Jesus take your sin and clean your "house"---your heart. Beth had asked me before if I wanted to pray, and I had always half-pretended to misunderstand her and had asked her to pray. This time, when she and I were in the kitchen and she asked me if I wanted to pray, something inside me released, and I found myself with no more excuses. I was simply unable to fight it any longer. I prayed, and asked Jesus to come into my life, take charge, and do my spiritual housecleaning. I was so relieved and excited, I almost forgot to ask Him to forgive my sin! Then Beth was hugging me, and I was in a daze. When she and Kenny left, I could barely get the words out to tell Barry what had happened. He hugged me, and said, "Thank you, God." He was so relieved, he was giddy, because he had been finding his way to Jesus, too, but had been afraid to tell me.

That Christmas, I went to church with my mother. Tears came to my eyes as I realized that I actually understood some of the liturgy. Those "magic words" were taken straight from the Gospels I had been reading, and I finally understood the truth behind them.

After Christmas, Barry and I went to church with Kenny and Beth. Both of us felt Jesus saying to us, "Welcome home." We had come home. That hole I had carried around for so long was God-shaped. Now it was filled. I was happy for the first time since childhood. I found true friends, a social life, and love and acceptance, all things I had always wanted but could never seem to find on my own. That summer, God gifted me with a great job teaching fifth grade at a Christian school. I was baptized that October. This time, it truly meant that I was a follower of Christ and my sins were forgiven.

Jesus Is My Housekeeper:

I am a totally different person now from who I was before I met Jesus.  The first thing He did was ask me to stop drinking---immediately!  He also cleaned up my filthy mouth. Almost immediately, I stopped swearing.  People who knew me before were amazed!  Next, He worked on my confidence, showing me that my worth as a person comes not from how many friends I have, or my GPA, or my looks, or my job, but from the fact that God is my Father and loves me enough to send His One and only Son to die in my place. I have more confidence now and am no longer shy. Then He reminded me that ALL of my sins were forgiven---even the abortion!  (Hebrews 10:14-22; 1 John 1:9)  So I did not need to torture myself with them anymore.  He had forgotten them (Isaiah 38:17, 43:25) and wanted me to move on (Philippians 3:13-14).  Currently, he is cleansing me of my addiction to food, among other things. I still have struggles and setbacks, but my life belongs to the Lord now, and He will help me to continue to grow and walk with Him as I yield my whole heart to Him. One particular verse that continues to have more and more meaning for me is Isaiah 40:31: "Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." As I learn to wait upon the Lord, Jesus is my strength.