Girl Undone: The Making of a Leader

Note: this story contains mentions of suicide and abuse.

We do not come to ministry with a blank slate. We come with sin proclivities that present, in a combination unique to us, origin stories we may be trying to overcome, overgrown gardens of affliction to tend to blind us to our own faults, and a propensity to forget the truth of the Gospel. As someone who is one-and-a-half years into an “unconventional” residency through the Leadership Institute, the Lord has taught me a thing or two. But first, I’ll share some backstory (because there is writing on my slate, I will need to interpret for you). 

 I was born into poverty to a single mother who made lifting her children out of the gutter her job. With that being her focus, she did not have much time for anything else. She didn’t have the capacity for managing feelings or recognizing abuse happening right under her nose. While money and food were scarce, there was an abundance of depravity and mental illness. I grew up around an alphabet of diagnoses in family members (from agoraphobia to schizophrenia and many things in between). This came with a great deal of self-medicating, which yielded devastating results. The consequence of these actions meant I was on the receiving end of abuse and neglect. I was the “red-headed stepchild” at my dad’s house with an absent father and bipolar stepmother.  I heard descriptors like ugly, worthless, homely, disgusting, loser, and other adjectives too colorful and painful to type. They were the soundtrack of my childhood, and I believed them. This necessitated a robust imagination that I would escape into. This worked until it didn’t.  

In the midst of quotidian moments, there are moments that whirl like a dervish through the ordinary and stop everything in their tracks. The death of my brother when I was twelve years old birthed the kind of brokenness that changes the course of one’s life. My mother stopped functioning due to a broken heart, and I lived with various relatives spanning multiple states. I spent time in a foster home that taught me about what it looks like to live a godly life (this would lay the solid foundation I now stand on). I would go on to live on the streets of New York City and Chicago as a teen. I ate out of dumpsters and stood in food kitchen lines. I was the person you would see asking for spare change on the street corner. I stayed in shelters and traveled the country in a converted school bus with strangers (who weren’t all safe). I hitchhiked from coast to coast all alone when I should have been finishing high school. I disrobed in a room full of “gentlemen” to make money while friends were still in school.  I experimented with substances (nothing was off limits unless I had to use a needle) until they consumed my mind.  

When I read the story of Nebuchadnezzar, clad in bestial madness, I am reminded of the depths the Lord rescued me from. I can actually relate to his madness and his cure. While I came to know Christ in the basement of a little old Baptist church as a girl, my conversion story didn’t happen overnight. It was painstaking and gut-wrenching. I needed to be disciplined for years until I was all in. Fast forward to today, I am the mother of six children (the oldest in college and the youngest in first grade). My past is in the rearview mirror. I have been sold out for Jesus longer than I have been a mother. There is no other way for me now. But my upbringing and conversion story shapes the way I see people and how I relate to others in ministry. I am a theological and relational deep diver. It’s just the way the Lord has wired me. And, although I am redeemed, I have had to learn how my past can negatively impact the way I do ministry. This brings us to my “unconventional” residency. 

The first year of my residency at the Woodside Leadership Institute involved taking care of my dying father, finishing my degree, raising six children, and stepping in as Interim Worship Director at Woodside Lapeer (still fresh into my residency). Because I experienced a lack of parental affection as a child, I often feel the need to earn approval and prove my worth by what I can give or do. Throughout year one of my residency, the Lord tore me down to the studs and showed me (yet again) that my worth is found in Him and Him alone. He showed me the importance of Sabbath, ministry and home-life balance, and abiding in Him (we cannot give from an empty cup). 

I am now six months into year two, now finishing out my residency at Woodside Troy. Once again, my family is in the thick of it. While it is her story to tell, my daughter felt so hopeless that she tried to take her own life. She nearly succeeded. I share this because those we minister to are often broken, lost, and hungry. They come to us battling things that only the Lord sees. They are fearfully and wonderfully made and need to be handled with care.  

Is there someone in your life you can seek to show the love and care of Christ to? Ministry is messy and hard, but the Lord will use it to expose the hidden things and idols we clutch like pearls. What an honor and blessing it is to be the hands and feet of Jesus.