When my mother died in 1992, I lost my greatest motivator and "emotional booster." Because we had always been so close, I felt as though a part of me died when she did. I took my 1993 bout with breast cancer more positively than most women do, but it drained me emotionally and physically nonetheless. I viewed this experience as a wake-up call from God that I was not going to live forever, and it was time to get my priorities straight. But this is always easier said than done.

Business problems in 1994 and a growing concern for my husband's failing health and my own declining physical energy wore me down even more. A September vacation helped, but it wasn't enough. For the first time in my life, I lacked confidence and a sense of direction about what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I felt tired, restless, insecure and totally burned out, a woman whose previous ambition and spirit had fled.

In talking about my life and problems with a good friend and professional writer, she softly suggested, "Have you tried praying? To get help, you must ask for it." Then she told me how her life and success as an author had turned around when she began to give God some special time every morning.

I thought about that for a while and suddenly realized that throughout my life I had taken great pride in the fact that I could always "do it myself." I had always been so self-sufficient that I had never considered asked anyone for help, even when I needed it. Certainly I'd never thought of asking God for help because He was surely too busy with the important things of the world to be concerned about my little problems.

I hung on until one night in late November. Unable to sleep because of all my worries, I got down on my knees in the bathroom and prayed ardently to God for the first time in thirty years. I said, "Lord, I really need some help here!" Then I told Him in detail what was bothering me and asked Him to give me strength, courage, and guidance. Exhausted and emotionally wrung out, I went back to bed. I didn't really expect anything, but my prayer must have given me peace because I fell asleep at once.

My husband and I had always been restless sleepers, so we each had a radio with an earplug on our bedside stands. For years I had put myself to sleep with soft music or a talk show and, in the middle of the night, I'd often amuse myself by listening to old movies on the radio's television track. But something unusual happened the next night after I prayed. I awoke in the wee hours of the morning with the strangest feeling about the radio—that there was something I was supposed to hear.

I started at one end of the dial and, for the first time ever, stopped on Chicago's 24-hour Christian talk station, WYLL. I heard a message of hope that I needed to hear, and for several nights thereafter, I would awake at different hours of the night between midnight and 7:00 a.m. and turn on the radio. I know God was controlling this because I always woke exactly on the hour or half-hour, just in time to catch another new preacher I'd never heard before, one whose message I needed to hear just then.

One morning in early December, God woke me up exactly at 6:30 to hear Greg Laurie preach. By the time he neared the end of his powerful sermon, I was awash in tears, and when I was invited to pray with Pastor Laurie, confess my sins and invite Jesus into my heart, I said the "sinner's prayer" that changed my life overnight. Meanwhile, my husband snored on, completely oblivious to what had just happened.

I had heard about "born-again Christians" all my life, but I never imagined I would be one. Now that I am, I know a kind of joy, peace, and contentment I could not have imagined before I was saved. This verse in the Bible clearly explains the change that occurs when we invite Christ to come into our hearts:

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Looking Back and Forward

It has been more than a decade since I wrote the above message, and I’ve learned a great deal since then about the difficulties and joys of turning one’s life over to Christ. As a home-business writer and teacher for the past thirty-five years, my goal has always been to help people succeed in a business of their own, and I've always used my own experiences (failures as well as successes) as teaching examples. Once I had learned life's most important and precious secret, it wasn’t something I could keep to myself. I very quickly felt compelled to carry my teaching forward to a new area of life, one that is far more important than business. I’ve been doing this for some time by sharing my testimony with individuals one at a time, and by speaking of my faith in my books, in my speaking engagements, and on my personal domain on the Web.

Now I have expanded my Christian presence on the Web with this "branch office for Christ" here on  KnightforChrist.com. This will be the home for some of my Christian writing until God decides He is through with me and calls me to my real home in Heaven. And what a comfort it is to know that, in Christ, I have eternal life, and a reservation in Heaven!

"In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am" (John 14: 2-4).

Perhaps God is testing you right now. Maybe He has just dropped a major life challenge in your lap that you don't know how to handle, or maybe it’s a personal or business problem that seems overwhelming, or a desperate financial situation. Maybe you’re ill, or have the heavy burden of caring for a loved one who is ill or dying. Perhaps you’ve just lost someone you loved very much, or maybe you just feel lost, without any real direction or purpose in life, still searching for something to fill that troublesome VOID in your life. Or maybe you've always known what I now know, but haven’t been giving God much of your attention lately. Whatever your present situation, I pray that God will use the words in this document for his good purpose.

Be sure to explore all the links on this page of the KFCMinistry site because it will acquaint you with the various radio ministries God led me to (including the two pastors mentioned above). I urge you to try to find their programs on your local Christian radio and television stations. Each helped me enormously as I began my Christian walk, and I continue to get spiritual encouragement whenever I listen to any of their programs today. I know they would be an inspiration to anyone who is seeking a closer connection to God, whether new or old in their faith.