I just picked up my most recent Voice of the Martyrs magazine and began reading about voodooists in Benin. As I read about pastors being arrested and put behind bars, I recalled the memory of when my husband, a police officer, lied to the EMTs when they arrived after I called them for help. He met them at the door and told them that I tried to OD on cold medicine. They shoved me to the ambulance while I was in a lupus flare and could barely walk. At the hospital, I was taken down to what was called “the hole” in the bellows of the basement and locked up. I remember being allowed to go to the bathroom, which had a metal toilet, sink, and mirror. I laid on the bed, coughing up phlegm incessantly as my body was trying to handle the stress of it. I remember thinking of Paul when he was arrested. I told God that if this is his will for my life, then so be it. I didn’t have fear. I was in shock of what was happening to me, but I was not afraid. Five hours later, a doctor came in and told me that I had to leave because “there was nothing wrong with me.” Well, there was definitely something wrong with me as I was in a lupus flare and suffering from an upper respiratory infection, but he was referring to the blood tests they did on me to determine what I had ODed on. When he told me that I had to leave, I told him I had nowhere to go. My husband and my son were in the ER waiting. I told him that I didn’t trust either of them because they were both abusing me. He said he would go down and speak to them. When he returned, he suggested that I go with my son, not my husband. So my son called the youth pastor to come and pick us up at the hospital. When he arrived, he looked at me and asked me if I was sure that I was supposed to leave the hospital, because I did not look well at all. He took my son and I to an apartment that I had recently signed the lease for. We slept on the floor with no furniture or cooking/eating utensils for weeks until we could get our things from the house. Laser, that youth pastor resigned. That church had previously publicly accused me of threatening to kill the assistant pastor. How ironic, since my husband was threatening to kill me repeatedly in the presence of my son, and had already made one attempt to suffocate me.
There is most definitely evil in this world. I have looked into the face of it many times in my life. I thank God for being with me through it all, carrying me through each season of evil. I could never understand why there was so much evil in my life. But I have come to understand that I am a threat to the enemy. He has tried to take me out many times, but it has not worked. And now I am so blessed by everything that God is doing in my life, that all the pain, all the memories, all the trauma, all the suffering fades away as a dull ache. He recently put my new church at the top of my YouTube feed, just as I was being pushed out of the third Church in my area. It couldn’t be a better fit. My new church is more than 1000 miles away, and yet they have opened their arms to love on me and accept me and allow me to participate in three online small groups. Just recently one of the leaders of my groups invited me to help her coordinate the Angel Tree program that provides Christmas gifts for children of inmates. All glory to my Heavenly Father, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the precious Holy Spirit, who lives within me, for carrying me through each season of my life, as the enemy has tried to steal, kill and destroy. I’m still not destroyed, and this is the most beautiful time of my life. An incredible gift for me to participate with God as He uses what I have been through for good and for his glory. My new pastor was an evangelist. We have more than 300 baptisms a month of new believers and the church has grown into four campuses throughout their city within two years. This is the time of the great harvest before our Lord returns. It is such a privilege to be able to participate with the Lord in bringing people to Jesus.
By sharing a little bit of my story, I hope to share encouragement with all of you. Jesus is alive and he’s coming back very soon. Let’s not wallow in the mess. Let’s allow the Lord to work in and through us as he calls people unto himself in love. May they be drawn out of the darkness of evil and into the light of Jesus. As I watch events that are prophesied in the book of revelation come to completion, I praise the Lord for allowing me to be a part of what he is doing in the world today. I pray the same for all of you.





