or was it nine years before that?

Everything happened in nines and sevens leading up to my calling, and these are very important numbers throughout the Bible. But only one of the many signs that I missed at first.

First my parents died within two days of each other, drawing me even closer to God as I needed a parent, and that special love. Nine years later, there was a fire that took away all my worldly goods except my music equipment! I did take this as a sign, and decided to pick up my cross and follow Jesus. He knew what I loved best was music, singing and writing songs, so I started a music ministry.
 
But that wasn't what God had planned for me. He only used my music to communicate with me! (I make this sound so matter of fact, but actually it took me years to put this all together!)  Just five weeks after the fire, and two weeks after my youngest son Destin and I visited Estes Park Colorado for a music ministry seminar,  Something much worse happened! My oldest son Travis was in a near fatal car wreck!

Doctors told me he was comatose and would die in less than 48 hours or be a vegetable for the rest of his life. He was only twenty years old. They wanted me to think of what parts of his body I would donate in case his death came, as if that would be the best thing for everyone!

Body parts? What about his soul? What about his wonderful spirit? The Travis everyone loved? Who would get that? Then suddenly it hit me! What if he is confused about Jesus? Is he going to be saved? My husband's religious beliefs were different than mine. Was he really going to hell because he had never been baptized? I raised him to love God, but what about Jesus? Did my son really understand Jesus? Did he know Him? Was this my fault by not raising him in a church?

Help me God! What about this? What do I do? Is it true we are only saved through the blood of Jesus? What if he doesn't know? What will happen to him? My fear had me frantic to find a Pastor who would dedicate my son to the love of Jesus Christ!Wow! Was I really talking like this? Thinking like this? It felt weird! Who was I? A very scared mother. They say we always turn to God in tradgedy. But Travis could be scared, confused about the coma, and whether he was going to Heaven or not!"

Help me! Please God, help my son!

It wasn't easy, but I did find a pastor to Christen him while he was in ICU. Come to find out this same pastor told me that Travis had come to him to be baptized, but he told him he had to sign up for classes first!  CLASSES! I was near outrage! The man was ready to profess that Jesus was His savior and he still needed CLASSES?

I felt lucky just to talk him into Christening him like a baby. It was enough for Travis, because the only thing that had moved on his body in 48 hours, was the breathing machine that raised and lowered his chest. We gathered around him with his closest friends and family. At the end of the Christening ceremony we recited the 23rd Psalm... and Travis drew his leg up and raised his knee in the bed! He heard us!

The nurse did tell me later that their hearing was the last thing to go. This was not as comforting of a thought as you would think. But I wrote him a song, and sang it in his ear every night. A song to let him know how much God loved him. Even more than me, which was hard to imagine.

When I was told to find him a nursing home, I had forgotten until I read it in the journal I was keeping, but that was the first time I completely broke down in tears in front of Travis many friends, and that was when I made the promise to God. I told God before that I would take my son any way, even as a vegetable, but I didn't really believe it was happening! 

It was obvious God was very present through all of this.  So this was when I promised God that if He gave me back my son, I would make sure more people knew about HIS! Thinking this would be through music ministry.

Then the miracles began. One after another. Just as it was time to find a nursing home,  something happened to give us card blanch in the U of M hosptial that gave us a private room with a cot for me beside Travis and all the time he needed to begin to heal. Praise God!

This mother got to watch her first born son relearn every life skill the second time in his life, it was truly amazing! My son Travis not only lived,  He went on to get his degree in college!

It was clear, I had a promise to keep! While my son was in college I worked to keep this promise. A few years into the clarity of what God wanted out of this promise, I was overwhelmed with HUGE ideas and many second thoughts! It was more than just singing a song now and then! It was more than just another music ministry.

I didn't go to church most of my life, but I loved God, and knew He did great things in my life. Not always good things, but things to wake me up and get my attention! Let's just say I learned a lot of lessons in life, and mostly as an entertainer!"

As my testimony goes, I thought I was supposed to write songs and sing with a music ministry for God... but one thing after another went wrong with that "asu

I ignored the vision. It was much bigger than anything I could ever handle.  But the vision continued to come everytime I sang the song, and it was the only song I could sing that I didn't have stage mishaps, music problems or forget the words to. As I said, the music ministry was NOT for me, and He showed me this, one miserable mishap after another!  I was clearly headed in the wrong direction. No one forgets the words to their own songs! But it never happened on the vision song!

With the Adult A.D.D. that I struggle with, I rarely ever finish projects, so my ten song CD project that I was scheduled to record in Nashville at the Trinity Broadcast Network studios, ended up being only nine songs. The ninth song was "Mary's Lamb." ( For the casettes, a song had to be eliminated to make the tape even on each side... but it was song eight, not nine.) There is that nine sign again! 

It took many signs to get me to see and hear what He wanted me to.  I just kept having this huge vision of a very popular little lamb all over school supplies in public schools all across the country, and saw him everywhere else, too.  He gave me the vision when I wrote this song.  The song is about how we need to let the "Lamb of God" follow you to school (regardless of the rules) written with all the children in mind who have been sadly shot and killed in our schools. Taken in "the blink of an eye."

The recording of the song came out very nice. It even sounds like a children's song.

I was on my way home from a fair booking in Oklahoma that had been rained out, when it all dawned on me.  I must admit taking a back road and ending up passing a sheep ranch with a sign that read "new lambs" and a highway named for a fallen officer by the last name of Lamb, probably helped the epiphony.  And then there was the new daycare near me that was called "Precious Lambs Daycare" that also cinched it! I was going the wrong direction with my ministry!

I had recently taken a job with a teddy bear factory to teach them how to screen print their own transfers for their bear clothing and one day I printed up a little sweatshirt and put it on a bear.  It said; "I'd rather be a lamb!"  Hmmm.  This made me think.  Do you know in one year alone American spent over $400,000,000.00 (400 million) collecting teddy bears?  This left me with the idea that just maybe a lamb could do the same thing. I mean everyone loves a hero, and the teddy bear was originally named after Teddy Roosevelt when his big heart led him to free a small bear from a trap on his hunting trip. There was more to it than that, but my thought was that Jesus was the biggest hero in the world! Why shouldn't He have such a representative, too? Which began my long obsessive collection with every kind of lamb I could find. I even went to fiber festivals and learned to work with real lamb's wool! I was taken with the Lamb!

Getting back to the story, I ended up walking out on my job because I felt like I might be printing shirts that were being taken out the back door (long story) among many other things going on there... lets just say I learned how NOT to let your employees take advantage of you.  When I tried to do the right thing and tell the owners what happened and why I left, it looked as though someone I made the mistake of confiding in, even stold US mail to stop me! Clearly it was a lesson in how the world was getting worse around me... and I wanted so badly to do something about it.

I really needed that job, as my husband had congestive heart failure and was retiring early. I had to work. I cried all the way home. That is until I drove by something I had never noticed before. It was a little farm and along the fence were sheep! They were all watching me go by like I was a parade of good news!  Once my husband understood why I left the job, I felt a new strength come over me. I saw the lamb in my head again and immediately sat down to the computer to draw him. The first one was kinda ugly... but the second one! He was it! That was the lamb I saw in the vision! Then I thought of the teddy bear in the lamb sweatshirt, and I asked my husband to buy me a sewing machine that embroidered. He wasn't very quick to say yes, since we both knew I couldn't sew. But he did.

I could find no patterns at that time for lambs, so I had to used a teddy bear pattern and design my own hooves. I took apart a stuffed lamb I had in my collection and used the pieces to make a pattern. Then I drew and learned how to digitize the embroidery for the very important heart-shaped patch on his chest. This was the secret sign of the fish that I saw on the lamb in my vision!

Okay. I had the cartoon character and I had the plush design that children would love to cuddle and love... but how was I going to make this lamb popular so people would buy him? I already knew these steps had to come first in order to have children love him enough to want to carry him everywhere... even to school on school supplies!

I prayed. Was this right? Am I doing what You want? And then I first heard the name to give him. His name would be J.C. Lamb! A wonderful name for a representative of Jesus Christ! Wow! This little guy was going to represent and remind everyone of our Savior! Everywhere you go... he would be there wearing a T-shirt or something that had a verse on it that would make us know who he was and what he represented! The gentle love of Jesus! How COOL!

His motto became; "Following Believers Everywhere they Go!"

But Why me? Why not someone who was raised in the church? Why not someone who knew more about Jesus than I did? I had SO much to learn. I just kept asking "why me?" and finally I heard the answer!

"Who better to teach the unchurched than the unchurched?"

Unchurched? When I typed it, the dictionary didn't even know the word! But I never asked Him again. I just prayed for more guidance as the months turned into years since the time I first made my promise to Him.

How do you "hear" God? You might ask. You learn to listen with your heart and see with your mind.  I had been through so much in my life, that I learned to just close my eyes and communicate with Him by clearing my mind and taking the first thing that came to me. Then ask for signs or look for signs to know it was Him. I seemed to start waking at exactly 4:44 am. At that time I would get ideas. The lamb's name came to me this way, as did the entire storyline for the book.

I quit asking God why, and just started doing all I could to educate myself. But I still didn't know how to make the lamb popular enough to make this plan of God's work. There was only one way to get mass attention that I knew of.  The next thing I knew, I was writing a book! I wasn't a writer. I tried it, but my grammar was so bad and my spelling worse, so I gave it up. But for some reason, here I was again. But now they had programs to help me. I had all kinds of negative thoughts. Like an unknown writer can really reach enough people? Right.  But I pressed on, knowing that all things are possible with God.  He gave me a personality for the lamb that I knew couldn't have come from me! An sometimes invisable lamb that has a heart that talks all by itself? Amazing! It wasn't long, and I was designing a heart-shaped recorder to go inside the plush lamb I made. That was fun. But writing a book? A children's book would need illustrations. I liked to draw, but I wasn't an inllustrator. But I did as I was told.

Lets say I have a new respect for Authors and their publishers! It was the hardest thing I ever did. I studied and researched until I couldn't sleep without changing this and questioning that. It was much more than just a hook at the beginning, a climax in the middle and a good ending! SO much more! It was the hardest thing I have ever tried to do in my entire life! I prayed for help.

God led me to Dr. Kerby Fanin and his wonderful Bible study in my own little town. The prayers that have been answered at their "Word of Promise" Bible study and church was amazing! I had to know what was different. I noticed right away that substituted "Yahweh" for the title "Lord" when we read the Bible, and "Yahshua" for Jesus. They also prayed in the true name of God and His Son.

This is where the meat of the book came from. It went from a small storybook to a huge educational novel! It went from a cute little story to what some may say could be controversial!!

The more I learned the bigger it got! And I barely knew how to use a word processing program! It was a nightmare trying to format so many chapters and pages. With one problem after another, I had to stay away from my Bible study and church until I got it finished. It was time to listen to God and dedicate my every minute to this project with no more changes!

I struggled with every word and the stress took it's toll on my health.  I had some kind of an attack and cried, begging God to let me finish the book before I died! After one $2000.00 afternoon in the emergency room (I have no insurance) to find out I had Diabetes and high blood pressure, I worked harder on the book.  I was scared  since my grandmother had lost both her legs from Diabetes. This too would pass!

The illustrations were a breath of fresh air. They went smooth. So did the cover design. Finally it was complete. My Editor loved it, and the publishing process began. I made the deadline of 07-07-07, but it was only a rough draft. There were still revisions to make. I wanted to quit so many times, but my son Travis seemed to pick me up again and give me the energy to press on.  I loved God. But many times I apologized to Him and said I just don't think I can do this. It is just too much. Why can't I just sing?

"You can't quit your calling, mom" Travis would say.  He was right. This was my calling. No one says your calling is going to be easy. After all, God gave me the talents and He was calling each and every one of them for this project. I think He even likes the ventriloquism singing I've started for a way to relax!

Now it has been nine years. The book is finished (as far as I know) and it will be in hand by Easter 2008 in both paperback and a limited edition hardback. The lamb is in the manufacturing process to arrive by Christmas. A full line of  school supplies and LambLines collectibles will be out in 2009. There's that number again!

So, how do I know this all God's call for me?

 
Because this all started when my first born son was run off the road, crashing his car into a CHURCH!
 
  
That was our first sign. He was in God's hands from the beginning.

Travis' accident and my promise were all planned. 

                                                  My son was a sacrifice!