David, Brenda, Nate, Carol Anne & Jim

Have you ever wondered what your purpose here on earth is? Or how you had made an influence on someone else? Well I know that I have.

I started going through the list of things that I had done in my life and I had to question myself. I have friends, I have been a friend, but had I brought any of my friends to Christ? I was really stumped. All the things that I have been through in my life and I couldn't think of where I had brought anyone to Christ. This really bothered me. In fact, I pondered and pondered on this one for a couple of weeks before it dawned on me. Yes, I had brought a friend to Christ, but I wasn't thinking of him as a friend, even though he was a very dear friend to me.

Let me try and put this in perspective for you, so you can better understand. I came from the typical dysfunctional family. We went to church occasionally, but really didn't practice Christianity. My father was an abusive alcoholic, my mother, try as she might, just couldn't be both mother and father. When dad wasn't working or drinking, he was running around. At the age of 14 my parents divorced, which left mom to running the grocery store and me to take care of my 3 younger siblings, the youngest of whom has Downs Syndrome. By the time I was 15 I found myself pregnant. Valerie (or Annie, as we came to know her later) was born on February 10, 1975 and was placed for adoption. I finished school and graduated in 1976. My life turned over many bridges after this. I started drinking and doing drugs, although I was still able to hold down 2 jobs.

In 1979 I found that I was pregnant again. This time I was bound and determined that I was going to keep this baby, even through threats of my baby's father, who insisted that I have an abortion or he would deny till the day that he died that the baby was his. Well, he kept his promise. In September of that year I was swept off of my feet by a smooth talking con man and was married by November. Little did I realize that he not only was a cheat and a thief, but a drug dealer too. I had my baby to think about this time, so by April 1980, I had left him and was doing the single parent routine. In 1981, I married my high school sweetheart, who became an instant step-daddy to Justin, by now 18 months old. I knew that this was a mistake, but a least Justin would have a daddy, right? Jim and Nathan were soon to follow.

In 1986, I had started to go to church for the first time in my life on a regular basis. I even enjoyed teaching Sunday School to the 4 year old's. The bad thing here though is that I really didn't know God. In fact, the 4 year old's probably knew as much as I did, so we learned together. Oh, I believed all right, but I didn't have a personal relationship with God. I didn't know how. And my family life was a disaster in the making. Not only had I grown up in the dysfunction, I had done the classic...I married into the dysfunction and was bringing up my children the same way I had learned.

In 1988, I had a miscarriage, which devastated me. By August, I was getting my feet back on the ground when I received that call that every maternal parent dreads. My daughter Annie had been killed in an auto accident. This tuned my world upside down. I really felt punished for all the stuff that I had done. My only daughter taken from me, yet again. I think that for the very first time in my life I prayed, I really prayed. For some reason I had it in my head that I needed a little girl in my life and the one that I had hoped would be there, some day, was gone.

In 1989, I found out that I was pregnant again. This time to give birth to a healthy, bouncing baby girl. I was so happy, yet so sad. My life was a disaster. My life was so out of control, that I didn't have any idea what to do. I was becoming more and more abusive to my children. Not only verbally, but physically. My husband was so attached to his mothers umbilical cord that he couldn't do anything without her. Yet they fought constantly. You often wondered who would hit who first.

Two weeks after Carol Anne was born, we moved to get away from my mother-in-law. Things went from bad to worse. Money started disappearing, my husbands drinking was getting worse. Finally in 1992 I kicked him out of the house. In one sense this only made matters worse, because I couldn't just leave to get away from things. The abuse by me, on the children was getting worse, especially on Justin. He was the oldest and the most verbal, about my kicking his dad out of the house, so he took the brunt of allot. If I was angry he was the one who usually got it and I was angry often.

Thanks to a very special friend, I started to find God. My acquaintance friend, Linda, had invited me to go to Bible Study with her. I was so excited. Not only had I found a friend in Linda, but I was finding a friend in God. Things slowly but surely started to work at home. I would still become agitated , but less and less did I take it out on the children, because now I and someone I could call on in these cases. In July, Linda started her own business and I started to work for her. It was probably how I really got to know God. Through fellowship and daily devotions at work, not only from my fellow workers and friends, but from the customers, too. Linda and Laurie, a fellow worker, whom too became a very dear friend were always there with an ear or a helping hand if I had questions. We became a family in God.

That fall I prayed to God to put a man in my life. Someone that I could talk to and go places with. Someone who would accept me for who I was, accept me for my past, someone that my children would like and he would like them. But most of all he had to be a Christian. Oh yea, he had to he tall and good looking too. That is when God put David in my path. We started dating in December of 1992. The kids really liked him, especially Carol Anne. It took Jim and Nathan a little while to get to know him. My real concern was Justin. He was so close to his step-dad and so angry that I had made him leave. Yet, Justin took to David almost right away. David was, and still is, such a blessing to all of us. We had only gone out three or four times, when he invited me to go to church with him. That was the start of a very special union between God, David and I.

In 1993, the kids and I moved to Ellendale, where I had bought a home for us. Justin became a real handful. By now he was 13 and hormones were a big battle. It was a constant fight with him. The continuous battles about the way I did things, and the constant threats of moving to live with his step-dad. He had become a very bitter young man. I continued to try and protect him. The last thing I wanted was for him to move back into the dysfunction that I was working so hard to get us out of. I was working so hard at making a Christian home for these kids and he was fighting me every step of the way. I saw to it that the kids had gone to Sunday School, and Justin was in confirmation at the church that I had belonged to. Now I had found a new church and a knew life style, so my job was to put all of this into action and make the best Christian environment that I could.

By April of 1994, I lost my battle with Justin. I could no longer protect him from the things I had tried so hard to keep him from. He had become so angry and mean to all of us, and why should I be surprised. I had taught him well. Yet I was doing my best now to bring my children to know and respect the Lord, I was learning about. Through allot of prayer and faith, David and I came to realize that the best thing for Justin was for him to move in with his step-dad. Not because we didn't love him, but because we did love him. He needed to see things for himself and we had faith that God would take care of him. We had set the seed of the Lord in motion and now it was time for him to go forth with it. So with our blessing, faith, love and the door at home left open, we sent him on his way. In James 2:17 it says: So you see, it isn't enough to have faith. You must also do good to prove that you have it. Faith that doesn't show itself by good works (or action) is no faith at all. It is dead and useless.

David and I got married in June of 1994 and Justin stood up for David as his groomsman. A job he didn't take too lightly.

Over the course of the next two years, Justin grew. Not only in a physical sense, but in a spiritual sense. By him moving to his step-dad's, he had no choice but to grow up and take responsibility. At the age of 15, Justin got a job as a mechanic. He worked on the chicken crew, and if any of you know anything about the chicken crew, it isn't an easy job. He also was going to school. His favorite past time was working as a pit-crew member of the Barber Racing team and working on cars. But that didn't stop him from helping out at 4-H. He liked helping the little ones learn their basketball skills. Justin also enjoyed playing big brother to Carol Anne, Nathan and Jim.

In August of 1995, our son Jim was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, which is bone cancer. Jim had to undergo many chemo treatments until December, when they did surgery to remove the infected bone. Treatments started up again in January of 1996 and would continue until fall. This was probably when Justin did most of his growth. Wherever Justin was, you would find Jim. Justin took Jim under his wing. Justin would go to the hospital and stay over night with Jim so I could be at home with the rest of the family. He watched over Jim constantly. He took him to the races, fishing, riding motorcycle, or to the movies. He even taught Jim about cars. He would take the time to teach him how to fix what ever it was that needed to be fixed.

Justin would spend as much time with us as his busy schedule would allow. Many times he would call and say that he had to work or do something and then apologize for not being around enough and ask, "your not mad at me are you?" I would tell him that I couldn't be mad at him. He was a young man now and he needed to do what he needed to do, but that I still loved him anyway. I can still remember the day that I went to McDonald's for lunch. I drove up and Justin came running out the door to greet me. He invited me to come in and sit with him and his friends. I have never felt so honored. How many 16 year old boys would want their mother around when they didn't have to be. Or when he asked me to go with him to pick out his class ring. He was sure of three things. He wanted his class year and panther head on one side, crossed racing flags on the other side, and in the middle, underneath his purple birthstone, he wanted a cross. These were the important things to him, at this time in his life.

One evening in July, Justin came by and he, David, and I had a chance to just sit and talk. During the course of our conversation I told him just how proud I was of him. That I approved of the decisions he was making in his life and of course, like the blubbering mother that I am, I started to cry. I looked over at him and thought "I did it, We did it, God and I did it." He got up from his chair and came over and gave me the biggest hug. To watch the growth that he was making just lit me up. A few days later he showed up at our house at 1:00 in the morning. He had gotten into a fight with his grandmother who lives on the same farm as his step-dad) and he took off to cool off. When he went back home he had been locked out of the house, accidentally. Where did he go? To his friends house, to the streets, to a party, no! He came to his mom. At 16 years old the last place on earth I would have gone was to my dad's. That's when I really realized the impact that I had, had on his life. That night when I went back to bed I prayed for Justin. I prayed that God would watch over him and in return, I would see to it that Justin would be returned to Him.

On July 25, 1996, Justin and Jim, along with two of Justin's friends were on there way into Albert Lea, to pick up a pizza, when they were hit by a drink driver. Jim sustained life threatening injury's that sent him to Rochester by Mayo One, where he coded. Thank God they were able to bring him back to us and Justin was killed instantly. Two days later, Nathan, Justin's youngest brother, informed me, that Justin had come to him in a dream the night before and told him, that Jesus had been the one to take him be the hand, to Heaven.

Even though this seems to have had a very tragic ending, did it? I look at the friendship that developed between Justin and Jim. I can also be proud of the fact that I had made a friend in Justin, I was a friend in return, and in the end, I had brought him to Christ in two ways. Through my coming to Christ and then bringing him to Christ, through my actions, and then by handing him back to Christ physically upon his death.

Ephesians 5:1&2: Follow God's example in everything you do, just as a much loved child imitates his father. Be full of love for others. following the example of Christ who loved you and gave Himself to God as a sacrifice to take away your sins. And God was pleased, for Christ's love for you was like sweet perfume to Him. We need to remember how much God loves our children. They are the first ones that we need to set examples to and the first friends that we should be bringing to Christ. In the beginning, I had imitated my father and Justin imitated me. But once I found God and shared that with Justin, we both changed. He became a very pleasant, lovable, young man, to whom I can be very proud.

As of November 10, 1998 Jim's cancer is in remission. As far as Jim's injuries, from the accident, are concerned, he is having some trouble with his memory because of some mild TBI but otherwise is doing very well.

WOW!!! This is such an honor, members of HOPE,
I don't know what to say.
Thank you very much.