My Journey

I was born and survived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana before I moved to Lafayette at the age of 20. Here  is why I say I survived..

I raised myself starting at the age of six. My mother is an alcoholic and prescription pill addict and was only sober on the weekends when my dad would come home from working out of town. I would get up each morning and make sure I was fed, came home from school roamed the streets to my friends, fed myself supper and repeated the same scenario nearly each day. There were periods where my mother was sober but it would only last about a month or two after she left the rehabs my dad would put her in. During the months she was in rehab, because my dad worked out of town, I would get shipped off to my grandparents or neighbors. Ugh I hated that! It continually got worse, my mom would go out with men, party it up, leave me with whoever or bring me with her to meet her man, until my dad had enough when I was ten years old and they separated (they were never married). For two years I moved to many different places because of my mother's issues and one day she was so drunk when she came to pick me up from school she was swerving all over the road, hitting mailboxes ( that was scarier than a roller coaster ride) thank God it wasn't people she was hitting, and the last thing I remember was hitting the ditch right when we got home and someone ended up calling my dad and bringing me to his house and I never lived with her again.

After that I'd go months without knowing if she was dead or alive. My dad was in his fifties when I went to live with him so he certainly wasn't ready to raise a teenager full time so once again I was just left to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I never had parents who told me what to do nearly my entire childhood and that is the reason I still struggle with people telling me what to do, but I'm learning :). The one decision my parents did make right was to put me in an Assemblies of God private school. At the age of fourteen I got saved and starting going to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. I loved church. I loved it so much and was there so much my daddy would accuse me of sleeping with the men in the church.( I wasn't though, he would say that because he hated my momma and he always told me I was just like her) Many times I was told by the pastor's children that their mom didn't like me because of my home life and one day I walked in on that pastors wife in the church bathroom gossiping about me to someone and decided, since I couldn't get my dad to believe I really did good at church and the pastor's wife who was suppose to protect me while I was there, wasn't protecting me then I didn't want to be part of church anymore and I walked away from the church and God for five years. 

That's when I really did what I wanted when I wanted. I'd go wherever, whenever and with whomever. I didn't care if they were single, married, young, old, drunk, sober, high, clean, nice or abusive. I went with whoever would give me attention. I was becoming my mother!

I moved to Lafayette when I was twenty and at the age of twenty two I got pregnant with Jude, married his dad three weeks later, and 14 months after that was divorced. But God definitely knew what he was doing by giving me Jude. That's when I knew my life had to change. I was kind of slow at changing but God was doing His work :)

I met James (my super awesome man of God) and we dated about a year or so and got married. We were looking for a church and received a flier in the mail for for the Grand Opening of the new Our Savior's Church Broussard Sanctuary. We went that day and loved it! We were still living with one foot in the world while going to church but I knew this was it because God had laid a foundation for me as a teenager when I was in church and I knew where I wanted to be.
One day James told me, "We're either going to do this all the way or not at all", and we haven't looked back since. When Jude was about three (he's now eleven) I started volunteering at the church and in 2006, after twelve years of management at Wal-Mart I finally decided I needed to be home with our children because Hali and Justin needed MUCH attention. I couldn't just stay home all the time so I worked for the church one day a week in the nursery, then moved to the finance office full time, and eventually to Outreach full time (which has by far been my favorite) What a journey!

Our spiritual family has walked us through some crucial times during our marriage, whether we wanted to give up on each other, when it came to our children rebelling, the death of my father and most recently James heart attack. God knows what kind of family we need whether it's physical or spiritual!

I can't even tell you the joy it brings us to minister to other people and walk along side them. I think the most amazing thing to me is that God had his hand on me as a little girl and kept me safe while I was "surviving", so He could use me for his purpose now. I'm still in awe of how He chose to use me to help other women who feel like they're "surviving". In those "survival" years I never would have dreamed that I would be working in the ministry. I am no longer surviving, I am living!  I'm living out the purpose God has created me for and I wake up everyday, regardless of how bad the circumstances are and thank God that He's blessed me with a wonderful husband, loving children, and allows me to reach people the same way people reached out to me.