Do you remember as a child thinking “What am I here for?” Did you grow up with the feeling that you were on this earth for a “special” reason?
When my brother Jim and I were little we just wanted to grow up and be grandparents! Our grandpa Herley had a wonderful twinkle in his eyes. He milked cows, grew alfalfa, and drove a tractor. Grandma had chickens and a garden. I used to twist my fingers around the hem of her dress so she couldn’t get far away from me. (Funny but all these years later, I find that now I twist my fingers around the hem of my husband’s shorts at night) … I don’t know where I think he is going!
I remember grandma made me take naps whether I was tired or not. I thought that was mean … as I sure wasn’t tired! It wasn’t until I was a mom of seven that I realized grandma was the one that was tired! “Nap time” was for her, not for me! During those naps I would think about “why I was born”. I wasn’t quite sure, but knew my mom had told me I was created for a very special purpose!
A few years later, as an unwed fifteen-year-old girl, I gave birth to my first baby boy! I was a baby having a baby. Was this the special purpose I was made for? As young as I was I loved being a mom!
However by the time I was 23 I’d been married and divorced twice and now I was a single mom … with six children!
At thirty-three my childhood wish came true! I was a grandma!
Now Gary and I have many grandchildren. ALL are very much loved by their grandparents! I shop all year long for birthday and Christmas gifts for our family. Gary says it is my hobby I say it is my “mission!”
I think most women like a good love story; I’d like to take you back now to where mine began!
In 1971 my husband gained a wife, became the father of his own first child, and also became dad to … my six children who ranged in age from four to twelve! Some people thought he was mentally challenged, many more thought he was a saint!
When I met Gary he was a bachelor who had NEVER been married! And to top it off he was the ONLY CHILD of his parents, who were hard working Central Oregon farmers. I have often wondered what my dear sweet in-laws thought when Gary called and said “Mom, dad, guess who’s coming to dinner?” :) I want you to know though that his folks loved him, and chose to embrace his new, “not so little” family!
Gary who loved life and adventure now loved me! Did he know what he was taking on? A divorced mom with six kids! I think not!
Before long this man whose adventurous spirit had led him to race cycles and jump out of airplanes, was bogged down in the mire and crisis of our home. The woman that he’d married had more than enough liabilities but there were three that were of his greatest concern: One; I was deathly afraid of water- not a good match for a man building his first trimaran sailboat dreaming of someday living aboard full time… even crossing oceans.
Two; I had forgotten how to trust a man … As a young child things had happened to me that caused me to stop trusting men. Someone that I loved and trusted was molesting me! I felt this was not something I could share with anyone. I was ashamed, confused and hurt. I didn’t know where to turn for help. Afraid if I “told,” my family would be hurt. I had no one to talk to about my fears. My body, soul, and mind were wounded. Like a little bird at sea I took flight into my own imaginations.
The third major concern Gary had was that I did not have a relationship with the God he had loved since he’d been a child. Oh, I believed in God, and I knew the Christmas and Easter story, but I didn’t realize it was possible to have a personal relationship with Him. I truly didn’t believe He cared about me anyway and I always held in my memory the “proof” that He didn’t… Would God have let those things happen to me as child if He loved me?
Another memory that permanently altered the way I perceived God happened one Sunday morning when I was ten. My father dropped me off at church. I walked up to the door all by myself but when I tried to open the door it was locked! My heart sank! It was just as I had feared. …“I was too bad for God!” You see that locked door represented God to me and in my little girl mind I became convinced He could not love me! I remember the tears flowing as I sat on the steps waiting for my ride home. I never told anyone about the locked door and I never asked to be taken to church again. I began building my life around a wrong assumption. I lived the next twenty years making choices based on a lie about God and myself. I trusted no one! Fear colored all my relationships. And I became a bitter and unforgiving woman.
But the wonder of it all was that as wounded as I was, I still met a man like Gary. He used to tell me “Faye Marie, there have been many men in your life, but I’m different, I love you, and I love you in spite of yourself!” I saw in him a real live example of “unconditional love”! My husband chose to follow the “for better or for worse” part of our marriage vows. My children and I had found a safe harbor! My eldest son once told me, “Mom, if you ever leave dad, I’m going with him!”…
Little by little I began to understand that Gary would never leave me. I saw that he was different, and knew it was his faith in God that made him so. I began to think maybe I had been wrong in the conclusions I had drawn about God. Gary loved me maybe God loved me too.
In spite of the fact that life was on a more even keel since I‘d married Gary, I soon began suffering the consequences of my previous life style. You see in the years before I had met my hubby I had been a Go-Go dancer in a cage! After finding myself alone with six kids to care for I took a job as a dancer in a night club. So you see you can't always judge a book by it's cover 
(That was back in the days when dancers still wore clothes :) I was a mom all day and a dancer at night. I began taking diet pills to keep me awake and was soon totally addicted to them! I needed them for energy AND to give me the sense of well being I longed for! I had continued their use into our marriage ... unknown to me they had eaten up my stomach with ulcers. It was a a part of myself that I had kept hidden from my hubby. After many years of abuse it was becoming critical!
There was a night in March of 1974 that I had my own "coming to the end of myself, crisis." I had become so desperate I finally confessed the truth of my addiction to my hubby who as yet did not know I was an addict. He looked at me and said "Oh honey thank God! I just thought you were crazy! Addiction is something we can take care of!" I thought to myself "So you say, I have been trying for 5 years to free myself from this bondage!" ... However was HE going to fix THIS! Later that night I was in the basement doing the mountains of laundry a family of nine has. Diet pills do not let you sleep so I was often up all night. That night I was so overwhelmed with with my life I cried out "God help me!"
The result of my cry in the night was ... Days later my health completely broke! The years of drug abuse caught up to me and I had to be hospitalized ... I was admitted vomiting uncontrollably ... a very sick woman who hadn’t been able to keep food down for days. They put me in isolation immediately, not knowing whether or not I was contagious.
Gary visited me every day while our moms took care of the children. Though I was ill, I was having the first real quiet time I’d had in years. I was sick and had tubes everywhere, but I was really enjoying the solitude! I had a lot of time to think as they looked for the source of my trouble.
In the quietness of that hospital room I began to sense that maybe my need was more than physical. My sister-in-law came and visited me. She had recently become a Christian and I saw in her a real joy and peace that had not been there previously. I asked for her pastor to come and talk to me. He came and told me about a peace that I could have, that was even greater than what I was experiencing in the quietness of that room. He told me the source of that peace was found in Jesus. He then explained that God was a God of love who wanted to have a relationship with me, but because of the sin in my life such a relationship wasn’t possible.
He showed me from the Bible that I had a “soul sickness” much like I had a sickness in my body. He said all people have sinned and are far away from God … and that included me. He explained that sin was simply the act of leaving God my Creator out of my life and living as though “I” were my own boss.
I could see that I had been living with no regard to the plan that God had for me. I‘d left Him out of my life for years and it had only led to desperation, isolation, and actions that I was now ashamed of. He told me that if I continued to leave God out of my life I would be separated from Him forever.
He also explained that God had sent His only Son Jesus to die in our place, to pay for the sins of the world … even mine. How Jesus had died on a cross, was buried, and raised to life three days later, and He was now living in Heaven! If I would accept what Jesus had done in my behalf, I could be forgiven. I bowed my head right there in that hospital bed confessing my sins! I asked Jesus to come in to my life. The release of my guilt was huge. I was forgiven and I knew it! When Gary came to see me that night He said He could see I was different. There was a new light in my eyes!
The doctors operated on my stomach a few days later but God had already operated on my heart and given me a new one. I walked out of that hospital a brand new woman! I had a new life and I was released from years of bitterness. God took me from soul and body sickness to a healthy hunger for knowing Him better. I had a new beginning!
In the weeks and months that followed it was a honeymoon for God and me. I read the Bible all the way through for the first time. Gary and I began taking our children to a little Village Missions church that was right behind our home. It was there I first was introduced to what is now known as Stonecroft Bible Studies! As I studied the Bible with the ladies around that table, I found love and acceptance. And I also found answers that helped me to become the wife and mom my family needed.
I began to teach my children about God and His Son Jesus. I truly wanted to steer them away from making the same mistakes their mama had made.
And because of the wonderful freedom God had given me I was now able to forgive the person who had wounded me as a child. Our remaining years were marked with genuine love … and I was able to help him come to wholeness. The restoration was complete and I can say when he died, years later, I was holding his hand loving him with a pure and devoted love.
When all but three of our children had left home, Gary was ready to bring his dream of living aboard our boat full time, to reality. I had always been a stay at home mom and I was completely content to stay that way: “A STAY AT HOME MOM”, but I didn’t want to stand in the way of my husbands dreams and so, even though I was still afraid of water, I decided to trust God to take care of me. He had already taken care of the two other major fears in my life. I no longer was afraid to trust a man and I now had a living relationship with God through His Son Jesus. Couldn’t I trust Him to help me over my fear of water too? … It was time to lose sight of the shore!
Early one August morning we crossed the bar of the Columbia River, heading north to the San Juan Islands. As the hours passed and night fell our girls Carmen and Sheila went to their bunks below. The moon, which had been our light, was lost behind the clouds. The waves were building and so was the pounding of my heart. “Mrs. Fear” herself was at the helm! I handled the tiller while Gary tended the sails. I was afraid that my husband would fall overboard and I “knew” if he did, I would not be able to find him. The seas were bigger than I’d ever seen before but there was no place to go… so I just kept sailing and praying. Soon the sails were changed and Gary returned to the cockpit to take over the steering of “SON-BIRD”. I lay down at the feet of my husband trying to sleep. I didn’t want to go below where the girls would see the shape I was in. As I dozed I began to think of other journeys we had made on the Oregon Coast. I remembered a pod of Dolphin’s that had swum along with our boat on a moonlit night! Because of the phosphorescence in the water we could see their sleek movements perfectly. But that night there were no dolphins, only seas that were bigger than I cared to deal with! As we sailed on through the night I began to willfully meditate on a passage from the Bible that says “He leads me beside still waters” I told the Lord, “These are not still waters”! Suddenly I was filled with peace and in my heart I heard Him say, “I AM” your still waters”! He hadn’t chosen to calm the seas that night, but instead had chosen to calm my raging, fearful heart! I was no longer afraid. We were not alone as we sailed the Pacific headed for San Juan Islands. On that dark night I learned once again His promises are true…He will never leave or forsake us! Our Captain was on board!
Many years have come and gone since that night. In the meantime, our “crew” has grown up and now have families of their own. And we are the proud grandparents of thirty-five lively young people from 10 to thirty four years old! … And that is not counting our great grand-babies! (A few years ago our eldest son Paul married a girl who is the mom of seven children. (So we are grandparents to 42!) Paul is the one who told me “if you ever leave dad,”… well I have told him the same “if you ever leave Stacie I am going with her!
Through the years I’ve had plenty of opportunity to learn to trust God in good times and bad. I held His hand tightly through the years of raising seven teen-agers. Watched as my kids did make many of the mistakes I had made, yet I know that “through it all” they will find their way back to the God Who loves them so much!
I tested the waters of trusting God as I went through a dark tunnel of depression suffered in my forties. During that time I learned, it wasn’t my weak hold on Jesus that counts, but His strong eternal hold on me!
Ten years ago our beloved fifteen-year old granddaughter, Tiffany, was diagnosed with 4th stage Hodgkin Lymphoma cancer. Tiff who was at that time leading a Stonecroft Friendship Bible Study of her own for her peers … began a journey, which was to include chemo, radiation, and finally remission. Two years later she was diagnosed once again with cancer, this time with Leukemia. Her only recourse was to receive a bone marrow transplant. Oct 3, 2003 Tiff began a 3½-month sojourn in Doernbecher Children’s hospital in Portland, Oregon that would end Jan. 24th, 2004 with her graduation to heaven. I would be beside myself if I did not know I would see Tiffany again! But when she was 8 years old she had given her life to Christ at my dining room table! I had been doing the homework for my Bible Study and the lesson told how you could know God in a personal way. I shared this with Tiffany who had been setting watching me as I worked on my lesson. She very simply and easily accepted Jesus as her personal Savior! Hours later as we were riding down the road in my car, I looked over and saw tears sliding down Tiff’s cheeks. I said “Oh honey, why are you crying?” She said in a voice just above a whisper, “Oh grandma, it should have been 'me' on the cross!” As young as she was she had understood that Jesus had stood in her place on the cross paying the penalty for her sins so she could stand in His place forgiven. Tiff was a new creation!
Years later as her cancer progressed she had surrendered herself and the disease to Christ for whatever that was to mean! Do I miss her? You bet, more than life itself! But now she knows personally, what we only can experience by faith!
During my journey with God I have seen good things and what often “appear” as bad things, intersect in our lives. But I am learning through them ALL to “be still and know that God is in control” Then I am able to experience God’s peace even in the storm. His word that says I will never, no never, no never, leave or forsake you has become my anchor and stay! I don’t know about tomorrow, but I do KNOW God holds my hand, and He is in charge of the journey now…
This may have sounded like a story about us but it is really a story about God, and the plan that He has for all who will fully commit to trust Him.
As I think about all God has done in my life, I often remember a Christmas celebrated years ago. We had been living in the country. Our home was an old school house that we were remodeling. During those years we began our own family traditions. Each year we had a huge community Christmas potluck and invited all our friends, family, and neighbors to share our love and our table.
The year we sold our home to move on the boat, we decided to have one last feast in the old school house that had held so much joy. The crowning glory of the day would be that all seven of our children were going to be home. The days before an Arctic freeze hit. Christmas Eve day, we were setting the tables for sixty-five. Our tree was decorated and we had a warm fire in the old earth stove.
The next day we were going to have Mexican dishes and traditional turkey as well. Many children would be playing around our tree! The phone rang and our pregnant daughter in love was on the other end. Paul our eldest son had failed to pay a fine and he was in jail! I heard Robin’s muffled sobs as she said, “Mom, we won’t be home for Christmas”! My eyes filled with tears as my husband of ten years looked on. He quietly said, “I’ll go”…
Those were the years before debit cards, and personal checks were frowned on, so we didn’t know exactly how this was all going to come about. We prayed and Gary began his Christmas Eve journey. I know an angel went before him as the store in town cashed his personal three hundred and fifty dollar check. Our little Courier pick-up carried him across 250 miles of ice to a County jail in Washington where Gary paid our sons fine so he could join his family for dinner at our Christmas feast. He did for our son what he could not do for himself. He paid the price to set him free.
This story often reminds me of another Father Who had children in “jail” owing a debt they could not pay. He sent His Son on a Christmas Eve journey over 2000 years ago, to a cruel cold world to pay our “fine”. God the Father has a feast prepared for us also, and He wants ALL His children to be there. Through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave, Jesus paid our sin debt in full and all we have to do to receive the gift of salvation that He is offering to us is to accept what He has done on our behalf. Our son, Paul, would never have considered not accepting his father’s gift and neither should we refuse God’s gift of His Son. The Bible says, “To all who received Him, Jesus, He gave the right to become children of God”. The entrance fee to heaven has been paid in full for a grandma like me … or young girl like Tiffany! No matter what our age or the degree of our sin we are free to run with open arms to the One Who HAS paid it all!
I have told you all about my life’s journey and I know each one of you have your own story to tell. Each of us is on a course through life. Some may already have made a definite decision to follow God and are on an adventure that will ultimately lead to His Home in Heaven. But someone reading this may not have made that decision. You may be waiting because no one has told you how you can know God and the plan he has for your life. Or you know the way and you have just been waiting the right time. If this is the case I want to give you an opportunity to book your trip plan right now.
Right now if you realizing that God is tugging at your heart, maybe it is time for you to lose sight of the shore and enter into the “Ocean of His love. Would you want to pray with me? I am going to pray a simple prayer like the one I prayed years ago. If you have never asked Jesus to be your Savior and you want to now, … you may pray silently along with me.
“Dear God, I have come to realize that I am separated from You because of my sin… and I need a Savior…. Thank You, for sending Jesus, to accomplish that which I could never do. I know now it’s because of His sinless life, His death on the cross, and His resurrection from the grave… I know He accomplished all that is necessary for my relationship to be restored to You…
I ask you now to forgive all my sins … and I invite Jesus Christ to come into my life and be my personal Savior … Thank You for forgiving me and making me a brand new person! … I ask these things, trusting in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ ... A-men
God hears the softest cry of a needy heart … His word promises that, “If you ask you will receive! So if you have prayed with me to receive Jesus as your Savior for the very first time … you are now God’s child and I want to be the first to welcome you to the Family of God.
I remember the day we launched our boat. We took her by trailer to the mighty Columbia River. Sojourner had been built in a backyard and until that day she’d never seen water. If she could have talked she would have told you “I am happy to be a back yard project” … but she didn’t know what she’d been created to be! The moment Sojourner left that trailer and settled down in the water my heart sang, “She is free, free to become all she was meant to be”! At that moment I knew a tiny bit of what our Heavenly father feels when one of His children lets go of their fear and takes hold of His Wonderful Forever Hand.
Today if you have asked Jesus to come into your life you too are free to become all God means for you to be. And I can tell you from personal experience, you are beginning the most satisfying journey you’ll ever embark upon. Welcome to the Family of God!
