A Radical Love I Didn’t Know Existed

Moving from lost to found

My parents were huge hippies, so much so that they worked on a commune called The School of Country Living in Idaho before I was born. My older brother and sister were born and spent time with my parents living in a Teepee in the late 1970s.

I was born in 1981 in a log cabin that my dad built in the middle of the woods. We had no running water or electricity, but it didn’t matter because we had tin bathtubs, the creek, and batteries! My parents were organic farmers before it was cool.

The dream died

My parents divorced, and we were exposed to quite a lot of the negatives of that same hippie culture. As a teenager, I was very rebellious and ran from everything.

I ran from relationships, from stability, and, most of all, authority. If authority is supposed to be what protects us, this was not something that I had learned. I saw authority as the “bad guy” who just wanted to control me.

After graduating high school by the skin of my teeth, I made it to college. As hard as I worked, I just couldn’t succeed. I tried so hard, but every door seemed to remain shut, locked even. I remember spending hours upon hours studying and still ending up with a poor grade in the class.

During this same time, I also had a string of boyfriends who I would have for a short time and then discard for someone or something else. I kept on running. I had gotten into drugs, though not hard ones. As much as I tried to separate myself from the types of people that would lead me down the wrong path, I couldn’t.

You see, I was the same person, so therefore I kept attracting the same type of people to myself. I couldn’t change.

The meeting

One day I had gotten myself into a world of trouble. Not because I was trying to skirt the system, but because in my limited preparation for life, I just didn’t understand how it worked.

I had lost my scholarship, lost my car, and had also lost my boyfriend. I began walking down the road. I am not sure where I was going, I was just walking- in rural West Virginia. I was at the end of myself. I was lost and still running.

I had experienced a lifetime of rejection and pain, and I just couldn’t get myself together. I was 21 years old.

As I was walking, a car pulled over and asked if I wanted a ride. Looking carefully at their car, I figured if I got in the car, they would kill me. I took a pass. Another vehicle passed a little further down the road and asked me if I would like a ride. Looking carefully over their car, they seemed safe enough, so I got in.

They asked me where I was going, and I said I had no idea. In the car were an older woman, man, their son (who at the time I thought was around 12), and their small dogs. They asked me if I wanted to go to Pittsburg with them and meet their son. They were heading there that morning.

Being the lost, running, confused young person that I was, I said yes.

The curiosity

The woman in the car started telling me about her life. She told me all the things that she had been through, which sounded so much like my past. Looking at her, though, I never would have realized she had been through such turmoil.

She was speaking to me about someone that she no longer was. I wanted that! I wanted to be talking to someone about the person that I used to be.

She told me it was because of Jesus in her life that she had been set free.

Jesus, you say? What I knew about Jesus was that his followers seemed crazy, hypocritical, judgmental, and exclusive.

This family was different, though. They spoke of Jesus, and I could find no fault with them. We went to Pennsylvania that day, and on the way home, I began to talk about the lousy living situation I was living in.

They asked me if I wanted to move in with them. Well, being the lost, running, and the confused person that I was, I said yes.

New direction

I was still going to school, and they would take me. The woman would pray for me and encourage me. I started going to church with them.

The boy who was 12, or I had thought, was 19 and getting ready to go away to college. He started tutoring me in math and running with me.

I dressed pretty revealing before this encounter, and the woman told me that I was like a gift that my husband would unwrap on my wedding day. She took me shopping and showed me how to dress with modesty!

That was a completely foreign concept to me and one that I appreciated.

After about three weeks into living with them, we were at church, and the church did an alter call. What is an alter call? I had no idea, but I was encouraged that by going up for prayer at that moment, my life would never be the same. I didn’t want to be the same.

I went up and laughed the entire time because I was embarrassed. I said a prayer with someone at the altar, and the whole church cheered. It was weird, but I assumed it was a big deal, or everyone wouldn’t be so happy.

New life

As I left the church, though, something changed. When I went outside, things were different. The grass was greener, and the sky was bluer. All of a sudden, I would open the Bible, and it made sense to me.

Before that, I would open the Bible, and it just seemed like some random jumble of words. I went from basically failing out of college to now making straight A’s.

Plot twist

I didn’t know it then, but I know now that it was the holy spirit that was guiding me.

Oh, and the little boy in the front seat who I thought was twelve, but he was actually 19…he asked me to marry him.

I said, yes!

The woman who loved me taught me, and prayed for me- she became my mother- in -law.

I gave the whole Jesus thing an honest shot, and I’ve never looked back.

That boy that I married has been my husband for seventeen years. We, together, are the happy parents of eight beautiful children.

We have lived in seven different states and taken on a lifetime of adventure. We both went on to get a bachelor’s and master’s degrees and more.

It only took for me to give Jesus an honest go for me to see the vast riches that he had for me.

The legacy

The journey has not always been easy- I had a tremendous amount of pain I had to heal from, but it has always been blessed.

Most of all- Jesus- has never left me or let me down. I owe my life to Him for saving me when I was at my worst. In the pit, He called to me, He called me beautiful, and I will never, ever look back.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Mathew 11:28–30