I use every opportunity to share why I passionately love and desire to exalt Jesus with every breath I am given. I am more excited than anyone to express my gratitude to God for His continued amazing love for me. Aging is a privilege when you deserve to be in hell. Once again, while I have another day to share, here is my story of why I love Jesus! ❤️ ------------------------------------- I tell my story so you know the God that I live for, the hope that wakes me up each day, and how I miraculously lived to see today. I find my own story so amazing; I never get tired of telling it. God has used it over and over again to pull someone from the edge of death. I feel privileged to be chosen by Him and cherish what He has done with all the wreckage I created with my life. I live every day desiring to give hope to someone who really needs to know that God can restore their life from the worst situations imaginable.
By the time I was 17, I knew I was in trouble. I was battling serious emotional, mental, and spiritual issues. I was ready to explode from all the pent-up anger inside myself. I was afraid of what that was going to look like when I could no longer contain it. I had lived a life free of addictions up to that time. One day, I had my first drink in the form of a dessert. Miraculously, I found the solution to my anger: drinking. It fixed everything for me.
The next eight years were a terrible mess of addictions; I drank constantly. I battled eating disorders, became part of a very bad crowd wherever I lived, was often suicidal, and was hanging in clubs nearly every night; I was addicted to rock music and chaotic parties. I could preach an entire sermon on the power of music in one's life. I became what I listened to. When I am somewhere and hear that music, I can still feel the rush of energy that I did back in that day; only now, I am very sure who gave me that energy and who will quickly give it to me again if I will just go back to the music and the temptations that go with it.
I was violently assaulted and beaten nearly to death at age 23 by someone I couldn’t defend myself against while intoxicated. I behaved and dressed in ways to draw great attention to myself; however, I wrongly expected to control the reactions of others to my behavior.
My life changed forever that night. I can see now that I lost my desire to live after that incident. I didn't want anyone touching me, including myself, for many years following that encounter. I was hostile and withdrawn and did much more excessive drinking in the privacy of my apartments. It is a complete wonder that I lived because of how much I was able to drink.
Many nights I was alone and blacked out. In fact, there are large periods of time I don’t remember at all. I could fully participate in life for weeks and not remember any of it. Amazingly, all these years, I worked full time. I prided myself on saying that I didn't need anyone to live. I had good jobs because I became whatever was expected of me and could somehow present well. You can do this when you have no clue who you really are. However, in order to do this, I was intoxicated all day, all night, every day—mixing alcohol with amphetamines.
At 26, my life came to a physical end. I was extremely sick from an eating disorder and way too much drinking/various mixtures of pills. I was extremely thin, yet very swollen, dangerously dehydrated, and shaking violently all the time from alcoholism. I was unable to even function because of the shaking and vomited even water. Many thought I was going to die. Many expected me to commit suicide for reasons unknown to me. They just kept checking on me to make sure I was alive. Most people could hardly stand to be around me because of the death that poured from my mouth in the form of profanity or hopelessness. I was too sick to even try to explain. I knew I wasn't going to live very much longer. My mental health was so bad that I couldn't think straight about anything. My paranoia was worse than ever.
I went to 12 different churches trying to find hope that I could stay out of hell, and the 12 pastors each told me I needed to go to detox and come see them after I was sobered up. I gave up on church because I knew there was no way I could get off drugs/alcohol to return for help. Living sober was not an option for me with the level of torment in my mind.
My little sister, Renee, experienced a miraculous encounter with God. I was dumbfounded at the change in her and felt such peace and safety around her. She gave me one condition to being with her, and that was to keep my mouth shut because she couldn't handle all the profanity and distress that poured from me. She would talk to me about God and her new experience, but I simply was unable to even process a simple conversation in the state I was in. My mind was totally destroyed. I wasn't showing up for work, and two of my co-workers came and forced me to go to urgent care. I told the doctor that I was very sick and needed something to help me with stress. He asked me why I was shaking so badly and gave me a prescription for tranquilizers and told me to return the following week for a greater examination. I knew next week wasn't likely to come.
The next day, my sister came and brought me to meet her pastor, Loren Molskness. He feverishly explained the gospel to me, but I couldn't understand anything he was saying to me. I finally told him he was wasting his time because my mind couldn't follow him and he said, "Jesus Christ can cut right through that." I heard that. I thought about that for three days. In fact, I still think about that now. I believe that you can lead someone in a coma to Christ because of that statement! I certainly know you can minister to an intoxicated person. Many of them are like me; they cannot sober up to hear the truth. He also asked me what I was holding onto. I still think about that, also, when things are restless for me.
The pastor prayed with me, and I left. I was in utter turmoil, and within 48 hours, I took the overdose of drugs and alcohol that should have sent me to hell. My only thought was that hell could not be worse than what I was experiencing; the greatest lie I had believed so far. I was driving away from where I had been staying so I could be alone and was pulled over for a DUI. I was taken to jail where they tried to make sense of my incoherent rambling for two hours. At that time, they tested my blood alcohol at .245 and realized that I had taken many pills, also.
The police wanted to take me to the psych ward in another city except they were concerned for my life and asked if I had family that could come and immediately take me to the hospital. My sister came and took me back to the pastor and his wife. She kept saying, “My God is not going to let you die.” Over and over, she repeated those words. The pastor's wife, Barb Molskness, took me alone to her basement (where she would spend time alone with God), and I remember hearing her crying as I was draped over her shoulder. We were on the floor.
There is a longer version of this story, but I will tell you her account briefly. She said she had never seen anything like the condition I was in. She knew I was going to die if Jesus did not come and help me immediately. My sister had told her not to pray in the spirit because she said it would freak me out. She prayed to herself until she said she had no choice but to pray in the spirit. I can still hear that voice and those words to this day in my head. "Come to me, little girl." Over and over I heard that cry. But the words were different. As I thought about those words, later, I realized that the cry I heard in my head was not even in the English language. I can still hear those words as well. I am nearly unconscious, but interpreting her spirit language inside my head. God is amazing. She asked me to repeat after her, “I renounce you, Satan.” Twice.
She said I instantly went limp, and she thought I had either died or she pictured in her mind the places in the Bible where a demoniac was freed by Jesus and the person appeared dead. She chose to believe that. She left me to sleep until about three hours later, my sister woke me up and I was a totally different person. I was completely physically well, very peaceful, never went through any withdrawal, and didn't even remember that I smoked cigarettes for six months. I have never used drugs or alcohol since that day 33 years ago. I even looked different. People were stunned.
They still call me and ask what happened to me. My old friends were so freaked out; many didn't want me around them, which was painful, but a blessing.
My new obsession was to find the One that had healed me, the One that gave me the amazing peace in my mind after years of torment. I have pursued Him ever since more than all else. I went to every Bible Study I could find for years. I was in church every time the door was open. I went out looking for the hopeless from the start. I was just bubbling over with that hope that had eluded me my entire life. I still marvel that 33 years later, I can feel that same excitement about that day. My lowest day and my highest day were the same day for those of you who think it is so bad now that it will take forever to clean up the mess you are in!
Needless to say, my mind needed to be brought under submission to Christ. That is a lifelong process, but here is what works for me every single time my mind starts to rage against me. Get out a pad and paper and start copying out of the Bible word for word. Your mind will submit to the Word of God. I promise. Write until it does. Start with Psalm 119, and my second favorite is 2 Samuel 22, followed by the book of Daniel.
I was advised and found out early that the best way to beat depression and anxiety/fear is to serve someone else. I never had to look far to see that someone was struggling. Many times, I just sat with them; went to a movie, sat at a park, went for walks; we did simple, inexpensive things. Listening to others talk is a great ministry.
I worked full-time, yet decided to find volunteer activities to do instead of sitting home at night and watching TV or just loitering my time away. I spent two nights a week at Youth for Christ with kids who really needed attention and a place to hang out. I spent one day a weekend at the treatment center volunteering in the bookstore (where I met Tatiana) or doing crafts with those in treatment. None of these activities required me to be smart or trained in anything. They just required me to show up and show kindness to people that really needed a smile that day. I loved every minute of these times and overcame my depression as a result.
Until this time in my life, my depression was so severe that it had been a regular part of my life since I was young and had caused me to think of suicide nearly every day of my teen life up until that point. Knowing Jesus Christ and serving others is the combination that still keeps my life alive and worth living. After eight years of sobriety and volunteering, I knew I wanted more. I wrote a letter to Teen Challenge offering to do janitorial work for them on weekends. They called me for an interview in 1999, and this resulted in an offer to be staff for the teen girls' program. I went for the interview from my town of 20,000 in southern Minnesota to Minneapolis. I left that interview knowing there was no chance I would do this job. The ministry was in the inner city and I felt unsafe. I decided that there was no way I could live or work in such conditions every day.
However, after a night at home, I realized that while using and living for myself, I had lived in far worse conditions and was fine with it. I had become so comfortable with needing convenience that I was faced with how selfish and entitled I had become. I would serve Jesus, but needed to do it in a nice, pretty, acceptable way. I vowed to God that night that if Teen Challenge called me, I would accept. They did call, and I did accept.
I worked with the teens for one year. This was the most intense year of my life. I had to learn to love them no matter what they said or did to me. This was the greatest lesson of my life. It taught me that my choice has to be to love no matter how hurt or angry I feel with anybody anytime. I was asked to connect with the jails/prisons of Minnesota and help men/women get court-ordered to Teen Challenge instead of time in jail/prison. I was so afraid of not being able to do it successfully, yet so much wanting to share Jesus in the jails. I decided to throw my fears into the wind. I had been told by my brother’s pastor that God doesn't use pew warmers. He guides moving targets. I wanted to be a moving target.
I was in about 35 different jails/prisons a month sharing with adult inmates daily for nearly 10 years. It was amazing. I am forever changed by all the things I saw God do to those who were somebody's husband, father, son, brother, mother, daughter, and sister. I aimed to show them how Heaven looked at them. God, in turn, made my life so rich through my time spent with them. So many joined me in my pursuit of Jesus.
After a serious car accident and not being able to drive I was asked to be the Director of the Women’s program, which I did for eight years learning how to love broken women. Watching a life being transformed keeps me speechless and further transforms me.
I left Teen Challenge in May of 2019 to focus completely on prayer ministry with the 7 Bells ministry team, crisis response, and coaching many calls for those struggling in faith or recovery.
I met my husband in 2005. We got married 15 months later in 2006. I was 42 when I married for the first time. I never imagined myself married and certainly found commitment to be a challenge! My husband, Kevin, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer after we were married for just eight months. We could never have planned for this very difficult time period. I learned how to walk in a totally new way. I learned that agreement in prayer and confessing life and the Word of God for my husband were powerful. I learned to choose my companions very carefully. I learned that God is able to do what doctors only hope can happen. I learned that my husband was more important than anything else in my life after Jesus.
Today, Kevin is continuing to stay ahead of this diagnosis. It isn’t easy, but he is a miracle. I have a whole new chapter to my life, one that seems as compelling to people as my deliverance from addictions. I get many calls from people who get that call saying they have cancer. They want to know how to make it through. I know the One who can help them on this very difficult journey—whether their healing comes here on earth or in Heaven, forever. He has given me yet another reason to shout His name from the rooftops.
My life is a great story. I am very thankful today. I have lived longer than anyone ever thought I would!
It is a privilege to have been able to share this with you. I have 33 years of sobriety and Jesus. Thirty-three years of Jesus has meant 33 years of never needing anything else again.
Isaiah 43:1-3 says, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
