Joyfully Living in a broken vessel: My Testimony

When I was 5, I did ballet and tap dance and that flopped. Then I tried ice-skating. Imagine being better on skates than on your own two feet. Then I was introduced to tennis. That was the slam. And I mean slam! I was being coached to begin a career. I practiced at least 3-4 hrs after school just about every day. It is probably what kept me out of trouble most of my life. I played soccer as a side sport and played goalie. Yep, you guessed it. That’s where my head got messed up a little. I got kicked in the head a few too many times. Found out later I broke my nose and it is now 90% blocked on one side. But tennis was always my sport. Because I finished high school in DC, I was never able to really show off for the A&M Tennis Team. And I wasn’t going anywhere, if not A&M.

So I was prepared to try and walk-on the A&M tennis team. But when I arrived on campus - Whoa!! I was so bombarded with everything. I was overwhelmed with how many things there were to get involved with.

Up until then I had led a pretty sheltered life. I grew up in the Air Force and had moved about 10 times with my Dad. Canada, Texas, Arkansas (twice), Illinois (twice), Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. so the list goes…My parents were pretty strict. By the time I was 10, I knew where God stood in my life. He was first and I wanted to keep it that way.

I had gone to three high schools and 2 years were spent in a school of over 5000. But during those years, All I did was tennis, youth group, soccer and homework and obey the rules- mostly because tennis or something would be taken away or I figured I would get caught. Also Because anytime something happened it always got blamed on me or I couldn’t keep my mouth shut cause I always felt guilty. (like breaking a church stain glass window- I told my mom- thought God would smite me or something)

So, when I entered A&M, of course my parents still wanted full control. No boys in my room - yeah right! And go to church every Sunday, attend every class-Baaaahaaa! I lived on campus in Neeley hall for two years. My mom wanted me to pledge for a sorority. I said- YUCK! That‘s definitely not me! Then I found Young Life leader training. Besides youth, Young Life played a big part in shaping me in high school and the leaders showed me what it was to be a leader (even though I learned later, they were probably using me to get to know what I now know as “target” kids- or kids that hadn‘t heard the gospel yet- I hope I helped.). But I knew I wanted to love people the way they did, regardless of who they were or where they came from. So I started Young Life training. And tennis got put on the back burner. God put me on a different path.

I wish I could say from there it was all great. Nope. I almost failed out my second semester. After a ton of testing I was diagnosed with ADD and finally figured out why I could never get the answers right on the tests I was taking. Even though I could rattle them off to whoever I was studying with. That led to some depression and frustration. I questioned God wondering what he was doing with me. Finally, after finding the right meds it got better, but it was still difficult. (One medicine actually made me get angry pretty quick after awhile.)

I was finally assigned to the inner city North Bryan Young Life team. A new team that was mainly working with gang or at-risk kids. That was just perfect! About 8 white leaders trying to spread the gospel to inner-city kids- ha! You might as well try fireworks - it would definitely work better getting them to club. Then after a semester of trying and trying again we finally figured out to go where the kids were. Into the projects, lunch at school. Take them home after school. That’s when it got interesting- gangs, girl gangs, weapons, cops. I had girls in my car with knives. Very interesting for a Sociology major. So I started incorporating that in my studies. I then started to mentor a kid (a boy- not the greatest match)from Jane Long with an older brother that was a drug dealer. Yep, me, a white girl in the projects- in my boyfriend’s red jeep with gold wheels down in the hood. Good thinking huh? Well, God kept me safe on that one.

Then I started a bible study called Search for Significance. It pretty much changed my outlook on the MRS. Thing. I realized I was a people pleaser. I tried to please everyone around me to make them like me. That included my parents and what I was doing in relationships with guys. I wasn’t being myself and I wasn’t putting my first love, Jesus Christ, first. So, while I was leading YL and doing this study, I made the decision guys were not going to be a priority anymore. I decided I was going to look at God and learn about my first and only true love, Christ. I know it sounds corny but that’s what I did. I started saying that to Jesus every time I prayed and wrote in my journals. I had watched my friends pine over their boyfriends and they would become the center of their life. They were so caught up in the “getting married” they forgot about the moment they were living in. This made me realize you only live once. And if you didn’t enjoy that exact moment you would lose it. So I wanted to enjoy those moments with my Savior. And rejoice in the life He had given me.

Well, within a month or so, a guy with really blonde hair and blue eyes started joking around with me at Young Life training. I wasn’t sure if I liked him our not. I certainly liked him as a friend and he had a great sense of humor. So we started hanging out with the same people and doing some of our YL “contact work” together with the other leaders in training. He was great at skits. Just plain Hilarious! But I thought (so did my friends- but no one was sure) he was dating another girl. Well it turns out he thought I was dating another guy who was just a friend. So, we just became really good friends because we hung out with the same people. At one of our retreats we took long walks and just talked and joked around. It was great fun to be around him.

That next week he asked me out on a real date. I had been to his apartment a couple of times but it had always been with other guys there watching Monty Python, or some movie, And it was always a wreck, GROSS!!! Pizza boxes everywhere, trash everywhere, disgusting!!. Anyway, After he picked me up in his red jeep with gold wheels, he told me he forgot something at his apartment and said let’s go up and get it. Well, He had cleaned the whole place up and cleared his roommates out. He had gotten us take-out and a movie. The movie was Robin Hood and we danced to the last song as the credits rolled. Then comes the best part. After that one of his roommates came home and we went into his room and had the conversation of a lifetime. We talked about what we wanted in a relationship. We both said that the other had to have Christ first in their life and that the relationship had to be centered on Christ or it would never work. He played a song by Wes King for me that said exactly what He said he wanted in a girlfriend. It talked about another man in the girl’s life and that she loved that other man with her whole heart. By the end of the song you realize the other man is Jesus. And that was what made him love her even more. Then we both looked at each other and said “I guess we’re dating“. Well, then as you can imagine things were pretty great. I went home that night and wrote in my journal. “This is someone I could marry. In fact he may be ‘the one‘.” That song had been exactly what I had always prayed for. That God would be number one and everything else would then fall in place. Well, I guess God knew what he was doing when I met Alan David Riddle.

Our relationship continues with relatively no bumps for about a year and a half. Then one night we started talking about the key that I wore around my neck and never took off. This was a key my Dad had given me when I was sixteen. And told me that this was the key to my heart and it only belonged to God and him until God found the one I was to marry.

During our talk I told Alan I didn’t think I could give it to anyone but him and he told me he didn’t want anyone else to have it. So it was clear that we were sure God had made us for each other. That was the Spring of ‘93. We had talked about it and knew my parents would never approve of us getting married before Alan could support us and until I finished my degree. That was something they were always talking about. But Alan figured out a way. That summer he totally caught me off guard and was taking me on a last date before he went and worked at Kanakuk Kamps for another summer. He picked me up at my mentors house who I was living with that summer and brought me a single rose. He ended up taking me to Central park and having a picnic blanket set up under a tree with a basket of goodies. After we were done eating he said He had something for me. He gave me a White Teddy Bear with a pink bow-tie on it. And a self made card asking me to marry him. By that time I was really thrown off. Then he said He had hidden the ring and I had to find it. I looked everywhere. He finally had to give me a hint -that it was on the bear. It was hidden behind the pink bow-tie. Then He got down on his knee and asked if I would be his wife and after I said yes, He handed me one more present. It was a Bible with my future name on it. Joy Christine Riddle.

We were married on July 30, 1994. An amazing spiritual day. Somebody later told us that that was the best day of their summer because they could feel the presence of God in the church and it was one of the most spiritual experiences they had ever had. That was the biggest compliment anyone could give us because that was what we wanted. We want people to be able to see God before they even saw us. At the reception my Dad made a big deal about the key that I wore around my neck and he placed it around Alan’s neck and said my heart was now his and to take good care of it.

We went back to Texas A&M for Alan‘s last semester. (For our wedding gift, his dad was going to pay for our living expenses that last semester) During this time we were living the high life. But Alan had no job offers as of yet and that was a bit of a strain. We prayed and joined a great Sunday school at Grace with all our newlywed friends.

Come Christmas we went on a ski trip with Alan’s extended family. It was awesome. I really enjoyed being with his family. But during the airplane trip up there I started drinking tomato juice like crazy. In 3 days I had drank a 12 pack of 12oz cans. When we got home I was still drinking it.

Well, being that it was the holidays, College station was virtually empty. We decided to go to the movies. At this point I’m freaking out inside, so I asked Alan to stop by the drug store and I was going to get a pregnancy test. (I already had a pretty good idea) Well, no one was at the movies. And I couldn’t wait. Alan waited in the theatre while I went in the bathroom. I brought it back wrapped up in my pocket. We sat there for 10 minutes just staring at a blank screen. I told him I couldn’t look. So he gently took it out of my pocket and read it. We were pregnant! Say what? We had been on birth control and we had only been married 6 months. No WAY!! But yes and Alan didn’t have a job yet. Scary!!!! We didn’t even have health insurance. Now what? (I have no recollection of the movie.)

Everything worked out and we moved to Shreveport, LA and He started a pretty decent job. I never went to the doctor until we got signed up on health insurance. The main reason for that was because of the pain in my stomach that I had had for the last 4 years that no one could figure out and we didn’t want to jeopardize any coverage of the pregnancy. Well the next five months were great. The pain in my stomach wasn’t even there. So on with getting the nursery ready. Having baby showers. Wow. Didn’t know how busy it could be. And how ready I was to be a mom. But I knew I wanted to finish my degree so I was transferring in my last 24hrs.

One night we are sitting watching T.V. and I suddenly felt I had been shot in the stomach. I had excruciating pain! So Alan called the doctor. He said it was probably my muscles. Yeah right! I was a tennis player, I knew stretched muscles. So for 9 days I tried everything and was pretty much screaming bloody murder. My doctor finally gave me pain shots- nope, didn’t work. Then he put me in the hospital. They ran all kinds of tests. NOTHING. The Baby was ok. But I was crying with excruciating pain. My OB finally convinced the surgeon that it could be my appendix. I was headed for surgery.

As I was rolling out to go into surgery, I told Alan that if it came to a choice between the baby or me, he was to choose the baby. His calm eyes looked at me and said “It won’t come to that. Godhas it under control” That was the most peace I have ever felt. There were angels surrounding me. I could feel them. The doctors gave me an epidural but as soon as they started cutting on me I could feel it. OUWWW! Next thing I knew a mask was coming at me and they said I was going under.

I remember feeling like I was waking up from the dead. Mind you, I didn’t look pregnant - I was as skinny as a rail back then. I can remember screaming, but not being able to open my eyes. And this nurse is saying “what’s wrong with her?”. As if surgery wasn’t enough. Another nurse said I was in labor and had just had major surgery. What? I thought. Finally, I fully woke up and find an IV in both arms and one in my neck And a tube down my nose. And I am in labor!!. They have belts around my waist to monitor the baby. And they were sucking stuff out my nose! Ends up they had found that my intestine had burst open and had leaked acid through out the lining of my stomach. (Stomach acid is the deadliest acid in the world) Then they had me hooked up to a Morphine pump. What? All of that could kill the baby? Was the baby ok? I was in labor for 3 ½ more days and in the hospital for 8 days.

I finally went home and was told to take it easy. But I was told the 12 inches of intestine they took out was riddled with Crohn’s disease. It had eaten right through my intestine and I would probably have to be on medication my whole life. Luckily I was able to hold them off for 13 weeks and while we were sitting for our last date, 4 weeks before our due date, I started having back spasms‘. Here she comes! But I knew I wasn’t suppose to go through labor or the Crohn’s could get worse. So I called the doc and he came in on his day off and performed a c-section and we had a 5lb 6oz baby girl. Elizabeth Joy. Perfectly healthy yet so small she looked like a doll. We even got asked that after she was born.. They thought she was a high school experiment. But I knew I had a miracle! They said with all the medication and all the trauma my body went through we both should have been dead to begin with and then to have a healthy baby girl. What Joy was in our hearts!!! And we were thanking God!

3 months later was the hard part. I was put on medication- prednisone that could cause me to loose it mentally. And that scared me. Especially with a new baby. So I went and lived with my parents in Atlanta for a month. Then when I came back I started putting on the pounds. I gained 100 pounds in 5 months. What was happening to my body? Finally after trying and trying to get off the medicine I got off it and they tried other medications. I was taking up to 40 pills a day at one time. They finally put me on Chemotherapy that slowly got the Crohn’s under control. During this time I was tired and had to find ways to take care of Libby.

Skipping ahead about 3 years… We are living in San Antonio and I finally have the disease under control. And for over a year I had wanted to get off this medicine. I left my gastroenterologist because she wouldn’t help me get off of the chemotherapy. So I turned to my General physician. I had two reasons for doing this. I was also taking a progesterone shot for birth control because I could not get pregnant on this medicine or the baby would be severely deformed. So I wanted off the medicines and you guessed it, I wanted another child. Which the doctors weren’t even sure I could get pregnant again.

It took me about 1 ½ yrs to get pregnant. We were living in Graham, TX at this time. They put me as a high risk pregnancy and I had to drive to Fort Worth every 2 weeks for the first 5 months. Then every week after that. (a 2 hour drive!) The pregnancy went great. Until at 5 ½ weeks too early my water broke and we are off to the local hospital and waiting for a broken down ambulance. Then the ambulance has to drive over bumpy roads to get to Fort Worth and I’m in labor.

I finally get to the hospital and they give me a spinal. That was horrible because the nurse pulled my head down from the neck between my legs so hard it felt like she was sitting on my head! I informed her there was baby in between my legs that she was smashing. But that meant nothing to her. It was 2 in the morning! And I’m ready to push!!! I thought I was going to pop! Finally, they perform the c-section and everything goes smoothly. Another healthy 5lb 6oz baby girl. Ashlyn Grace.

After two weeks, everything is going along fine and my mom is fixing to go home the next day. I was in the bathroom and screamed that I was leaking blood and ran through the house leaving blood everywhere, hemorrhaging. At the hospital they get it stopped not knowing the cause and of course can’t get an IV started. A surgeon comes in and finally puts one in my neck. They had tried over 30 times .

I go home the next day.(the house had looked like a murder scene with hand prints and all!) And two days later sitting at dinner, it starts again and off to the hospital again. This time a DNC and a blood transfusion. I had lost over half my blood. What in the world, is Nothing normal!!!????

It takes me over 6 months to finally gain my normal strength back and by then Alan gets a new job in Fairfield. Podunk town here we come!

At least my Crohn’s is good. I start helping with the youth and start children’s church. I go through normal up and down’s trying to stay healthy.

After Libby finished third grade, Alan and I felt God saying we needed to move. Here we come Athens! We helped start up Young Life as leaders again ! It was a fantastic time. We loved it.

Then comes another horrible incident. I got a really high fever and headache. Of course we all freak out and go to the Emergency room there in Fort Worth. They decide I might have meningitis and they need to do a spinal tap. Well , it ends up being 7 spinal taps by the time they are done. And they had given me more morphine than they give a man. The doctors said I should have been knocked out but I was totally coherent and screaming bloody murder. It hurt like someone was messing with every nerve in my body. I finally got well and I didn’t have meningitis. But I definitely had a backache for about a year.

After moving to Athens and building our new house, I started having abdominal pains again. So here comes my nasty Crohn’s disease again. And more medicine. They put me on a medicine that cost $8000/ infusion. I took 4 of them (nice car in my arm, huh?) and then had an anaphylactic shock to it. With what energy I had, I decided it was important that I spend it on my girls and my husband. But after about a month after the last infusion it seemed the Crohn’s was gone. I attributed it to a night that I couldn’t breath again and a friend came over and I told her I could feel Satan knocking at the windows and the doors and berating my body, ready to take me down. She prayed with the girls and Alan over me and there was a peace that passes all understanding.

Then, a few months later, one sunny day Libby came running inside screaming for a fire extinguisher. What now?!!? Our neighbor, Sandra, was screaming for one outside. Luckily I had one. I asked her where the fire was. The kitchen. I went in and sprayed it on the floor. It was like spraying an opening from hell. It finally went out but smoke was everywhere. I was choking and just as I was turning, thinking the fire was out, the flames shot out from under the foam all the way to the ceiling. I then had to pull Sandra out of the house. She was clawing at me because she had to get back in to get her cat and make sure the dogs didn’t get in the house. By the time I had her out and told her I would go in for the cat, the whole house was engulfed in smoke and flames. I knew where most of the flames were so I tried going in the through the backdoor to the master bedroom to find the cat. I was on my knees calling out but the smoke was so bad there was no way I could find her. I finally backed out and got the dogs in the back yard over to our neighbors yard that had a fence. We had already called 911 and they should have been there. But they couldn’t find the house. Good grief just follow the smoke you guys! It took them 30 minutes to get there. By then half the house was gone. I finally had to get oxygen because I was hyperventilating. It was just too unbelievable. The flames were seared in my mind. And there was no getting them out. Then the wind picked up and some of the trees caught on fire and they were going towards our house. It took the firefighters close to 8 hours to put it out and I had to continue to put it out for the next 5 days. With my little hose.

Then what really got me was the looters. There were people stopping down our cul-de-sac at 3am in the morning to see if they could get anything like copper tubing, jewelry, whatever they could find. Luckily I had been warned and of course had not been sleeping well and would flip the lights on and that would scare the cars off.

Over the next three to four weeks this played with my mind so much I lost it. One night I was laying in bed and Alan was in the living room and I busted out our bedroom window and went running in the freezing rain because I could not figure out why God would let anything so horrible happen. I needed help to figure this out and the meds I was on were not helping the depression I was sinking into.. I was loosing control and sinking to the point where living was a day to day slow process of asking when will you take me Lord? Just get it over with. I hate this world and everything in it. I finally saw a psychologist . She up the meds I was on and that seemed to help but I still needed to reconcile with God about this and about the disease I was living with. Why would he let these things happen.?

He has taught me, after I finally was still enough, to let him wrap His arms around me, that there is healing In the pain. “In the pain there is a refinement “,He said to me. “You may not understand me and you must come to terms with that. But I will refine you into the beauty I want you to be. Just as Sand is made into beautiful glass when lightening strikes it. So I am making you into something beautiful.”

I began seeking Him again. With Alan along side me and taking joy in the small things in life. I began teaching art at the Athens Christian Academy. My dream job. And then again he tests me. Alan gets the job he has wanted in Bryan. Again Lord, Why now? But who am I to ask such questions when he has given more than I could ever hope to give.

So we end up leaving the house that I designed and a town I enjoyed with a job that was exactly what I had worked for.

Then again… PAIN!! The Crohn’s is back. I am put in the hospital and given the same medicines that I specifically asked them not to give me but I was in so much pain how was I to know what they were giving me? I am in 2 hospitals for 3 weeks. I gain 35 pounds over a 3 week period and had just previously lost 40 pounds(After 14yrs of trying to loose it). And now it won’t come off again. And now I’m on more chemo and a shot that decreases my immune system.

What am I learning in this? Am I being refined? I ask for a healing miracle daily. But that is not the miracle He chooses to give me. Although, I know I have been given three, Alan, Libby and Ashlyn. Especially Libby was a miracle because she shouldn’t be alive and neither should I. But God’s hand was there. So, I have seen and felt His power. I have seen it, But I still feel the evil knocking at the door daily.

But I learn daily that the reason I have this disease and the miracles I pray for may not be for me. They may be for someone else. Sometimes, If one of you or someone else I know has something going on I will probably know about it. It is called discernment. I may have a disease but with that disease has come the ability to see what others are feeling and struggling with despite not having any previous knowledge. I can feel when Satan is fighting hard for someone’s soul. But I have two weapons. My sword, the Word of God. And Prayer. I have become a prayer warrior. I know that nothing will happen outside the will of God. He may have let me have this disease but it has given insight into so many things I never would have experienced. Such as, this time around, my hair has been falling out in clumps in the shower and a brush will be full of hair in one brushing. I now know what cancer patients feel like. I know what it means to struggle with your weight which I never did before. If in all of this pain and suffering that I go through one person can see Christ through me then I have done what Christ has asked of me. I may never understand and I must realize this in my core or it will torment me forever.

At the end of this last year Alan was diagnosised with skin cancer and now we have struggled through that. He has had many visits to MDAnderson to see surgeons and dermatologists. But through it all God has led the way. It really is amazing what you learn when you sit back and be still and know that He is God.

But I hope and continuously pray that even though I may live this life in a broken vessel with many struggles that His light will shine from the cracks and crevices in which I cannot repair. For this is only flesh and blood. I know my soul is that which is what God has been working to refine and teaching me to live joyfully despite the brokenness. I want to be able to say I used the gifts and talents that God has given me. And when I do stand before my Lord and Savior I hope to hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

I may still be learning and always being refined and know now that this is God’s process to prepare us to be able to stand in his presence and bask in His glory. Oh how I long for that day and strive to do as he wills!!