A Journey Back to Courage
A Little About Myself
I was my mom’s cuddle bunny. My natural personality is outgoing. I went through a bad time in junior high because I had gained so much weight that I didn’t want people to see me. I didn’t talk to anyone I didn’t know. My parents died the year I turned 16 and I lived with my sister until her death much later. After her death, I began to speak to people—all people—whether I knew them or not. I believe it was because my critical sister was not around to shush me up.
My wonderful husband, John, is also an introvert, like my sister, but he is very kind. My willingness to speak naturally to anyone amazed him. Then, he also began to speak more to people. We are both Christians and we finally found a church we like, the Western Church, which preaches the Word of God, the Bible. We began to be comfortable there because we felt that they value us. We began to participate in all Western Church had to offer: Sunday School, church with everyone, Wednesday night Bible Study, and Movie Night, etc. It was easy for us to fit in because they made places for us.
We listen to the Sobercast podcast which is basically a replaying of Alcoholics Anonymous speaker meetings through the years. We have our favorite speakers and Sandy B is one of them. We especially like his talks on being “undisturbed.” At the beginning of 2022, we decided to nickname the year: The Undisturbed Year. We tried to make sure we were undisturbed no matter what and decided that when we were disturbed it was because of some character flaw within ourselves, not other peoples’ faults.
Later that year, we discovered the book “Switch on Your Brain” by Dr. Caroline Leaf. We were able to slowly begin to renew our minds and become more undisturbed. My first little prayer which I focused is in the book by Max Lucado “I’m Not a Scaredy Cat!” I don’t have permission to reprint it here, but the book is tiny and simple to read. After two weeks, I felt that God wanted me to add “God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all I can ask, think, or even imagine according to the power that I allow Him to work within me” (from Ephesians 3:20). Neither of these were suggestions by Dr. Leaf; I was following God’s guidance. A palpable peace began to settle over me. In about three more weeks, I began ten minutes of praying in tongues. Then I began to get revelation.
March 17, 1997
Bunny at the heaviest ever: 295.5 pounds.