Joyce's Blog

I was born in Chicago, ILL. 5^th child in my happy Italian family. We were Catholics and as long as I can remember we went to church every Sunday. When I was 5 we moved to Southern California. We had these 2 neighbor ladies that were missionaries in heart. They noticed my mom had 5 kids and ran a business out of her home. These sweet neighbor ladies asked if she could use help housecleaning and decorating, without charging her anything. They had ulterior motives! So as they were dusting and picking up a statue of Mary, they didn’t talk about how bad the Catholics were but instead they just asked, “do you know that your going to heaven?” My mom answered, “you can’t know your going to heaven, you can only hope that if your good enough you’ll make it” Instead of asking her to just go to a Billy Graham crusade they asked her if she wanted to be in the choir. Of course she did, my mom had a beautiful voice. So she didn’t go to the crusade just one time, but all 5 days because she was in the choir. She heard the gospel and gave her life to Christ. Soon my Dad went and also gave his life to Christ.

It didn’t take long before we left the Catholic Church and started going to Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, Calif. I had already gone through my 1^st communion as a Catholic.

This was about 1969, during the hippy movement. Churches were changing; people went from dressing up to go to church once a week, to going bare foot and sitting on the floor. We literally went to church 5-6 times a week. We practically lived at church. Then after church, 2-3 times a week our house became a gathering place for young people and we would stand around the piano singing and eating snacks till late at night.

When I was 9 yr old I decided to accept Christ. I didn’t make a quick decision, but after careful thought, I made the decision to accept Christ. After the sermon they always had an alter call, and I went forward. I truly knew very little of the depth of what I was doing, but it was the first baby step and God honored this in my life.

This was during the “Jesus movement” Our church was so full each week that each chair was filled and the rest of us sat on the floor in the isles and completely filled the front. Someone with guitars led singing; we had no overheads, power points or books for words. They would teach us the songs and then we would memorize them without trying. Many were scripture songs. Someone would get up and say, God gave me this song and they would teach us another song. Many nights there were testimonies given. People would go up to the front so excited how God saved them from drugs or healed their life in one way or another. They would share miracles, how God took care of them. People were in love with Jesus and so excited. During this revival time, no one was focused on differences or the way people dressed or the long hair the guys had. Everyone just seemed so full of joy and excitement for God being in their life. Jesus had consumed our lives and we were happy. We went to church and knew personally a lot of musician and preachers that later became famous, because so many came out of that church. The church was so packed almost everyday, that soon the fire dept told us we couldn’t meet there. So the church bought a piece of land and put a big huge circus tent on it. We had church in the tent for a couple of yrs while we built a real church building. My parents were always very involved in all that went on in church. My dad was the head usher and my mom worked in the office and was in charge of everything to do with camps. We had a lot of camps. There were of course summer camps, family camps, kids camps, winter camps, plus trips to Israel, Hawaii etc. We couldn’t afford the to go to Israel, but we went to all the camps.

When I was 10 yrs old, I was at church camp one summer and they decided to read to us the book “prison to praise” or some such serious book. After we would read the chapter they asked us if we wanted to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. So we all started having these amazing prayer meetings. Asking God to give us gifts and fill us with the Spirit. Here we were a group of 9-12 yr old kids, not only having these great prayer meetings, but then we would go to our cabins and start praying and singing again. We were hungry for God. Jesus answered our prayers and I was baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. I was so full of Jesus, I remember saying, “No drug can compare to this feeling”! As we would sing, the Holy Spirit was so strong; we would feel like we were raised to the heavens. My parents stopped by our kids camp and I still remember running out and jumping up and down telling them, guess what! I’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit!

I got home from that camp and the weirdest thing happened. There was this demon that came in my room. She was a lady, dressed in a long black dress, with a long black veil too. She was kneeling over my dog. I thought I was seeing things at first, and then looked at the foot of my bed and she was like praying over me. I was only 10 yrs old and had no experience at all with anyone telling me about such things. But in my heart I knew it was evil and I said, “in the name of Jesus I rebuke you” There was no fear in my heart, and I just knew what to say. I told my mom the next day what happened and she asked how I knew what to say, and I didn’t know. I had never heard that phrase or anyone ever talk about anything like that at all. God was with me even as a child.

My Dad died at 43 yr old when I was 12 yr old. My mom began to work for the church full time, and I went to school at the church. When I was 14 I met, hung out and fell in love with my husband. My mom was going through a horrible emotional time and didn’t really know how to deal with teenagers and my crazy emotions. I was quite oblivious to anything but my own feelings and wants. I was quite selfish at this time of my life. My mom told me I couldn’t see Eric anymore, but I was madly in love so I figured the only solution then was to run off with him. I remember clearly thinking and asking myself: “do you think this is God’s will” and knowing the answer was no, but also thinking at the same time “but God will forgive me”. The teaching that was so popular at the time was an “easy gospel”. Repentance, obedience and holy living were not taught. Just accept Christ as your Savior, he will forgive your sins and you can go to heaven. Holiness, repentance, hell, obedience, were never talked about. What was taught was love, peace, joy, forgiveness, an easy believism gospel. In a way I was taught going to church and reading your bible was almost Christianity in itself. “Are they in the word?” Would be a common phrase to see how someone was doing as a Christian.

So Eric and I ran off to Canada in our own little selfish love, not thinking of how this would affect anyone else. We still prayed and read our bible everyday. We were of course still Christians and never thought that sin and selfishness would change that.

We eventually came back and got married legally, moved to Northern Calif. And although we didn’t find a church we like, we always read our bible before we watched TV or started our day. Eric knew the bible so well. He had studied Greek and understood the scriptures so well. This was our assurance that everything was good in our lives spiritually.

Soon a Calvary Chapel started near us and we were excited to go. We started to go to this new little church and the pastors’ wife and I became good friends. There was something so different about them. Instead of God just being part of the their life, God was why they lived. God was in every part of their lives. He was in all their thoughts. They were consumed with following God. Although I was raised like this, at the time, I wondered if there were any other Christians out there consumed with God like this. I began to hunger after God. Rosy (the pastors wife) and I met often and had prayer meetings and bible studies. I didn’t realize it, but Eric had fallen back into the world, even going to church stoned. One day Rosy asked me if I thought we should pray for Eric and I said, “oh no, he’s fine, he knows the bible so well” For some reason I equated reading and knowing the bible as Christianity. But we did pray for him and after one of those prayer meetings I went home and suddenly got very worried. I literally got down on my face and wept before God and told him that I would stop holding on to Eric and Martha (our baby) and I would give them to Him. I was 19 yrs old and for the first time I truly gave my whole life, all my idols, all of myself to God on the floor of the living room that day in Weed, Calif. I was again so filled with God; he became again my all to live for. That very week, I said something to Eric very excited about Jesus coming back soon, he went to bed and I didn’t know it but it got him thinking, realizing he wasn’t ready. He later told me that God gave him a choice that night, either he repents and follows Him or choose the world. He couldn’t be on the fence anymore.

So within a week of me giving my heart to God again, Eric also turned his heart back to God too. Praise God for his mercy!

Now this was the time period of Keith Greens ministry. He also was coming out of an “easy believisim gospel” He began to write articles and sing songs that were deep and rang so true with us. We began meeting with others to have bible studies. I asked God to take away my desire for TV and before you knew it we were so busy with bible studies and having people over, who had time for TV? So we got rid of the TV! Eric was teaching 2 bible studies a week. One bible study in Weed, to a college group and another in Yreka to a Catholic group. On other days we had college kids at out house. We had no one to lead music, so we played a tape of Keith Green or what ever and sang with it. The Holy Spirit was so strong in our living room at times; it felt like we were right there with God.

We wanted to work full time in the ministry. So immature we couldn’t see that God was using us more then ever, right where we were. So we quit all our bibles studies and went to a school in Ashland OR for 6 weeks. We studied the bible and listened to teachers. The “school” didn’t have enough money to feed us and at times we ate onion sandwiches. Yuck. I had morning sickness with Moriah.

We moved back to Yreka and tried to start our Catholic bible study again, but now we had a person from the school in our life that we thought was so spiritual. We took his advice and ruined many friendships with our legal, judgmental attitudes. We went to school to learn more about God, instead we learned to “reprove, rebuke, and correct” but with no long suffering. We had zeal but without knowledge and caused a lot of hurt.

Later we joined YWAM. We wanted to go on the “mission field” but instead found our selves back in Southern California for our YWAM outreach, since that was the yr of the Olympics, in 1984. We had 3 children now. We traveled with YWAM and when school ended we went to Washington. DC on staff to a brand new YWAM base that was just trying to start up. I cooked for 50 people, knowing absolutely nothing about cooking in quantity. I was now pregnant with our 4^th baby, with morning sickness and it was a total failure. The whole base at the time was not going well. The leadership was not there and the whole thing was falling apart. It was there that I learned that being a missionary doesn’t have to do with where you are. It’s a heart attitude. The romantic idea of being a missionary quickly fades in the reality that it takes most of your day just living. No matter where you are you still have to eat, wash clothes, clean house, teach your kids etc. So the romanticism fell away and I realized living a life serving God can be where ever he has you. Having joy in hardship or good, serving when you see a need, putting His priorities first in your life.

We came back to help our friend in Florence OR, who was a pastor of a little church there. Instead we ended up with nothing to do, no work, and not even our stuff (as we sold all to join YWAM) Had our 4^th baby there in Florence and Eric got offered an amazing job teaching for the telephone company in Kirkland WA. It paid $17 an hour and he was doing what he loved. We lived there for about 3-4 yrs when the job ended in that area. We followed the job and moved down to Oregon.

At this point we were home schooling using Rod and Staff curriculum (Mennonite). We became very curious about the Mennonites, because their doctrines seemed so close to what we believed. So we decided to look for a Mennonite church and found one. The people were welcoming and hospitable; their families were very strong. They didn’t have TV’s and the things they did for fun was singing, reading, eating, and working together. The church was fascinating with no musical instruments and they sang beautifully in parts. We lived there for about 9 mos. And during that time found we really couldn’t be Mennonite. But there was church we heard about in MT that had left the Mennonites. We were excited to meet them and went up for thanksgiving. 50 people sat at one table, the church was like a big family! We loved it and since our job was over again, we moved up to Kalispell, now with 5 children. Later we ended up on the West Kootenai, unemployed and becoming dissatisfied with the church that we once loved. We so badly wanted to be godly, serious Christians, but where was the love, forgiveness and patience with people in our lives? We had a “spirit of divorce” when it came to relationships. Life was stressful with relationship problems and trying to make a living in Montana.

We ended up moving to Libby and decided to “church at home” What a foolish excuse to stay away from relationships that might help you to grow in Christ. Thank God he was patient with us through all our mess-ups. But the mess-ups didn’t stop there…….

We home schooled, home “churched”, had a business out of our home. We were not secluded though. We always had lots of company, were part of home school groups, volunteered in town and had many friends. If we didn’t have much going on, we created something.

In 1995 we were good friends with the Amish that had moved to Libby. One time we were having them over and I said “I’m not sure if I have enough chairs” and they said “we won’t need them as we will end up on the floor anyways”. I found out pretty quickly what they meant. Soon after they arrived we all ended up on our knees praying. This became our favorite thing to do. Get together and pray. Every evening we tried to figure out how we could head over to someone’s house to go pray. Since some of the community was still Amish and yet some were being filled with God, it became a touchy situation. We literally had to sneak at times to go pray. A revival was in the process and we enjoyed being with God as much as possible. We all were being baptized in the Holy Spirit. At this point we went to meet with the Amish probably 4-5 times a week. Eventually our Amish brothers and sisters in their own searching walk, felt like God wanted them to reach out especially to their own Amish relatives, and that meant it would be best if we didn’t keep coming out. This left us in a hurt, lonely and confused state. It was a test we didn’t pass! Satan attacked and we became discouraged.

We still had many people over and at times had church in our house. We didn’t feel like we fit in with the churches in town. Our belief system fit more with Anabaptists, yet we didn’t fit in with them either, as we were really bible believing hippies in heart! We had some Russian friends we met with at times. This was 1990’s and many Russian families were allowed to immigrate to America because of persecution in Russia. We enjoyed being around these Russian Pentecostal Christians who loved to pray. They would say “would you like to join us for prayer?” Sure I said, thinking it would be 5-10 min. 45-60 min later and a prophecy in Russian was spoken over me, it was easy to want to be around them. God’s gifts were very alive and real with them at the time. Obviously they didn’t know me at all, but God spoke words to me directly, exactly what I needed to hear! Again we were hungry and stirred up for God. The problem is we were so dissatisfied with what we saw in the church and searching for more or the perfect church, that it led us down the wrong path.

We had heard of this Russian man named Sergey that had written a book about the end times. He and his family were driving through Libby and stopped at our house. We ended up with a few other families having a great prayer meeting. Again the Lord was there and there were prophecies and words of knowledge, which only God could have spoken. Since they did not know us or our family. We were so excited to have God’s gifts used and hear God’s voice. We begged Sergey to stay in Libby and help us start a church. Seemed like a good thing, but it was not God doing this work.

Sergey moved in with us and eventually we had a little community in our house of 17 people. We thought we finally had the church we had been dreaming of, but instead it was sucking us into a cult. 90% of what was taught was truth, but the 10% lies, wrong, off stuff was messing deeply with our souls and the souls of our children. When a person is in this state you so badly want to do what’s right, you don’t care the cost. You just want to be a serious, radical Christian, at any cost. We truly loved God, but we didn’t see how judgmental we had gotten, how totally off track, how harsh, and plain messed up we were. Our authority as parents was given over to the “church”. Thinking we were doing right, we made some huge mistakes and messed up our family deeper then we ever knew. After a couple years in this mess, finally Eric began to see how wrong it was. It took me a while before I saw it, as you become so ingrained in the lifestyle, anything else seems so wrong and you live by fear. One by one our eyes were opened and we saw how wrong and messed up this was. But just because you see how wrong the 10% is, now you don’t know anymore what is true. You begin questioning the 90% too. We ran from this cult and yet we were running wild, confused, disillusioned. I remember saying to some Christians, “our house is on fire and there is no one to help us” No one knows how to help someone in this state. Eric totally gave up, fell into deep depression and in sin. He blew it bad as the leader of our family and he knew it. He felt so horrible, but instead of repenting and getting help, he gave up, neglected his family and went back into addictions, the world and sin.

I tried to hold the family together, I tried to continue to walk with God, but we were all a huge mess. Bitter, lonely, hurt, total confusion. I couldn’t see the forest through the trees and didn’t know what to do. I became lukewarm in my Christianity. I wasn’t sure anymore what anything meant. I had trouble reading the bible, as it just brought confusion. I could have used counsel, but I didn’t trust anybody anymore.

Eventually after a few years went by, we settled into a nice lukewarm routine. Eric said he wasn’t against God (yet not really living a Christian life), and eventually we started going to church again. We still taught our children about God, but our lives were not excited about God anymore. We were just living life, existing.

In 2007 Eric had an appendectomy and through that the Lord broke through to Eric’s heart some. He repented from some past hurtful, sinful behavior and we began to seek some help. For myself though, not even realizing how hard hearted I had become, I was not too interested in hearing anything too deep. I wanted to keep my Christianity light and easy. Anything else reminded me of the confusion of past years.

In 2009 God, out of His amazing deep love and mercy decided it was time to shake both of us to the core. Past sins caught up with Eric and next thing I know he’s in jail. I felt like I lost absolutely everything. I had lived my whole life from the time I was 17 yrs old raising children, now to find out I did about everything wrong! My life was a shambles. The truth was bad enough, but on top of that the rumors, exaggerations and lies made it even worse. I so badly wanted to run and hide in a mountaintop and leave it all behind.

I read a testimony of a lady who had it all together in her life, when her son was in a car accident and almost died. She wrote this and it totally described my life:

All the broken pieces of your life are nothing more than the beautiful mosaic of your future.

Our lives are as clay tablets. Works of art that we are improving upon daily. We each paint our own tablet. While some of our tablets are bright and beautiful, full of color and life, others are drab, with only beige and brown paint signifying an unfulfilled life.

More important though, is what happens once your precious clay tablet slips from your fingers one day and falls to pieces at your feet. No matter the color of your tablet, once it’s shattered you will bow your knee to inspect the damage. Bowing down to the broken pieces of your life is an automatic reaction. One person bows down and picks up the pieces. Then, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he redesigns his picture, pasting the potsherds to create a new mosaic. Because “all the broken pieces of your life are nothing more than the beautiful mosaic of your future”

Another person kneels down among his destruction. He too collects the pieces, but then he sits in it; defeated. It cuts him and he bleeds. Every time you pass by, you see him still sitting there among the fragments of his life, bleeding. He cherishes his pain and bitterness flows from it.

My clay tablet fell to the ground, and was completely shattered during this time. In my horrendous grief, moaning and crying out to God, barely able to function, I was on the floor of the bathroom crying like never before, when I almost physically felt God’s hand reach down to me. I grabbed His hand, and felt him lift me to my feet. God has been my help, my counselor, my Father, holding me through every trial, through every emotion. I now could see his great love to us. When I was so full of hurt and confusion, I lost sight of God’s love and became hard hearted. It took this hard time in my life to open my eyes to see that it’s because of His amazing love that he didn’t leave us in a lukewarm, dead or hardhearted state. He loves us so much that he will let our lives shatter, so He can build them in to a beautiful mosaic.

Day by day, I don’t really understand how to go on, but I don’t have to plan or figure it all out. I can let God figure out how he can take broken pieces or ugly ashes and make something beautiful out of them! I’m learning to let go of trying to fix everyone, let go of what people think, let go of controlling people and situations. Just letting go of control and having faith in God to do His work. When life is tough, I just climb into his arms and let him hold me. I try to remember how short life is on this earth.

Through the hardest situations I now can see his great love. He loves us enough to not let us sit in the lukewarm or sinful state. He cared enough to grab hold of us and open our eyes.

Giving my life to God everyday, showing others his love, building relationships, binding the broken hearted. This is my new life.

Somehow God can make beauty from ugly, useless ashes! Isn't God amazing!