In the midst of looking forward to this weekend—a trip to New York and the opportunity to minister to homeless people—I couldn’t help but take a look back over my life; part of that is because the members on our team were encouraged to be prepared to give a testimony of God’s work of grace (salvation) in our lives.

To look back at that time, the time when my life was radically changed, I saw streets of a city on the opposite side of the country—San Francisco.  It was an interesting, albeit difficult, path that took me to Haight-Ashbury at time in our country’s history marked by peace and rebellion, love and hate, drugs and vegetables.  Ok, that last one was a little more from my perspective working in a vegetarian restaurant located a block away from Golden Gate Park.

I grew up in conflict and abuse.  Of course, it is difficult to acknowledge the beatings and insane manipulation as abusive since a magical child’s mind tends to claim full responsibility for the difficulties at home.  My little girl’s mind would assume blame for my mother’s death at age four.  I thought my role as youngest child and princess would be resumed when my dad married my stepmother, but I can guarantee that did not happen—the blocked memories from the two years between when my mother died and dad remarried should have been a clue about what was to come.

That is plenty of background to explain why, at age thirteen, almost fourteen, I was more than happy to be sent away to boarding schools.  Of course, a happy home would have been my first choice, but this looked like a fairy tale with no happily ever after.  I was a tremendously insecure teenager, though I know now that is a characteristic of those years for most young people—I just didn’t have anywhere to take the hurt—except to God, in a religious sort of way, trying to be the good kid for Him that I couldn’t be for my parents.  …and I just happened to be in a “religious” boarding school.  I tried to be good, for the most part, to keep an angry, vindictive, abusive God at bay.  I was pretty rebellious my sophomore year, but that didn’t suit me so I went back to trying to be good.

After graduation, the thought of moving back home was unbearable so I pleaded with my parents to allow me to go to a college, run by the particular denomination I was a part of, in California.  …possibly the thought of me at home was as difficult for them as for me!  So they sent me to school near the beautiful Napa Valley.  I had no direction for my life, no goals—what I wanted to do (be a writer) was discouraged because I was no more than mediocre, and to be successful, one had to be extraordinary (that is what I was told).

I remember going to one of my religion professors and asking him what was the point of the cross—I don’t remember the answer I was given, though I became very driven to be involved in ministries.  There were several, but the main one was the Vege-Hut, a vegetarian restaurant down on Haight Street in San Francisco.  There are tales of fun and fear held in my memories from those days! –it was the late ‘60s and early 70s, drugs and demons, hopeless and hopeful, homeless and communes filled the area and the times.

My religion did me no good against the powers of darkness at work all around me.  Proof texts elicited a form of godliness but no power and no salvation.  The foundations of my religion were torn down, and it dawned on me that I could never be good enough to be saved—just believing, faith alone felt like stepping out on clouds with nothing but air beneath me.  My life became an effort of hopelessness and one night I was determined to step off, with nothing beneath me; I walked out of the restaurant, heading towards the Golden Gate Bridge and this time I was going to be successful!

Except God…  God had other plans for me that night.  Someone stopped me and asked me to come with them to one of the Christian communes in the area—they were going to be praying for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  I figured that I had tried everything else, why not that?   …and my life was radically changed.  The Holy Spirit brought a peace to my soul I had never known before.  That night he began revealing Jesus to me.  It is over forty years later and he is still revealing Jesus to me.

My life has taken some deep dives since that day—I was in an emotionally abusive relationship where I again became deeply suicidal, to the point I figured my children would be better off without me.  But God’s grace delivered me.  I have made foolish choices, looked for love in all the wrong places, but His mercies are new every morning.

So I am looking forward to this weekend—the people of the street are very special to me.  I slept in the communes and on the restaurant floor.  I hitchhiked around California at a time when the Zodiac killer was destroying lives (attacked two people at the college I attended, one died).  I have been in food lines so that I could feed my kids.  One time I had nothing to fix for dinner and I came home to find a casserole on my front porch.  I was essentially put out of my home at a point when I just could not be good enough, skinny enough or measure up.  I saw God open a door with my parents (who would have thought that could happen with our history!) where they provided a home for my kids and me (100 miles away from where they lived, I’m pretty sure any closer would not have worked).

The testimony of my life?  God’s steadfast love and faithfulness.  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!  Lamentations 3:22, 23