God Can Do All Things
by Drenda Keesee
Case in point, Steve and Mindy both came into marriage with very different expectations. He was a hard worker, accustomed to having lots of extra money to spend, and she already had a son and had only enough money to pay her bills every month. On top of the everyday family stresses, as time progressed, the market crashed, they lost their incomes, credit cards were maxed out, and there was the constant threat of foreclosure and shutoff notices.
Mindy said that as they descended deeper into their problems, “We didn’t just lose our way, we destroyed the path. Our house was like a ticking time bomb.”
The situation escalated to the point where…
…Steve was always angry, and they were afraid to talk to each other because even the simplest, most innocent topic ended in an argument. It was constant warfare against each other. The children were so unhappy after hearing them fight for hours about topics that kids shouldn’t hear that they were silenced as well.
Mindy came to feel that Steve hated her and wished he had never met her, and vice versa. It got to the point where they didn’t even want to get out of bed in the morning, even to see their three children. They wanted to give up on life. Mindy had wanted to be like June Cleaver from Leave It to Beaver, the perfect wife and mother, but she felt she was a total failure and fell into depression. She didn’t want to do anything other than stay in bed and wait for her life to run out. The only thing that kept her from acting on her depression was her children. She worried that they would blame themselves.
Mindy says, “To say I wanted to die isn’t really a good explanation, because I didn’t want to die. The truth is I just didn’t want to live. I was out of options. I thought the world and my family would be better off without me. Satan convinced me that I was being selfish by staying here.”
At one point, Steve and Mindy actually had an argument over who was going to kill themselves. They both felt the family would be better off without them, but they didn’t want to leave their children without one parent to care for them.
A parent at a middle school football banquet started bugging Steve and Mindy to come to our church. He was relentless and pestered Steve and Mindy until they finally agreed to go as long as he never asked them again. They started attending our church for the sake of their children. Weeks went by, and Steve and Mindy kept coming. More weeks past, and they started a relationship with God. As their relationship with God grew, it brought Steve and Mindy closer without them even realizing it. They began to forgive each other and treat each other better.
Five years later, and Steve and Mindy’s marriage has been restored to better than ever! They have the same heart and the same mission. Their kids all love God and are serving in the Kingdom in different ways. They have seen the hopelessness their family was in and the tragic ending it was about to come to. They have witnessed the transformation in their family and seen firsthand that God can do all things. Financially, Steve and Mindy are completely out of debt with the exception of their mortgage, which will be paid off by the end of the year.
Excerpt from “The New Vintage Family” by Drenda Keesee
Drenda Keesee’s contagious zeal and humorous personal experiences help make her ministry of spiritual, emotional and relational wholeness one that will bless your life and spark a new fire in your spirit.
A wife of over 30 years and a mother of five children, Drenda has ministered at churches, seminars, and conferences, and through the mediums of television and radio, for more than 20 years.
Her books, The New Vintage Family, Better Than You Think, and She Gets It are available wherever books are sold. In these heartfelt books, Drenda shares her personal journey and the life lessons that have brought her to where she is today, as well as practical answers that all people need to live a joyful life.
Drenda and her husband Gary founded Faith Life Now, a ministry designed to spread the message of freedom in the areas of finances, faith, marriage and family. Faith Life Now hosts conferences worldwide, and sponsors both Fixing the Money Thing, which Drenda co-hosts with her husband Gary, and Drenda.
Through their own life experiences, the Keesees have found the principles from God’s Word to be powerful and effective. At one point, Drenda was a young, suicidal feminist with no hope of ever being “good enough” for her own standards of perfection. She never wanted the “inconvenience” of a husband or children, and she was on her own path to success. But the stress of trying to achieve perfection and perform for love left her broken and used. She had success, but it was nothing compared to the pain and loneliness it had also brought.
That’s when God got a hold of her heart. It was there—at her lowest point—that she found the One who accepted and loved her, faults and all. Since that transformation, Drenda has had a passion to reach women who find themselves where she once was.
She married Gary after attending college, and there she found herself in a personal boot camp of sorts. She says, “I cried and told God, ‘I can do anything but be a wife and mother.’” She committed to learning how to do it God’s way. Through the many years of raising their children and struggling to make ends meet, Drenda learned from their mistakes. “I didn’t know how to be a wife and mother, but God saved our marriage, taught us how to parent our children for success, showed us how to have financial success, and then irony of all ironies, He called us to ministry.” It’s truly because of these life experiences that Drenda can now share so many insightful principles for people who are now going through the same struggles.
