Here is a snippet with her story that I’m sharing based off of our conversation from the video below: Though growing up in a Christian home and accepting Jesus at an early age, Susan never felt good about herself. She was taught legalism and coupled with being bullied, she felt unworthy and confused. One thing though, is that she really enjoyed school. She finally got her chance to leave the bullying she experienced in her small town and create a new persona in college where she received a swimming scholarship. In college, she left little time for God as she was making her new mark in the party and drinking scene.

Even though she enjoyed school, after 4 1/2 years of college, she and a friend left to live in a gulf coast town with no degree (kept switching majors). There, she continued in the party scene, focusing on herself and became rebellious by not talking to her parents much. After different friends moving in and moving out from her apartment, she finally got to a place when she was all alone. She couldn’t continue paying the bills and ended up getting kicked out. It was very clear at this point that she knew that she could reach back out to her parents and they would accept her and invite her back home, but she she felt like she needed to own her choices and deal with the things she created. So, at 23 or 24, she made the decision to live in her Camaro; she was officially homeless!

Though it was one of the scariest times in her life, she wouldn’t change it for the world. She states, “when so much is stripped away and you have no where to go but look up, it’s a beautiful thing.” She shares how it was one of the most intimate times she had with God. Her deep, deep, deep self-hatred and self loathing felt like it was unredeemable, but she says that’s a lie from the pit of Hell! During this time, she quit cold turkey all those things that were making her feel terrible: working at a bar, friends that weren’t good role models and the party scene. She completely cut ties with the old path and got a new job; 3 actually! She decided that she needed to face the consequences from all her actions.

“There is no amount of darkness that God can’t shatter!”

JUST RELEASED Peace Of Mind Binder! This has been a work in my heart for nearly 40 years and I am praying it will help and bless so many people with an unending ripple effect!

My Advice

1. Be willing to be wrong. And once you are willing, then take it a step further and start to expect it and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow! We are all wrong about things all the time that we have no idea we are wrong about. When we discover we are wrong, it can either embarrass us if we made a big stink about it, or it can be a time to learn, grow, and even excitement about it, if we approached it with humility and understanding.

My husband and I have a saying that we love to say in our house, “Consider that you may be wrong.” It keeps us humble and reminds us we are just human and there is another side of the story and maybe we don’t even know the full story. Keeps us from jumping to conclusions. Doesn’t mean we do it perfectly every time obviously, but we love to consider that we may be wrong. Keeps us aware and attentive as well as hopefully humble.

2. So much of what can be healed in our world is by simply being kind.
Choose Hope.
Sprinkle Kindness Everywhere.
Chase Jesus at all costs.
Listen really well and look for ways to sneakily serve others without them ever knowing.
Make sure (and this is an ongoing throughout the day thing for most of us) Jesus is the 1st thing….otherwise all the other things are exponentially harder, more difficult, and more frustrating.

3. BREATHE! Just be grateful that YOU ARE HERE AND ALIVE AT THIS VERY MOMENT! Life is a crazy short fleeting temporary gift and we want to be found spending it being joyful, grateful, serving, and loving, not miserable and complaining.

4. Most Importantly, no matter what you think you know or what you do in life or who you help, remember that NONE OF IT AMOUNTS TO ANYTHING IF WE HAVE NOT LOVE. (1 CORINTHIANS 13:1-3)

So, now we need to know that if nothing we do matters wtihout love, what is love? Well, thankfully The Bible tells us that too.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 DESCRIBES what love looks like.

1 John 4:8B TELLS US WHAT LOVE IS! “GOD IS LOVE”.

So to sum up, no matter what you do, or accomplish or how much you help, if you have not Love, which is God, we have nothing.
I Just love it that He gives us all the answers in His unfailing word!

HOW EXCITING IS THAT? HE TELLS US WHAT LOVE IS! IT IS GOD!! IT IS HIM!
ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS BELIEVE IN HIM AND WE WILL BE SAVED. (JOHN 3:16)

If we have nothing without God, then with Him we have everything.

Chase what matters. Chase the one thing that matters. God IS Love! He is what matters.Period. End of story!