The Beginning: A Childhood Understanding of Christianity

When I look back over my life, I am in awe of how God's fingerprints are revealed throughout my story.

Although my parents had a disdain for anything related to God, my grandparents on my dad's side took me to church from the time I was born. At the age of eight, I "accepted God into my heart" by saying the sinner's prayer at Vacation Bible School. To be honest, my decision was driven primarily by fear. On Wednesday evenings, I had been shown images of people going to hell, and I was terrified of going there myself.

Romans 2:4 tells us that God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance. Looking back, I can see that my response at eight years old was driven by fear of punishment, not by an understanding of God's character, my sin, or the gospel. I was only eight years old. I didn't understand those things yet.

From that point on, I labeled myself a Christian. Because I grew up in a very dysfunctional home, my grandparents' home and church became my home away from home. I will always be grateful for that. I love the people in my family and that church, and I don't take for granted the role they played in my childhood.

However, I never truly studied or read God's Word, and I didn't have much desire to. I was just trying to survive and find a way to make a life for myself.

Fast-forward to adulthood. After graduating, I stopped attending church and moved away, but I continued to identify as a Christian. For several years, I lived a very self-destructive lifestyle involving drugs, alcohol, and the things that often accompany them.

Eventually, I met my husband, Chris, whom I have been married to for almost 23 years at the time of writing this. We got pregnant, and six days after I gave birth to my daughter, I experienced my first seizure.

From that point on, for the next 15 years, life felt like hell on earth.

Searching for Answers: Life with Epilepsy

It took 12 years for doctors to determine that I had Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy. During those years, I turned to everything but God. I eventually ended up on 11 different medications, and my mental and emotional health were a wreck.

I was desperate for answers, relief, and healing. I wanted my life back.

During that time, I became involved with a group of women who identified with the Word of Faith movement. I didn't know what Word of Faith was at the time, but the teaching promised that God would heal my illness and that I could experience His love and favor if I simply had enough faith and spoke the right things into existence.

Before I go any further, please hear me when I say this: I am not making a judgment about the personal beliefs or hearts of every woman in that group. I still love them dearly. I can only speak to what I experienced and what I was taught.

The path those teachings led me down was dark and anything but an answered prayer.

The Word of Faith Years: Chasing Healing and God's Favor

I became deeply involved in deliverance ministry, including performing deliverance on other people. I was constantly trying to find my identity in Christ and, in many ways, trying to earn God's favor through spiritual performance.

It was relentless. There was always another teaching to learn, another spiritual experience to pursue, another issue to address, or another proof-text to support what I believed.

My husband and I argued constantly about my lifestyle and beliefs. Chris had always leaned more toward a Reformed understanding of Scripture and was never involved in the movement. Throughout those 11 years, he spoke biblical truth to me as often as he possibly could. In fact, Chris has told me that he presented the gospel to me multiple times, "in one form or another."

All those years, I questioned whether my own husband was actually saved.

The problem was that it was my heart that needed mending, not his.

I remember telling him during yet another argument about spiritual gifts, "You do realize you're in the minority in the way you believe, right?"

What I didn't understand at the time was that this was the moment Chris gave up on trying to persuade me. Up until then, he had been praying for me every night he was home from the road. While I was asleep, he would lay hands on me and pray in faith that the Lord would bring me out of what I was involved in.

My words had deeply hurt him, and he eventually stepped away from those conversations. Looking back, I believe that was around the time God began doing a work in me that I could not yet see.

When Everything Began to Change

Something began happening that I couldn't explain.

The phrase, "Give me eyes to see and ears to hear," kept coming into my mind. It wouldn't go away. The only thing I knew to do was pray it, so I did.

For the first time, I was genuinely seeking God.

Several months later, I remember falling on my face, down on my hands and knees, crying out to God. I didn't know what to do. I had walked away from the women I had been involved with, and I was heartbroken. I knew the lifestyle I had been living was contrary to God's Word, but I didn't know how I was going to navigate life without everything I had known for 11 years.

I had never felt so alone.

It was just me and God. I had to put my faith in Him and trust that He would lead me into truth through His Word. I prayed that He would guide me and eventually soften my husband's heart toward me.

I was deeply ashamed of the hurt I had caused my husband and daughter, but especially of how I had dishonored God.

I didn't have all the answers. I didn't know what the next season would look like. But I knew I could no longer continue down the path I had been walking.

Walking Away and Turning to Truth

On May 7, 2020, I made the decision to walk away from everything I had known for 11 years.

I fell to my knees, and I believe that was the beginning of a completely new chapter in my life. The Lord made me a new creation, and the changes that followed were unlike anything I had experienced before.

I quit smoking cigarettes cold turkey after 24 years of smoking. My priorities began to change. I became concerned with whether my actions were obedient to God and whether the way I lived reflected love for Him and for the people around me.

The way I dressed changed. My behavior changed. The way I approached, read, and studied God's Word changed.

I had called myself a Christian for years, but I had never truly understood the gospel or what it meant to belong to Christ. I had spent so much time chasing spiritual experiences, trying to prove my faith, and searching for God's favor through my own efforts.

I began to understand that my hope was not in my ability to perform, my feelings, or my spiritual experiences. My hope was in Jesus Christ and what He had accomplished.

I was learning to approach God's Word differently—not to find verses that supported what I already believed, but to understand what God had actually said.

What God Has Taught Me: The Sufficiency of Christ

God has been incredibly gracious to me.

He has also been gracious to restore my marriage. Chris and I are now on the same page spiritually in a way we had not experienced before in our marriage. What a wonderful gift that has been!

But the greatest gift was not simply that my circumstances changed. It was that God brought me to understand the truth of His Word, the sufficiency of Christ, and what it means to rest in Him.

I no longer wanted to chase an experience, earn God's favor, or measure His nearness by how I felt. I was learning that my emotions could change, my circumstances could change, and my experiences could change, but God's Word remains true.

That truth changed everything.

I share my story not because I have everything figured out or because my journey has been without difficulty. I share it because I know what it is like to be spiritually confused, to sincerely believe things that are not taught in Scripture, and to spend years trying to find through spiritual performance what can only be found in Christ.

My desire now is to help other women understand God's Word, recognize teachings that distort His character and Scripture, and grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I don't want women to simply know what they need to leave behind. I want them to understand the truth they have been brought into through the gospel.

Feelings are fleeting. Experiences change. But the Word of God remains.

*"But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen." — 2 Peter 3:18 (NKJV)