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By MaryAnne
I grew up in a church-going family, the middle of five children. I was dad's baby-doll', and I adored him in return. It's no wonder that his sudden death when I was just 13 years old sent me into a personal tailspin.
Eighteen months later, I became pregnant and married my baby's father and had a second child six years later. Unfortunately, my husband was unfaithful, chronically unemployed, and struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. I lost my third child at birth, three months before we separated after being together for 10 years. He was murdered a short time later.
I remarried a year later. During that marriage I had my fourth child. That union mirrored the first with infidelity, unemployment, alcohol and drug addiction. It ended in divorce 13 years after we said I do.
This time I waited three years before marrying again. Thinking myself older and wiser, I married a man who called himself a Christian, but this marriage ended like the others. After a 10 year relationship, I ended up alone in a house overlooking the ocean.
As I gazed out the window toward the unending expanse of water, waves of shame and self-blame overwhelmed me; I'm a failure. I'm a lousy wife. I'm a bad mother. Everything is my fault. I'd always considered myself a steely survivor in the toughest of times, but now I was absolutely broken. For the first time in two decades, I allowed myself to cry. The flood gates opened and the tears flowed. And flowed; and flowed. And God began to heal my life.
"Face the past," he said. "Recognize what you've done, and recognize the need to change direction. I have a better way." As the days passed in solitude, I found the courage to do as He said. I acknowledged the consequences for choices I'd made. And as I did, I began to understand some of the root causes behind my first pregnancy and subsequent unhealthy relationships: I harbored an intense fear of being alone. As a child and young teen, I reveled in my dad's love and companionship. His death left me with a void that I tried to fill through three relationships. Hence, I jumped into marriage, albeit with abusive men, to squelch my fear of being alone.
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 "Weeping may go on all night, but joy comes with the morning." Psalm 30:5. That verse describes what happened. Facing my past with all its abuse and brokenness caused immense grief. At times I could barely breathe, but God brought me through and turned my grief and sorrow into joy.
Actually, God did even more than that! He taught me that having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ was more important than simply having a church background and an academic understanding about Himself. I discovered the joy of speaking with Him as I would to a friend and of sensing His presence with me every moment of the day.
Imagine my surprise when, four years later, God planted me in the most notorious section of the inner city of Surrey, B.C. and turned me into a strong and graceful oak for His glory. In 2004, when a bad winter storm whipped through the area, I asked the pastor of a small church in Whalley about opening the building to provide shelter for the homeless. He handed me the keys and said, You're responsible for my building while you're here.
That experience birthed Nightshift Street Ministry. I gave up my business in real estate project sales and marketing, and sold everything in order to commit full-time to ministry. Living off my limited savings, I began working with broken people addicted to heroin, crack, and crystal meth. Within two years, more than 200 volunteers from 30 churches stepped forward to help cook and serve hot meals to 100 to 150 homeless people per night.
I totally credit God for delivering me from total despair and the fear of being alone. Once a slave to my broken past, I am now free and completely fulfilled in my relationship with Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 61:1 describes my life. The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me, because the LORD has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. God has healed my broken heart and set me free!
Now I play a role in helping others find healing for their broken-hearts and to discover freedom, too. What an amazing testimony to God's desire and ability to give us victory over our past!
December 6/2007
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