An Open Love Letter

To my dear, wonderful, and loving husband, Jared:

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the day you asked me to marry you. And this will be our first Valentine’s Day we won’t be celebrating it.

Our lives have become crazy and chaotic. Somehow the devil has taken us off course, and our focus has been on Tavin’s stomach afflictions, our financial downfall, and my mother’s cancer. At times there seems to be very little hope for our little family, but through it all one thing has remained true and faithful: your love for me.

While my heart has been closed off, and my affection has been concealed, the fact still remains that my love for you is stronger today than ever before. Your strength props me up, your faith in God inspires me, your dedication to your brothers humbles me, and your commitment to me and Tavin leaves me breathless and in awe.

I am far from perfect. Sometimes I feel utterly unlovable. I know that’s not true, but I often wonder how you can love me through all of my emotional ups and downs. Throughout my life, so many men left me because of that. Men always loved my outgoing, free-spirited, silly side, but when life gripped me and I needed tenderness, they refused to love the other side of who I am.

Together we are a perfect fit. When we first met, we both confessed that we didn’t want children. That was a relief. However, at one point you changed your mind, and it broke my heart because I knew I didn’t want anymore children after already raising Josh. I never saw myself raising another child. I never saw myself as a very good mother to start, so to do it again was something I had little desire to do. But there was something about your love for me that changed the way I saw myself. For the first time in my life I no longer believed the lies about myself. Instead, I saw what you saw in me, and I never felt more alive. Today we are raising a beautiful, intelligent, affectionate young man. You changed my life for the better.

When I had Josh, twenty-six years ago, my heart ached to find a man who would love him as his own. I wanted a man who would truly cherish me, flaws and all. I ached to find true, honest, real love that lasted not just for a moment, but for a lifetime. I needed a man who understood me, who cared, who wasn’t afraid to be weak at times. I needed a real man, not the world’s macho idea of what men were supposed to be like. I wanted someone to share life with me, and be my equal. I wanted to be taken care of for once in my life, instead of always having to take care of everyone else.

Through countless years of searching, all I found was heartache and misery. Abuse and instability. Until one day, when I had had enough, I cried out to God and told Him, “I can’t be trusted. My judgment concerning men is always off. I continue to keep repeating the same cycle over and over again, yet each time it hurts even worse. I want what You want for me, whatever that may be, even if it means being alone for the rest of my life. I trust that whatever You have for me is better than anything I could ever find on my own.”

God gave me my heart’s desire when He placed you in my life. In fact, at one point, God revealed to me that His love for me is in close comparison to how you love me. For the first time in my life, I truly understood unconditional love.

You think I’m sexy in my pjs, with my hair oily and matted. Not a day goes by that you don’t tell me how beautiful I am. When I snap, you never snap back (although you have good cause to do so). When I feel unaffectionate, you never push or complain, nor do you use it as an excuse to look somewhere else. You accept me as I am and never try to change me. You are not disappointed in my humanness, nor do you complain that we sit at home night after night. You love to sit together in silence, and you love to share your dreams with me. You support everything I do, and make a point to make sure I have everything I need to succeed. You cook. You clean. You do laundry. You change poopy diapers. You get up early with Tavin and let me sleep in. You give me my private time. You encourage me to do things I love to do. Simply put: You take care of me the way a real man should take care of a woman.

I am thankful for you every day, even if I don’t say it. But more than that, I love the idea that our son is watching every move you make and will someday make a woman as happy as you make me.

All my love and affection,

Your wife, Tristine

Vision Board

As some of you may know, I recently put together a vision board. It was something I had wanted to do for years but never got around to. After hearing so many success stories about the effects of creating a visual dreamscape that I could pray over everyday, I was finally motivated and inspired to build my own board. And I was on a mission: Clipping, dreaming, envisioning, and creating. I felt hopeful and alive!

Below is a picture of my entire vision board which is in our bedroom on the wall next to the bed. It is divided into sections. In the center is the word “imagine,” where it begins and ends with “KEEP SMILING” above it all.

The upper left half is dedicated to my financial success.

The lower left hand corner is reserved for family core values and needs. This includes pictures of my mother with the words, “BETTER HEALTH.” She is battling recurring breast cancer.

The upper middle section focuses on my hopes of my blog, NOTE TO SELF: Daily Reminders from God, becoming successful, and prayers of one day getting published by Thomas Nelson Publishing Group.

Next to that, on the upper right hand is my “Choose Your Own Adventure” corner. This shows places I’d like to go to, or things I’d like to do.

Below that is my dream home, along with the types of furnishings I’d like to fill it with.

The lower middle section is my heart’s desire to give to a few charity organizations. We already give to Joyce Meyer, but it is minimal and we’d like to increase our giving, thus the upper left half of the board. Above that is a picture of some techy items we’d like and need.

And throughout the board are various scriptures of encouragement, hope, success, and salvation.

I probably should have been a bit more specific in some of the things I put up there and how I placed them. Within a few short weeks, some of my visions have come to pass, not quite how I was hoping, but nonetheless, the board is working.

The photo of Thomas Nelson is directly next to the “BLOG” picture. I am officially writing for Thomas Nelson, but as a book reviewer for their exciting new book review program, Book Sneeze. And although that’s exciting news, my blog has also been accepted by some very well known branding, promotional, and affiliate marketing companies specifically for women bloggers to help drive more traffic to their sites. I’ve been accepted by SITS Girls, Clever Girls Collectives, and SheBlogs. I was also informed by Gospel for Asia (a charity organization that I blog for), that fourteen children were sponsored from a link on my site in only two short months! And I also started blogging for another charity organization, Compassion International. And according to Klout.com, I’m pretty darn influential in cyberspace.

Above the photo of me and my older son, Josh, is a cutout of hundred dollar bills. This month we have received $500 cash from various (generous) friends and family who are genuinely concerned about the financial situation we are in and wanted to help.

The magazine clipping of the laptops and computers came to pass, as I was finally able to purchase a laptop (mind you on credit, thus deleting the “WE’RE OUT OF DEBT” hopeful on the side of the board) and give Jared my PC that was built for me by a very wonderful and thoughtful friend a few years ago. Jared’s near-new iMac crashed a few months ago and was unable to compose any music during that time. We also had no money to get it fixed or replaced. It broke my heart seeing him so lost not being able to do what he was born to do. I just didn’t care anymore what it took. He needed a good computer to compose his music, and it paid off…

I volunteered to put together a video for Care Net Family Resource Center and Jared composed the music for it.

The owner of the video production company, Suite Imagery,  loved it so much, he hired Jared to do another project. When Jared completed that project, the owner was so impressed that he’s now eager to start promoting his business with Jared in mind!

As far as Disney World goes, unfortunately we won’t be going there anytime soon, but we were able to buy Tavin a Mickey Mouse talking Valentine’s stuffed toy. Again, maybe I should have been a bit more specific. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Tavin loves it as if he’s at Disney World every day! He carries Mickey EVERYWHERE he goes.

We are also “FEED(ing) A NEIGHBOR IN NEED,” as we made it a habit to include Jared’s two brother’s for dinner every night. They are two young (broke) bachelors that literally live around the corner from us. We’ve made a commitment to help them anyway we can, and aside from loaning them our car when they need it, it’s all we have to offer. This fits into my family section of “FAMILY / CORE VALUES" that we are embedding into our son Tavin’s life.

I highly encourage you to build your own vision board. As you can see, the possibilities are as endless as your “imagination.” Pinterest is a fun way to put together a virtual vision board (find me there), but you can also find great pictures there to download and print and build a real board that you can see and touch and pray over every day…like we do.

Blogger Tags: SheBlogs, Clever Girls Collective, Book Sneeze, Thomas Nelson, SITS Girls, Suite Imagery, Pinterest, Care Net Family Resource Center, vision board, Disney World, Mickey Mouse, family, values, imagine, dream home, success, Gospel for Asia, Compassion International

The Homophobic Myth of Christians

Do I hate gay people?

That’s like asking me if I hate TV. I like certain shows, but there are many I dislike. Be more specific.

Because I’m a Conservative Christian, that has automatically lumped me into the homophobic category of hate mongers. This is a homophobic myth of Christians.

There are three types of Christians in the world:

1. Those who live in Old Testament Law abiding rituals
2. Those who have taken it upon themselves to act on God’s behalf as Judge and jury
3. Those who throw all of that out the window because they understand grace

I fall into category three. However…

I do not hate gay people. What I do hate is when gay people accuse me of hating them and go out of their way to somehow prove their point that I hate gay people.

One day on the city bus in Chicago on my way to work, a black man sat next to me on the empty bus and he started to talk to me. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying because he spoke like he had rocks in his mouth and the bus was loud. I kept saying, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you.” With that, he stood up and pointed his finger in my face screaming, “It’s because I’m black!” and other horrific obscenities he felt he needed to spit at me, most of which consisted with the color of my skin.

I don’t hate black people, but I didn’t like that guy much at all.

Once on friend’s facebook status, a gay man accused me of being homophobic because I was talking about Christ. No matter how nicely I tried to explain to him that I didn’t feel that way, HE continued to harass me with vulgarity. At one point, when I stated that Jesus loves everyone, he shot back with, “I hope your son turns out to be gay so you can hate him in the name of your God.”

I don’t hate gay people, but I didn’t like that guy much at all, either. I did, though, pray for him and hoped that whatever hate he had for Christians would be healed.

I run a group discussion on CBN.com, and there is a young gay man who joined the group specifically to taunt everyone. Without really ever reading my blog postings, he would pick and choose what he wanted to pull apart and accuse me, and others, of spreading lies and hate. No matter how nice we would try to be to him and tried to share the love of Christ with him, he would ignore that and focus on his own misconceptions of who we are in Christ. He believes the homophobic myth of Christians.

I don’t hate gay people, and I don’t hate him, but I surely don’t like how he treats Christians. How, then, is gay people’s hate toward Christians any different than the very hate they are raging about?

Somehow these particular gay people need to justify their own anger. They are always looking for fights. I guess I could then in turn say that all gay people hate ME because I’m a Christian. But I’m smarter than the average bear. I don’t follow that rule of thinking. As a matter of fact, I have a very dear, wonderful friend who is gay. She is like a sister to me. I adore her, and she cherishes me. So that theory then, is shot right out of the water. Not all gay people are mean spirited and hate Christians, but those who do are the ones I don’t care for. Not because they are gay or black or whatever, but simply because they are cruel and close-minded human beings.

Many Christians have falsely taken it upon themselves to scorn gay people. That’s the sad truth, and I hate that many gay people have felt the pain of this kind of disgraceful behavior. I know what the Bible says about being gay and that it’s deplorable to God. I know that we are not to act in such ways. But I  know that Jesus told us to love one another. I also know that Jesus died for them just as much as He died for me.

As a follower of Christ, I know the difference between between right and wrong. And although many Christians think they are right in accusing and scorning gay people, I know that the Bible says that’s very wrong! We are to hate the sin but love the sinner.

Let’s not forget that Christ told the Pharisees, “Those without sin cast the first stone.” If you have a stone in your hand, you better put it down.

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Cancer is Pro-Choice

Over the past couple of weeks since Susan G Komen decided to halt funding to Planned Parenthood,  I’ve heard many pro-choice advocates screaming, “Cancer doesn’t care if you’re pro-life or not.” I beg to differ.

Cancer is absolutely, 100% pro-choice. It chooses who it will attack. It chooses who it will kill. It chooses when it will take over. Cancer has control of all choices, while life has none. So wouldn’t it make complete sense if we supported an organization that cared about life rather than deliberate murder?

Pro-choice has never been about the right to choose the food you eat, or listen to the music you want to listen to. Pro-choice simply means pro-abortion/pro-killing innocent lives. That’s the simplicity of pro-choice. It’s not really a “choice,” so to speak, that they are rallying for, it’s the right to be free to murder an unborn child they don’t want and didn’t prepare for, as if it were the unborn child’s fault for their lack of judgment or carelessness. (And don’t think I’m saying this out of spite, I’m saying this from my own personal experience.)

Planned Parenthood is the leader in the “pro-choice” movement. That means they are the leaders in the abortion holocaust. Susan G Komen should be granting grants to organizations that are in alignment with their purpose: to save lives.

The pro-choice movement is loud and obnoxious, full of hot air inflated by scandalous lies. The notion that anyone can be moved by this group of anti-life  supporters is both shameful and obscene, particularly any group who claims they are trying to make a difference for those who are battling for their lives.  But now we find out that Komen has backtracked their de-funding efforts. Worse yet, new local Komen affiliates who once never considered funding Planned Parenthood have now come out proudly to declare that they will gladly give your money to support killing innocent lives.

When did one person’s life have more value over the other? Cancer isn’t for a set group of people. It chooses whomever it wants to choose. No one is immune…and that’s the key to this problem. The money donated to Komen was intended for research to find a cure, instead they took your money and gave it away to other organizations that have nothing to do with cancer. Nothing.

Cancer is absolutely anti-life, pro-choice. It’s intent is to kill, much like abortion. It is at times hopeless, as in the case of my own mother. It doesn’t care whether you live or die. It’s purpose is death, much like the pro-choice movement. Cancer focuses on destruction of life. It does care if you are pro-choice or pro-life. It’s hoping you are on its side. And unfortunately, many of you are and don’t even know it.

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Tormented

Our two year old son Tavin has been tormented for weeks with a serious stomach issue. We’ve taken him to ER twice, and both times no one could give us real answers. His pediatrician has been incredibly ineffective in helping him, and instead of finding out what was causing the problem, she diagnosed it with medicine she thought would cure a problem she wasn’t even sure of.

The pain my son has been experiencing has been beyond anything any parent should ever have to watch their children experience. For nearly four weeks, our son has been writhing in pain, screaming in agony, and searching our eyes for some kind of help. This hasn’t been a moment here or there; it’s been four full weeks of torment! Screaming, moaning, groaning, crying, hysterical fits. And when he hasn’t been doing any of that, he’s been lying flat on his back lifeless.

I’m going to backtrack for a minute and tell you that we have always prayed with him, and would scream out the name, JESUS, in authority every night before bed. He got a such a kick out that and would always laugh.

But then we started struggling. Our world began to quickly crumble around us. All of our like-new computers and big screen TV just crashed and burned. At first we took it in stride, but when we saw that we couldn’t get these items fixed or replaced, it was difficult for us. My husband’s iMac was an important part of his need to get his music out there professionally. And my computer was my only source of income as a freelance writer. Without those tools, our connections were lost.

Soon our finances were beating us down. Our cell phones were shut off, our utility bills sky rocketed, and we couldn’t even afford gas to get to church. Our faith was shaky at best. We walked a very fine line. And our prayers stopped. Our hope diminished. But somehow we clawed our way out of the despair and soldiered on. Unfortunately, we forgot to include our son. We stopped praying with him. Stopped calling out on the name of Jesus. Stopped taking him to church.

During that time, too, Tavin started talking about a “ghost.” We believed him because we had “felt” something in the house for quite some time. There was a particular spot in our stairwell where it always lurked. You could feel it latch onto you. There were many times that my husband would need to walk down with me so I could go to the bathroom at night. But I got tired of that thing getting the best of me, so I demanded it to leave by the authority of Jesus Christ. I never felt it again. However, Tavin began to see it everywhere. He would point to a dark, empty room and say, “Look daddy! Ghost!”

During these last few weeks of Tavin’s sickness, we prayed hard over him. We were diligent. At first our prayers were, “Why God!? Why are you doing this to him?” That quickly changed to, “Please God, heal him.” During those prayers, when we would try to get Tavin to pray with us, it nearly drove him to the brink of insanity. He would scream louder and his face would contort and his eyes would turn blood red. We would try to get him to say, “Jesus,” and he would yell, “NO!!'”

Tavin refused to pray, wouldn’t even mention the name of Jesus, wouldn’t say his nighttime prayers, and began throwing horrific temper tantrums. Although that’s natural for his age, these were beyond the normal terrible two tantrums. These were outright hysterical fits. There were times the look in his eyes scared the daylights out of me. And this was all coming from a boy who is outlandishly generous with affection, love and tenderness. Sure he had temper tantrums before, but these were blood curdling fits of rage. Whenever we began to pray for him, his pain seemed to intensify and his screams got louder.

Then the night terrors began. The screeching, startling screams in the middle of the night…night after night after night.

The last two days have been my breaking point. I was beyond the begging prayers of healing and began declaring authority over Tavin’s body and life. When I did that, it calmed him down and it seemed as if his pain was relieved for a time. Again, I tried to get Tavin to come into agreement and pray, but he still refused.

Today was a different story. I proclaimed outright that the devil was not going to control this situation anymore, that I was standing on God’s Word as the Truth and declaring the devil a bold faced liar. Well, that’s when all hell, quite literally, broke loose.

Tavin got worse very quickly. We brought him to the doctor for another emergency appointment, hoping to get some help or be led in some sort of direction on what to do for him. Waiting in the doctor’s office, Tavin’s pain was excruciating. He was literally lying on his back on the floor of the lobby, writhing, screaming and crying. We waited thirty-five minutes and the doctor never called us. We were outraged and frustrated and decided to just leave and take him to ER again, knowing full well we’d get nowhere there, too.

In the car, Tavin was so exhausted by it all that he sat listless and miserable, but suddenly quiet which was unusual. So I suggested we take him home and let him get some rest and take him to ER later if things got out of hand again. Fortunately we went home, because right after we walked in the door, my mother called (we don’t have cells anymore) to inform me that her doctor was admitting her into the hospital. The chemo was taking a major toll on her body. So we put Tavin down for a nap, called my brother-in-law to watch him and off we went to be with my mom.

We came home to find Tavin lying on his back on the sofa. Within minutes the pain started and he was uncomfortable again. Then the screaming started up again, but this time I heard something else. Jared was praying over him, and a language I’d never heard screeched out in anger from his tiny mouth. To the normal ear it would have been frightening, but to me it just set me off in righteous anger.

I yelled for my brother-in-law to come into the bathroom where Tavin was on his potty chair, and said, “This is over! We are praying for him. We are casting this demon out of him.” We all laid hands on him and I began to demand the demon(s) to leave by the authority of Jesus Christ. “You have no stronghold over Tavin. No authority. No right! He is a child of the Living God and covered by the blood of Jesus! You have to leave his body, because you don’t belong here. No weapon formed against him will prosper. He is dedicated and committed to God, so you have to go now!”

As I prayed this, my son’s body began to convulse, and the rage was beyond anything I’d ever seen before. He was beet red and jumping up and down in hysterical fits, and the screams that came from him were unnatural. All of a sudden he began having a bowel movement that was probably the equivalent to ten pounds of waste. He couldn’t stop! At this point he was trembling and his teeth were chattering, so I pulled him close and held him while he sat on his potty and pooped that demon out, and it came out of him without him even having to try. He was terrified as to what was happening to his body. His arms were wrapped tightly around my neck and his body was weak. So I lifted him up, cleaned him off and brought him to the sofa to rest. He laid there quietly for about fifteen minutes and then got up and began to laugh and play just like he used to do nearly a month ago. Oh, how we missed that boy!

I brought Tavin to the hospital to see my mom later, and on the way there we saw the most gorgeous sunset and I blurted out, “Thank You, Jesus!” A tiny voice echoed from behind me, “Thank you, Jeesis.” So I said it again, and he repeated me again. And then we prayed together in the car. Before bed he prayed again and started yelling out, “Jesus!” giggling like he used to do.

Although everything is back to normal and wonderful, Tavin has started to talk about the ghost again. In fact, on the way to the hospital he said he saw it. I suddenly remembered how he used to talk about it before, but these last few weeks he never mentioned it. He didn’t need to. It was tormenting him from the inside out.

Jesus told us we have the authority to cast out demons. I take Jesus at His Word. As believers, we have the very same “plug-in” that Christ had to God; the very same power and authority. Many of us don’t believe that, so we never plug into God the way we could and should. Thank God I did!

The Power of One Moment

As a child, I never received much positive reinforcement, if any at all. The nuns at school used to pull me aside in empty hallways and tell me how I was going to hell, and my parent’s were never ones for telling me that they loved me or were proud of me. So moving into my teen years, I never felt I had much potential to do anything.

Imagine my surprise one day when my high school Creative Writing teacher, Vern Weinke, pulled me aside and told me that I was a gifted writer. I will never forget my reaction: I laughed in his face and told him to get lost.

My very first day of class I sat in the back row and heckled him, sneering at the entire idea of the ridiculous required course. However, when I started writing, something changed inside of me, and by the middle of semester, when most of my other friends had dropped out, I was sitting in the front row, raising my hand, and meeting fellow nerds I typically made fun of.

I never trusted anyone to tell me anything good about myself because I never heard it, so I always figured if someone did tell me something nice there was an ulterior motive behind it. But Vern kept on encouraging me, sending my poetry to professors at UW Parkside, and enrolling me (with his own money, mind you) into weekend writing retreats at the college.

By the end of the semester, Vern called me in for a special one-on-one meeting after school. I sat at a desk in the empty classroom and Vern walked in and laid out college brochures in front of me. “I think you should consider going to college,” he blurted. Again, I laughed.

You see, my future didn’t look so bright. I was eighteen years old, getting ready to graduate with honors. Doesn’t sound so terrible, right? What made my situation unique was that I was a teenage mother. My outlook was limited. I didn’t have the luxury of my parents sending me off to college, because for one thing they never thought of me as ever doing anything important. That’s exactly what I told Vern that day. “There’s no way I can go to college. I have to support my son.”

When my son was six years old, and I had established myself at my first job as a very motivated and intelligent Assistant, I remembered Vern’s lecture that day and enrolled in college to become a teacher.
Throughout the several years of my part time college experience, every writing teacher I ever had pulled me aside, gleaming and grinning over my work, and would encourage me to pursue writing as a career. So I eventually changed my major to Fiction Writing. Unfortunately, being a single mom prevented me from completing college because I always needed to work and couldn’t afford to continue.
So I continued to miserably work in dead end jobs where my real talents weren’t appreciated. And then one day back in 2005, after a horrendous skit at a major non-profit organization organizing statewide meetings and being mistreated day after day, I had finally had it. I stayed home one day and plowed through craigslist (when it wasn’t a market for scam artists, but a legitimate job source) and stumbled upon a couple of freelance writing jobs, both of which hired me immediately. To say I eagerly turned in my resignation is an understatement!

Two years later my first novel, She Is…, was published with rave reviews. Today, several dozen of my articles have been published worldwide; my blog, NOTE TO SELF: Daily Reminders from God, is linked to two major charities, and I’ve never looked over another cubicle since.

What’s my point? That one moment with Vern changed my life. It also sparked many more afterwards, thus implementing in me a desire to do something I would have otherwise never considered. Writing was a fluke for me. It wasn’t something I knew I was good at, I just happened to fall into it because someone saw something in me I didn’t know existed.
Although it took me near a lifetime to figure it out, I know I can stem what I do now to that one moment in my life. Back when Vern pulled me aside, I didn’t have the confidence to believe in him or me, so I didn’t bother with it. Today I’m pursuing it head on. What I truly ponder from time and time, is where I would be today had I just listened to Vern in the first place and started college immediately out of high school.
Dr. Wess Stafford, author of the book, Just a Minute, and President of Compassion International, explains how brief moments in life can change a life forever! And scriptures tell us that there is power of life and death in the tongue (Proverbs 18:21).

What we say, and how we say it, can spark life or death in someone’s life. We should always try to make a habit of encouraging people, especially young, impressionable children. We may be the only one in their lives who says anything nice to them or about them, and what we say may bring hope into their lives…hope they never knew existed.

How can just a minute change a child’s life? Watch and find out!

{Who has impacted your life in one moment?}

The God Hater Within

This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusions, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure.

I’d love to claim those words, but they are not my own. These were the words of Jesus in John 3:19-20 (The Message). The reason I wrote this scripture is because at one point in my life, I was that person…a hater of God-light. Basically, though, I was just a God hater, period!

What makes a person hate God the way so many do today? For one thing, it is an absolute lack of knowledge combined with the denial of a loving God filled with illusions of the worldly ways. I’m telling you straight-up, this scripture, translated in The Message bible, speaks reality like nobody’s business!

I feared for quite some time to tell my story publically. I don’t exactly know why, because years ago I spoke about in public schools. It was a part of who I had become because of the amazing things God did to change my mind about who He is.

Let me start at the beginning. I’ll take you back to an innocent little girl thrown into a world of religion but with a piercing desire to know Jesus. Being raised Catholic can nearly drown any hope of that ever happening. With nuns busting my butt constantly telling me how “evil” I was, I can’t tell you the number of times I was pushed aside in an empty hallway and told I was going to hell. As a seemingly ageless child, how could I know what I’d done so terribly wrong that I would already go to hell!?

You begin to ask yourself, “What’s the point then if I’m just going to hell anyway?” And so the destruction begins. The classic phrase fits like a glove: sex, drugs and rock n roll. Sure, on the outside it looks like so much fun, and no one can deny I had good times, but quite honestly, I knew for so long that something was missing and the emptiness always punched me in the face. But you want to believe another classic phrase, “I’m a good person, surely God will take that into account.” I mean, really, I wasn’t hurting anyone…until I was.

My past defines me. That doesn’t mean it’s who I am today, it just means it has molded my beliefs into a nicely wrapped package with meaning and motivation. What does that mean? Follow along…it’s going to get bad.

In 1987, when my first son, Josh, was only three years old I tried to commit suicide. The guy I was madly in love with dumped me for another woman. He was my first love, or so I thought. I was devastated and ached for him. My life seemed useless without him—or any other man for that matter. So I was tired of chasing a dream that seemed so surreal to me. I believed that love would never find me, because I wasn’t worthy of love. Oh, did I mention I was sexually molested when I was eleven? Yeah, that explains a lot.

So I downed a bottle of pills and as the world began to faze in and out, I called my ex-boyfriend and told him what I’d done hoping he’d care. He cared enough to come get me and take me to the ER. It was there that I discovered I was pregnant again. I felt my heart sink as I knew full well that the man standing next to me not only didn’t want me, but he surely didn’t want a baby with me. But he put on a brave face and said we’d “discuss” it.

After three days in a psych ward, my ex-boyfriend picked me up and we began a new life together. Only our new life wouldn’t include a baby, he made that perfectly clear. If I wanted him, I had to terminate the pregnancy.

We drove up to the abortion clinic early one rainy morning and he reluctantly walked me in. He dumped me off and told me he’d come back to get me when the procedure was over. We asked the nurse how long it would take, and he determined he’d be back by 11 AM.

While my baby was being sucked out of me and chopped to pieces—sorry, but that’s reality, like it or not!—my boyfriend was out partying and having a good time. While I laid all alone in a huge hall-like room filled with empty cots, crying and aching, and more than ever, feeling entirely empty, he was laughing and hooting and hollering.

When the time came for my release, I was brought out into the empty waiting room. No one was there waiting for me. So I sat in one of the sterile chairs, wishing I could be anywhere else, and waited. And waited. I watched the clock go from 11:00 to 12:00 to 1:00 to 2:00, until 2:15 he finally pounced in the door like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, so happy and bouncy, bouncy, bouncy. The embarrassment and shame I felt was overwhelming, and when I asked where he was, I was yelled and screamed at and told not to badger him because he was going through a rough time with this. I could tell…

If ever I believed I was going to hell, I have to tell you, those hallway incidents with the nuns never convinced me; but this…well, this was different. I knew how God felt about abortion. That was not a secret; my fate was sealed. And my life spiraled out of control.

Within weeks from that experience, I was snorting as much cocaine as feasibly possible. I even had a moment when I felt I was overdosing. I didn’t care. I took the line in stride and tempted the devil to just take me and get it over with. But something supernatural took place that night. As I sat utterly paralyzed and stoned, unable to move but hating the place I was in—a drug house, mind you, I mean a real, nutty, drug dealer’s house—I felt lifeless and hopeless, when suddenly something pulled me up off that dingy brown sofa and took me home. I didn’t say goodbye, I didn’t even move my feet. I was just home.

You would think that experience would have had me on my knees, but it didn’t. It was, though, the beginning of God’s nudging, trying to tell me I was alright with Him. But I didn’t listen. I feared a “painful exposure.” The God I knew was angry and vengeful, and I knew if I went to Him I’d be doomed, so my best bet was to keep practicing evil.

The second abortion was the worse.

This was a man I believed I’d spend the rest of my life with. He was a good, decent guy who adored me and never mistreated me. I, on the other hand, treated him like dirt because I didn’t feel I deserved that kind of love.

It was a snowy morning, a blizzard to be exact. But we weren’t going to miss that appointment. The memories of the first abortion just numbed me, and after they called me back and had me wait in this beautiful old renovated warehouse loft, I found myself gazing out the window overlooking the Milwaukee River. Again, I was alone. This big room swallowed me whole, and I liked it.

I wish I hadn’t heard the suction sound of the machine ripping my baby out of me, but I did. And that’s a sound I’ll never forget, and the blankness in the eyes of the doctor and nurses. This time, I was welcomed out of my haze with a room full of crying women. Seven of them to be exact. The crying, moaning and groaning—the sounds of broken hearts!—sent me into a deep hole I knew I’d never be able to climb out of. But something happened in that moment of time. Every single one of us—all those sorry, remorseful women—grabbed our neighbor’s hand and cried together. Never in my life will I forget that moment. Never… I couldn’t tell you what was said, because the weeping and aching groans were too loud. We just…mourned the murder of our children together.

The world thinks a pregnancy is a choice—one that can be chose to keep or not. Yes, pregnancy is a choice. You choose to have sex or you choose not to. If you choose to have sex, you choose to get pregnant whether you like it or not. That’s the reality of sex, and that’s your only reality of it being a “choice.”

You can take all the precautions you want, but nothing—NOTHING—is 100% guaranteed. So by choosing sex, you choose to get pregnant. By choosing to get pregnant I believe you NO LONGER have a choice after that. You. Are. Pregnant. You are carrying a child. From the second of conception, that baby, that life, begins to form inside of you. It is a life, not a tissue—stop being addicted to denial and illusions—but a life.

When did murdering an innocent child ever become normal and considered a choice? I’d like to know how this epidemic of lies has been able to manipulate so many women to kill innocent children, like I had. Abortion is a lie. And if you believe it’s just a choice and just a tissue to get rid of like the flu, you are so incredibly delusional and insanely brainwashed. I bet if you have gone through it, the truth has smacked you around day and night and never lets you go. Some choice, right?

I began to hate God. I mean, full out HATE God. I considered myself an atheist—which is why I can relate to most atheists today. I’ve said it a million times: they believe in God, they just hate Him. Most atheists have a story to tell you. If you listen closely they will tell you about a hateful, vengeful, terrifying God. Well, that was the God I knew and hated, too.

Want to know something funny? While I was hating God with every fiber in my being…He was working in my life and loving me. He was carrying me through one destructive relationship after another. Sexual abuse. Mental abuse. Physical abuse. Promiscuity. Drugs. Alcohol. Self-inflicting hate! When you hate God, you almost always hate you, because YOU have a story to tell, don’t you?

My story is the story of two innocent lives I took as part of my womanly “right” to choice. They would haunt me forever and a day. I saw their face. I even had a dream once where the first one was a little girl in a pink dress with black curls, asking me quite matter of factly, “Why didn’t you want me, mommy?”

I slept with so many men it made my head spin. I was searching and aching. The other funny part of this story: I HATED SEX! I hated every single part of it. Why wouldn’t I? My first step-dad molested me, I had countless men use me for it, and three times I got pregnant, two of which I had to abort!

I hated intimacy. I hated being touched. I hated being treated kindly. I hated…God. I hated everything and everyone. My love for others was fake and superficial. I had no love in me to give! All I had was a body full of regrets, a memory full of murder, an earful of women crying, a nightmare of children badgering me, and a handful of nothingness.

An abortion is like ripping your mind out. You might as well while you’re at it, because you’ll never in your life get over it. Never. Unless, of course, you’re heartless. Because even the most hateful of us still had a heart. Barely beating, mind you, but nonetheless, it was there, and I hated that too!

I hated God because I felt He was to blame for everything. The choices my mother made, the choices I made, the abortions, the revolving door of sex mates, and the lack of love in my life. Through it all, every night when I closed my eyes I heard a still small voice say, “I love you, Tristine.” I would always say, “I love you, too,” never knowing who I was telling it to. I just assumed it was my hopeful desires of the man of my dreams rescuing me. Little did I know…it was.

It was the abortions that kept me from wanting anything to do with God. I was ashamed. I was terrified of hell, but knew I would end up there. According to the Catholic religion, my fate was sealed by the first one, the second one merely provided me a special place in hell.

Let me tell you something: God is good. So good. So incredibly…good.

When I had people witness to me, I never confessed my sins of the abortions. I just resisted believing there was a place in heaven for a murderer like me. I was doomed for eternity, so the God-talk was useless on me.

And then one day, this amazing young woman came into work and told me about her mother who was a $100 day junky and cohort with Jimi Hendrix. She then proceeded to tell me what Jesus did to save her from that life. Well, I’m not going to lie…it was the Jimi Hendrix story that lured me in.

I didn’t tell her about my abortions. I was too ashamed. One night she invited me to her house to meet her family and I was overwhelmed with a sense of love—something I had never felt in my entire life. After dinner we went for a drive and when we pulled back into the driveway she asked me what was holding me back from asking Jesus into my life.

The night was so beautiful, with a clear dark sky, full of countless stars twinkling over us. I remember thinking it was a gorgeous night and I was going to ruin it with my guilt and shame. I just stared out the passenger window and let out a small moan. “God will never forgive me because I did the unthinkable. Something that can’t be forgiven.” She was intrigued, and rightfully so, considering there’s NOTHING too big for Jesus, but I didn’t know that then. I had no clue!

I felt my heart racing as the words fell out of my mouth as if someone had bust my lip. It was oozing with pain and blood. And the reaction I got was surprising. She laughed at me. Not in a mocking way, but in a pure, innocence, acknowledging way. “Is that it?” she asked. “What do you mean, ‘Is that it!?’” She then told me her mother had an abortion, two to be exact, and if God healed her mother, He would surely heal me, too.

Anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending His Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.

Again, I’d love to claim those words, but they are once again the words of Jesus. John 3:17. The verse before that is one you’re probably familiar with: For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son. So no one need be destroyed.

No one. Not even the God haters. Especially the God haters. Because we are the ones who know a version of Him, a version that condemns us constantly. It is a lie that the world is telling them. A lie that is easy to grab onto. A lie that is far too easy to believe.

The God haters need Jesus the most. Not because they are so far gone, but because they desperately desire to know the Real Deal. You know why I know that? Because as a previous God hater, I screamed at God constantly and asked the same questions atheists ask day after day. Why, God, why…

The answer to that question is simple. Go back to the top and reread that scripture.