Stories of Faith

My faith journey has made several stops at various churches. It’s been a path that appears to be random, but I know it has evolved as God planned it.

I was introduced to the world in 1951 as a Roman Catholic baby. I remained faithful to the Church and its doctrine well into my 30s. I can still recite some prayers in Latin and miss some of the rituals and practices that put form to order in my life.

A major detour took place in the late 1980s, when as an adult I vehemently opposed the church’s conservative shift that called for strict obedience. Our family continued to attend, but my heart began searching for a closer personal connection with God.

It took a life crisis or two, via loss of several family members and my own recovery from alcoholism, to reveal where the path might take me. I was no longer operating on auto pilot. I was willing at last to follow God’s leading.

Fast forward to the late 1990s. I met my wife, Diane, and joined the Lutheran church where she played for 29 years. At this time, I was also invited to join a non-denominational Bible study that I continue to attend today.

A few years later, God intervened again, leaving us to “shop” for a new church. We visited several and eventually joined a large Methodist church. But He wasn’t done. First Baptist needed an organist in 2015 and Diane accepted the call that she continues today.

After some time, I again changed church addresses, which now considers me a member of the American Baptist faith.

Who would’ve thought? Certainly not this Catholic/Lutheran/Methodist Baptist. But God did. He puts us where He can use us to carry out His plan. Today I’m much relieved to know that He has been in charge of this faith journey all along.

My journey with God started before I was born…in my mother’s womb.  I am tremendously blessed because I cannot recall a time in my life when my parents didn’t serve the Lord.  I joke that my dad declared as Joshua did in Chapter 24:14…but as for me and my household we will serve the Lord, and he meant it.   The bible was my dad’s guide for life.  Although it was unspoken in our house, it was understood as a child that you didn’t get to decide if you would or would not attend church.  When the church doors opened, we were there.  If the church doors did not open, we had service in our home.  I have a coaster in my car that reads, I was raised on sweet tea and Jesus.  It’s true.  I was raised on scripture.

I grew up in the south and attended a small Baptist church where the majority of the members were relatives.  My dad was the “head” deacon.  In those days being a head deacon was like being the right hand of the pastor.  As his children, my siblings and I had to be ready to perform in any capacity needed, to fill in the gaps when other members didn’t do their part.  As a child I found being my father’s daughter very demanding.  It was difficult to live up to his expectations.  For a long time, I felt being a Christian was punitive.  God was my parents’ God and therefore mine.

When I went away to college, it was the first time I was away from my parents.  It was also the first time that I had a choice to attend or not attend church because my parents weren’t there to enforce the rule and I thought they would never know.  It took me a while to build up the courage not to go to church. I still remember that Sunday morning very clearly.  I didn’t go to church and I was so consumed with guilt that I spent the entire day in my dormitory room, in bed, waiting for God to punish me.  I thought that I was literally going to die that day because I missed church.  After surviving missing church the first time, it became easier for me to not attend church services but after a while of not attending, I found that I missed being there, and had a desire to be connected with a church congregation.  As I reflect back on my journey during that phase in my life, I realize those college years were the beginning of me developing my very own personal relationship with God.  Until then my connection to God was tied directly to my relationship with my parents.  During college, my journey was between me and God.

After college I relocated to Springfield, IL to live with my brother and sisters.  We had all grown up in the same household with the same expectations, came from the “good stock’ so we all worshipped at the neighborhood church together.  It was at this church that I began actively serving in ministries because I wanted to do it.  As a young adult I started to see a maturity in my relationship with God.  Through life experiences I got to know him on a deeper level and begin to trust and depend on Him more.  I also started to realize being a Christian required commitment from me.

Later I married my high school sweetheart.  We had two sons, and at that phase in my life I couldn’t see a life that didn’t include God.   I had responsibilities not just for my soul but as a parent I wanted to train my sons up in the way they should go, just as my parents had trained me.  The wife and mother journey showed me how much I really needed to trust God in all thou ways, and lean not into my own understanding.

As I continued my journey, in my personal and professional life, there were times along the way that I just wanted to sit on the sidelines as an observer but that changed when I heard my nephew tell his story at a youth program.   He shared that when he was asked to speak to the youth, he was apprehensive about doing it because he didn’t feel worthy but when he started to think about the goodness of the Lord and all that He had done for him, he felt obligated.  His testimony was a great reminder for me that being a Christian is not a spectator sport.  When I am reluctant about doing my part, I am reminded that I too have an obligation.  I try not to forget this important point lest I become too comfortable on my journey.

As a child, young adult, mother, wife, baby boomer, and grandmother, I can’t recall a time on my journey when God wasn’t a part of it.  Unfortunately, I didn’t always appreciate, or honor Him as I should have but because of my upbringing I have always recognized who He is.  And because of who He is, I get to continue this journey until He says well done good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.  Matthew 25:23. So today I am still trying to be the person that God would have me to be as I continually seek a deeper relationship with Him, to gain greater understanding of His will and purpose for my life.

Mrs. Beatrice (Bea) Olson was baptized at the age of 14 by a student minister.  She recalls him traveling down to Lexington just on Sundays but he was an important part of their lives. He held classes to teach youth about accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior.   Her sister, who was two years older than her also accepted Christ and they were baptized together.   Ms. Bea said that Minister Alan Goss was a good minister who had a significant impact on her faith journey.

Mrs. Bea shared that because she is saved, she has hope and faith that this life here on earth is not the end.  Having God in her life has given her meaning of why she is alive because Jesus always watches over her; everything she does and everything she says.  She tries to be a good example to others by being kind and good.

God has been very important in her life.  She trusts God and prays to Him every day and He answers, otherwise she would be on her own. He provided solace during some of the most difficult times in her life.   If it had not been for her faith in God, and the great comfort she found in the bible, she would not have made it through the death of her husband in 2002.

Mrs. Bea said since she has been sick and unable to attend church services regularly in person like she used to do, she has been reading the bible daily; a chapter from the Old Testament and a chapter from the New Testament.  Mrs. Bea has read the bible in its entirety at least twice.

Mrs. Bea is 101 years old and has been on this journey a long time.  She has been a member of First Baptist Church (FBC) of Bloomington since 1945.  She served as treasurer, worked in the kitchen, helped with the LOGOs program and was an active member of American Baptist Women (ABW) ministry.  Mrs. Bea is an inspiration to many and we are blessed to have her in our lives and as a member of our FBC family.

The Scenic Route

My faith journey has felt like taking the scenic route.  Some of the roads have been pretty out of-the-way, others have not been the ones I intended to take but have gotten me to where I needed to be, and others have turned a corner into an unexpectedly breathtaking view.

Church was one of my first human experiences (I was born on a Tuesday, and my parents took me to the church they were serving in northern British Columbia the following Sunday), and has remained one of the most consistent things in my life ever since.  As a pastor’s kid, I spent my early childhood living next door to a church, which felt like an extension of our home – as the parsonage was in some ways an extension of the church.  I became a follower of Jesus in Sunday school (we had moved to North Dakota by then) when I was quite young, so my memory of it is very vague.  At age 11, I was baptized by my dad in a country church in Nebraska.

When I was 13, my parents became missionaries, moving from the middle of cornfields to a city in Nigeria, where they served as house parents at a hostel for students boarding at an international mission school.  This was a pretty sharp curve in the road, but I soon made friends. My classmates were of other religions – Muslim, Hindu, Sikh – as well as a variety of Christian traditions, and from all over the world.  The exposure to so many people whose backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs were very different from mine made me look at my own faith in a new way; instead of challenging my faith, it gave me a better understanding and deeper appreciation for the Gospel, as well as a broader perspective as school chapel services included people from Lutheran, Baptist, Reformed, Mennonite, and many other traditions.  My faith became something I thought about rather than just took for granted.

Moving back to the United States at age 17 was unexpectedly bumpy, as no one had warned us that culture shock also happens when you’re returning to a parent culture after several years.  But church again was a source of consistency.  While attending the University of Sioux Falls, where I met Brian, I joined Trinity Baptist Church.  Trinity was home to several retired missionaries to Nigeria and Cameroon, including some of my extended family, so I had people who helped me navigate the transition from being a third culture kid living as an expat to living in my “passport country”.  Living thousands of miles from my parents in a country that felt very strange to me, it was a great blessing to have such a loving, supportive church family.

Right after Brian and I got married, we moved to Wisconsin, where we served at Memorial Baptist Church.  I had intended to teach high school English, but the local district had no openings at the time, and eventually I took over as church secretary “temporarily” (which turned out to be 17 years).  A few years after I started working at the church, I also took a position at a ministry to young adults, where my job description was to “find out what needs to be done and do it”; this came to included helping to start a downtown coffee shop, which I managed for three years.  Brian worked one night a week at Connect Cafe, and we developed friendships with staff and patrons that still continue after nearly 20 years.  After the Cafe closed, some of the young adults who were part of the Cafe community got together weekly for late-night pizza, and it was from these gatherings that a Bible study group emerged, which met at our house for the next seven years.  During this time, I was also part of a team that started a small nonprofit called SHARDS, which focused on funding mental health services for people in need, and I served as the administrator for several years.  A connection we made through SHARDS, along with conversations with a pastor friend in the Milwaukee area, led a group from Memorial Baptist to start Stone Soup, which shared a meal every Saturday in the parking lot of the local library with anyone who was hungry.  Strangers ate together, people who were homeless were an essential part of the team, a feast could appear unexpectedly from a bike basket in the nick of time, and there was somehow always more than enough to go around.  It was a little taste of the Kingdom of God.

I never got around to teaching English, but over the years I’ve found that my heart is in nonprofit work, and that I really enjoy the behind-the-scenes details of administration.  So a few years after Brian and I moved to Bloomington Normal, after I had gotten settled into new roles in church life at First Baptist (church kitchens have felt like home to me for as long as I can remember) – and then resettled after the pandemic shook up the whole world – when a church member said that she was looking for someone to do some administrative work for her nonprofit counseling practice, I felt a nudge to ask for details.  The job description included coordinating the practice’s domestic violence intervention program, which is mostly administrative, but also involves group facilitation and working with student interns.  So in a way, I did get around to teaching in the end, though in a different context than I imagined; sometimes we end up on a road that runs parallel to the one we thought we were going to take.  I also get to do nonprofit administration, and I get to hang out with young adults.

Throughout the journey, one of the things I’ve learned is that, when I feel the Holy Spirit nudging me to do something, it will usually lead to something bigger, and often something completely unexpected.