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My husband moved our family to his home-state of Wisconsin in 1971. Peter loved California but sensed that I desperately needed to get away from my family.    I now understand that God needed me to be where He could begin to give to me, "Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; ...that He might be glorified."

 (Isaiah 61:3) 

                        Ashes--
                   Mourning--
                   Heaviness--

These are tough words to describe the first twenty-one years of anyone’s life. As you read on please know that Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose."" is always true. Our Sovereign God always knows what is best for each of us. The word "good" in this verse means first the good of others who need our testimonies...comfort and lessons learned (or ones we wish we had learned). After others the word "good" in this verse can also mean good for us.

I was twenty-two years old when we settled in Waupun, Wisconsin. I was a mess and didn’t realize it. So much had transpired in my life that left such scars---both emotional and physical. I had Bulbar Polio when I was six years old and spent a year on an isolation ward of a county hospital. An iron lung had been my home for most of that year. Nine major surgeries later, the loss of my senior year of high school to an auto accident caused by a drunk driver, and my mother’s three attempts to murder me, had all left me with many "ashes, mourning, and heaviness" as well as anger and some bitterness.

I fell in love with Wisconsin. I had never experienced the changing of the seasons or the love and warmth of a close and loving family. My husband has four brothers and being the first girl in his family I was accepted as a daughter and spoiled accordingly. When I married my husband God blessed me with a mother who would love me unconditionally. I was also blessed with a pastor’s wife who became my "mom" and together with my husbands mother-- as I yielded my heart to God and their teaching-- they taught me by their examples and the Words of God how to be a wife, mother, and servant of Christ.

I was thirty-four years old when my deteriorated physical condition and unexplainable spiritual and emotional condition dumped me at a crossroad in my life. Everyone who knew me---even my husband---saw me as a person who had all things "together". Only I knew how miserable that I was and I stood one autumn night ready to never go back to church unless the Lord showed me why my heart ached so much. That night God held my heart in His hands as He opened a tightly locked room of my heart and helped me to see what I had buried there as a hurting child. That night God sat my spirit free and enabled me to fully surrender my life to Him. That night God enabled me to understand that He had not abused me too...rather, He had worked overtime to keep me alive and make the "all things" of my life able to glorify Him and help others.     

It took a few years to deal with all of the hurt in my life and allow God’s Word to change some wrong thinking about the LORD and me. I had to let God give me Christ-esteem as I learned to love myself in Him and see myself as a Princess in the court of the King of Kings. Berating myself had to become a thing of my past and a lot of false guilt and false shame had to be truly buried and forgotten. At this time I began journal-writing which helped me to heal my heart. This daily exercise has been a continual blessing to my life. When God gave to me my life’s verse all of the pieces of the puzzle of my life seemed to lock in to place: "Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." (Isaiah 48:10).

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