I was born into a family with parents who sought to please and honor God. When I was 3 months old we were on the mission field! Love for people has always been a particular characteristic of my family. I can’t think of a time when my family was not involved in some kind of ministry.

As a child I desperately wanted to please God. I would try to be really good all day. Invariably something would happen and I would lose my patience or disobey my parents. This would make me feel hopeless and like I was never going to be able to please God. One Easter Sunday my Sunday school teacher told the Resurrection story. I realized that I couldn’t please God on my own. I needed Jesus. So I asked him to “come into my heart and make me good.” As I grew, I realized that I would always fail but that God loved me and always forgave me.

My heart’s cry was to please God.

When I was 11 years old my parents began to go to Bill Gothard’s Basic Seminar. They took everyone that would go from our church. The following year at a music camp, my mom found out that some of our new friends home schooled using material from The Advanced Training Institute (ATI). She got excited and said that she and dad were thinking about pulling us out of school to home school with ATI. I was very surprised because the church Dad was pastoring had a small school that I was very happy in.

That fall I went to the Basic Seminar. My best friend and I sat together and flipped through our Bibles checking on the Scriptures being used. Neither one of us could figure out how the verses being used actually matched up to what was being presented. When I asked my dad about that his response was that we needed to apply the scriptural parts. I didn’t understand that because the things he was telling us to do were things like not listening to anything that had a back beat, to confess all our sins to people and gain their forgiveness, to yield our rights, and only marry someone our parents pick out for us. I realize that I am being a little simplistic in my approach, but as a preteen that is what I took away from the seminar. It was this same fall that my parents took us out of school to home school us. Our entire life changed drastically at that time. We didn’t just home school, we had to wear dresses to school, we “purged” our house of ungodly music, and Dad started talking to me about courtship. I know that my parents sought God and felt like this was where He was leading them. From what I understand, they saw this way of life as a way of guaranteeing that we miss out on the heartaches that come from not following God with our whole hearts.

The year after we began to home school, our family went on deputation and then to the mission field in South America. Dad was going to be teaching nationals to be pastors. Somehow during that time we discovered there were some serious issues that, when confronted about, turned the other missionaries against my family. We ended up leaving the field just before we would have gone on furlough. Our family was well loved and as we drove through the town our church was in we saw an amazing sight–The people were lined up on the side of the road to flag us down to say goodbye! There were tears and prayers as we drove away. This experience was so heartbreaking for us. We had left everything to follow God–surely he would have blessed us. We had been following God’s basic principles for years now. He wasn’t living up to His end of the deal! I became angry with God for how He was treating those who lived up to His ways of life. We had sacrificed for Him and this is what we got! I didn’t want to serve him any more.

My parents knew that something had to happen. I was definitely struggling.  They thought the EXCEL program would be a good thing for me. I would have to pull out of my shell, it was educational and hopefully help me to develop in areas that would be beneficial for my life. I went to EXCEL in Dallas, TX. EXCEL was filled with humiliation for me. Here I was surrounded by people who looked like their life was together–all because they seemingly continued to follow God and His principles. In my heart I truly wanted to please God. I just felt like He had removed His favor from me. I felt like a hamster on a wheel. Nothing seemed good enough for Him.

At EXCEL I met a woman who would became very important in my life. She was starting an apprenticeship cosmetology program at the Indianapolis Training Center (ITC). I had always struggled with how I looked and she showed me that I could look good! She taught me confidence and poise and that it was okay to be me. I am not sure what she saw in me. I felt like she believed in me and that it was possible to dream and achieve something big with my life.

The cosmetology department was never truly welcomed at the Training Center. We were considered unspiritual because we were dealing with our appearance as opposed to the heart. We tried very hard to fit in, but that was not going to happen. We were definitely made to feel like second-class citizens.

I stayed on as staff for the next few years. As I write this I am struggling to remember my time there. I have to admit that my life started getting crazy, and I can barely remember some of the people I met or things I did. It is like a black hole. I remember that I tried very hard to live up to other people’s expectations of me. I became more introverted with who I was as an individual because I had to play a part. Nothing mattered except for what I did and how I looked. After all, I was supposed to be an example of the proper ATI young lady!

It appeared that my life was on an upswing. Things were going pretty well. I was proud of the fact that I was accomplishing something that was important to God. I was doing something big for him. My heart’s cry had been to be able to serve Him to the best of my abilities in order to please Him–and I was. I was working for a ministry, I was keeping all the convictions and standards that were righteous, and God was finally blessing my life, right?

To Be Continued…. Click here for Part Two.