Sister 2 Sister Stories

A Naomi Story:

When I came to Sister2Sister, I thought that I was there to offer my story, and offer other women a life that could give them hope. I also wanted to help them cross whatever bridges they needed in order to have relationships that would encourage them and strengthen their faith. What I found was so unexpected…an answer to years of prayer.

You see, my mother told me several years ago that she just felt too guilty to talk to me, and then stopped. Our relationship had culminated to that point over the last twenty years. I had just had my third child, and was hoping that she would come to see her. She had made it more and more known that I didn't have a place in her life. My father had committed suicide when I was almost eight. Because my mother had isolated me from my family, and I had no siblings with who I had grown up with, I really had no family other than my husband and children. So, I felt alone.

I tried to forge relationships in the church, but there really didn't seem to be a place to just dump my heart. I didn't need advice, I needed a friend. I needed somewhere that I could be honest, and where I would not burden others with the dramatic details of my life or the depth of my sin.

At Sister2Sister, the women weren't shocked and they didn't pretend to have all the answers. They just offered to pray with me and to be my friend. And that was what I needed. These women may have known me for only a short time, but they know me intimately and I don't have to pretend. I can be myself; I can be a broken vessel and not hide my disfigurement. Women coming in as Naomis know that I have been in the ugliness of sin and that I still fight to free myself from its shackles. But it is a fight, not a surrender, and the Lords has and continues to deliver me, growing me one grace at a time. Where I have been delivered, or witnessed others delivered, is where my testimony is. As Naomis, we have been through the muck and the mire, and we have been able to make it through by the grace of God. But as we move on to new phases in our lives, God has called us to walk with those who are still in it or working to move through in – the Ruths.

Strangely, in this journey, we find ourselves in one moment the Naomi, and in the next we are the Ruth. Thank God we are His, and one is not of more value than the other. He has given each of us a unique story to tell.

A Ruth Story:

Terry become involved in Sister2Sister through her daughter, being pregnant and still in high school, who came in as a Ruth. Through walking with her daughter, we were able to get to know Terry, who shared her extraordinary life with us.

Terry had grown up in the Catholic Church. After having become pregnant at fourteen herself, her priest urged her to have an abortion. She left the church then, but her faithful grandmother prayed her back into the faith. Terry later married a minister, though that relationship left her wounded and she went into a backslide for several years.

She had set the Lord aside, but being at Sister2Sister with her daughter made her realize what she had been missing. She is now a member of The Village Church and has since experienced deliverance and blessings beyond what she could have ever asked for. We thank God for the blessing of her presence and her faith and for ministering to us by taking the time to share with us in us in Sister2Sister.