He Changed Me

Please tell your sweet wife God used her in only the way He knows how...by always knowing what you need to hear. I will give you a mini testimonial. I suffered two horrific postpartum depressions after both my boys...they are now 19 and 13. You can tell by their age difference I was scared to have to go through it again. You have to understand I was not a Believer.

We were going thru some pretty horrific circumstances and it made my second depression even worse. I could not get out of bed nor function. I did not know what it stemmed from at the time but later, after seeking counsel, my counselor found out that I had been raped by somebody I trusted, I was breaking up with him, and he raped me..I was a virgin so this rocked my world like you can't imagine. I kept it to myself for my cousin had been murdered 2 mths earlier and our family was still reeling from it. I knew my father would kill him and I could not have that on my conscious so I pretended it happened to someone else other than me..I thought this was a great way of dealing...so wrong.
So during this depression, my saint of a mother and the only born again Believer in our family (she had come to Christ a few yrs earlier and we all thought she was off her rocker)came in to care for my family...she lives in Alabama and we live in Scottsdale, AZ. I had decided that I was going to take my life that day and had a bottle of pills under the covers I was going to down. I was in so much pain, did not know the Lord, and thought this was the only way to stop it. My mother came in my room, I was crying, and she opened my curtains to let some light in, and then turned my clock radio to K-Love, the Christina music station. She left after this. I had never heard contemporary Christian music before. Just as I picked up my water to take the pills a song came on...Kirk Franklin's "My Life Is In Your Hands". God spoke so directly to me through this song...for those of you who don't know the lyrics it goes like this:"You don't have to worry, and don't you be afraid, joy comes in the morning, troubles they don't last always; for there's a friend named Jesus, who will wipe your tears away...and if your heart is broken, just lift your hands and say, "Oh I know that I can make it, I know that I can stand, no matter what may come my way, my life is in Your hands." I fell to my knees and this obstinate child of God asked Jesus into her heart and told Him He was going to have to do a miracle in me for I had hit the wall. I felt a peace that I can't explain to this day. I started feeling better within minutes and within a week my mother was able to turn my household back over to me.
We started to attend church and the pastor heard me singing and asked me to join the worship team..I had always loved to sing and would try out for solos for school plays and I got them but then had such stage fright I could never do it. I sang in the choir at school and my music teacher kept telling me I could have a career as a singer. I could not get over the stage-fright thing so never pursued this route.
When I began on the worship team I was asked to do solos and it was so easy and freeing because I wasn't singing for nor to people...I was singing to my Lord. Later I would come to be the worship leader there for almost 6 years and I introduced the Lutheran Church I attended to contemporary music. The head priest of all Southwest Lutheran churches visited our church and asked that I would teach a worship seminar and go around to the different churches giving concerts so they could see how powerful this music was. and that's what we did as a team.
we left this church, for our kids needed a stronger youth group, and came upon a nondenominational church called Highlands Church, located in North Scottsdale..10 minutes from my house. I tired out for the worship team, made it, and now get to help lead for this amazing church family I have. the ting is, worshiping up on that stage is more ministering to me than anything else...how can you go back to that pit while you are praising Him? you can go on Highlandschurch.org and go to sermons and look at the two past Easters and see me singing a solo ( we get 20,000 people during the holidays). I'm the dark headed lady singing the belters.
I will never forget how God literally plucked my out of that pit of muck and mire and put my feet upon a Rock. Again, tell your wife "thank you".
In Him,
~andrea