At about age 15, I accepted Christ via my 4-H leader's daughter. I was raised in a mainstream church but really did not know Christ. After I accepted Christ I went to an e-free church until I went to college and lived for the most part as a Christian should-ish. I went to college and the first semester fell off the rails and the second semester got involved in navigators and went back on the rails. That year I went on a retreat where we went skiing and stayed at Glen Eerie which is home to the navigators. I made a Lordship commitment there and basically said that I would follow Christ and his lead from that point forward. I then had my career and children and some significant illness milestones in my family and had to survive all of that. We became part of the Wesleyan church in Rapid City and I was baptized there. Then we moved to Piedmont and were involved in the Sturgis community so we started going to church at what was then First Wesleyan Church.

I am very good at pointing out all of my faults and very few of my positives because my positives can always be better and therefore they become faults. Although I know that God made me who I am, I always struggle to be better. We became involved in a life group early on and that kept us in this church throughout some very difficult years in the church and in our lives. I continue to struggle with being enough. I am also very well aware that in Christ I am ACTUALLY enough. God has a plan for my life and I have followed it for the most part. Even though I am more of a "hit me upside the head with a 2x4" than an "I'll intuitively know what you're trying to tell me to do" kind of person. So I have followed God's path kicking and screaming and being dragged along and then looking back on it and saying, "Oh that's what God wanted me to do. It all makes sense now!" But I could never see it coming and I was always surprised when I ended up where I was. We've been in LifeSpring since about the 1990s and I have grown a great deal in this church as a follower of Jesus. I have found that the life groups ground me not only with a weekly reminder of being in fellowship with other Christians but also in my need for Christ. Volunteering in the church also helps me feel a very strong underlying connection with the community of believers and reaching the remainder of our community as part of the great commission. I think our outreach is extremely important and I try to assist where I can.

I am now retired so should have significantly less stress, which I do. I still find myself stressing on things that are silly. My trust muscles with God have been exercised very well in the last couple of years and that muscle is significantly stronger now. You would think I would have already had those muscles well in tune with a very stressful career and raising children and family illnesses. But apparently, I needed more. I'm hoping I'm done with that! I don't mind learning, but I sure wish it was less painful. But the point of all of this is that I CAN learn and I continue to learn and I continue to grow closer to Jesus and I continue to try and that is what God expects from me. I don't have to be perfect which is good because I'm not. I am perfect to God because he looks at me through the eyes of Jesus.