My testimony:
My story begins 20 years ago today. December 20th is the darkest day of the year -particularly in Alaska where you lose daylight at the rate of 8 minutes a day. Sunrise is at 10 am and sunset at 2pm. I was at my darkest point living in Naknek -a fishing village, alone, in the midst of a divorce from my college sweetheart. A man devoted to God -until we married - and then had to hide his faith and slowly it was chipped away, because I was an unbeliever and we were unequally yoked.

So that when I began to find God at indigenous counselor trainings with godly, Alaska Native people -and I returned home with my excitement of prayers and people who loved God -he told me that I gave up God along time ago and that it was too late to love him now. His bitterness and resentment and my fear that he was right led us to a bad ending and to me moving to Naknek to work as a counselor for that region. I was a seeker -where was this God who others loved?

For a year, I traveled by small plane every week to other villages to work with rural counselors. At the end of the week, I would return to my tiny cabin and cry over the losses of life and being alone. Then one day a pilot gave me the CS Lewis book Mere Christianity. I read the book and was nearly finished on the night of December 20th, 1996.

I sat on the frozen icy porch of my cabin in the dark with a blanket wrapped around me and cried for myself and the divorce. Then I decided to turn to Jesus and I cried to him for help. I talked to him about the book. I came into the cabin and cried to him and asked him to come into me and told him that I needed him. And I fell asleep.

The next morning December 21st, I awoke new and alive in Christ. The Holy Spirit covered me all day in a way that felt like fire and my heart was a flutter all day. It was quite an experience that I can't describe adequately.

This year as I recall the events of 20 years ago, my heart is full with the path that led me to the moments I've described above. There were godly people around doing their part. My heart was softened by them. One family invited me to dinner and I watched in awe as they all -four children included- got on their knees to pray before dinner. I'd never seen that before. Or their dinner conversation about which family to secretly bless with gifts to be left on the porch three days in a row until Christmas. They also invited me to church and to come to their house to sleep over on Christmas Eve and share Christmas with them. I did see them on Christmas Day but I couldn't stay over due my asthma and their pets. But the love they had for me is alive still. As they were the body of Christ -gifts from The Lord.

Another family invited me to spend Christmas Day after church sharing a meal. Which I did and then all the adult children and I went out to small frozen lakes to play on inner tubes pulled behind ATVs until late in the night. Fellowship with christians -simple and clean fun. But how ashamed I was that I was in a divorce. I didn't know how evil attacks new believers. The years ahead were filled with learning about Jesus and finding a church.

I had never read the Bible before -and the Lord led me. Immersion baptism a couple years later on a 4th of July in a large galvanized tub with others. Zoey was 2 years old and she says she remembers it. What a blessing that she saw her mother baptized.

Accepting Christ is a moment and loving the Lord is a lifetime. Thankfully the Lord is patient as I continue to ask for forgiveness over and over -and learn new ways to know and worship him.

If you ever wonder if it makes a difference to the non-believer when you offer the smallest kindness -it does. Those filled with the Spirit are an integral part of the Lord whispering -leading us gently-calling to our heart to come to him. The 40 or so godly Alaska Native people at the trainings (over two years time -3 weeks every semester locked in a lodge together -praying over each meal as we held hands) chipped away at my hard heart. They never saw the seeds that were planted.  It would be two years later and much heartbreak that I would succumb to our Lord. The pain led me to him too. Those around me during that Christmas 20 years ago got to see the culmination of a lifetime of the Lord calling to me.

So if you suffer and pray for loved ones who are not yet saved -fear not the Lord is pursuing them.  Pray for the Lord to surround them with godly people who would love them. God knew my intellect needed to read Mere Christianity -along with all the other lovely moments -including divorce- to ultimately submit and beg him to stay in my heart and my life.

And the Lord is not done with me yet. He led me to the desert here in Alamogordo and has been speaking gently -as in the book of Hosea.  As I have lost both parents this year -he wants me turn to him and love him deeper still. What an amazing life in our Lord.

May you be blessed this Christmas season.