July 03rd, 2019

How A Search For Ice Cream Saved My Life
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Hey Hey Hey!!

So you may be asking how searching for ice cream can save someone's life. Well it's kind of a cool story of how God answers prayer. I have several blog posts where I mention my friend Elizabeth and how God sent her to me. This is the story of how this all came about.

Back in the summer of 2002 I’m existing in life but it is a hot mess. I’m miserable, alcoholic, angry, depressed and filled with anxiety almost all the time. I live in the past, suffer from PTSD, have flashbacks and hate my life and myself. I’m at this point incapable of living life on a daily basis. I couldn’t look at myself eye to eye in the mirror because I hated who looked back at me. I was working part time at a small country store in the town I lived in at the time and I was absolutely miserable with a big old phony smile on my face.

Let’s start with my prayer. One night I was at my wits end, probably drinking and had had enough. I was laying on the floor of my bathroom in the fetal position crying out to God, who I didn’t have much faith in, and begged him to give me the courage to kill myself or please show me how to get up everyday and live life. I laid on the floor contemplating the knives in the kitchen but, as you can see, I didn’t have it in me to follow through. 

Elizabeth’s prayer. In a town close by Elizabeth was on the hunt for ice cream. Friendly’s was right up the road but something in her was pushing her for some good old fashioned homemade ice cream. She prayed, searched and asked people if they knew of a place that served this particular ice cream. Finally someone suggested a country store in the next town over. They told her where it was and how it had homemade ice cream served in an old fashioned setting. So off she went with her husband and three children to have ice cream.

So I’m at work behind the counter and her husband came in first. I checked him out, because let’s be honest I was always looking for someone to save me, and Elizabeth was right behind him. Almost immediately I felt a connection to this family. There was something about them that I was drawn to and I didn’t really know why. Them coming for ice cream became a regular event and I loved when they came in. There was a peace I felt when I was around this family. Their kids were very young and I had a new digital camera so I asked if I could take pictures of them. Elizabeth then asked if I could email her the pictures and handed me a business card to send them to. Have you ever had someone show you something and you try not to show any emotion or shock by what you see? I took the card and look at it and it says Believe in the Truth Ministries. I’m like um, oh, ya thats cool. Elizabeth said check out the website and that her testimony was on there if I wanted to read it and just send the pics to the email on the card. 

As uncomfortable as I felt when I read the card I knew now why I felt the connection. I didn’t know it right away but God had answered my prayer and was going to take me on a journey of healing and He was using Elizabeth to walk and guide me through it. Over the next few months though we lost contact somehow. I lost their card and went to my winter job and wonderfully my life that already sucked and I thought couldn’t get worse did. I think it was October to March before I saw them again at the ski area I cooked at. I was so excited to see her again and had a question for her. I sat with her on my break and stuttered nervously and asked if maybe I could go to church with them. She, with her perky personality, said sure you can come this Sunday. I was like oh, um, I wasn’t thinking that quick but ah okay. I went to church that Sunday, and honestly it was a last resort for me, and I became born again. 

It for me really was my last resort. I had tried everything out there to be normal. I lived always believing there was something wrong with me and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Why couldn’t I be normal and make my head stop and let things go and stop drinking my pain away? Over the next couple years I was like a puppy following this family around to all kinds of church functions. They travelled to places and I sit in the back with the kids who honestly were a great distraction for me because I was so filled with fear everywhere I went. I would hold Elizabeth’s daughter on my lap so I didn’t have to stand and sing. I watched in awe and wonder how happy people looked. It was so foreign to me because in the circles I hung in people were always partying and miserable. 

It was a gradual process for me over the first several years. I had trust issues and addiction issues I wasn’t willing to really give over to God. I fell down often but I always got back up. There was something in me now that wasn’t going to let go of me until He finished what He started. Jesus had me hook, line, and sinker. He fished me out of the depths of my misery and brought me on a journey of healing that changed my life forever. As for Elizabeth we are still great friends today. This woman has stood by me and supported me through all the times I fell. She never judged or stopped loving me even when times would get bad for me again. I gave her a run for her money for sure at times. She is truly a friend.

My funny story to wrap this up. I am pretty much a tomboy kind of person. I like playing and watching sports, I don’t wear makeup, people call me sir on the phone and I’m a jeans and a t-shirt dresser. Elizabeth is this tiny little thing, doesn’t leave the house without makeup with this squeaky voice and perky personality all dressed up for the occasion. In a normal setting she was everything I wanted to be like and everything I hated if that makes sense. I would not have picked her for a friend because she would have irritated me to death and she would not have picked me. We share when we speak together about how if you pray for God to send you someone don’t turn them away because it's not who you would have picked. If I waited for someone to come that was of my liking I’d still be out there waiting. 

Be blessed and be careful what you ask for you just might get it. 



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