For years in my twenties I had faith, but nothing else. I had run from my relationship with Jesus and did not think I was “good enough” to be part of something real with Him again. But God; He never gave up on me. When I look back on choices I made and how I ended up there, I realize it was because I had stopped working on my relationship with Jesus. I went through the motions, until the motions were not enough and instead of increasing my love for God it faded to the background of my life.

I love these verses because it tells us exactly how to keep our faith growing! Isn’t it cool how God gives us all the tools we need to live for Him? My life did a total 180 when I implemented this scripture in my life. I have experienced the grace and forgiveness of a loving God that leaves the ninety-nine to find the one. The song “God Is in This Story” by Katy Nicole perfectly describes how I feel about where I have been and where God is leading.

My husband, Kyle, and I have 3 girls. including my stepdaughter who lives in Arizona most of the year. When we first attended FBCA in the Spring of 2021, I had no idea what was in store for our family. I did not know much about the church. After attending just one Sunday service (and discovering there was a school here as well) we were hooked! I recently joined the staff at FBCA as Pastor Mike’s assistant and am so thankful to be part of such an amazing team.

Before I truly got to know Jesus, I only knew “of” Jesus. I was filled with head knowledge, not heart knowledge. Growing up as a Catholic, I had been exposed to Jesus and knew all about Him, but didn’t really “know” Him. Immediately prior to meeting Jesus personally, I was living with His tremendous blessings on my family, but our lives were very strained.

Everything changed in late winter and spring of 2009. I slowly began my journey to get to know Jesus. For the first time in my life, I engaged in a Bible study at FBCA where I actually began to read and understand the God’s word; not just be told what my understanding of the Bible should be.

I have learned that the Lord has used my every situation, even when I felt that our family was stretched and strained, to draw me closer to Him. I now look at adversity through a different lens. While I do not exactly relish adversity, I do better to embrace it when it comes because I know that it is an opportunity for me to draw closer to Jesus and His will for my life. He guides my life, which is something I never felt before. It’s an amazing feeling, and has helped me learn the true meaning of joy in EVERY circumstance.

This verse from Jeremiah is one that I often share with both of my kids. When I couple this with how God has used adversity to draw me closer to Him, I know that He has me in His hands and is guiding my life!

I grew up attending another Southern Baptist church in the area. We went to church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night, but while going through the motions of doing what my parents wanted us to do, it was not the same as having a personal relationship with Christ.  I checked the boxes but was not yet mature enough to understand what it meant to REALLY KNOW Jesus.

I was in 7th grade at a middle school event my church hosted when I truly came to know Jesus. At this time, sports consumed my family’s life and church was not a priority like it had been when I was younger. No fault to my parents, but travel baseball with my two brothers and competitive cheerleading for me became the center of our weekends. When the light bulb went off at this event, my relationship truly began.

College was tough but I was able to meet amazing women who helped me make church and Jesus a priority again.  Yet it was not until October, 2011 when I had my son that I felt the need to cry out to Jesus and started to fully lean on Him and grow in my faith. Our daughter arrived in November, 2016 and since then, we have watched her go through seven surgeries; five on her brain and two on her stomach.  It was only God that got us through these hard times. We give Him all the glory for her recoveries. When my husband and I were married, we made a commitment to put God in the center of our marriage and family. We have stayed strong in that commitment and it has made all the difference!

I try to live each and every day with love, kindness, compassion, and grace towards others.  It is a value we teach our children. I keep this verse from Ephesians on my mirror and often wear it on a necklace. If we could all live by this verse our world would be a better place. 

Growing up mostly in Pensacola, Florida, my family didn’t attend church or know Jesus. Even so, through high school I was a fairly good kid due to my involvement in sports. Then I joined the army and served overseas in Germany. Afterward, I came back to Pensacola and fell into the “wrong crowd.” I married and had four children, but it all fell apart. At my lowest point, I packed everything I owned into a car and came to start fresh in Atlanta. Once here though, I fell into the same pattern with the same types of friends; drinkers, gamblers, and even thieves. I did many things in those days that are hard to revisit.

And then I met Sarah.

I was introduced to Sarah by an old high school friend outside a barber shop in Cascade Heights. She was different from anyone I’d met before; beautiful, kind, a Christian, and lived a completely different lifestyle. We were married in 4 months. Since I was an athlete and she was a dancer we found joy being active. To this day we still work out, garden, and build custom furniture together.

We settled into our jobs and married life, raising two of the four children I had from the previous marriage. I worked my way to Director of IT at Atlantic Steel and Sarah was a high school teacher in Fulton County. We moved to Alpharetta in 1967 and that’s when my life truly changed, forever.

Sarah had been invited to Alpharetta First Baptist by a teacher friend. I reluctantly went along to services… occasionally. I had already started working on cleaning up my life and did a pretty good job of “faking” it as a good, Christian-ish person. But I still struggled with guilt and couldn’t forgive myself for what I had done in the past, especially the bad influence I had been on others.

Several men kept bugging me to come to church, all have gone home now to be Jesus; John Smith, IO Wright, Reese Wyatt, Sonny Hawkins. Little by little I started to listen to these men and pay attention to God’s word. One night, Pastor Ben Hatfield and his wife, Ginger, came to visit me at our home. That night, on September 19, 1972, I gave my life to Jesus and was baptized soon after. I can’t explain it, but I truly felt all the sins of my past wash away. Knowing that I had been forgiven by Jesus gave me the peace to forgive myself. The next morning, I told everyone at work about what happened. It was clear from that point on that I was different, a new person both at work and at home.

Even with all the ups and downs in my life I know that the Lord has always been by my side. When we moved to Alpharetta, Sarah and I didn’t know a soul. She had a Bible, but I didn’t. Now my personal Bible is like a His-story book filled with names and memories of people that have helped and mentored me along the way. Over the years, God has given me the opportunity to share my story in church, in the community, and with at least 25 young men in serious trouble. In some of these situations, my very life was at risk. God has redeemed my past by allowing me to speak into the future of many young men that have faced similar challenges.

Jesus is Truth. I can’t force another person to accept Jesus, but I can share the truth of how He completely changed the direction of my life. When I asked Sarah’s dad for her hand in marriage, I can’t imagine what he thought of this divorced young man with a shady past. I could only promise him that I would love and care for her. I followed through on that and, with God’s grace, have been transformed into a man of integrity. In Luke 17, Jesus healed ten lepers, but only one returned to thank Him. May we all never forget to return and praise God for what He has done in our lives!