When I started out, it seemed like all hell broke loose in my life. My son left home and began to get in trouble, my car died, I had one financial situation after another, and some of my closest friends berated, bullied, and betrayed me. Even a few ministry leaders were a part of that wolf pack. I was all alone in the world, so my church family was the only family I had. So to be treated badly by anyone in the church was devastating to me. A couple of people even told me that they were treating me badly to help to make me strong. How insane! My abusive mother had told me the same thing. If it hadn’t been for the Lord, I would not have made it through that season alive. But God is so faithful! He also gave me some true friends. He opened some amazing doors. And He also gave me an inexplicable inner joy and peace that caused me to ignore the bullies and continue to press forward, no matter what happened. I’ll never forget what He told me. “If you let anything start stopping you, it will never stop stopping you. So don’t let it start.”
I was heading up the women’s ministry at my church, and it was flourishing in spite of all the other things that were going on. Two church women went to my pastor and told him lies about it and me, and had it taken out from under me and given to them. They had never even been to one of my meetings. As I was feeling sorry for myself, the Lord came to me. He told me, “What they are doing will not flourish, but let it go. It’s one small church ministry. I will give to you the nation.” He reminded me of the saying, “If you let go of what’s in your hand, I’ll give you what’s in mine.” Within a short time, I was traveling everywhere and taking women’s ministry teams with me. And very soon, I began to hold large conferences for women in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, where 1600 to 1800 women would come from all over the nation and the world. We couldn’t stop women from registering! Consequently, we had to move to Charlotte‘s largest conference venue.
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