As a child, I was raised on the island of Oahu in a home where we went to church regularly, and I attended a religious school. However, we were taught that we could not talk directly to God. Instead, our forgiveness was supposed to come from confessing to a priest and saying memorized prayers. My first recollection of talking to God myself was when I was thirteen years old. I had been stealing from my mother, who was an alcoholic. One day as I was sitting in church, I asked God to stop my stealing, and I never stole another thing after that. When I was nineteen, I told a priest about this experience, and he said, “That’s not possible.” I replied that it had happened to me, and I had not stolen for years. Since he continued to maintain that such a thing was impossible, I walked out of that church and never went back.

Our home was a miserable place full of hate, bitterness, and fighting. I had a vile temper and the hatred in my own heart caused many of the problems. I wanted a way out, and one time I remember looking up into the sky and thinking, God, what am I here for? What is the purpose for living?

Shortly after that, the young man I had been dating became a Christian, and he told me about it. I didn’t understand what he meant when he said he had been saved, but I could see that he was different. The change I saw in him prompted me to ask what church he attended. He invited me to attend, and when I went to a service, it was different from anything I had ever known. At the end of the sermon, the minister said, “Will you see Heaven?” It seemed as if he looked right at me when he said it. I knew I was not going to Heaven, but I wanted to. I wanted to be friends with Jesus, but I didn't know how.

After the service, people went to the front of the church to pray. They asked if I wanted to pray too, so I went, expecting to hear others pray the memorized prayer I was accustomed to. Instead, the lady beside me talked to God as if they were friends, and she prayed for me. What a surprise!

For two weeks I went to that little church. During that time my mind was in turmoil, and I could hardly sleep. I wondered if God could love me, or if He would reject me because I was so bad. One Sunday morning after the service, I knelt and prayed. The only thing I could say to God was, “Can You love me just the way I am and do something for me?” God saw my heart and He changed it. When I got up from my knees, I was so happy! It seemed as if I couldn’t contain the happiness that was inside me.

Although I had hated my mother for years, she was the first person I wanted to see. She was in the hospital and hadn’t seen me for seven or eight months, and she had no idea that I had been going to church. Yet when I walked into her hospital room, she called the nurses and said, “Look at what God has done! He has given my daughter back to me!” I had not yet said even one word to her. At that point I hugged and kissed her and told her that I loved her. She smiled and said, “I know you do.” Then she said, “Now, tell these nurses what God has done for you.” So even though I had been a Christian for less than one hour, I gave my first testimony. After the nurses left, I asked my mom how she knew God had done something for me. She said, “You smiled from ear to ear, and you were standing up straight. You look different than I have ever seen you, and I knew it could only have been God.”

As the weeks went by and I continued to serve God, I began to learn how much He cared for me and that He could work in every area of my life. Once, severe cold sores developed all over my mouth and I could not eat. They got so bad that my boss sent me home from work and told me to stay there until they were gone. At church that night the pastor asked me, “Did you ever think of praying about those?” I replied that God was not interested in them. He said, “God is interested, Gretchen. Just ask Him.”

Even though I had been a Christian for less than one hour, I gave my first testimony.

When I knelt, I said, “God, can You take away these cold sores?” I remember thinking that God might be angry with me for asking, so I told Him, “The pastor told me to ask You, but if You’re too busy, You don’t have to worry about them.” When I got up to leave, the pastor looked at me with a big smile and told me to go look in a mirror. My lips were perfectly well! There wasn’t a mark on my mouth—no scab, nothing. It was as if the cold sores had never been there. The pastor said to me, “You see, God is interested in you, Gretchen. He loves you and He is willing to take care of you.” The next day I was back at work, much to the surprise of my boss.

The people at church told me about sanctification. When I received it, I thought it was marvelous. That year I traveled from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Portland, Oregon, for the Apostolic Faith camp meeting. There I received the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

The Lord continued to bless my life in many ways. In time, I married a Christian man, and we started our family. When our first two children were still babies, they came down with a terrible skin disease. They had raw, open blisters and screamed every time we changed their diapers. The doctors had no idea what it was. Our daughter was just old enough to say, “Pray for me, pray harder!” I remember crying and saying, “God, can You just touch them? Can You do something for them?” This went on for a month, and finally one Saturday night, my husband and I consecrated our children to God. We told Him that if He wanted to take them, He could, but if He was going to heal them, to please do so. On Sunday morning I went in to get our daughter ready for church. As I took off her diaper, I saw that her skin was perfectly normal. The doctor had told me just the day before that if the sores ever healed up, they would leave deep scars, but there was no mark. I grabbed our son and pulled off his diaper, but his sores were still there. We cried out to God again, and the next day his sores were gone as well. This caused my faith to soar.

As the years went by, God undertook in our lives in so many situations. For a time, I had a real fear of being alone. Whenever my husband was gone, I was tormented by anxiety. I would push the couch in front of the door and then try to wake up early in the morning and push it back before the children were up so they would not know how afraid I was. I didn’t want them to grow up with the same fear, but they knew that I was afraid. In 1980, we moved from Hawaii to Grants Pass, Oregon, and my husband had to work out of town. I knew he would be gone all week and home only on weekends. There was no way I could live in such fear week after week, so I prayed earnestly to the Lord. He gave me the verses in Isaiah 41:10-13, and I held onto that assurance of His presence as a promise. My husband worked out of town for almost two years after that, but I was never afraid again.

Over and over, I have seen God undertake for our children. It pays for parents to pray. When our son was eighteen, he nearly had a disastrous accident. He was out that evening, and when he hadn’t returned home by one o’clock in the morning, I was very concerned. I prayed earnestly that God would take care of him wherever he was and whatever he was doing. Eventually he did come home, and the next morning he asked me, “You were praying for me last night, weren’t you?” I said, “Yes, I was.” He responded, “Well, I knew it, because God took care of me.” He had fallen asleep at the wheel, and when he woke up, he was headed off the edge of the road toward a huge drop off. Thank God, he woke up in time to get his truck back on the road. Incidents like that make me thankful we can pray and receive answers from God.

God has been so good to us. He has given my husband work when there was no work available, and we've received money when funds were tight. If our children were sick or having problems at school, we prayed about it and told them to pray. When they did, God answered. It has been wonderful to serve God! As I consider what my life could have been, I am so thankful for what God has done for me. My parents had been married nineteen years and were in the process of getting a divorce when my mother died. She was only forty-six years old. I am forty-six now and have been married for twenty-five years. God is the reason for that!

No one could ask for anything better than serving the Lord, and my heart is full of praise for Him.