How I Came to The Way, and Why I Stayed

My father and grandfather were both Presbyterian ministers. My grandmother first taught me about Jesus Christ, and the tenderness of God's love for us. Mother made sure that we knew that God was not punishing us when bad things happened. Father would sing hymns around the house, and would tell us animated Bible stories at night, about the believers of the old-testament. All was not well, however. Both my parents and my grandparents were struggling with their beliefs, and with their relationships. Just when they needed power in their life, it just was not there.

I was struggling, too. It seemed that I had been born on the wrong planet; this was not the place for me! Kindergarten was very close to home. I hated it so much that one day I just left and went home. I was swinging on our swing in the yard, when a dark gloom of depression descended upon me. From then on, any joy of life I had experienced was gone, and I would not sense it again until many years later.

During my 6th year we traveled from coast to coast preparing to move to Korea as missionaries. I remember my mother helping me master reading on the long drives. Shortly after I turned 7 we arrived in Seoul, the capitol of South Korea. Talk about a shock! I had been told about different cultures, but I really was not prepared for the reality of it.

In our travels, any time my parents observed an oriental custom that was written in the Bible, they would point out the custom and teach us the scripture, sometimes right on the spot. The first time this happened was in early autumn of 1959, on our first trip to the market. The market was like an open air "farmers market," and we stopped to buy grain from an old man. He sat on a low wooden stool behind his bag of grain. My mother indicated that she wanted to purchase some grain. He had a square box, open at one end. The other end of the box was fastened to board, much larger than the box. Using a cup, he began to fill up the box with the grain from the bag, mashing the grain down, shaking it, and then, finally, heaping one last cup full so that the grain ran over the box. All this was put into a bag for us. Mother excitedly taught us about Luke 6:38 "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again."

By the time I was in my 8th year, my brothers and I had the opportunity to hear the heart breaking testimony of a Korean Christian who was tortured for his beliefs, narrowly escaping with his life, and the harrowing experiences of a missionary in Tibet who lost her family to the Communist Chinese. This got me thinking - I would welcome death; what was it that made them want to survive and thrive? What gave them the strength to overcome?

When I was 9, I remember confessing Jesus as Lord and praying for help with the misery that I was feeling. Things just kept getting worse. I would read the Bible, but it just did not make sense. Other books would make sense, but the Bible did not. The sermons I heard did not make much sense, either, as they tried to explain away what was written. So, by the time I was 12, I had given up on the Bible, and the Christian Church. At that time, we were on our way back to America.

Depression was worse, and deepening. I was doing less and less at school, and getting angrier by the day. My parents had me going to therapy, but it could not begin to help. I should have been completely psychotic, but I was not. After a while I turned against myself. When I was 13 I was in the attic with a 12 gauge shotgun at my head. God communicated to me that I was NOT going to die, and I would save myself a LOT of pain and suffering if I would just put the gun down. So, I did just that. Instead of figuring out that God wanted me to live and would help me live, I kept trying to figure out a "fool-proof" way to die.

At 15 I was locked up in an experimental program for disturbed youth in a state institution. After a year and 9 months I got out of there and spent a summer figuring out that drugs were no help either.

At 18 I was back home, trying to figure out what to do with myself, functionally, emotionally, and spiritually disabled.

I was still struggling with depression and searching for spiritual power. I was doing some telepathy experiments with a student at the local college. It was during one of these experiments that God showed me that this power was from the adversary, and that I had no part with the adversary and the adversary had no part with me. Then I asked, "So now what do I do; now where do I go for the truth?" God said, "Well, where did you learn about the adversary?". I knew the answer instantly - The Bible!!! That's when I started searching for the truth in God's Word. However the adversary did not give up easily.

I attended my first Way Ministry fellowship shortly after I started reading the Bible again, but I was not humble at all! At almost the same time, I started attending a spiritualist church in the same town, and got to be acquainted with the minister and his wife.

The next spring, I figured out that no mater what kind of tricky manifestation that you could pull off, if its impact is not everlasting, it is essentially useless. I found out where The Way fellowship was being held, and attended a second time, much more ready to listen. What I do remember about the meeting is that a believer just read distinctly out of Ephesians, an epistleI had read several times through the years. The times I had read it previously, I experienced confusion, I could not remember what I had just read. This time, however, it was electrifying, as my understanding was opened!!!!

Up to this time, I disliked myself greatly. I learned that God says in His Word that I am His masterpiece! Until I had learned this, there was no information, and no logical reason for me to change my mind about myself.

God provided temporary housing and employment so that I could take The Foundational Class offered by The Way Ministry in June of 1971. It was with great excitement that I heard Dr. Weirwille teach about the orientalisms of the Bible! In January of 1972 I was in Tampa, Florida, on the 3rd wave of the 1st year of the WOW Ambassadors.

The key to the final defeat of the depression in my life, was continuing to renew my mind to God's Word, and to never succumb to idolatry. During the final, and worst attack, a demoninational minister came up to me and said that the reason I was having trouble was that I did not believe that Jesus is God. I told him that no matter what happened to me, I would never ever believe in that heresy! It was a matter of days after that, and the depression lifted from me as it came, and it has never been back.

It is an accurate knowledge of God and His Word that makes sense of life, and makes it worth living. I am more connected to life than I ever would have been, had I survived without this ministry and God's Word. There is a freedom here; you can function and grow as in no other place I have ever been. There are no answers in religion, or in politics. God's Word is the greatest healing reality!