I started attending more church revivals and youth meetings. It was at one of those youth meetings on a Saturday, that I met a young man . He talked to me and then asked me out to dinner. We started dating for the next 5 months. I had never had a ‘REAL” boyfriend before. I was in love. He was very handsome, and seemed to be all I had ever wanted as far as looks were concerned and was also a fine Christian young man. I thought I had it made! He asked me to marry him and we were engaged. BUT , things started going wrong. We didn’t agree on certain standards, and it was driving a wedge between us. I remember thinking, “this has to work Lord. I’ve got a ring from him, I’ve got it made_I WON’T LOSE HIM!” I remember feeling at that second that the Lord smote my heart, and the door being shut!! We split up within the next 2 weeks. I was devastated. I felt my whole world had turned upside down. I stayed heartbroken for months. I was hurt and angry. What I thought was SO sure had dissolved SO quickly! This really shook me up. I remember being upset and saying, “No one wants me, not even my fiancé,” while complaining to my Daddy. He said, “Yes, someone does. You have the Lord.” I was so unsure that I thought “Do I?” For the next two weeks I doubted my salvation and it bothered me BADLY. I went to a revival in North, SC and heard Evangelist Richard Drummond preach on the Rapture. During the message, I was so unsure of my salvation, I feared that if the Lord came back then I would be the only one left in that church!!! I couldn’t take it anymore, and WHILE the preacher was still preaching, I went to the back pew and got my Daddy. WE went into the nursery and I told him I wasn’t sure if I was saved and I HAD to make sure. So, we both kneeled down there and I cried out to the Lord to save me and to give me the assurance I needed. ALL FEAR LEFT IMMEDIATELY!!! I haven’t doubted my salvation since that night ! From that night on, the Lord began healing my broken heart and I FELL IN LOVE WITH JESUS THIS TIME!!!
I began to pray for the Lord to send me a good Christian young man. I prayed this prayer for almost five years. I wanted to wait on the Lord’s choice for me, and not my own this time. I even stepped out on faith, from the advice of a preacher, Wendell Runion, and bought a pair of wedding shoes, and prayed for the Lord to give me the opportunity to wear them IN HIS TIME. I enlisted in a Bible College correspondence program out of Eufaula ,Oklahoma. I even worked on it in my down time at work. I went to every meeting at area churches that I could with my Daddy and Brother Gary Jr. We traveled the road many nights and some of those memories are the sweetest ones I have from that time in my life. I met a friend at one of these meetings, that called me one day to help at their church radio station’s Sharathon. I started answering phones there in May 2000. I was GLUED to all that was going on. Someone there took note of that, and the Lord opened the door that week for me to be trained to work there at WSSC 1340 AM in Sumter, SC. Mrs. Rita Langland, an announcer and worker at the station since it’s beginning, took me under her wings and encouraged me. She taught me what I know of the radio ministry today. Through the years, she has become like a second mother to me. I would fill in off and on as needed there, even though I still had my job at the Lumber company. WSSC is where I first heard the “Unshackled” program.
Then in the Fall of 2001, I felt the Lord calling me into full-time Christian service. I left my job at the Lumber Company and moved to Greenville , SC, where I started attending Tabernacle Baptist College. My Moma and Granny went with me to get me registered and settled in at my dorm. While we were there in the office, a young man named Kelly Hudgins walked in to do the same. He was a preacher, and little did I know, this would be my future husband. I remember thinking when I saw him and heard him talk in his NC mountain accent, “that’s a country one for sure ,right there!” He later told me that when he walked in and saw me, the Lord spoke to him then and said, “There is your wife.” He said that he had a dream about a month before that, and I was in it, and was even wearing the same dress that I had on that day, but he didn’t know who I was. He did after the Lord spoke to him that day! He patiently waited to court me , and we become good friends first. Our relationship was based on our friendship and wasn’t “lovey-dovey” or solely infatuation, but we would humor each other and pick on each other a lot. We had some things in common, from both of us being country to the core, to both of us having the same birthday! I would type his papers for him and we would help each other with classes. He first asked me out to dinner in thanks for typing his papers. We began dating from then on. Our MAIN foundation in our relationship was the Lord!!! WE both had a desire to serve the Lord in whatever capacity He would have us to. We enjoyed being able to talk about the Lord and how He would speak to us through what we had read in our Bibles, and what we had learned. So, for almost three months we courted and enjoyed college activities, such as playing volleyball every weekend in the gym with all of our college friends. He even told me one night in a conversation on the phone, “I’m praying about going out West as a missionary, and you know you’re going with me right?” He asked me to marry him Christmas Day of 2002. I was sick, but thrilled despite the sickness. I bought my wedding dress, since I ALREADY HAD MY SHOES, within the next week and began to make wedding plans. The LORD had answered my prayer over my shoes IN HIS TIME!! HIS TIMING is ALWAYS PERFECT! I didn’t return that Spring to Bible college so that I could focus on the wedding, and returned home to Sumter, while Kelly stayed there at college. He would drive 3hrs every weekend to see me. The Lord gave me a job for the next four months at an insurance company until we were married. One night during those four months, I awoke to HORRIBLE pain in my hands and arms. I had to go to the bathroom to run warm water over them so that I could even open them. I was in tears. I took some pain medication and tried to go back to sleep. I had no idea what was going on. This was the first attack of many that would occur through the next 10 years.
We had planned to be married on May 1oth, 2003. But then my niece Summer, Amy’s daughter, who was 3 years old, became very sick with double pneumonia, and was in ICU and we didn’t know if she was going to make it for a while. She was very dear to all of us and was supposed to be my flower girl! I was torn in what to do!! How could I focus on the wedding in 5 days and even enjoy this long awaited event, if she was so sick? After the doctors talked with us and said it was touch and go, I was despondent! I took my Bible and went off by myself in one of the hospital waiting areas. I prayed, “Lord, please show me what to do! I have no idea what is going to happen, but I know you do. I need your wisdom Lord.” As usual, my Daddy came looking for me and asked if I was ok. He has ALWAYS given me and all of my siblings advice founded in the WORD. I told him how I was feeling and what I had been reading. I had turned to Psalms 30:5 “For His anger endureth but a moment; in His favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” and Psalm 5:3, “My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.” Everything the Lord was showing me seemed to be pointing to me getting my answer in the morning. I told Daddy after praying, that if she had improved ANY by morning, we would have the wedding as planned. After meeting with the doctors, they said she had made a little improvement! Praise the Lord for the answer to this specific prayer, and we knew from this that He was going to completely heal Summer. We were married as planned that Saturday, and praise the Lord Summer did make a full recovery.
After our honeymoon in Charleston, SC, we returned to Greenville for the next 4 months. I worked in the daycare at the church and ended up getting severe strep throat from the kids, which resulted in a tonsillectomy. After healing, Kelly felt led of the Lord for us to move back to Sumter, to work out of my home church. We stepped out on faith and moved, even though he didn’t have a job, but the Lord provided him with one within 2 weeks. Within the next few months, we found out I was expecting our first child. Moriah was born one month early in July of 2004, after numerous hospitalizations from complications. But, praise the Lord she was fine!
Not long after she was born, I started having pain attacks in nearly every joint in my body. Nothing over the counter seemed to touch my pain. I also started having terrible pain in my stomach. After numerous doctor trips, and medications, I still had no diagnosis. One day the pain became so unbearable I went to the ER. I had a cyst in my abdomen the size of a grapefruit. I was admitted to the hospital, where my doctor tried to convince me to have a new procedure done to have it drained, rather than surgery. As soon as she suggested this, the Holy Spirit spoke clearly to me and said, “NO, do NOT DO THIS.” ! It was one of the clearest times of direction from the Lord I had ever had in my life! I told the doctor plainly that the Lord had told me not to, and of course she responded by saying it wasn’t smart. I told her I fully understood the possible outcomes, but I knew that I needed to have the surgery done. She finally gave up trying to persuade me otherwise, and I was taken to surgery. As soon as surgery began, I started to hemorrhage. They had to stop it before they could correct the problem. Later, when I awoke in my room, my Daddy was first in the room to see me, since Kelly had our baby in the waiting area. He said, “ You made the right decision, and it was definitely of the Lord. The doctor said if you would have gone through with the other procedure, you could have bled to death.” Even though I was on strong pain meds, I began to praise the Lord for His clear leadership! “Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” Psalm 139:10
I still continued with pain attacks, was in and out of the hospital, and could never get a diagnosis. In 2006, I had our second child Adam. After his birth, my health continued to decline. I felt like I lived at my doctor’s office. I had surgery again one year later, when my doctor gave me the news that I had never healed from having Adam, which was the source of most of my pain. He even told me that he performed the surgery against the advice of his colleagues in the practice, and was glad that he had done so. All of my tests had come back negative before the surgery, so they had accused me of wanting narcotic pain medicine. I told him I knew from prayer. once again, that I needed surgery. This seemed to be a recurring event in my life, even in the next few years to come. I had to face 2 more surgeries. The last one being ANOTHER GRAPEFRUIT SIZED MASS that had returned and attached to multiple organs. I had to go to a MUSC in Charleston for this surgery. Praise the Lord it came back benign, but I did lose some of my bladder to it. Even with this problem corrected, I still faced pain attacks that would leave me bed-ridden for days. I began to feel like the woman with the issue of blood in the Bible. I had seen multiple doctors, and yet grew worse. Within the next year, the Lord led me to a rheumatologist that finally diagnosed me with Severe Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoporosis, and also a form of heart disease. I have major bone damage to my wrists and hands, due to the years without a diagnosis, and the arthritis is throughout my entire body. My current treatment has helped me , but I still deal with frequent attacks. The Lord has taught me through 11 surgeries and ALL of my health issues that HE ALONE IS SUFFICIENT FOR GRACE AND HELP IN TIME OF NEED!!! He TRULY is the GREAT PHYSICIAN! I also know that the Lord allowed me to suffer these problems to prepare me for His Calling on my life.
My family serves the Lord at Lighthouse Baptist church in Sumter, SC., where my husband is the Pastor. Both of our children , Moriah (11) and Adam (8) have made professions of faith and love the Lord. I thank the Lord for the family HE has given me and that they serve HIM by singing and helping lead the congregational songs. Several members of our church have gone through the same health issues as me. I PRAISE HIS NAME that I can EMPATHIZE and know how to encourage and minister to them. Thank the LORD for His foreknowledge and what He has done in my life. I write a devotional blog entitled “Fresh Manna” as a ministry from home and still help at WSSC part-time, where we air “Unshackled.” My son loves to listen! If we are listening in the car, I have to go in our home and turn on the radio before he will get out, to make SURE he doesn’t miss one second of the broadcast! My desire is to live for the Lord and be in HIS WILL. He has been SO GOOD to me, and I KNOW I don’t deserve one bit of it. “..For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required..” Luke 12:48 b. The Lord has truly shown me that through it all, that “MANY are the afflictions of the righteous; BUT the LORD delivereth him out of them ALL.” Psalm 34:19.
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