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Isaiah 46:6 Wouldn't Want Me I Think You Are Beautiful My Resting Place Toy Soldier Almost 17 Stephanie's Story One of These Days Come to Me What God Showed Me and I Want to Share with You |
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personal bio
View Professional Bio »May I say first that God is the center of all that I am and all that I do so this entire autobiography is going to reflect that. May I also say that it is only by the grace of God that I can say that, for even as the words escape my lips, my heart betrays me. I am hopelessly flawed in myself and if by some miraculous stroke of intervention, this or anything else I put my hand to touches you or changes you in anyway, it is by God's doing alone. I am His servant, and that is all.
I do what I do, and share what I share because I believe that this story…my story…is universal in nature. In our humanity we all come to a point where we reach the end of ourselves and either reach out to the something more that’s out there or shut down altogether. The relevance of these moments I share from my life might not seem altogether clear but if you listen to a few of my albums and read between the lines you will see the intuitive connection between the heart behind all of what I do and what I now share with you. This is my story. This is your story. This is our story.
I was born in Minneapolis, MN. God and I have always been close. He was present with me in a very special way as a child. God served as an integral source of support to me. My parents are awesome people. I so appreciate the love they have poured into me in big and small ways throughout my life. They really love me and did their very best for me. Despite their imperfections they taught me the most important thing: to love and be loved by God. Once that's in tact God can take you anywhere.
We all have our shortcomings, however, and my parents are no different. They have their own stories, their own wounds, some of which I know nothing about, that impacted their choices. We all are broken beings doing the best we can with the varying deceptions and wrongful presuppositions we believe as governing truths. (May I say, that what I will divulge here I do in order to express the heart of God in me, to share some of the instrumental things God has used to shape me, and that I desire to honor Him and my parents as well. I consider being truthful honoring, as it challenges us to acknowledge our utter need and dependence on God. How can we be healed if we won't uncover our wounds? Furthermore, how can I ever hope to touch your heart if I won't bare my own? With that said, I continue.) My father has struggled with alcoholism throughout his life; although he was a very hard worker and a true companion of heart to me this posed quite a problem in my life growing up. My mother worked long hours, and though she served as a beacon of strength to me, all too often when she was at home my parents were fighting. We, as a family, were very involved in church, and that was often a source of confusion for me. There seemed to me to be an unspoken rule of silence that applied to our issues. So at church we were a leading family. Then we would get in the car to go home and the peace we had exhibited would, as it seemed to me, give way to the chaos that all too often characterized our day to day.
Despite all these issues and this confusion, God broke through to my heart and when I looked in His eyes all would be clear no matter what was going on around us. We lived on Lake Nokomis and I had a spot, (I love spots), on the other side of the lake underneath a heavy-laden weeping willow tree. There beside the waters I would sing to God and pour out my sorrows, and He would receive them as treasures singing back a song of peace, comfort and reassurance through my own song, using my own voice. Within a matter of minutes, no matter what, my laments and songs of profound despair always turned into glorious creations of joy, peace and love deposited straight into my heart. It was wonderful. So I've been writing music all my life. It came to me like breathing or laughing--it's just always been a part of who I am and what I do. At night, as a child, I remember reaching up my arms to give my “True Heavenly Father" a hug. I could feel a peace encompass me as His Spirit arms wrapped around me and kept me all night long.
I have two siblings, a sister who is two years older then I, and a half-brother who's twelve years older than I. My brother ran away when I was only three years old so I didn't see him much at all growing up. My sister and I struggled through our growing up years, but in between the rivalries we were always the best of friends. We still are. I was described as a feisty, mischievous, little tomboy with a light in my eyes that kept people wondering what I was going to do next.
Charlotte, my sister, and I attended a small private school in South Minneapolis for our elementary grades and then attended a bigger private school for junior high and high school. I was very involved at school and with the church youth group. There were lots of random life changing experiences I could write about from my childhood to adolescence, but I'll leave some of that for the book, (Lord willing), I hope to write. One I will mention was in 1991 when I went with my youth group on a mission trip to New Orleans. We went there to street minister in the French Quarter and work with kids in the projects. Without getting into the details, I'll just state that there on Bourbon Street I saw the face of love in such a tangible, real way that from that day forward I could never deny the reality of God's existence no matter how bad it got. And it did. It got bad.
Within two weeks of that mission trip my whole life was turned upside down, and it seemed to me, everything that meant anything to me was ripped away torturously one by one. At 15 years old I went from being a happy, outgoing, honor role student to a miserable, withdrawn, terrified drop out. I didn't drop out of school because I wanted to, I just couldn't keep up. While my friends were talking about what color prom dress they were going to get I was wondering whether my father was going to be dead or alive when I got home from school…the iniquity of my parents issues had caught up with me. Within six months of that Missions trip I was failing all my classes, again, not because I wasn't trying, but because I couldn't concentrate - I had been unknowingly, uncontrollably thrust into survival mode. I'm not getting into details; perhaps I will share them with you eventually as we walk this life together. Anyway, I felt completely derailed.
I remember walking by the lake near my old spot and trying to talk to God, but it seemed that His face was hidden from me. He seemed so ominous and distant. I just couldn't reconcile this God who had always seemed to love me with what was going on around me. I didn't have the theological background to understand free will and how that factored into what was happening to me, and all my innocence. In trying circumstances we have two choices: we can either interpret God’s heart through the filter of our circumstances and other’s choices or we can interpret other’s choices and our circumstances through the filter of God’s all-loving heart. I chose faithlessness. I felt abandoned and it just seemed that suddenly God had forgotten me…so to save myself the pain of rejection and dashed hopes, I forgot Him.
I felt ostracized from everything that used to be my life. I quit going to church because I couldn't be real and safe there due to the rule of silence that my family had kept. My friends could no longer relate to me so I soon found myself hanging out with the kids who could. These were the druggies, the dropouts, the underside of society; who like me had been lost in the shuffle and forgotten. I kept trying to bail water, but I needed help and it seemed to me no one was there to help me. With each attempt on my own to stay afloat, I would only find myself surrounded and immersed in deeper destruction. Finally my sentiments turned from bailing water to capsizing the boat… "If it was going down I might as well help it along." Then it wouldn't be destroyed by other people's doing, which hurt me almost beyond what I could bear. "Hey, I might as well look like I'm having fun." Even though anyone with eyes could see that I was not…but most don't have eyes…do they? This was the beginning of five years of darkness that hovered over my life like a plague.
At sixteen I left home and moved in with a young man who had struggles of his own. He was abusive to me; I felt trapped. All was lost to me: my dreams, my hopes, my confidence, my passions, my songs and my God. All was lost. I became a shell of a person. What I was at one time was like a surreal fantasy to me - fogged over and hazed by abuse. I remember walking into a room two steps behind "him" my eyes on the floor. The greatest of risks was just looking up into “their” eyes…so afraid they would see my dying soul, but even more afraid that they would not…most never bother to look; to really see. (To busy hiding their own dieing souls I guess.) It was bad. I was using drugs everyday…it became a way of life…all I knew of the world. Robberies, violence, drugs…this was my life, and I participated every step of the way. My being, my conscience was frozen by more pain than a lifetime of processing could bear.
This was the state I was in when I became pregnant. My pregnancy served as the beginning of my reawakening, although it also seemed to be my darkest hour. As I grew with child I began to come to myself and look around my life. I saw the hell I was surrounded by and even filled with and I determined that… "It just isn't good enough for this baby" as that realization came to me and I made strides to improve my life, I got to thinking, "if it isn't good enough for this baby why is it good enough for me?" The abuse increased as my attempts to improve myself grew.
Love and awareness began to seep into my heart, and they brought with them great pain. The pain of years of silence finally began to scream loud in my heart: the pain of lost dreams, the death of me, and all I had planned for myself as a child. Then my son was born, and I stared into the face of a real, live miracle. "Perhaps God hadn't completely forgotten me"…perhaps indeed.
It took another year and a half for me, or rather God, to get me out of that abusive relationship and it was many more years of painful healing to bring me to a place of fullness. God took me back to the places of pain and healed me in a way that was more then a lifetime of processing, and striving could hope to do. I didn't need just processing, I needed a miracle and I got one--more than one. (I say I was brought to fullness knowing that fullness is relative to your depth, and even now I am not nearly as full as I will be--always in process you know—might as well enjoy the journey!)
After years of silence, interrupted only by one song I had written for my son when he was born, at 20 years old I sang a song to the Lord and He met me there among the willows of my heart. Day by day I grew in wisdom and understanding with humility and brokenness as my guide. God showed me the errors in my thinking and I saw that He had never forgotten me, and that although I had proven faithless, He was faithful and that's where my confidence fell and my spiritual stature grew: on the faithfulness and sufficiency of my God. There had been reasons for my downfall. Sure. Other’s choices did come into play, but ultimately it was I that had chosen to interpret God’s heart through the filter of my circumstances. It was me who had turned my back on God and believed the lie that He did not truly love me and could not be trusted. I had been so wrong. I was crushed and broken by the light of truth that was illumining my heart and mind.
I remember the first day I went back to a church after years without my boy by my side, tottering along. My eyes downcast, my feet ready to bolt at the first sign of judgment. Fortunately, God had led me to a grace filled church. I was received in love, and my wounded heart was held gently, by the hands of God, and His children, as it healed. My eyes filled with tears so quickly those days…I was so afraid of rejection, so needful of love, so overwhelmed by His grace--all at the same time. Eventually grace and fullness overtook the others and while my eyes still fill with tears quickly it is not for the same reasons. Now it is not out of fear but out of love and a deep longing to give the same grace I received and to scream out to the forgotten that they are not forgotten. (See the mission page for more about that.)
I came back to God begging to be a servant--the lowliest of servants and God lifted me to my feet after running out to greet me, He put the most beautiful robes of righteousness and humility upon me and He entrusted me with many great visions. Not because I am so faithful, for we both know I am not, but because He is faithful, and in my weakness, He is made strong.
I didn't think after all I had done and been, that God could use me, but I was so wrong. God impressed me with a passion to sing, speak and write of my life and His love over the course of a few years. To share with everyone that if God can love me…even me…with all my hurt, and wrong and sickness…He can love you…out of anything! He has confirmed His call on my life through the gift of many anointed songs that come through me but straight from His heart. He has confirmed this by moving through me and reaching many just where and when they need to be reached. He has confirmed this by His word and the support of His children and by the direct revelations he has given to me.
May I share too, that God has since worked amazing miracles in the hearts of my parents and in their relationship with each other and with me. It has been a beautiful thing to watch…just when I had given up hope. They are aware of the content of this web site and count it an honor to be able to be stand with me as a testimony of the freedom and grace that comes from God alone. He is their sufficiency and where their identity rests. Praise God!
Also, after years of running with a limp as a single mom, God has also blessed my son and I with a wonderful man. Nathan, my husband, shares my heart and my vision with a passion unprecedented in all my previous interactions with people. Not being intimidated by my gifts, on the contrary, he revels in the beauty of God in me. He is truly sent by God…having been the conduit of even deeper healing for me. He loves me as I am with all my history and all my quirks, and I count it an honor to grow with him until death.
Isn’t it awesome to see how God’s will, lived out with abandon, ushers in such holistic joy and healing. There is truly not an area of my heart and life that hasn’t been in some way transformed for the betterment of myself, God, and all those around me, by the hands of this healer…this daddy who indeed does know best. There is much more I could share. I've been walking this path for quite awhile now. Sometimes it is hard, but I would rather be a pauper in heaven than a queen on the ground. That is how marvelously wonderful it is to know and be known by God. Of course He never leaves you a pauper--never. I have a long way to go, but I am exactly where I am supposed to be…so really…I am here and that is enough. For now.
Yes, God is the center of all that I am and all that I do, and it is only by God's grace that I can say that, for even as the words escape my lips, my heart betrays me. I am hopelessly flawed in myself and if by some stroke of miraculous intervention this or anything else I put my hand to touches you or changes you in any way it is by God's doing alone. I am His servant and that is all…though you would never know it by how He has honored me, but such is my God, my Lover, and my Friend.
Deep Blue Sky
