transformation – Page 3 – A Million God Stories

#143. Little Church by the Creek: A Billboard Message

June 6, 2020January 26, 2018 by pamamilliongodstoriescom

Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

In 1989, my future husband moved from Texas to the town in Indiana where I lived. I was working as a manager of Pizza Hut at the time and he applied for a job. I didn’t need to hire anyone but the waitresses thought he was cute so I ended up hiring him. We developed a friendship. He had hinted that he would like to date me but there was a no dating policy—so he filled out termination papers and said, “Now will you go out with me?” We went out and have never been apart since.

We dated for a year and then decided to get married. Neither one of us were churched at that time. He had only been to church three times and I had never been to church with my family. I called a pastor of a church and felt a little bad asking to get married in their church.

I asked the pastor, “How do you come back to church?”

“Just walk through the doors.”

“What about this membership thing?”

“No, just walk through the doors.”

We got married and were thrown into married life, trying to blend our lives. I had children from a previous marriage. God was not in our marriage at that point. We had never invited Him into our lives. We decided to go to a marriage counselor. I remember that on the way to an appointment with the counselor we prayed and asked for a sign if we should stay married. We were driving on the highway at the time and we passed this huge billboard that said, “Loved the wedding, now invite me to the marriage.”

-God

It just so happened that the marriage counselor was a Christian and he showed us the love of Jesus. He told us to go back to church, which we did immediately. We attended church regularly and got involved, volunteering with youth. There was a revival at our church and the guest pastor asked, “Do you have a fire for God?” My husband said, “I don’t even have a spark.” But God was working in the heart of my husband, and on the third night there was a transformational moment for my husband. He gave his life to the Lord that night. Two days later he went on an Emmaus walk, a weekend designed to parallel the Emmaus walk of the disciples on Easter. The combination of these two events was life changing. He was a different person after that. He had a hunger for Jesus. He became more sensitive to the needs of others, especially to my needs. He became more patient with the kids and even had a calm spirit when driving. It was like he left “the world.”

Six weeks later I went on an Emmaus walk and Jesus became real to me during this weekend. I knew Jesus was real before, but He became more than a just a story on a page. After this I felt a calling to lead our church’s youth ministry. We had volunteered some before with the youth and had been on a couple youth trips with our daughter. The youth leaders were leaving and they needed someone to step in. In the beginning it was just my call, but eventually my husband was called as well. We have prayed to go deeper in this ministry and God has been faithful to answer. When we started, it was ten minutes of teaching and 45 minutes of fellowship and games, and now we are able to spend more time teaching because the kids are interested and want to go deeper. We have been investing in teenagers’ lives this way for about 15 years. But this is not the end of the story. God had more for us.

About four years ago, I went to a conference with a friend and saw one of my favorite worship leaders. She had been singing and praying and God’s spirit was so present. I can’t put into words how powerful I felt His presence that night. I felt God was urging me to give my life to worship. My life changed after that. I heard the call clearly from God and this built a confidence in me. I felt God calling me to lead His people into His presence through worship. I wanted people to feel Him and meet Him face to face. I now sing and lead worship for the second service at our church and my husband does all the sound work and is a drummer. We also do worship at the jail, at a drug recovery ministry, at revivals, and at festivals. Our goal as a worship team is that by the leading of the Holy Spirit, we would lead people into the presence of the Lord. I pray for God’s people to be able to feel His breath—that He would be that close.

We have been awed by the power of God. We have seen missionaries, pastors, evangelists, and youth leaders come from the youth group. We have seen that God can use anybody to accomplish what He wants to accomplish. For so much of my life, Jesus was just a character from a storybook, but God has shown us how real He is. We have seen it and experienced it, and we want others to experience it too.

A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person.

#142. Little Church by the Creek: Righteous, Redeemed and Restored

June 6, 2020January 24, 2018 by pamamilliongodstoriescom

Photo by Anna Carroll

In 2007 I was arrested for possession of methamphetamine. I had been married eight years at the time and we had two children. My wife knew I had an addiction problem before my arrest. She just didn’t know it was meth. I was never home and she was ready to leave me. Before my arrest, it was a dark time in our lives and I was very lost. This little church by the creek was on the way to my drug dealer’s house and I would look at it and think, “I need God.” I would go out of my way not to see the church. God was calling me and I was saying, “NO!”

When I went to court, the guy I got arrested with came in with his parents and his pastor. I was upset with the pastor and told him I needed to talk to him. He agreed and I met him at his office. I asked the pastor why he was supporting this guy who didn’t go to church. He said, “My life was messed up before I met Jesus. I am supporting your friend because I was given a second chance and I believe your friend deserves a second chance, and I believe YOU deserve a second chance. If you will come to church and you will listen, I will walk this out with you, and if you fall, I will be there to help.” It felt like he believed in me. He gave me hope. This man was the pastor of the little church by the creek that I had passed on the way to the drug dealer’s. God had drawn me all those years before as I passed by, and now He was drawing me through the pastor. This time I said, “YES!”

I started going to church right after that talk. I sat in the back row. My wife told me that she had also driven past the church for years and she had felt drawn to the church as well. She began going to church with me. I was amazed by everything I was receiving at church. I thought, “I have to get a Bible.” I remember going into my little girl’s bedroom with my new Bible and thinking, “I know there’s something here. But this has just been a book to me. I want it to come alive.” I opened it up and turned to Acts and I couldn’t put it down. It became a light, a mirror, a hammer. I saw my sin, and things began to change in our home. Reading God’s Word changed my life. Two weeks before I was to serve my time, I committed my life to the Lord.

In jail, I participated in a 12-step Christ-centered program led by the jail chaplain called Stepping into Freedom. When I got out of jail, I was required to go to narcotics anonymous (NA) three times a week for two years. I saw that people weren’t getting better. I felt such a need to bring Christ to them. I asked the chaplain, who led the Stepping into Freedom program at the jail, if I could take that curriculum and teach it at our church one night a week. He agreed and I told people at NA and AA about our new ministry and invited them to come. But we needed to become an “approved” program because it is a probation requirement to go to meetings at an “approved” program, and you must get your card signed to prove you have attended these sessions. There was no incentive to attend our program until we had this designation. For one year, I tried to tell the probation officers that I had started the ministry and tried to get them to approve it. Initially, they threw away my fliers, but I kept going back. Finally, they approved our program. Today, my probation office runs the substance abuse coalition and I am partnering with him in this coalition. This coalition now provides grant funding for our ministry.

About a year after we started offering Stepping into Freedom at church, we went on a prayer walk and felt God calling us to something more. Mercy Street was born. Mercy Street is a recovery intervention/restoration ministry that provides worship, a meal, and fellowship. My wife and I are co-directors. We started small with peanut butter sandwiches and a man with an acoustic guitar leading worship. We only had about 10 people coming. Prominent people left the church because of the program, but Mercy Street grew, expanding from 15 to 30 people. I was still working full-time at my day job and I began to get exhausted. First the addiction took me away, and now the ministry was taking me away from my family. The Lord started exposing the junk my wife and I had buried. I didn’t want to deal with it but God led us through it to the other side. The leadership of the church pulled me from ministry for three months to focus on my family. I felt God leading me to dive more into His word and pray more. Our pastor taught us that God comes first, marriage second, then kids, then ministry. We renewed our marriage covenant and the Lord honored that. When I returned to ministry, other churches who had not wanted to partner with us initially, said they wanted to start a Mercy Street program. We are now starting our fifth Mercy Street ministry plant.

God has used my past for good in other ways. I was asked to be part of a meth intercessory prayer team. We were shown a map of areas in the county where there were drug arrests and we would pray that God would begin to take authority over the ground. Because of my past experiences, I knew where the drug deals occurred and we could pray specifically for those areas. One of the biggest dope dealers in a town near here was on a particular street and a pastor invited him to Mercy Street. He then led others to Mercy Street, and now this whole street is cleaned up! God has drawn many people and we have baptized many in the creek by the church. We have felt the Holy Spirit powerfully during these baptisms.

We have also felt the Lord calling us to prevention efforts. We go into middle and high schools and show a documentary on heroin called “Hit of Hell.” We are starting a prevention program with the YMCA. When young people complete the program, the Y gives them a free membership which gives them a place to go and an outlet. We want the kids to not only reject drugs but to become leaders and lead others out of that culture.

At times life has been very difficult. I have put my wife through so much and she has shown me undeserved grace and forgiveness. Sometimes it is difficult for her to juggle her responsibilities co-directing Mercy Street with me while working and raising our children and taking care of our home. This is made more difficult because she has MS. Words can’t express how grateful I am for her and how much I love and admire her.

God is so faithful. Our marriage was in such trouble and God faithfully walked through that with us. I have experienced God as a Restorer and Redeemer. I am right with God because of the cross, not because of anything I have done. So many times, I want to be right on my own merit. But knowing I am righteous because of Him takes the pressure off of me. This is a messy ministry. Often, I am the first responder—the person a teenager calls when they are high and contemplating suicide. I am dependent on God, relying on prayer and the Holy Spirit’s guidance. It is too difficult and complex and dangerous to figure this out on my own. So many things have happened since that day in 2007 and it’s all been the Lord. God has opened good doors and closed the doors that should be closed to protect us. He brought me through the darkness into light. He drew me to Him at the little church by the creek, and there He has done amazing things.

For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21

#141 Little Church by the Creek: The Waterfall of God’s Love

June 6, 2020January 21, 2018 by pamamilliongodstoriescom

Photo by Anna Carroll

I grew up the youngest of six children in an abusive home with alcoholic parents. We didn’t go to church often, only when my mom and dad were sober enough. When I was 9 years old a neighbor shot a dove and it fell in our yard. We tried to nurse it back to health but it died. For the dove’s funeral, I put on my dad’s suit (he was a big, strong Army man about 6’4”). The sleeves and pants were too long and I had to pull them up. I performed the funeral for the dove with all my family there listening. My oldest sister said later, “Timmy, you are going to be a preacher.” I believe the Holy Spirit planted that seed.

But from age 9 to 33 I certainly didn’t live that life. I got married when I was a senior in college to a girl I had dated in high school. My life was dysfunctional and I was looking for validation from others. I was 24 when we divorced. After that, I lived with friends for about a year—basically I was homeless. I was working but didn’t have money. I was spending money on other things, mainly alcohol.

About a year after my divorce, I asked a woman I knew from a newspaper where I had worked if she would consider dating someone like me and she said she would pray about it. She prayed and fasted for five days. She said yes with two conditions: 1) I will always love Someone more than you, and 2) I am a virgin now and I will be a virgin when we get married.

We married in 1991 and I worked for Ganett, the parent company for USA Today. At age 29, Ganett offered me a job as Managing Editor and then Executive Editor. I was making really good money but working 20 hours a day. I had become a flaming workaholic. In May of 1997, I was at the worst point of my life—depressed and exhausted. I did go to church but I was not a Christian. We talked of divorce. I started making plans for suicide and attempted four times. I was trying to end my wife’s suffering because I knew I was a bad husband.

I had decided to try again and had talked to a financial planner about how to make financial plans for my family after my death. That week my pastor asked if I would go to a Promise Keepers event. I didn’t want to go to a Jesus event but I didn’t want people to think I didn’t want to go to a good event and said yes only to put on a show. On May 10, 1997, I got into a van with seven to eight guys and sure enough, there was Jesus music playing all the way. I didn’t want to listen to it. My plan had been that two weeks from that day I would kill myself.

We got to the stadium and there was a pastor that came out and started sharing jokes. Lousy jokes. I kept thinking, this is the biggest waste of time, and got madder and madder. Finally, he stepped back from pulpit and paused awkwardly. I have 69,999 witnesses as to what happened next. He stepped back to pulpit and said, “I apologize. I was brought here to tell jokes but I don’t feel funny. There is a guy here who if he doesn’t get his life right, will not be here in two weeks.” As I sat on the top bleacher of the old Riverfront Stadium, I couldn’t believe what I just heard. A lump formed in my throat and I started crying. The pastor started telling my story. He said this guy is a workaholic, his marriage is a mess, he has hidden addictions, and he doesn’t think God is real. He talked about it being this man’s last chance and that God was calling him right now to believe in Him. There were 70,000 people there, but he preached the service like he was speaking to one person. “What do you have to lose?” he asked. I knew he was talking to me. At some point, I got up and went all the way down to where he was preaching and knelt by the stage. I prayed, “God, I’ve screwed up. If you can do anything with this life, here I am.”

I cried the rest of the weekend and ran the stadium out of toilet paper and tissues. I surrendered that weekend and something happened. I was born again. My mind changed at that moment. I have never struggled with suicide and depression or addictions since then. I went from old to new in that moment. Everything else was just crushed by the waterfall of God’s love. On the way home, I was the loudest singer of the praise songs in the van.

When we got home from the event, I had forgotten my house keys and had to wake my wife to let me in. When she opened the door she said, “What happened to you? Your countenance… Everything is changed.” I grabbed her hand and we prayed together. The Lord reminded me of my call to be a preacher. The next day was Sunday May 12, Mother’s Day, and we went to church. I told my wife her Mother’s Day gift was that I was leaving the newspaper job and becoming a pastor.

I attended seminary and became an associate pastor at a large church in Indiana. Four years into this job, I was asked to become the lead pastor at a large church in Kentucky. My wife and I felt like this was the way to go. But then I received a call from church leadership. They said they would like me to consider pastoring a different church, a much smaller church, that was having some problems, but they believed that the Lord could do amazing things at this church. My wife and I went to this little church by the creek to visit. I wanted to see how the Holy Spirit led me. It was early spring the day we arrived at the church. I got out of our van and as I stood in the parking lot of the little white church, it started snowing. The sun was peeking out from behind the clouds. It was like a Currier and Ives picture—a surreal moment. I felt strongly that God was leading us to this church.

We have been here going on 13 years. We have ten worship services and reach about 1,200 people per week. Last year we had 399 baptisms, 327 of those were first time baptisms. Since 2010, we have had 138 people called from our congregation to ministry. But it’s not me. It is what God’s done here that is amazing. I failed a class at every level of education—even in seminary, I failed evangelism. As a kid, I had a speech impediment, a horrible stutter and a real lisp. I knew what I wanted to say but couldn’t get the words out. I was in special classes even through high school. But God has used me in spite of all of this.

I owe Jesus everything—my marriage, my kids, my life. I died with Christ and everything I have now is gain. I know that every day my life is His and I owe Him every single moment. This fuels the passion that I live life from and the passion that I preach with. I believe in the begetting principle. Hate begets hate. Love begets love. I love the people of this church and I have a high-octane level of passion that begets passion in the people. I make mistakes… But the passion for Jesus cannot be questioned. God has used me to ignite passion in this congregation. The church leadership was right all those years ago when they asked me to come here. The Lord has done amazing things at this little church by the creek.

#134. Beautiful Brokenness

June 6, 2020November 28, 2017 by pamamilliongodstoriescom

Photo by Trevor Rapp

My life began from a chance sexual encounter between my mom and dad in between my dad’s prison sentences. He was already divorced from my mom at the time. My mom was addicted to drugs and my father was an alcoholic. My grandfather asked his brother to rescue me and my two brothers. He was dying and couldn’t take care of us himself. I was four years old when my great uncle obliged my grandfather’s request and adopted us. My grandfather had asked my great uncle to take us because he “loved children.” My great uncle was a pedophile. He had been caught on numerous occasions, but charges were never brought.

After he adopted us, he moved us to a children’s home/school and he got a job there as a house parent. My great uncle sexually abused me from the time I was four years old until I was a teenager. While I suffered terrible abuse at the hands of my great uncle, the school was actually a wonderful place. God brought people into my life who genuinely cared about me and invested in me.

My best friend’s mother was one of these people. She truly loved me and was very good to me. Another was the offensive coordinator at our high school football team. I was the quarterback on our team and this man mentored me. He was a great role model. He loved his wife and showed me what a healthy marriage looked like. He spent time with me, taking me hunting and fishing. He took me to church and provided guidance that helped keep me from going down wrong paths. These caring people played a significant role in God’s redemption in my life.

God provided for me in other ways. I got a generous football scholarship to the Citadel. This was a full-ride scholarship that the Citadel provided specifically for someone from a children’s home. But this didn’t turn out as I expected. I redshirted my first year, but my second year I felt confident—I was playing well and had made the first team on many special teams. Citadel had promised to add me to their roster, but before the first game, I found out they had not added me to their roster and I was ineligible to play. This was so difficult for me. I felt rejected, betrayed, and sensed of loss of identity. I tried out for the baseball team and made it, but I wasn’t good enough to play. It was this dark season of my life that created fertile soil for the truth of the Gospel to grow in my life.

My junior year, my now wife invited me to a Campus Outreach event. It was here that I heard for the first time about a personal relationship with Christ. I accepted Christ and was baptized. The Campus Outreach director began investing in me and mentoring me. When I graduated, I became a staff member for Campus Outreach. When I was a team leader at a Campus Outreach retreat in Florida, I found out my biological father was living nearby. I went to visit him. I hadn’t seen him for nearly 20 years. He didn’t recognize me when he answered the door. When I told him who I was he became nervous and started shaking. He smoked one cigarette after another and talked non-stop, telling me all the bad things he had done in his life. As I was driving away, I began sobbing. Years of pain came pouring out of me. I couldn’t stop crying. I drove to see the director of Campus Outreach and shared what had just unfolded. Until this moment, I hadn’t told anyone about the abuse in my past. I felt God opening my heart to come out of hiding and share the whole story. He listened without judging but with acceptance and love. He hugged me and he and his wife prayed for me. A new trajectory began for me this day. A journey of healing had begun.

I went to see many counselors but none really connected. I was in seminary, married with a three-year-old daughter and a son on the way. Life should have been good, but I was falling apart. It was at this time that God provided a counselor that truly helped me. She forced me to wrestle with my story, voice my deepest fears, and access my rage. It was difficult, but over time God revealed important truths to me and empowered me to become a man. Through counseling, God brought great transformation. God has healed the brokenness of my past and brought restoration to my identity and my relationships.

God is using the pain of my past to help others. I now serve as an associate pastor at an inner-city church. Because of what has happened in my own life, I have a special ability to sense pain in the lives of others. This sensitivity, combined with the empathy that comes from the deep knowing of pain in my own life, opens up conversations and creates connections with people. I can share my story… my brokenness and God’s plan of love and redemption. God can make the brokenness in our lives the most beautiful parts about us.

#100 Merciful and Gracious

June 12, 2020April 23, 2017 by pamamilliongodstoriescom

Artwork by Lily Murphy

My grandparents raised me until I was six years old. They were very godly people. We went to church regularly and they taught me great values. When I was six years old my mom got married and I went to live with her and my stepdad, who adopted me. My stepdad and I fought a lot, mostly because I was disrespectful. When I was 16 we got into a fight and he threw me out of the house. I ran the streets and began using drugs.

By age 17, I was trafficking drugs and had my first felony by age 18. I went to jail but my parents bonded me out in two days. In the next couple of years, I started cocaine. By age 20, I had six counts of felony receiving stolen property. I went to prison and started reading the Bible. I was interested but not committed. After I got out of prison, I violated my parole with alcohol and cocaine and spent six more months in prison. This happened four times with the same result…each time I went back to prison. So between 2000–2004, my life was spent in and out of prison. While I was out of prison, I went to college and completed courses. Finally, I successfully completed parole and graduated college with a degree in social work and a 3.36 GPA.

Instead of using my social work degree, I bought three nightclubs with the money I inherited when my mom died. One was a rave club. The clubs produced a massive amount of money. I went into drug dealing, selling Ecstasy in the rave club. I was flying in and out of Miami and Vegas to get drugs. I bought restaurants and opened a real estate company. But then things started crashing down around me. My best friend overdosed. My business partner committed suicide. Then a soldier got a drug in one of my nightclubs that killed him, and girl at one of my clubs got a drug that caused her to go into a coma. The police arrested a dealer in Miami and eventually that led the police to me. I was sentenced to 12 years in a federal prison. But even when I went to federal prison, I was still thinking about how I could develop my drug business to be even bigger and better when I got out.

While in prison, I got into an argument with a guard, which got me thrown into the “hole”—basically prison within prison. There on my bunk was a small Gideon New Testament Bible. I started reading it, and by Matthew 16 I started crying. I said, “I am checking out of this. If you’re real, God, show me.” Now the hole is very loud, with prisoners making all kinds noise, but within minutes after saying this, everything went quiet. Everything stood still. A warm sensation wrapped me up and held me. It literally felt like someone holding me. In my head I heard, “You’re forgiven.”

Then I said, “Yes Lord, but what about this…?”

“You are forgiven.”

And again I asked, “But what about this…?”

“You are forgiven.”

Back and forth this went on until I finally believed I was forgiven. Then I sat and cried. I still felt that warmth, like I was being held. Then from my toes to the top of my head, the presence just swept through my body. It was like I had just taken my first breath. The hair on my arms stood up. Everything in the prison cell was beautiful. Even the stainless-steel toilet was gleaming. I felt such joy. From that moment on everything in my life changed. I started reading my Bible again and soon a young man was brought to share the hole with me. We became great friends; we prayed together and became brothers in Christ. Later, when we were both out of the hole, he invited me to a Bible study and I started to go. I told the prison chaplain about my story and my experience with God, and he began discipling me into the faith.

I prayed, “Lord, I want to know the truth. Show me what is true and what is not.” The Lord sent people and books to show me the truth. God sent me books on theology and apologetics, defense of the Christian faith. And God opened my eyes to truth through the scriptures. I hungered so much for God’s Word and spent six hours each day studying the Bible and memorizing verses.

I began to see how God was blessing me after I got out of the hole. Usually when you go to the hole, all your personal possessions are destroyed or thrown away. When I got out of the hole, all of my possessions were returned to me in perfect shape. Everything was stacked neatly in a bag. Even my underwear was folded. One of the prison officers said to me later, “How did you like that bag? Be blessed!” This just does NOT HAPPEN IN PRISON! Then I had a court date about the altercation with the guard that landed me in the hole and they forgave it and cleaned it off my record. I got the best job you could get in prison. I started serving in the prison church, ushering and preaching from time to time. I was moved to a prison in Virginia, then to Kentucky, my home state. Here I was discipled by a wonderful prison chaplain, a committed, godly man.

At the end of my prison sentence, the prison chaplain told me he felt God calling him to help me. Three days before I was released from prison, the chaplain told me to call a men’s ministry and recovery program. I interviewed there and connected with the director. I spent the next six years working there, preaching, teaching, cooking, counseling, volunteer coordinating, and renovating their building. Because I had a social work degree, I was eligible to become a certified alcohol and drug counselor. A counselor I had met when I was released was the counselor for the resident drug abuse program and agreed to be my supervisor for this certification process. After I became a certified counselor, I created my own ministry for outpatient substance abuse treatment. This ministry has expanded and I now have my own building. In 2016, I went back to graduate school to become a licensed professional clinical counselor in mental health. I will graduate in July 2018 with a Masters in Counseling and Human Development after which I will be able to expand my ministry into mental health counseling as well as substance abuse counseling. I am also now working for Job Corp, an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor and Department of Agriculture. In this role I work with 16-24 year olds to provide counseling and substance abuse prevention and intervention.

My life bears witness to a God that is MERCIFUL and GRACIOUS. He gave me life. He gave me a chance to turn it all around. I should have been in prison for life. I damaged and destroyed thousands of lives. It still amazes me…moves me to tears. I am FORGIVEN. Because of God’s love that is beyond all comprehension and Christ’s sacrifice, I am FORGIVEN. Pure. Blameless. My slate is clean.

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.”

Matthew 18:12–13

#99 Returning to God

June 6, 2020April 21, 2017 by pamamilliongodstoriescom

Photo by Erin E. Photography

This story is about how God healed my husband, brought good from illness, and brought together two of His children.

In 2010, Chris found a spot—which was melanoma—on his shoulder. It was removed. In 2013, the melanoma spot came back and was again removed. In 2014, he had a scan and the doctor found Stage 4 melanoma widespread throughout his body. The cancer was in his lymph nodes and a golf-ball-sized melanoma was found in his lungs. He was given only a few months to live.

It was discovered that Chris had the BRAF gene. This gene makes it more difficult for his cells to repair the damage of the sun, which led to his melanoma. Of all the specialists Chris could have gone to for care, God led us to just the right one. At the time of his diagnosis, there was an oncologist and researcher at Vanderbilt University who worked with the exact gene that Chris had and even had helped to develop the medication for this genetic problem. Vanderbilt was within easy driving distance from our home (and since this time, the oncologist/researcher has moved to a university much further away from us).

Chris was able to get an appointment with this oncologist/researcher and everything worked out just right for Chris to receive the experimental immunotherapy for the BRAF gene that was causing his problems. Even with the experimental therapy, there was a 92 percent chance that Chris would not live past a year, but it has been two years and still all the cancer is gone with no reoccurrence. The oncologist couldn’t believe it and told us that it is very rare to have complete elimination of the cancer with no reoccurrence. It is amazing.

We are so thankful to God for Chris’s healing and continued health. We also praise God for how he used Chris’s illness for good. Chris was my first boyfriend when I was 12 years old. We remained friends but walked down different roads. Even though Chris grew up in the church, he went through a rebellious period, a time when there was no openness in his heart. The breakthrough for Chris came in 2013 when the melanoma spot was found again on his shoulder. It was at that time that he began to seek the Lord. He also moved back to his hometown in 2013. I had never left our hometown, and when he returned, I saw the change in him and that he was more open to spiritual conversation. God brought us together and we got married.

We are so thankful for what the Lord has done for us…for healing Chris, for Chris’s transformation spiritually, and for bringing us together. Throughout this experience, God has given us both physical and spiritual strength. There has been so much growth and a new perspective on life. We go to Vanderbilt every four weeks for a checkup and scan. Regardless of the future, we are confident—now more than ever before—of God’s greatness. And we are so thankful to our great God who heals us and brings good out of difficult times.

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:14

#95 Abundant Grace

June 6, 2020April 10, 2017 by pamamilliongodstoriescom

Photo by Ashley Brown, Shining Light Photography

I grew up in a white-collar home with two loving parents, but we weren’t what you would call a “Christian” family. We began attending church when I was a pre-teen, but it was just a Sunday thing—nothing more. I was a good student and a well-behaved kid, so everyone was surprised when I eloped with my older boyfriend at age 16. It was rocky from the start—as any teenage marriage would be. He wasn’t faithful, and over the two-year period we were married, he left many times. By the age of 19, I was a single mom, working two jobs to make ends meet and staring at a stack of unpaid bills.

One night, I went to a club with some friends to hear a local band. This particular club had girls dancing from 5–9 p.m., before the band came on. One of them struck up a conversation and, by the end of the night, she had convinced me to come back and audition for a job. I worked in the “adult entertainment” industry in two different clubs for a couple of years. There was nothing glamorous or positive about it. I felt degraded, abused and alone; and had to get high to even face getting on stage.

After two years of what felt like hell on earth, I applied for a grant to go to beauty school. I was one of the lucky ones—it’s very hard to get out of the industry once you’ve stepped into it. I worked my way through school and the day I graduated, I left the clubs for good. I worked in a local salon for several years, then married and attended UK. Later work experience included advertising, public relations, community development, and outreach at a local church. A true hodge-podge of jobs, but now it’s amazing to look back and see how God used all those different work experiences to prepare me for what I’m doing now.

In 2000, I had a conversation with my daughter and a friend about reaching out to women in the “adult entertainment” clubs. We brainstormed with my son, who was a bouncer in one of the clubs, for ideas on what would be the best way to help the ladies. He wasn’t a Christian, but he truly appreciated the “good things” he saw our church doing—mission work and outreach to special needs families. He said, “Bring food. Nobody eats well here—they always eat fast food.” None of us knew how to cook, so we asked our friends and soon we had a team of women providing food, and a few good friends with a heart to go into the clubs with us.

Weekly visits to the clubs allow us to develop true relationships. We are very respectful to everyone—providing love, food, and other resources, without judgment, to all of our new friends. When people ask us, “Why are you bringing food to us?” we let them know that God loves us and we love them, and just want to help. Women respond because they know we care.

In 2011, we felt God calling us to do more, so we began praying, and we prayed for a solid year. January 1, 2012, one of the women we’d served in the clubs was murdered. She’d moved from the clubs to online escorting and street prostitution. The phone call about her death solidified our next step. We met with the police to see how we could best help women working on the street. Before the day was over, the police had already referred a woman to us who needed help.

Since that time, the ministry has continued to evolve.

We still deliver to the clubs every week and have developed strong relationships with our friends there—allowing us to help them with community resources and other appropriate assistance.

The street ministry has grown to include a drop-in center downtown. Women from several churches have transformed a former crack house into a beautiful refuge for at-risk women who receive delicious food, clothing, toiletries, referrals to social service and community resources, and life skills classes. We are often blessed to celebrate birthdays, baby showers, and other special events. Most of the women we serve are homeless, so they often take advantage of our living room to rest throughout the day. And when a woman is ready to make significant life change, we assist with referrals to detox and recovery programs.

All of the women we work with—whether in the clubs or on the street—have experienced trauma of some kind: childhood sexual abuse, rape, physical abuse, trafficking. We’ve seen God at work—miracles of change in women’s lives. We see women getting sober, reuniting with families, and becoming stable and productive. Four weeks ago, one of the first women we met in the clubs in 2000 was baptized—we’d been praying for her for 17 years!

When I think about my own story and the nature of God, the one word that comes to mind is GRACE. Because I experienced God’s grace the way I did—so undeservedly, so abundantly—it’s pretty easy to extend grace to others. God took every mistake, every wrong turn I made, and used it for good!

The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

#91 God Shaped Hole

June 6, 2020March 29, 2017 by pamamilliongodstoriescom

Photo by Erin E Photography

I met my ex-husband right out of high school. At the time, I believed in Jesus and that He died for our sins, but it was more of an “as-needed” thing. God was in a closet and I brought Him out when I needed Him. My ex-husband was into drugs and alcohol when I met him and I became consumed in that lifestyle with him. He made it clear that he had no faith, and to win his affection I made the decision to agree with him in that. I definitely felt it was important to be a good person and respect other people’s beliefs, but my attitude toward God was, “That works for some people but I don’t need that.”

I lived with him for about a year before I got pregnant. I knew that from the beginning he had an issue with not being able to be faithful to me. This had been a big problem for me, and when I found out I was pregnant I said, “If you are going to continue to live this way, I can’t do this. Are you willing to do this with me and only me? If not, this needs to end now.”

He decided to stick together and even though he had broken my trust over and over in the past two years, I gave him a chance. We got married when our son was two years old. About six months later, I was sitting alone at a park watching my son play and a couple came over and asked me if they could pray for me. I wanted to respect them and even though it felt really awkward, I let them pray for me. They asked if they could pray for anything specific. I said “No,” so they just prayed a general prayer over me.

A week or two later, a few of my friends from a previous workplace wanted to get together at a coffee house. I was running late and rushed in really stressed. As I was walking in the door, I saw a girl I graduated high school with and she was on the phone. She grabbed my arm, smiled and said, “Hi! How are you? My pastor is on the phone. Can he pray for you?” I thought, “He better make this fast because I am late!” I took the phone and her pastor prayed that God would show up in my life. That was it.

I got my coffee and sat down with my friends. They were all quiet. Finally, one of them said they had found out from a reliable source that my husband was having an affair. In that moment, I felt an unexplainable peace, like God was wrapping me up in a hug. While I was still sitting there, we called the girl and she admitted to the affair. It was a pleasant but somber conversation. Again, I had a supernatural peace.

I was encouraged by my family to work it out with my husband and decided to try. We stayed together for another four to five months after I found out about the affair, but I kept finding messages, emails, and porn. I felt like he wasn’t going to be able to stop. I had also dealt with some abuse. I had never felt as lonely in my entire life.

We divorced when our son was three. After this I felt like God really pursued me. My thoughts started changing. Out of the blue, I had a desire to take my son to church. I had been against that the whole time I was married. It was a miracle that I felt the desire to go to church. After going to church every Sunday for a full year, I gave my life to Christ.

During this time, God used the sermons to speak to me in powerful ways. One Sunday, the pastor said that there is a God-shaped hole in our hearts. We can try and fill it with whatever, but God is the only One that can fill that empty space. Unless He fills it, we will be constantly searching and unfulfilled. That really connected with me because that is what I had been trying to do—fill the hole with drugs, alcohol, and men.

In another sermon, the pastor talked about the fact that people will always disappoint us but God never will. God did not create the world to be the way that it is. I was a completely broken person when I heard this message, 23 years old, divorced, with a four-year-old. I had started dating someone and our relationship was not honoring God. I was stressed financially and emotionally. My whole life had been a series of disappointments from people that I loved and trusted.

After hearing that sermon, I completely surrendered to the Lord. I finally said to God, “I can’t make decisions in my life without You.” I was ready for God to take over. I was ready to be obedient. I call this the day I was truly saved. My relationship with God really started that day. Looking back, I can see how God brought me to that place. He was with me the whole time and was so patient to wait for me to give up my pride. When I was ready, He welcomed me with open arms. He redeemed me.

I felt God leading me away from the man I was dating. I wanted a God-honoring relationship, so I walked away.

That was in June of 2013. In the fall of that year, I started a BSF Bible study with some women on the Gospel of Matthew. I immersed myself in the Gospel and was completely changed by Jesus. As I got to know Jesus better, I realized that if I ever remarried, my husband would have to be sold out for Christ.

Friends had fixed me up with a man right after my divorce—before my life changed. He knew right away I was not right for him. He was a man of great character, a Christian who was committed to living a God-honoring life. And at the time we first met, I was a “train wreck.” We became Facebook friends after we first met, and over the next few months he noticed that I was changing because of what I was posting on Facebook. We decided to meet for coffee. His love for Jesus was so evident. He told me, “I’m not looking for someone to fulfill me. I’m looking for someone to partner with me in serving Jesus.” He shared that he had gotten a divorce because his wife had an affair. It had been a devastating experience for him. I could relate to him—we both knew what it felt like to be betrayed.

We are now married and I see the difference between a marriage with Christ and a marriage without Christ. God has revealed to me what He created marriage to look like—the emotional connection, the intimacy, and supporting and serving each other while partnering to serve others.

But it hasn’t all been easy. We struggled to get pregnant, and our first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage. A few months later I became pregnant again and the Lord gave that baby an extra chromosome. We struggled through the pregnancy, and still do to some extent, to accept that our child will face unimaginable circumstances at times. BUT—God has given me freedom from circumstances in that I have peace in the midst of uncertainty. It is a joy to go through life’s challenges with Jesus and a husband who is so supporting. God provided a strong, compassionate, prayerful husband who trusts with me that God is sovereign, God is in control, and He knows what He is doing. God is so big but He is also in every tiny detail. He sees the whole world but walks intimately with his kids every step of the way. God doesn’t abandon us when we struggle to believe. He is rock solid—forever unchanging. He is redeeming every broken detail of my past. He is in the business of forgiveness and is patiently loving me in my successes and failures every day.

#78 Just Four Words, “I Love You, Child.”

June 6, 2020February 8, 2017 by pamamilliongodstoriescom

Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

In 2011, between high school graduation and moving onto campus at a private university in Louisville, I handed my life over to Jesus during one summer week with my church in Florida. And that made all the difference. I’d known a lot about God from a lifetime of Sunday school, but doubted He could be trusted; I had a thing for expecting everyone to harm me if I let them get close enough. So, choosing Christ would be “all things new”—or it would be nothing new.

That fall, a few months into my newly-surrendered life, my life fell apart. Not that it was perfect before—but disordered eating and self-loathing were old habits and a well-hidden way of daily life. They were my miserable lot, I assumed, for being myself—however long I lasted. As tradition, my 18th birthday in September brought a visit from my grandpa. He understood me. He just did. He was proud of me, and if I close my eyes I can still see his crinkly, smiling blue eyes, and hear him humming “You are my Sunshine.”

But two weeks later, an afternoon brought a missed call and voicemail. I still hate voicemails. A family friend had accidentally called me instead of my dad. The only words I heard were, “David, I’m real sorry to hear about your dad”… Something, something, “sudden.” … Something, something, “if you need anything, let us know.” My world went dark. I remember making frantic calls to my mom and dad, and making a grief-stricken spectacle of myself on campus main.

Grandpa. A violent stroke and tiny chance. An early morning drive to North Carolina—but no, he was gone already. Like Grandma four years before. Like Poppy two years before. Something broke in me. I lost it. In the weeks that followed, my barely-managed depression took control. Any efforts to keep college friends ceased; my vision blurred; everything happened to me from a mile away, like people tapping on exhibit glass. I was achingly lonely. I was terribly afraid. Nothing could break into my dark cloud; I couldn’t break out. And the enemy ramped up the old accusations, “No one even sees you and life would be better off without you.” I already believed that; the sharp, new grief made me desperate. Yet, just months before I’d stood on the ocean shore and told God I’d give Him my whole life, if He’d have me. The Bible said He would, so I’d begun reading every day and now kept on, fighting to catch a glimpse of Him—in case life with Him could save me. It’s not hyperbole when I tell you I whispered Isaiah 41:10 under my breath wherever I went those days, over and over: “So do not be afraid, for I Am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I Am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with My mighty right hand.”

But fear filled me; dismay wracked my body with sobs when I was alone. I fled to my room whenever class let out, barely interacted with roomie and friends, rarely ate but did so alone, beat my body into submission at the gym with music drowning out the people. Alone. Alone. Alone. Better that way. Safer that way. “Help me, God.” Out of control. But I’ll remember this forever, and my life has turned into a shout of “My Abba is trustworthy,” because of this: Yahweh keeps His promises. He is with us and He holds us.

I was stumbling to a late-semester exam on medical Latin and Greek roots, no thought in my mind but dully flipping my notecards, when I stepped foot onto the crosswalk between buildings, almost to class. Suddenly—no, a car didn’t hit me—a voice tore through the heaviness drowning me. Four words. While the world just mumbled and roared in the distance, the voice split the static like a trumpet blast, calm and matter-of-fact, softly like a wedding vow. Out of the blue; out of the blackness. I can’t say it was audible. No one else was in sight. But I heard it. I stopped. My cards dropped. And tears filled my eyes. I actually saw the sun shining. My fog cleared the tiniest bit. Rescue. Belonging. Hope. Just four words. “I love you, child.” That wasn’t my study material talking. It wasn’t self-talk (goodness knows I used a cruder vocabulary for myself). No, the Father’s voice broke in like the voice of a friend: I knew it, though that was the first time I’d heard it. “I love you, child.” Each one of those words meant a world within itself to me: All that He is. Loving. Me. His child. He saw me; He sees me. He loved me; He loves me.

That day on the crosswalk, He began a process of healing wounds and growing courage in me that still carries me through daily life. His love changed me utterly, and changes me still. Simply, I found someone I could trust. Profoundly, His faithfulness meant that my old fear-driven patterns of playing small, starving myself, and putting up walls were not for me anymore (even if the process of laying those down is a marathon and sometimes feels impossible). In the following months and years, He kept calling me to leap out in faith and catching me when I jumped with arms outstretched. I transferred to Asbury University at His nudging, stepped into worship ministry in front of crowds, moved to the Dominican Republic for a summer, worked with middle-school kids, learned to be a leader on campus, and made friends who called out the courage in me and fought for me in prayer. The Father did that. I handed Him my life almost six years ago, and I have to laugh in awe and thanksgiving at the difference Jesus makes in a broken soul (and the way He continues to heal me of daily fear, and calls me “whole”). I stand here a new creation—all things are new.

I cried again writing this, feeling the pang of loss again. Pain is real (and we know that even Jesus wept). But these promises are just as real: The Lord is strong enough to hold you up and hold you together. You will not drown in grief or fear or rejection forever. When you receive His grace, the only thing that will last for eternity is His limitless love. And You are loved. Your hope for healing and freedom is well founded in Christ. Joy comes. In this life. I promise. I pray over these words as I scribble them down, that the Spirit weighs them down with mercy so you believe them now if you don’t already: The God who left heaven for earth to love us in person, who died to give us life, who conquered the grave once and for all, and who still scatters all darkness to shine resurrection light on tear-stained faces… He has loved you forever, and will love you forever, and He can be trusted. He does not rip the rug out from under you. He sees you and calls you by a better name than the painful ones seared onto your heart, by others or yourself. He hears you and He is at work bringing about what is good—that you would know Him and live fully in His love. He is right here, closer than breath, ready to speak if you ask Him (and sometimes if you don’t).

This isn’t fluff. These aren’t platitudes to tide you over. This is reality. You can lean your whole weight on Christ; He will not give way beneath you. You can show Him everything about you; He will not walk away, but run to you. You can kneel at His feet, and hand over everything you have and all you think you are into His hands; He will not dash you to pieces. He will redeem your life from the pit. He will crown you with gladness, remove your despair. He will sing over you. He is who He says He is and does what He says He’ll do. He is good. The Word promises that. And He lives it out. Life is unpredictable and broken sometimes. Jesus is not. His love for you is sure and it is wholehearted. Take my word for it, sure—please do—but take His word for it. He is good. Draw close to Him. He draws close to you. Trust Him. “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”

#74 More Peaceful Than I Could Ever Imagine

June 6, 2020January 30, 2017 by pamamilliongodstoriescom

Photo by Joy Monét Photography

God was patient. I actually attended a great church and youth group growing up, but although I “believed” in God, I didn’t know Him. In my mind, He was the distant guy in heaven who was surely disgusted and furious with me for the way I was living. Boys, drinking, marijuana, and eventually partying in bars and clubs five nights a week was the life for me. Surely so much fun would make me happy, right?

After a disastrous (and dangerous) engagement to an alcoholic when I was twenty, a devastating miscarriage when I was twenty-three, and a general feeling of “Is this all there is?”—at the age of twenty-five I was ready. I had begun listening to Pastors Chip Ingram and Michael Youssef on the radio on my way to work (my car didn’t have a CD player and this was before the days of Pandora). I loved the stories they told and the fact that God actually seemed to answer their prayers, make them happy, and give them purpose in life. I wanted that, and seeing the joy and peace God was offering me, allowed me the freedom to let go of the garbage I had been holding onto in an effort to maintain my “happiness.”

“Take it, God.”

It wasn’t easy. I’m not one of those people who had a sudden conversion and all of a sudden walked around singing, “This Is the Air I Breathe” with a huge smile on my face. I struggled. I still had a boyfriend who was SO not a Christian, and I smoked Newports like they were going out of style. I did quit smoking weed and sleeping with the unhappy boyfriend, but I wasn’t quite sure how to change in my current situation.

My best friend from third grade, Julie, had been praying for me for a long time. When she heard of my decision, and my desire to start fresh, she said hesitantly, “Chris and I had actually talked and prayed about you coming to live with us here in Richmond, but weren’t sure if you’d be open to the idea!” I was open. It was a tough decision because I knew exactly one person in Richmond, which was a two-hour move south from my home in Northern Virginia.

As I was lying in bed one night before I committed to go, drifting off, I heard a voice. I don’t know if anyone else could have heard it, but it was definitely not a dream.

God (and yes, His voice is deep and booming): “Go to Richmond.”

Me: “What?” (Only I would make God repeat himself.)

God: “Go to Richmond.”

Me: “Okay.”

That certainly made my decision easier. I packed up a month later, moved down, and began my journey of getting to know Jesus. I have never—not once—regretted it. Since then I have been a part of a couple of amazing churches, made the best friends a woman could ask for, seen God answer prayer in mind-blowing ways, been to Haiti on mission, and become happier and more peaceful than I could ever have imagined.

I still struggle. I’m not perfect by any means, but God’s grace is truly enough and He leads me back into truth each time I forget. I have hope, I have joy, and I know my future is bright because God will be right there with me no matter what.