Risk Vulnerability

If you are still waiting to see my video, hang on, it is coming!!!

I have never seen myself as a speaker or an author, but friends have told me that I should write a book.  I remember in college, my friend Sarah, an English major, always said "I'm going to write a book about you!"  I would just laugh at her, and think "Why?"  Now I have a feeling that God is going to use my story.  Maybe not a book, yet!  He asked me to start blogging about my journey.  From a broken little girl, in South Dakota, to a "Women of God, redeemed by Jesus Christ."  He ask me to risk my vulnerability, and trust Him that He is using my story.

This is Lead, my home town.  Where my journey began!!
 

   In high school and college I suffered from depression and anxiety.   I am not sure a lot of people knew this about me.  I would go to school with a smile on my face, and with the words of mom in my heart, "Treat everyone the way you want to be treated."  I wanted to make my mom and my teachers proud.  But what people may not know is that I was dying inside.  I was alone!   Someone once told me that I was popular and liked, that "You were PROM Queen!!!"  But just because I was prom queen, didn't mean I didn't feel empty inside, Alone!!  Yes, I knew everyone in high school, and everyone knew me, but that didn't matter.   There were days I questioned God (or who I thought god was), and questioned even if I should even exist anymore.  What kept me going, was knowing that I couldn't do that to my mom.   I was confused, my mom taught me to treat everyone the way I wanted to be treated, but I felt like nobody was doing the same to me.  I was teased, mocked for my speech, and ignored.  And I started to believes the lies I heard.  "Your worthless,"  "Nobody likes you," "You are stupid."  "You are unwanted."  and so many more.   As a side note, these are the feeling, I FELT, and the lies the enemy told me, and how my heart saw my world!!


Summer in Lead.

 Now with the help of Jesus Christ I have claimed the truth, "So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus."  Romans 8:1  Let me be honest, this has been a very hard truth to claim, for so many years, all mind could hear, were those lies that the enemy wanted me to claim.  I was so good a condemning myself.

In school I felt so different. As I get older, I am learning that many women felt the same, and still feel the same.  There is a song with the words, "I was hunger child, a dried up river, a burned out forest, and nobody could do anything for me...." 

This was my song.  I love my family, and they walked through alot with me during those dark days.  Those were deep dark days, for me and I could not see a light at the end of the tunnel.  But, Glory to God, there was light coming.....






If you don't know, Deadwood and Lead are "twin cities."
consider them both my hometown and my heart will always be
tied to them.