I’ll show my age here, but when I was a little boy, I remember my mom making me a Snoopy rug from one of those latch hook kits that were popular in the 1970s. Time moves differently when you’re a child, but it seemed like that rug’s completion moved at a geological pace. I also recall thinking it would never look like the picture on the box as it just had random colors and patterns that didn’t resemble anything as she worked on it. There were times when my mother would make some mistakes and have to pull out threads that didn’t belong where she had put them. There were also times where she would set the rug aside either due to frustration or just the busyness of life. How thrilling it was when it began to look like it was created to look and how overjoyed I was when it was completed.
Amy’s life started in California with a father that was in and out of jail and a young mother that cycled through unhealthy relationships. Her mother, LeAnn, describes it as “looking for love and trying to fill an emptiness in my heart.” One of these relationships resulted in LeAnn getting lost in drug addiction and her children being abused by her boyfriend. Amy and her siblings went to live with her grandmother and LeAnn’s addiction escalated which led to her going to prison.
At 12 years old and with her mother incarcerated, Amy began acting out her pain with poor choices and self-destructive behavior. She was rebellious and hopeless which makes for scary scenarios in the lives of young people. She came to live at Holston Home, and while here, she heard about Jesus and the good news of the gospel. She experienced His love and salvation, but she held herself back from Him because she still had fears of rejection and doubts that she deserved His faithful love. She went back to live with her grandmother after several months and as a baby Christian, the enemy convinced her that she wasn’t good enough for God. She went back to seeking love from boys and soon found herself pregnant at fifteen. She came back to Holston Home and the Lord met her where she was, and she began to grow in Him once again.
Meanwhile her mother, LeAnn, was also introduced to Jesus in prison. She gave her life to the Lord as she was completing her sentence. She faced many challenges and injured relationships once she was released. One of these relationships that needed God’s healing touch was the one with Amy. LeAnn began driving to visit her at Holston on the weekends. She would come so that they could attend worship together at the Rock, our on-campus church. It wasn’t long before they recognized the change in one another and started seeing His light in their lives.
Amy wanted to be baptized and invited her mother to be there. LeAnn was so happy! Before the Sunday came, she asked if she could be baptized too. After talking with our Christian Life staff about what baptism is and why we are to follow the Lord in this beautiful calling, Amy and LeAnn were baptized separately but together for the first time in a long time.
As Amy shared her story before she was baptized, my heart celebrated as she shared, “When I prayed, I kept hearing God tell me that I am pure. I thought, ‘What? I’m not pure.’ But I prayed and prayed about it. What did God want with me? I prayed to God about all I had done and asked for forgiveness. I opened my whole heart to Him. He told me I am pure to Him and there’s nothing I could do to make me unworthy to Him. I was blind to His love, but it was always there. That hole in my heart was filled.”
Before we could wipe the tears of joy from our faces, LeAnn followed and told us about her experience with the Lord. “Any time I feel like giving up, God finds a way to show me He is with me…I’m done with my old life. Even when I didn’t choose God, He still chose me. I know as long as I keep Him in my heart everything will be okay.”
As Mother’s Day is around the corner, what a sweet story this is of God’s ability to save, heal, and restore a daughter and a mother. I hope you are encouraged being reminded that you are seen in these ways by your Heavenly Father and that we can experience a richer and deeper relationship with Him as we “open our whole hearts.” Will you also pray for this family? There are many hills they still have to climb, and we know the enemy will try to attack and derail them along the way.
The Snoopy rug was completed, and it looked perfect to me. No longer did I have any of my previous doubts about whether it was going to get completed or whether it was going to look the way it was supposed to. I believe that God’s kingdom is a lot like that experience. We see randomness, mistakes that have to be reworked and timelines that seem never ending. But God lovingly, patiently, and masterfully keeps working and weaving until He helps His children look like they were created to be before we were ever formed in our mother’s womb.
Thank you for your prayers and financial support for Holston Home. I can’t help but see that they are some of the beautiful threads He is using in the lives of so many just like Amy and LeAnn. I pray you and your families are blessed, and I look forward to seeing His final masterpiece!
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6
In Christ,
