“God never uses anyone greatly until He has wounded them deeply.”
If these words from A. W. Tozer are true, and I believe with all my heart they are, God must have a great purpose in mind for me. First, my wounds… at 23 years old I experienced the sudden, unexpected death of my unborn son at 34 weeks into my pregnancy. I delivered the most beautiful little boy who never took a first breath and instead of bringing our baby home, we were left planning a funeral. Enter agony, grief and anger. Ten years later I was diagnosed with an extremely rare, incurable auto-immune disease Takayasu’s Arteritus. This disease is attacking my aorta and the main arteries that come off of it, silently cutting off the blood flow off, threatening stroke, aneurism, and kidney failure to mention just a few of the possibilities Because of its silent nature it is very difficult to know when it moves from an inactive state to an active state. My body is quite literally at war with itself. Enter fear and anxiety. Through all of these things I have held fast to my faith, living a BUT GOD life, using my experiences to point others to Jesus, and I cling to 2 Cor 1:3-4, “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”
I am a mother, I am a wife. I am a daughter and a sister. I am the woman next door. I understand pain and suffering, fear and anxiety, in their rawest forms and my heart’s deepest desire is to reach out to others who find themselves saddled with the same pain. I believe that God has given me the steep rocky path that I have been following so that I can come along side others on the same path and help them carry their load for awhile, in turn allowing me to give God the glory. Grief is grief, fear is fear, the source doesn’t matter. What does matter is where people turn when they find themselves in the middle of the storm. It is my desire to be a lifeline, a ray of hope, reflecting God’s love to someone who feels like they just can’t see any way out of the darkness because I have been there myself and know what that blackness brings. BUT GOD! God offers, peace, comfort, rescue and salvation. His message of hope is like salve to a weary soul and I am able to deliver that message, offer that hope, as a someone who understands, someone who has been there. My life is for His glory!

Run and Be Still, is the dream come true where I can share not only my story but also offer hope and encouragement that God provided me to others asking the same basic question I found myself asking. “Why? Why, God?” The book can be purchased at your local bookstore, WestBow press, or amazon.com.