Chaplaincy Training
I am a Christian author and speaker. I am receiving chaplaincy training free at Christian Leaders Institute. I came to know Jesus at the young age of 5. I remember the day clearly and that is saying something since I am now over 50! I was sitting in a church service on a Sunday night and to my little 5-year-old ears the message of Jesus and his death and resurrection became crystal clear in my mind. I went to the altar. I prayed my little heart out and felt the presence of God immediately. How do I know it was God’s presence in my soul at only 5? Because it is the exact same still small voice, the exact same presence I still feel almost 50 years later.
I remember on that night I wanted to live my life completely for God. I was so disappointed to find out that I couldn’t be a nun because we weren’t Catholic. 🙂 But God has blessed and used me in non-vocational ministry throughout my life. In my teen years, I played the piano and sang in church services, led a youth choir of about 20 teens, worked in prison ministry and assisted my mother in many women’s ministry happenings at the church. Yes, I am a PK…pastor’s kid.
Throughout most of my adult life, I was an elder in my chosen church after leaving home. I was in charge of scriptural authority in teachings, wrote much of the Statement of Faith and orchestrated the large group services. But my favorite task in ministry was serving and mentoring the women in the church. When I reached middle age, I became afflicted with a chronic illness. Eventually, my health made it impossible for me to work or to volunteer in ministry. This was a huge challenge to my faith. I never gave up on God, but I did fall into a sinful pattern in an effort to escape the depression, pain, and difficulty of the disease. I began abusing alcohol and pain pills so that I could escape feeling bad. This caused my depression to deepen and I attempted suicide.
But my family and friends banded together and held an intervention. I would get help from them. I would love them back and learn to love myself. While I was in the psychiatric hospital, I began to feel that familiar presence and hear that beautiful still small voice. These were the only thoughts of clarity I had and I relished in the scripture and song lyrics God streamed to me.
I am still ill, but I have the audacity to say, “I am well.” Because God has brought me through. I am more than my body. I am body, mind, and spirit, and though my body is weakened by illness, God has fortified me in other areas. So the whole of me is well. There is nothing in heaven or earth that can take me away from the love of God.
When I got home from the hospital, I researched through decades worth of journals to try and understand how I could have fallen so far. I discovered that in 2008 I began taking some bad advice from some well-meaning friends, even though I knew this advice was not supported by scripture. I extracted journal pages, wrote essays, and poetry to tell my story in words. I created original artwork to tell my story from the end of a paintbrush. When I was done I had an art journal that helped answer my questions. One day, God laid it on my heart to share this art journal, so I transferred it electronically into a book entitled “Well”.
Because of my story, I am especially burdened for Christians with depression and/or addiction. I have taken some certification courses on suicide intervention. I have also enrolled in the Chaplaincy Certificate program here at Christian Leaders Institute. I am taking this chaplaincy training in order to better minister to these precious people. I write under the pen name Alias In Town. It is an anagram of my name, Anita Wilson, but more importantly, there are alias people in every town suffering from chronic illness, addiction, and suicidal thoughts. I write for them. I am called to minister to them.
I’m not sure what that future looks like yet, but I am being obedient to the steps I see God laying out for me as I receive chaplaincy training at CLI. He has done miraculous things with endorsements, interviews, one-on-one ministry and public speaking ministry already and the book hasn’t even been published a month yet.
Learn about minister ordination with Christian Leaders Alliance.
My Testimony
I’d have to be insane to NOT love, trust and put all of my hope in Jesus, my Savior, Deliverer, Redeemer and dearest Friend.
Words alone could never express my love and gratitude for the grace and mercy shown, in my life, by God my loving Father, who never let go. He already had known I was His.
As I sat praying and wondering how to share with you today, this story of God’s grace, a song began to play and has continued to sweetly run through my heart and mind, because it’s words ring true, in my life, from the very first day.
Here is the chorus of that song:
Mercy Said No
Mercy said no
I’m not gonna let Melissa go
I’m not going to let her slip away
Melissa doesn’t have to be afraid
Mercy said no
Sin will never take control
Life and death stood face to face and
Darkness tried to steal my heart away
But thank you Jesus, that mercy said NO.
Keeping those words in mind:
Climb on the express train of Melissa’s life so far, with me.
Let’s journey back in time and see where in my life His great mercy took hold, and how it continues even today.
As God began to knit me together in an unsure, abused, teenage girl’s womb, my life was not plucked away, Mercy said NO and I’m here today.
A few months later, nameless in a crowded foster home, I fell asleep sicker than anyone knew. Lying there in a coma, Mercy said NO, I have a plan for her, and I am here today.
Through the years that followed, it is because of God alone, His great love, mercy and grace, that I am even alive and sharing with all of you right now.
From abandonment, to adoption, receiving a name, hearing about God in a church, placing that first seed and spark in my heart.
Followed by abuse of every sick kind, rejection, attempts to silence me, fear, confusion, suicide attempts, group homes, running away, promiscuousness, homelessness, doing what ever it took for my next meal, rape and alcoholism to numb, then finally turning 18, marring an abusive and much older man, thinking it would be freedom, then several times almost dying at his hand.
I believe through all of this, though I didn’t know Him, God definitely knew me. He was my shield and fortress and continued to stir in my heart a desire and need for HIM.
I’d like to say it ended there, but many more years followed with abuse, tremendous loss and so much more, all because I wanted God on my own terms. I just wanted him to hand out justice to those who had hurt me, and in this thinking I had missed something huge.
What about my own sin? the punishment I deserved? Hmmmm I was guilty of doing some pretty awful things too.
It was three years ago that place of brokenness arrived. My need for Jesus became suddenly and overwhelmingly clear, that only through His grace, believing Jesus died in my place, removing my debt, only in this would I find life.
I needed His mercy and forgiveness and realized through Him alone would I begin to heal, forgive others, learn about love, and in Him find hope and my reason for living.
Is my life perfect today? Uhh nope, but doesn’t change His love for me.
Have I been abused since then? Yep quite recently actually because of this new found love for Jesus❤, but He’s even working that out for His glory and my good.
Here is why my heart joyfully chooses to trust Him each day, no matter what occurs….
He who began a good work in Melissa will be faithful to complete it.
He is the reason, I get out of bed each day with hope, the reason I have breath to share my story, because of His love for me, I can love others no matter what they do to me. He is how I find peace when things seem impossible, I no longer need to feel ashamed, I am redeemed and I am loved!
Because there in NO condemnation for Melissa who is in Christ Jesus, I can now boldly approach the throne of grace with confidence and receive grace and mercy to help in times of need.
Get Free Bible Training – This Woman that He Made
Jennifer Champion
United States
I live in Northport which is a small city in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, USA. Tuscaloosa is a vibrant place that is home to the University of Alabama. It is known for the Crimson Tide, a nationally ranked college football team as well as it’s place in history as the birthplace of Segregation among whites and people of color. On every corner there is a church yet attendance is in decline. It is a beautiful place that is still rebuilding after a tornado came through and destroyed over 5,000 buildings and took almost 50 lives. Apartments are booming left and right yet we do not have enough shelters for the homeless. My mission field is Tuscaloosa County. It is my passion to reach the lost and hurting in the wooded homeless camps or those in jail. I was led by the Lord to reach out and take the gospel to those that struggle with addictions and poverty. Below is my personal testimony of God’s grace in my life and I take the opportunity to share it with others seriously.
See, Jesus picked me up right where I was and forgave me. On a nasty hotel room floor in Las Vegas almost twenty years ago he freed me from over twelve years of drug and alcohol addiction. It was a sin I had lived in for way too long.
He freed me from the guilt of an abortion at seventeen and from years of promiscuity.
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He forgave me of the pain I had caused so many people like my mom, my grandparents, my friends, my husband and my child. He stayed with me as I struggled in a failing marriage to a man I loved for over twenty years. He did not leave me as I went through a painful divorce.
Later in my life, Jesus would rescue me again from the sorrow I suffered from the sudden death of my ex-husband. On steps in the parking deck at Druid City Hospital, he gave me the strength to tell our daughter about her daddy’s death. A year later he gave me the courage to forgive the man that had caused his death.
Jesus wasn’t done rescuing me though. A short time later he stayed with me and my daughters and protected us in my second marriage to an emotionally and physically abusive man. In June of 2011, he made sure that we escaped from what would have been a murder-suicide.
My life had become unmanageable and I was ashamed. I was embarrassed, scared and had no confidence. Jesus stayed with me as my girls and I found ourselves starting over alone in a garage apartment with very little to call our own. Jesus gave me the resources and patience to get through another divorce.
I am hardheaded and the Lord has used times in my life when I was at rock bottom to speak to me. See, when I was in the craziness of my addiction, I couldn’t hear him. When I was high, my focus was not on him so he could not be seen. When I was drunk, my hangovers sickened me to the point that I couldn’t feel him near. It took life getting hard, unbearable even before I knew he had never left me. The choices I had made during my life were sinful and they didn’t affect just me. They affected everyone around me.
Jesus showed me that I mattered to him even though I felt worthless as a mother, a daughter, a woman, a friend, a granddaughter and a human being. He showed me that life could be different.
Today, my third (and final) husband Patrick and I along with our five children look to the Lord daily for guidance in all that we do. Jesus guides our steps into the homeless camps around Tuscaloosa County where we minister to those in need. He has placed me as a Celebrate Recovery Inside leader in the Tuscaloosa County Jail to minister to women inmates struggling with their own addiction and losses.
Jesus keeps our cars running so that we can pick up homeless people or women released from jail and bring them to church on Sunday. He provides food for our pantry to feed the hungry. He has blessed us with a home that we open to groups of men and women that are hungry for his saving power.
My life is not without troubles and pain. I still grieve when someone dies from an overdose or is killed in a car accident caused by drunk driving. I suffer alongside my homeless friend in the ICU as he watches his wife die. I still get anxious when the bills come in and it doesn’t seem we have the money to cover them. I still cringe when I hear a siren and our daughter is on the roads. Life is not ever going to be without problems and sadness but it is so much easier to get through it all with Jesus going before me, walking beside me, and standing behind me. I am also reminded by Jesus every day that this life is just temporary and there is something far greater waiting on me in heaven.
If you are tired and broken tonight, give it to Jesus. If you are fighting a battle that you cannot win, give it to Jesus. If you are ashamed, scared, depressed, miserable, and lonely – give it to Jesus. Do not leave here without asking him to forgive you and to take away the load you have been carrying around for so long.
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As the Founder and Executive Director of The Find HOPE Here Project, I am constantly looking with new eyes at the world around me. There was a time before the Lord called me to minister to the downtrodden right here in my own community that I would walk or drive past the man on the corner, dirty and begging for a couple of dollars. There was a time when I would say things like, “they brought it on themselves” when someone was arrested. Now, the Lord has taken that hardened heart of mine and humbled it. He is still molding me into a person with growing empathy and compassion of the people in my world. I thank him daily for the vision he has given me of building twelve missions centers in Tuscaloosa to serve those living in poverty and to build The Refuge, a shelter and transitionally living home for people without a home. I pray daily that he will use me in a mighty way to grow his kingdom.
My family and I attend Rosedale Baptist Church where I have been a member since 2011. My husband and I teach Sunday School, help with missions such as Operation Christmas Child and Vacation Bible School. We love our church family and love seeing the Lord at work there.
I have attended briefly New Orleans Theological Baptist Seminary but he just got to be too expensive for me to continue. Then I came across CLI and praised the Lord for this opportunity to delve deep into his Word and grow closer to him. I never finished college because of the lack of money and time but CLI allows me to do my classes on my own time from the comfort of my home. I was so excited to see in my first Connections Course at CLI an entire section devoted to personal and family devotions. My bible is ragged, held together with paperclips, staples and a little tape. It goes with me everywhere. It is where I go for decision making and it was the first place I turned to in prayer when it came time to make a decision about whether or not to attend CLI.
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