A RED Story: RestoRED, REDiscover, REDeemed ~ By Corissa Mayer

 

This is part of our eldest daughter’s story. Our kids have often told us, “Mom and Dad, you cannot take the blame for the bad choices we make and the consequences we have to face as a result.” We also cannot take the credit for the good choices they make because we are all created with free will. But we can love them and love God, living with integrity whether at home, behind closed doors where only their eyes and ears can observe, or in public. We are all responsible for the choices we make and how we play the cards we are dealt.

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The Christmas season is naturally a time where we look back and reflect on our past and all of our blessings. Growing up as a pastor’s daughter, a lot of those memories naturally centered around the church and my church family. I am especially thankful for my church family and the role they played in my journey of rediscovering God’s grace.

My story started with me stepping out of God’s design and making some choices that resulted in a teen pregnancy and a marriage a lot sooner than I had planned. 

Although we were remorseful for our choices, and experienced God’s grace through it all, there were natural consequences to our actions that we had to then navigate through.

I married my high school sweetheart, and although the road was bumpy, we experienced a lot of joy with our growing family. We were young and raising 3 boys while we were still kids ourselves. This definitely proved difficult.

This struggle was compounded when my husband had surgery to repair an old football injury and ended up addicted to painkillers. 

When my youngest was only 2, it became clear that for the wellbeing of my family, we had to leave. So, I left home with my three boys and whatever I could fit into my van, hoping and praying that this wouldn’t be forever and that it would cause my husband to seek the help that he so desperately needed.

God led me here, to Rocky Mountain Alliance Church, where I had family and where I was immediately embraced by the Church and by the community. At 24, with no credit and no rental history, no one wanted to take the risk and rent me an apartment. I know that God sent people with a heart for single moms into my life, one of whom helped me to get my first apartment.

About a month after we had settled in, I got a call saying that my husband had passed away from an overdose. He had recently finished a stint in rehab, but he just couldn’t overcome his addictions. I was devastated. I lost my soul mate, and my boys lost their daddy. I was wracked with guilt, even though I knew that I had done the right thing in removing us from that situation. Despite the rocky start to my marriage, my deepest hope was that our relationship would be restored. 

The next few years were honestly a blur. I was left with no life insurance, seemingly insurmountable credit card debt, a house with an imminent foreclosure, and a vehicle repossession. But God says in Psalm 68 that He is a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows, and He lived up to that.  Whether it be through little things like free babysitting or a grocery gift-card, or the big things, like someone giving me a car, and someone using their own finances to get me my first home, God was faithful and called his people to rally around me. When all I wanted to do was sleep and not face my reality, God faithfully sent countless people into my life to encourage me. As the boys got older, God provided a job where I could take my toddler to work with me and surrounded me with Godly women. This job eventually led me to working in the church that had so completely become my family in my darkest days. 

There was a time when I could never imagine being truly happy again, that the choices I made meant I wasn’t worthy of being loved, but God has promised in Isaiah 44:22 “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”, God’s grace is perfect and even though I felt unworthy, it was freely given. A gift that I accept knowing I can never repay.

My story is now starting a new chapter. When I least expected it, God brought me a man that loves Jesus, loves me, and loves my boys as his own. God has restored my joy; He has helped me rediscover what grace really is, and I am completely redeemed through Him.

 

Though this is my daughter’s story, it holds a chapter in my book as well. I have seen her fierce faith growing by leaps and bounds. There were times she couldn’t stand up, that’s when the “army” – her Church Family – would rally around her. She has continually pointed her boys to the faithfulness of God, the kindness of Jesus and the strength of Holy Spirit. Her unshakable faith has strengthened my own faith. I always say, “When I grow up, I want to be just like her.”

May her RED story renew your hope in a faithful God. He is so very good!