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01.  Introduction

My husband Rudy says that he thinks I was a Christian in utero. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know that all of my life I believed in the power of God. When I was a little girl at my grandmother’s house, she would tuck us in at night in this huge bed, and she would lead us in prayer. There, I began to establish a sense of the fact there is a God out there.

Because of the kind of kid I was—very compliant—I assumed that I had found God. I found God in Vacation Bible School with the rules that said, “Don’t chew gum in here.” I found God when I wanted to join the choir, and they said, “You’ve got to be baptized first; that’s the rule.” And then, of course, ultimately, I found God in the big rules—the Ten Commandments. Real rules of what it means to be a Christian. This God was crafted around rules that filled the imagination of a little girl who wanted to be a “good” girl, who wanted not to break rules. I lived for quite a while with that God that I found. I shared that God with my husband, who married me in 1985. In 1990, he accepted Christ. He says he was a late bloomer. In 1991, he accepted his call to ministry. And I accepted mine.

1n 1992, we found ourselves literally stepping onto the corner of Crawford and Gray Streets in Houston, where we would become pastors to seven people who were holding the church down until reinforcements could come. When we walked onto the campus, we literally had to step over homeless men and women who were sleeping in the doorway. I remember God clearly saying, “This is your ministry.”

Our church grew. Really grew! By 1999, we had three thousand members. We provided six thousand meals per month to the homeless community in and around downtown Houston. We were providing showers and laundry and social service referrals. We were doing what Matthew 25 said to do—meeting the needs of the “least of these.” It was awesome!

My addiction didn’t flare up until around that time: this addiction I have to rules, to performance, to needing other people’s approval and acceptance. It really kind of flared up in a major way—like fireworks on the Fourth of July. I remember waking up one morning, August 27, 1999; I’ll never forget it. For thirty-eight years I had lived with the God that I had found. That morning I got up, and I did what I did every morning. I prepared breakfast and called everybody in: “Morgan, Ryan, Rudy, let’s eat. Breakfast’s out!” They all came to the table, and we ate breakfast together, which is always a big deal in our home. That day, Rudy said, “Do you want me to take the girls to school so you can take a few minutes for yourself this morning?”

Maybe he sensed something. I said, “Hey, that’s great! That way I don’t have to drive and put on my makeup at the same time!” (Come on, I’m not the only one.) So I stood at the mirror, and I began to apply my mascara and got hit, all of a sudden, with a wave of nausea that stopped everything. I began to feel horrible with some kind of flu-like symptoms. Maybe I had moved too fast that morning; that wasn’t uncommon. But the wave didn’t move. It wasn’t feeling like it was going to go away anytime soon. I called the office, and I told our administrative assistant that I needed her help to reschedule my morning appointment because I wasn’t feeling well. I thought if I lay back down for a couple hours, I would probably be able to come in at around noon or so. She graciously said she would.

I hung up the phone, and as though I was watching a movie of my own life, I saw myself pick up the phone again. I heard myself say, “I’m not coming in. I don’t know when I’ll be in. I’m taking a leave of absence or a medical leave or something. I don’t know what I’m doing.” Then I saw and heard myself hang up the phone.