This is my story.
Do you remember a moment in your life when everything changed for you? When you decided who you were or who you wanted to be?
I had a cataclysmic transformation in the second grade. Thanks to my amazing English-professor mama, I was already indoctrinated with Jesus and literature. But that year, I made a few critical life decisions: 1) I wanted to be a writer, 2) I felt called to missions, 3) I wanted to be a wife and mother, and 4) I would always be a reader. That was the year I read Charlotte’s Web, The Little Princess, and The Secret Garden, and my soul changed forever. It was also the year I went forward at a summer camp worship service and told God I’d do anything he wanted me to do.
I was already a believer and wanted to be a good girl. But that year, my desires grew into something more. I wanted to help change the world and all that was wrong in it. But like all of us, I had some brokenness, and I still do.
I lost my aviator-father at age two, hiked his crash site at age 42, and brought home some of the wreckage in a garbage bag. I lost my single mom because of a hard-fought battle with dementia. For a long time, my heart felt inexplicably shattered. I’ve been a pastor’s wife for most of my adult life; it’s been a privilege and the hardest, loneliness position I’ve ever experienced. But God was present for it all.
I published my first novel at age 22. I married my best friend because I thought he was Prince Charming, but he turned out to be an ordinary believer also struggling to grow in Christ. We struggled together, growing to understand that our brokenness and pain were beautiful qualities when we let God transform us. We love to laugh and travel and bike ride and binge Netflix. I’ve been to a several dozen countries, but my life-changing trips include flavellas and gypsy villages filled with women and children waiting to hear that they were created for purpose and hope. I teach ESL, high school literature, and direct discipleship ministries at my church.
My husband and I have three sons, which doesn’t seem like a lot of kids unless you only have boys and you understand the principles of multiplication. We had a whole closet for weapons and a drawer in their bathroom full of toothbrushes for their friends who spent the night nearly every weekend and never remembered their toothbrushes. We had 20+ exciting years of moving at light speed through sword fights, practices, games, and an open refrigerator. We had beautiful but sometimes hard conversations about living counter-culturally, standing for faith, and repenting whenever they sinned.
Praise God for his promises! Our boys are adults, and two of them are married to nice girls and off our payroll, and the last one nearly there. They love Jesus. What more could a mother want? Except grandchildren, obviously.
I’ve served in volunteer or vocational ministry every year of my 34-year marriage, and I’ve seen a lot of evil launched against the Church and within the Church. (It turns out, everyone’s broken.) I’ve weathered deaths, betrayals, abuse, insecurity, faithlessness, heartache, grief, and the tremendous and inexplicable power of God’s healing grace and mercy. That’s why I write.
I hope you’ll read or listen to the stories I tell. In Christ, even our greatest tragedies have happy endings. Please join me on this adventure we call spiritual transformation.
