I first gave my life to Christ at the age of seven and was baptized at First Baptist Church of Norfolk in Virginia. This didn't last too long. By age thirteen I had renounced my faith and began looking into pagan spirituality. I had almost joined a Wicca coven at one point but was too scared to go through with it. Instead I turned to American sub-culture. I was a punk/goth kid for a short while. Through my dealings with hippies I eventually got into the Grateful Dead scene.

     This was in some since a salvation. I was suicidal and the hippie culture gave me something to live for. I felt a part of a family. As a child from a broken home this was important to me. Besides that the hippie ideals gave life some kind of purpose for me. I began selling drugs locally in Virginia Beach. Friends would bring stuff back from tour and I'd help distribute it. Eventually I went on Dead tour too.

     My dead tour experience was brief. I was 17 and a senior in High School. I went only to weekend shows on the East Coast in the spring of '95. Starting in Philadelphia, PA. Then Charlotte, NC and finally Memphis, TN. I didn't swing anything other than beer and soda on tour. I was too young and my friends, who looked after me like a little sister, thought I might get caught. I viewed it as a learning experience of how to work a lot and I never even went into a show.

     When summer tour came around I dropped out of school to do the whole tour. I had a since of urgency. Somehow I seriously knew this would be the last. I didn't make it too far. None of my protectors went with me. I choose poor company, two heroin addicts and a 15 year old runaway. We made it to Albany, NY and then were arrested at RFK (Washington DC). This was where I saw my one and only Grateful Dead show. I was still a minor and my mom had to pick me up. My case mysteriously disappeared and I never even went to trial. But that is another story.

     My mom let me go to one more show in Deer Creek, IN. with a friend whom she respected and trusted. Then Jerry died that August. This crushed me. I didn't know what I would do now. I had wanted to make this scene my life. First thing I did was finish high school. Then I tried Phish tour after I graduated in November. I only lasted three shows. I hated it! It wasn't anything like the Dead. Everyone was out for their own and money hungry. Not the tight knit family I fell in love with. So phish was quickly off my list of things to do.

     I turned 18 that March and headed out on my own. God was quickly moving in my life. Me and a few other people controlled all the LSD in the Hampton Roads area for a very short time. This gave an enormous since of pride and an almost rock star status to those I sold to. A huge bust ruined this for me. I, luckily, was out of town when it happened.

     I quickly became broke and quit selling drugs all together. I went traveling with my best friend, Mendy, who never approved of the swinger-kid lifestyle. She took me to my first rainbow gathering in Florida. Then we went to several more small gatherings. I was disillusioned to this almost instantly. The people were spiritually seeking but most of them seemed a little flaky to me at that moment in time. At least swinger-kids were grounded into some sort of reality. This spiritual-seeking however, seemed to me to be the right track. I hadn't really thought about spirituality for a while. Maybe that would bring an answer.

     So off I went looking for it. I hung out with Buddhists, Krishnas, cults.... Christianity wasn't even a thought. I hitch-hiked back and forth cross country looking for something. Eventually I did what all hippie kids do. I made my own. Since nothing ever seemed wholly right I created my believes from the bits and pieces I thought that were right. This is how it went.

     We all have some kind of soul. When we die there is something missing. Let's call it energy. Energy can't be destroyed so there must be an "after-life." Lets not name it. It could be heaven, hell, nirvana, becoming a tree, what have you. But this outcome depends upon how this energy has been charged. It's either positive or negative. So lets just stay "positive." God is real in a non-gendered state. He enlightens a few people here and there for the purpose of creating religions that are culturally specific to people who need it. Like Christianity and Islam. I don't fit into those cultures and therefore they aren't for me.

     This little theory lasted for a while. At that point Further tour was happening out East. This was most of the surviving members of the Grateful Dead. I hitched seven days straight, day and night to get to Va Beach from San Francisco. I thought surely here is the answer. It'll be like old times again! NOPE! I was sorely disappointed. They took my beloved Dead tour and made it a Lallapalooza! Not to mention they almost always played the same songs every night. I felt like I had followed Jerry's funeral procession around the country. But I did it all the way to the end. I was totally disillusioned.

     My purpose in life had been a joke. Hippie kids weren't different from anyone else in the world. They were still humans! Full of failures and disappointments. It's true that they tried a little harder than others. But ultimately they had alot of the same motivations as everyone else in the world. What could I do. Even smoking pot lost its appeal and this had been the one solace I could always depend on. I realized I was empty. I wanted my innocence back. I felt raped by the world. Everything was a temporary fix even pot. I had no true joy with in myself. It had to be forced in there by external forces. Luckily when I was realizing these things I was hanging out with a bunch of Christian kids in San Francisco.

     There was something different about these guys. They looked like me and weren't "better" than me. One of them actually sat down on the dirty Haight street sidewalk with me to talk. This opened me up but I was still hard pressed against Christianity. In fact I first moved into to the house to see to it that a friend, who was going to a drug rehab for heroin, didn't get "saved." But even after he was gone I stayed.

     One night in September of '96 at a Bible study in their basement it happened. A guy was leading worship. He played a song that reminded me of that Baptist church in Virginia. I remembered the purity I had as a child and longed to have it back. Everything came to a head. My theory, life, and scene were all useless. I was broken. No one was around me. I was on a couch in the back where no one even saw me. It was just between me and God. I was silently balling, I didn't want anyone to hear. I prayed, "God I hate my life." (For the first time since Junior High I was suicidal again with nothing left to live for.) " I can't do anything with this life you've given me and I've tried. If you want it so bad, take it. All I want to do is end it anyway. If you think you can do something with it fine. I just want one thing from you.... peace. Give me real peace from the inside out and I'll serve you forever. I'll die a missionary in Africa tomorrow if you want me to. Just please give me peace. I'll buy it all. You say Jesus is the only way, I accept Him. If you say the Bible is your word, I'll accept it. Just please give me peace."

     I continued to cry but after a minute I had to stop. IT WAS THERE! It was almost a psycadelic experience. I had peace and fulfillment inside of me unforced. No meditating, no drugs, no nothing put it there, it was real! I couldn't believe it. I felt like a child who had stubbed her toe and ran to her mother for help, crying. Only to realize that as she's comforted you the pain had since ceased to hurt and there was only a memory of it ever even happening. I began to cry again but this time it was joy. That peace has never left me to this day. Though at times I can take it for granted, God has always been true to His end of the bargain. Now came my part.

     I told no one for a few days. I wanted it to stick. It did. But my couch experience stayed private for a long time. I wanted to go tell my friends. I wanted to go back on the road. I knew instantly why it had all happened. God gave me a gift. His purpose was for me to tell others. I didn't know that this would take time. I wanted it then and there. But God wanted me to stay at the house and learn about Him. It took some convincing. Namely my dog was hit by a car and needed 6 months bed rest. Ok I stayed a year and the dog miraculously recovered after I finally got it into my head that I had to stay.

     After that I moved to Phoenix to work with a subculture ministry called Revolution. That fell apart after 6 months and I moved to San Antonio. I went to a Bible College and graduated after two years. I thought that was finally the time to go. Nope I got married. Luckily he wanted to go too. But he had to finish his college first. So we went. We lead a team of people to a Rainbow Gathering. Then later did Dead Tour. Now we're hanging out back in San Antonio with our baby boy, Isaac. I look forward to the day when he'll get to go too.