Unlikely Candidate

I felt like such an unlikely candidate to be inspiring women to record the stories of their faith.  Years of grief over my family combined with the onset of menopause had taken their toll. My personal faith was at an all time low.  I had given up on the promises of God!  I would look back over old journal entries and insightful notes written during Church or Bible College and wonder who that person was. Some mornings I was so depressed that I would turn on the television, watch the morning news programs and still be sitting there hours later as Larry Lawnmower scrolled before my eyes!

 

Zach was deteriorating further ... I was beginning to have concerns about his mental health. The crunch came in March 2011. He rang in tears saying he was confused, suicidal and didn’t know who he was anymore.

The first night I invited Zach to come back to church with me, I wasn’t sure we’d even make it! By the time he actually got in the car, we were running 20 minutes late, ...then he broke down as we sat in the driveway. He was crying, yelling and swearing ... asking what was going on. 

 

I said “We’re going to church Zach” and slowly backed out of the driveway. Before we hit the highway, he started again. I pulled over to try and calm him down. More crying, more yelling, more swearing. I said ‘It’s like this Zach, we are either going to church or we are going to the hospital’ and we headed off again. I may have sounded confident, but I was very aware that once we were on the highway this situation could become dangerous. 

 

I’d like to say his life changed that night, but he had a way to go yet.    He told me later that he was paranoid and was thinking people at the church would kill him. He made no sense at all and at times when he was talking I couldn’t stop the tears rolling down my face ... I thought he had lost his mind! He would go from talking non-stop to not talking at all for weeks ... He was sad ... He was angry ... He was scary.

 

It was in the middle of this that God tapped me on the shoulder ... "Remember those Faithbooks ... I asked you to take them to the Queensland Women's Conference!"  What?  Conference 2011 was six weeks away ... I wasn't even going to the conference ... I didn't even have any Faithbooks ... I didn't want to leave Zach!