I'm grateful that God never gave up on me; that He never decided that I was a "lost cause". Let me explain; I will use many songs to do this.
I was born
and raised in Colombia, South America, by Lutheran missionaries Arlene and Viesturs Pavasars. I was baptized when I was about a month old and my parents were faithful to read the Bible to me, take me to Sunday School where I learned
a lot of Bible verses and Christian childrens songs, have devotionals with my brothers and I every night when we read Bible stories, sang Christian songs in English and Latvian, and prayed together before going to bed, and made sure I went with them to church
every Sunday. I confirmed my faith in the Our Redeemer ("El Redentor") Lutheran church in Bogota, Colombia, when I was 15. I never drank, smoked or had sex before I married in 1995.
Then,
in December of 1997, my husband left me for another woman and asked for a divorce. I was devastated. I then started questioning everything my parents had taught me and what I had learned in church as I grew up. I still did not drink much nor smoked at all
because it just didn't make me feel good, but I did decide that sex outside of marriage was perfectly fine; I was looking for love in all the wrong places and got badly hurt emotionally and physically.
Finally, out of desperation, I cried out to God, and I felt like he responded to me with the words in this song sung by "Tenth Avenue": "By Your Side"
I started to realize the immense love that God had for me. That He would be there for me. That everything
would be okay. That I needed to stop fighting Him and doing things my way.
Then God reminded me "I was there to here your borning cry, I'll be there when you are old; I rejoiced the
day you were baptized to see your life unfold." Yes, in a blaze of light I had wandered off "to find where demons live", yet He reminded me that He was still there for me; that I was raised to praise the living Lord, to whom I belonged. You can listen to all
the words of this beautiful song by clicking here: "Borning Cry"
I responded with gratefulness as He reminded me of His great faithfulness. This hymn was my song to Him: "Great is Thy Faithfulness"
Still a lot happened in my life.... I had a baby out of wedlock and had to work from the
time my baby, Emmanuel David was just 6 weeks old. I was still addicted to sex and had and affair with a man that was married, though I honestly only wanted a friendship with him; I was tempted and fell into temptation, instead
of running to God to help me resist temptation. I left that place of work after a year of working there and ended up at the place where I met my current husband - Dana Hayden. He was the person who had come to fix the air conditioning, and, though I wasn't
initially attracted to him, as he was to me, we ended up getting married 9 months later.
I was able to stay home with my almost-3-year-old son and not have to leave him anymore during
the day in order to get the money to pay the monthly bills. I became a stay at home, but not only to him, but to Dana's 2 sons, who were 9 and 11 at the time. A year later, we also had a baby girl; she never had to be left with a babysitter, and for that I
will always be grateful.
As time went by, my love for God grew more. My desire to study His Word and learn His ways has deepened
with every passing day. My greatest desire is to serve Him and become more like Him every day. I know without a shadow of doubt that "He who began a good work in me WILL complete it", as it says in Philippians 1:6. I know that it's only by God's grace that
I have been saved, through faith in Jesus Christ; nothing that I have done nor can do can save me so that I may never boast, as it says in Ephesians 2:8-9. However, I desire to grow and be more like Him every day simply out of gratitude for all that He has
done for me. He has always watched over me, protected me, and loved me with an unconditional love; He has forgiven me so much and has never decided I was a "lost cause", so how can I not love Him back?
I want to be like Him; I want the fruit of His Holy Spirit to be manifested through me so that others will desire to come to Him and be transformed and well. I want others to know how much He loves them as well, and how He accepts them and
will never rule them as a lost cause either, regardless of what they have done in their life.