Jazzy's Story

Jazzy and John

Some people think they are stuck in their current circumstances because of their past or the way they were brought up, but with God there’s always a way out.

Oahu is a beautiful island on which to be born and raised.  An idyllic place with year-round perfect weather, breathtaking mountain vistas, and a crystal-clear expanse of ocean can sometimes be a misleading backdrop to a life filled with many unpleasant circumstances.

Jazzarene (“Jazzy”) was brought up in a broken home on that island and has 12 siblings who are not all from the same mother and father.  She and her older brother were mainly raised by their grandmother, who wanted them removed from an abusive home life.  Jazzy’s mother came from a place where there was a lot of witchcraft, and her father used drugs and alcohol.  When Jazzy was a child, her father’s weakness was other women and so his focus was more on them than Jazzy and her brother.  Even though her grandmother was an alcoholic, Jazzy was grateful because no matter what she was going through, her grandmother prayed for her and took her to church.  There were certain habits and cycles on her father’s side of the family that she and her brother were exposed to.  Jazzy got involved in drugs and alcohol at a young age.  She became very rebellious, hurt, and angry at both her mother and her father.  There had been a lot of trauma that was building. 

Jazzy’s father is remarried, and six of her siblings are from her stepmother.  Her other siblings are with a different father.  Just before middle school, Jazzy’s mom gave her life to the Lord and was attending a non-denominational church on the island.  Her mother left Jazzy’s younger siblings’ father, and that is when her relationship with her mother began to heal.  It was the same time that her mother was a victim of domestic violence, and the abuse was so severe that she had to get off of the island.  She prayed for all her children to be together and was miraculously blessed with seven tickets for Jazzy and her other siblings to move to the mainland with their mother.

The family had been safely removed from a threatening situation, but Jazzy was still dealing with dark issues from her past.  She was attending a good church in Texas and was already sensing God tugging on her heart.  Jazzy knew that God had spared her life when she almost died in a recent car accident.  It was then when Jazzy told her mother she wanted to change her life. 

Jazzy was doing well for a while and then fell back into an unhealthy lifestyle.  She was very promiscuous during this time in her life, still tempted by fleshly desires.  She got involved in a relationship with a drug dealer, and he started being physically abusive to her.  A month or two after knowing him was when she found out she was pregnant.  Jazzy was scared.  She literally screamed when she found out.  The baby’s father was on house arrest at the time and said he’d pay for an abortion because it wasn’t a good time to have a child.  She thought the only way she would be able to be safe and get away from him was if she had an abortion, but she didn’t want him to pay for it because she didn’t want any more ties to him.  She called and scheduled the appointment. 

She didn’t have money for the abortion, so she had to reach out to her mother and her aunt to help her.  She telephoned them.  They were pleading for Jazzy not to go through with it.   They prayed fervently for her.  Jazzy had a meltdown.  She couldn’t breathe from screaming and crying so hard.  It was at that moment that the demonic force that was lying to Jazzy, telling her to go through with the abortion, was lifted off of her.  Fogginess left her, and her mind cleared.  She knew she had to take care of her responsibility.  One of the things her aunt told her was that Jesus hates the shedding of innocent blood.  Jazzy felt Jesus crying through her aunt.  It was the first time in Jazzy’s life that she felt the presence of God so strong and tangible.  She repeated the salvation prayer with her aunt over the phone.  Jazzy also dedicated her baby to the Lord that day.  She said, “This baby will always be Yours; it will never be mine.  Please provide for us and make a way for us.  I don’t know what I’m doing.  I don’t know how to be a mom.”  When the abortion clinic called her about the appointment, she just hung up the phone.

 After that dedication to the Lord, the baby’s father supernaturally stopped calling and texting Jazzy.  Her entire pregnancy was peaceful with no contact from him.  The Lord shut that door for her.  Jazzy had prayed, “If he’s not the father who is going to love my baby, then please bring a man who’s going to be a true father and raise my child in the ways of God.  If he’s going to cause damage in my baby’s life, please remove him.  Don’t let him hurt my child.”  The Lord did just that through the duration of her pregnancy.

After Jazzy gave birth to her daughter, she was encouraged by others to give the father a chance to meet her.  She didn’t want to.  She was bound by fear.  It triggered some negative emotions in her, but she reluctantly texted a picture of her daughter to him.  It was followed by a phone call that didn’t turn out well.  Jazzy was angry and hurt, and the Lord told her that she had unforgiveness in her heart towards the baby’s father.  A couple of months later, she went to a revival meeting at her church, and she forgave him and started praying for his salvation.  It was then that the Lord healed her heart and lifted off all of that unforgiveness and pain.  The following month she saw the father of her baby on the news.  He had been shot and was murdered. 

Through that cleansing process of unforgiveness and dedication to the Lord, Jazzy vowed to remain sexually pure until the Lord brings her together with the husband and the true father of her daughter. 

When Avianna, her daughter, was three years old, Jazzy wasn’t looking to get involved in another relationship.  She was raising Avianna and was content with the Lord and with her life.  A friend from church was having a birthday party and invited Jazzy and her family along with some others from church to celebrate at Olive Garden.  At the restaurant, she was seated across the table from a man named John, and next to her and Avianna sat John’s brother and sister-in-law.  There was an instant connection between Avianna and John’s brother, Matt, which Jazzy found unusual because her daughter generally would not warm up to men as she would with women.  They all participated in some enjoyable conversation over dinner and then shared testimonies with one another.  That evening the group prayed for Matt and his wife because they had been trying to conceive for several years.  Matt said about Avianna that he was going to be at this little girl’s wedding someday.  John felt a connection and said that he believed that God was going to use their families for each other in some way.  Avianna went over to sit on John’s lap, and he carried her out of the restaurant when they all were leaving.  She was clinging to him and didn’t want to go back to Jazzy.  There was a strong bond quickly forming between Avianna and John.  Jazzy’s heart felt warm. 

They had another encounter about a week later, and she told John that the Lord spoke to her during her prayer time the night before, and so she shared that word from the Lord with him: “I know how long you’ve waited, but your wife is on the way, and there shall be holiness that rests on her, and you will know that she is Mine.”  When she declared this, her heart was saddened because she wondered who would be his wife.  She thought to herself, “Lord, I would desire to be this man’s wife.”  John felt led to pray for Jazzy.  He grabbed her hands, and she felt a warmth when they prayed together.   She sensed a connection between her spirit and his spirit.  He complimented her on how beautiful she looked.  She hadn’t felt any attraction to him before because he wasn’t her type.  He was just another brother in Christ to her.  But something was different this time.  Jazzy was confused by her feelings.  It was the opposite of how she felt towards him before.  She didn’t know why she was feeling this way all of a sudden.  Physically, Jazzy was attracted to dark-skinned men, and John is white with red hair.

The next day was a church event, so both families saw each other again.  Avianna remembered John and Matt from Olive Garden, and John’s heart melted when he saw her.  He said the Lord gave him a dream the night before and told him to buy Avianna a specific stuffed animal.  One that she had recently went missing just a few days prior.  Jazzy’s mother replaced it, and that one went missing too.  John wasn’t aware of any of this.  Jazzy pondered that before John ever gave her anything, he first blessed her daughter with a gift.  What is the Lord doing here?  She always wanted to make sure Avianna got acknowledged, and this gesture by John proved that to her. 

Jazzy noticed that she started feeling butterflies and became nervous around John.  She didn’t want to feel this way so she distanced herself from him that day.  One of the ministers at the church even prayed for John as he was carrying Avianna.  She had laid her head on his chest, and the sight of that brought Jazzy to tears.  Happy tears.  John’s father said that as soon as he saw her reaction, he knew that she and John were to be husband and wife.  John’s mother was talking to Jazzy’s mother.  “Are you hearing from the Lord what I’m hearing, and can you see what I can see?”  Both mothers also knew before Jazzy and John knew.  They had only known each other a couple of weeks at that point.

John went to Jazzy’s house a few days later because her little sister was having a birthday party, and he had a gift for her.  Jazzy felt the presence of God come into the living room, and she heard the voice of God say to her, “John loves you.”  She didn’t know what to do because he was sitting on the couch right in front of her.  As soon as she looked up, John was staring right at her.  It was a short visit that day.  From the moment that he left, Jazzy couldn’t stop thinking about him, and when she would pray, the Lord kept on telling her, “You shall marry each other.  He is your husband, and you are his wife.”  The following day John went to Florida to minister to some friends there.  He had the same experience that Jazzy had with the Lord, where he knew that he was to marry her.

When he returned back to Texas, they discussed their feelings for one another.  Together they prayed about it.  Jazzy was concerned that she already had a daughter, but John said he had always wanted a daughter and a wife.  They shared with their families this confirmation they had from the Lord about the two of them getting married.  When they had some time alone to discuss it further and see what the Lord wanted them to do from there, John heard, “Very soon,” and Jazzy heard, “Two weeks from now.”  So that’s when they got married.  Olive Garden was the end of March.  Their wedding was May 10.

Growing up, Jazzy didn’t know what it meant to save herself for marriage.  After giving birth to Avianna and dedicating her life to the Lord, she knew she wanted to wait to remain pure for the husband that the Lord would bring into her life.  She encountered many dark moments in Hawaii as a child and into adulthood.  She didn’t know God, and her upbringing taught her to walk in the ways of the world instead of the ways of God and to choose the men that she had chosen.  Her father was abusive to her mother and to the other women he had in the house after her.  Today, he is not the same man he was.  He has since also given his life to the Lord, but back then he was abusive in front of Jazzy and was a very angry man.  That’s what happens when you’re bound by drugs and alcohol.  Those were her darkest moments because of the abuse she went through as a child.  It allowed her to be comfortable with the violence, and so she remained in that cycle for a long time.  But when Jazzy allowed God to come into her life, He washed her completely clean.

Cherie's Story

Cherie and Brian

It was a late Midwestern summer morning as Cherie was driving to the mall to drop off her boys at the arcade for a friend’s birthday party.  With the sun beating down on her dashboard and the boys conversing peacefully in the back seat, Cherie was thinking about the little note her husband, Brian, left her earlier that day.  It wasn’t overly gushy or sentimental but just a little reminder to her about how much she meant to him.  She recalled at that moment the first date they had several years earlier.  It was at an arcade in a mall.

Growing up, Cherie had a lot of crushes, but she did not date.  She was often teased by the boys in school, and so she became leery of boys and tended to remove herself from them.  There was one little boy who teased her, and she found out that he liked her.  But sometimes boys tease you because they like you.  None of that fazed Cherie at all, however.  She was content with hanging out with her older sister, who was her best friend.  As a family, they went to church ever since Cherie could remember, and prayer was a part of her life. She would lie in bed at night sometimes praying for her sister when she encountered any sort of difficulty.  They were brought up with Christian values from their parents and were never tempted to move away from those values.  Cherie had a typical family for the most part.

Cherie’s first memory of Brian was in the audio duplicating room at their church.  Brian was on the team that recorded all the church services and made them available on CD afterwards.  Cherie worked in the Product Fulfillment Department, and one of her duties was to give the service message to the audio duplicators during each service so that they could title each CD.  One time, as she was outside of the duplicating room, for no apparent reason, a thought came to her.  “I wonder if I’d marry him.”   

Brian’s first memory of Cherie was during a church singles event when they were playing a fun and fast-paced group game with several other singles.  Soon after that Brian started serving in the Product Fulfillment Department, shipping out audio messages, and so there was occasion for Brian and Cherie to be around each other more often.  They served on that ministry team together for quite a while and got to know each other a little better.    

Brian’s family background was quite similar to Cherie’s.  He was brought up in a Christian home where church attendance was a normal part of the weekly routine.  When he felt his interest for Cherie was turning into more than just a casual acquaintance, he approached one of the church pastors for counsel.  He encouraged Brian to talk to Cherie about his interest in her, but that took some time because during that same month of July he was in the process of helping his parents move to another state and started a new job with working hours that coincided with serving in the Product Fulfillment Department, so he and Cherie were not seeing each other as often.

Brian asked Cherie out on their first date to go to the arcade with another couple.  Not long after that, they were invited together for dinner with some mutual church friends, and that became their second date.  During this time they discussed where the relationship was going, and both felt that it could potentially lead to something long-term and permanent.  Things were progressing slowly.  Brian didn’t know fully how to proceed with advancing the relationship.  Having not dated before, he didn’t know what was too much when it came to the frequency of asking a woman out on a date.   Their third date was a Chicago Cubs baseball game with Cherie’s sister and brother-in-law. 

More get-togethers followed, and by then they were having regular conversations about their intentions to marry.  Brian laid down the ground rules about no kissing or a physical relationship before marriage.  Cherie said he was extreme about it, but she liked the fact that he was taking the lead in these types of conversations, as they were a bit awkward to have when you’re just getting to know the other person who you will eventually be marrying. 

Brian proposed to Cherie in November of that year.  Because they were so open in their communication, she wasn’t surprised by the proposal.  She had a feeling he would.  They were at a restaurant, and because Cherie is not one to want to bring attention to herself, when Brian asked if she wanted him to get down on one knee, she answered with a resounding “No!”  But she did answer “Yes” to the proposal.  They were married the following July. 

Cherie said it was just understood that she and Brian would wait to be physical in their relationship until they were married because they had the same upbringing, and that is how they were raised.  Their church also took the same stance about dating and marriage.  She learned from church that waiting builds your levels of trust because if you know you can wait now, then you can resist that temptation later with other things.  If your soon-to-be husband can’t resist the temptation before marriage, it would be easier to not resist the temptation with somebody later that is not his spouse.

Remembering back at that moment outside the duplicating room, Cherie knew that God was showing her more of what she needed in a husband.  She thinks she’s a difficult person to be married to, but Brian deals with her perfectly.  She remembers knowing that she loved him during those early times, and she had a peace about it. 

In their open communication before marriage, they discussed having children and agreed that Cherie would be a stay-at-home mom because she would not want anyone else raising her children.  If she and Brian weren’t pure before marriage, they’d have lots of regrets.  She likes the idea of having the heritage passed down to her two sons.  Her sons both know that it’s God’s plan for them to also wait until marriage. 

Looking in the back seat at her boys before dropping them off that day, Cherie recognized that her sons share the enjoyment of the arcade, just like the enjoyment she felt with Brian on that first date all those years before.  More importantly, her boys share the values that Brian and Cherie have instilled in their lives, and they will carry on the legacy of purity that has been passed down from their parents and grandparents.

Susan's Story

Susan and Garrett

Even though Susan grew up in a loving Christian home with her parents, two sisters, and brother, she was not exempt from lies that torment the mind.  Her biggest desires were to get married and be a mom.  In her late twenties, it seemed like all of her friends were getting married and moving away, and Susan felt like she was being left behind. She thought, “My biological clock is ticking.  I’m getting older.  This is not going the way I want it to.  It’s probably not going to happen.”

Sure, she had dated once before.  Susan was brought up not to date until adulthood and was 21 before she experienced it for the first time.  She approached it the wrong way because she didn’t understand how relationships worked.  She had never been in one before.  She thought, “Oh, this person likes me, so he must be the one”.  She didn’t understand the difference between a committed loving relationship and infatuation, so it didn’t go well.  It lasted about six months, and she knew he was not the man she was to marry.

As Susan got older, she always thought, “Well, maybe I’ll meet somebody this year.”  And then when it wasn’t happening, she stopped telling herself that.  Susan was frustrated because she didn’t have a boyfriend and had not been in a relationship since the first one.  She could have given in to all the emotions stirring inside of her and tried to make it happen on her own, but she chose not to.  She fell into depression and remembers waking up lots of mornings thinking she was sinking into a black hole, and it was so much work just to try to pull herself out of bed.  Her biggest fear in life was being alone and not having a close personal relationship with a husband to share her life with, not having children, and that was what she really wanted most out of her life.  Susan feared she would be alone for the rest of her life or that she’d have to settle for someone that she didn’t love.  She believed the lies in her mind that God was just going to give her the leftovers and that He did not have someone for her and lies that her friends didn’t want to be around her.  Because she believed these lies, she ended up in a very dark place.  Two of the biggest lies were that she was unwanted and that she was unlovable.  Those were some of the biggest contributors to what she was feeling at that time.

But thankfully Susan had friends that knew the Word of God.  She had one friend specifically who was praying with her, praying for her, and at one point they were on a phone call together because they lived in different states.  Her friend helped expose a lot of those lies.  She helped replace those lies with scripture and the truth of God’s Word. 

Susan had talked to God a lot about relationships by that time.  She prayed, “God, I need to just be good friends with someone else before I get married to him.” After that she didn’t think about it much anymore.  She honestly didn’t think there would be time to do it that way because she had always made friends pretty slowly.

Susan met Garrett through school.  They were both enrolled in an online program.  They were good friends for about 1 ½ years.  They lived in different states and met in person once, and she thought he was a cool person but thought he was way out of her league and probably has someone else that he likes.  When he met her, he too thought she was a cool person, and it stayed that way for a long time.  They had a lot of interaction between mutual friends and a lot of interaction with each other, mostly online – texting or an online forum through school.

Garrett decided he was interested in Susan and was trying to get to know her a little more.  They texted a little.  They’d talk on the video calls.  She thought, “He’s just being nice.”  She didn’t want to read into it and have her heart broken.  Then he finally expressed that he was interested.  Just the day before, she was praying and said she did not want a relationship with Garrett to go the way the last relationship went.  “I don’t know why he’s talking to me so much.  If he says he’s interested, is this something I should go forward with?”  And then she heard the most enthusiastic go-ahead she had ever heard from God.  It was the following day that Garret expressed his deeper interest in Susan.  The idea of the two of them marrying blindsided her.  After all, they were just good friends.  But this was turning into an answered prayer.

So how did Susan and Garret build their relationship from there?  Still long-distance, they started having video calls between just the two of them instead of the group forums they were accustomed to.  They got to know each other more on a deeper level, talking about their beliefs.  They discussed things like: When we have differences, how will we reconcile?  Can we get married and not betray our belief system? 

Garrett also grew up going to a non-denominational church like she did.  He was homeschooled, as was Susan, her brother, and her two sisters.  Garrett comes from a big family, with 13 brothers and sisters, and his parents raised them all to follow God.  While they are all in different stages of their walk with God, they are not going to stray from the faith.

Once Susan and Garrett decided that the relationship was going to work, they planned an in-person date.  They lived about four hours apart, so they planned a date in the middle and spent the day together.  Then after that, they’d spend weekends at each other’s family’s houses when they were able to.

Susan had always been impressed with the way Garrett seeks to follow God and what God wants to do.  For him, this was a big part of his life.  She would periodically say, “It would be fun to live here” or “It would be neat to do this,” and he would say, “We do what God tells us to do.”  He says, “If God calls us to a certain place to live, then that’s what we’ll do.”  Susan finds this a rare quality to find these days.  It is something that is very important to him.  It is a very visible thing stemming from his upbringing.

Susan had a strong Christian background, and from a young age, she recalls her parents instilling within her ideals concerning morality and intimacy.  They addressed intimacy within a marriage when each of their children were at an age to understand it.  Susan always knew growing up that intimacy was something that God created to happen within a marriage relationship.  Whenever she was exposed to someone who was being intimate outside of marriage, Susan’s mother would tell her that there are things that God made to happen between a husband and a wife, and those people are not saving that for marriage.  This is not how their family was called to live.

Garrett didn’t have any dating experience before meeting Susan.  After the first in-person date in July, Susan moved to yet another state in August, even further away, for a semester of schooling.  Garrett flew to pick her up when the semester was over; she packed up all her belongings, and they drove back to his home state together, and then she continued on to her home state.  They spent two weeks together and really got to know each other during that time.  Also during that time, they were already talking about getting married.  Garrett proposed the next month, January.  They got married in June, five months later.

There was never a big conversation between them about intimacy before marriage.  Because of the way they both were raised, it was understood they would wait to have a sexual relationship until marriage.  Susan told him that her boundary was that she would like to wait to kiss until they were engaged.  Garrett was fine with that. 

During the times when Susan feared she wouldn’t marry, she could have chosen to make things happen herself, but she knew that wouldn’t have been God’s best for her.  She knew that when you wait until marriage to be intimate with someone, that is the way God designed it, and it is a safe way to build a marriage relationship because you’re not bringing baggage from previous experiences with you to one of the most intimate parts of the marriage relationship.  She and Garrett both believed that sexual intimacy is about relationship and not performance.  It’s not about how good you can look to your spouse or how good you can act.  It’s about a loving relationship with that spouse.  When you save yourself for marriage, it’s a lot easier to be focused on the relationship rather than the performance because you’re not comparing in your mind all these different experiences you’ve had with different partners. 

Susan said that while growing up and still single, she knew several women who had children and were not married.  She would get questions from the children asking her why she didn’t have any kids.  She told them because she was not married.  She would tell them she was waiting to be married to have children, and they didn’t know how to comprehend that.  Growing up without a father in the home was something that was normal to these children.  None of these women ever told Susan she was “old fashioned,” waiting to get married before being intimate with a man.  On the contrary, it gave her the opportunity to share with them about how God can heal them and make them whole again so that they can present themselves someday to a future spouse with a whole heart and not with shattered pieces.  She told them they’re not ruined forever.  They are not a permanently damaged product if they’ve given pieces of themselves away before. 

For Susan, she endured the waiting period and ended up with the man that God had chosen for her.  And now she and Garrett are bringing up their son, another answered prayer, with the same ideals that they both brought into their marriage.