Heidi's Story

Hey everybody,

Nate’s story has been on our website and now we’re adding mine! Part 1 is this week and Part 2 is next week...they’re pretty long for a blog, but they’re as short for a life story! :) Enjoy!

Heidi’s Story

I had a really great childhood: my Dad was (is) a high school teacher to support his passion: football coaching, my Mom was a stay-at-home-mom full of creative ideas, and I loved my sister & brother.  We lived in a small town in Nebraska and to me everything was picture perfect. My Dad & I would play football in the backyard against my brother & the neighborhood kids, my Mom would sew me stuffed animals and Halloween costumes, my sister introduced me to fashion and when she got her hair cut, I always got mine cut the same way (which probably wasn’t a good memory for her...) and my brother & I would find a way to play together, like when my Barbies talked to their cars: his Transformers.  We watched Saturday morning cartoons and walked 3 blocks all by ourselves to the town Library. Life was simple...good.

As I became a teenager I met God at my friend’s church in a powerful way and I was impressed with the warmth and love I had experienced.  My family had always went to church, prayed before meals and bedtime, and my Mom had read Bible stories to me every night when I was a kid, but what I had experienced at this church was more than dedication: it was passionate, real.  There were about five girls in my class who had a similar God-experience and we were radical for Jesus Christ! We were going to proclaim Jesus everywhere, stand up for our faith, save ourselves for marriage...and we weren’t going to date sinners, we were going to marry pastors!  We were going to dedicate every day to saving our school for Jesus!

About a five minutes later, I was the only one still on that mission...and I felt alone!  I felt betrayed by my group of friends who now seemed to spent their time whispering about me, I felt misunderstood by my family who didn’t get that I was on a mission for God (I had good intentions but I was a little dramatic), and I wondered if I was going to miss out on my whole teenage-boyfriend-experience-thingy.  But no boys were interested in me (could my football-coach-Dad have something to do with that? Hmmmm...).  

On top of that, the relationship I had once had with my Dad was changing.  I didn’t want to play football, now I wanted to talk.  And shop. And Dad, who was so good at rough-housing, didn’t know quite what to talk about with his quiet, insecure, pre-teen daughter...and he sure as heck wasn’t about to go shopping! At the time, I didn’t see how this was an issue for him.  He had always been a great parent so how could he just not know how to talk to me?!  Looking back, I now understand that parenting isn’t the no-brainer that I thought it was...but at the time, it just felt like he didn’t want to talk to me.

Well, I finally did date a guy.  By this time I was so desperate for a friend, a boyfriend...anyone!...that I missionary-dated this guy: I brought him to church all the time and witnessed to him in hopes that he’d get saved.  You can probably see how this is going to end: I didn’t change him, he changed me.  I gave up all my Christian standards one by one and finally sunk so low that I was embarrassed to go back to my church.  So I told God I couldn’t follow Him anymore...maybe when I was older...married...then I’d get my life together and follow Him again.

Well, I followed my boyfriend to a college that’s two hours away from home which was kinda the point: two hours away! I really enjoyed the whole experience: the freedom of deciding what to eat,how late to stay up, putting goldfish in the college fountain and stealing ugly bowling shoes to wear around campus...normal college-y stuff for a naive small town girl.  I had to call home to warn my Dad when I thought that I might not get the best grades... but I got a big shock when I ended up on the Dean’s list!  I had a lifelong love of singing but didn’t know if I actually had a nice voice compared to all the other vocal students...but after tryouts the professor announced to the class that I was the only student with the ability to sing a certain song and I had the talent to go professional! So many things were going well, even my boyfriend asked me to marry him!  But four months before the wedding I felt like I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life: my fiance just didn’t seem to be passionate about me anymore. There was nothing to do but call off the wedding. To make matters worse,  I had recently dropped out of college in anticipation of moving to follow his career, so when the wedding fell through I was left with a big question mark: what was I going to do with my LIFE?

Then a very weird thing began to occur on a regular basis and it worked like this: if I was talking to someone, I would suddenly forget a word. I would draw a blank and become mentally paralyzed because I couldn’t remember what “that thing...that thing that’s cold...and holds food... and it’s in the kitchen, what is that called?!” People would patiently wait for me to remember the word...and then politely laugh it off the first time...but the second or third time in a five minute conversation proved too socially awkward for most people so they would then excuse themselves and walk away.  When conversations like that became my new norm, my confidence was rocked. So I made some personal rules about talking: I wouldn’t allow myself to speak to more than one person at a time; I wouldn’t go hang out with people; I quit answering my phone and I spent all my time outside of work alone in my room pretending not to be home so my roommates wouldn’t talk to me. If I couldn’t avoid groups of people I literally ended up with the flu because I was so scared of saying something wrong or embarrassing myself. Replaying socially embarrassing moments kept me awake for hours every night.  But I was safe in my own mind and no one could hurt me if I didn’t open my mouth. Kinda psycho in a recluse kinda way but I was scared...I was mentally hitting rock bottom.

Then a strange thing happened: a woman named Carole from my home church called me and left an intriguing message on my answering machine: she had had a dream about me and some guy I had never met and she wanted me to meet him.  When I finally worked up the courage to talk to her, she explained that she had dreamed that I was in church singing and this guy was acting in the church’s Easter play. Carole was really excited about him--he was a new, radical believer in Jesus. I was instantly disgusted--I didn’t want anything to do with some wussy-religious guy!  But then Carole almost apologetically explained this new convert, “he’s a little rough around the edges...” Rough around the edges!? I perked up...maybe he was corruptible! And because of that I agreed to drive two hours home to meet and go on one date with this “nice, christian boy”! Mooohahaha!

Luckily for me, my life was about to change...

Come back next week for Part 2: Our Story!