Thank You.

After having a few days to think about things, I’ve realized that my three-part story morphed into something a little different than I intended it to. It was a lot harsher and more negative, maybe.

I was trying to be brief for my readers’ sake, so I only highlighted the things I thought would be helpful to show a bit of my background. However, I realized how negative sounding it all came out and that I left out much of the very positive foundation of how I became the lady that I am today.

I am incredibly afraid that I broadcasted myself sounding as though I was regretful that I was brought up in a nonreligious home and that I made it seem like that was a detrimental aspect of my life.

I want to say very clearly: It wasn’t.

What I did intend to show by stating those things was that when I did come to know Christ, I just didn’t have considerate knowledge of Him prior to that. While I did grow up in a nonreligious home, my parents were never against me coming into contact with any type of religion. I did attend VBS most summers of my childhood, and I went to a few church services throughout the years with my grandma.

And also I feel like it is important to share that my parents did not really raise us (my brothers and me) to follow any certain views on life, whether that would be creation, evolution, “the big bang theory,” or any other views that are out there.

I’ve learned that what they did intend to do (successfully!) was teach us to discover our own thoughts and beliefs on how the world and its people were created. They did not want to force us to believe what they, or anyone else, believed. They wanted us to figure it out on our own, so that we could think independently about such an important matter that would shape who we are for the rest of our lives.

In all of my previous posts I have ceased to mention how thankful I am that my parents raised me like they did. I have mentioned that for many months I was skeptical of the whole creation story because of my background. I am SO thankful for that! Being skeptical meant that I was weary to just jump right in and believe the first real religious belief that I would encounter. I had the opportunity to dig deeper, open a bible, and really discover who God was before I ever committed my life to what I believe is the ultimate Truth of this universe.

Not only did my parents teach me how to think for myself, but also they are the ones who molded me into who I am today. They are the ones who taught me to have the morals that I have used to shape my life and they are the ones who taught me to live an honest life.

My parents are the ones who taught me what it meant to have a good work ethic and how to provide for myself by encouraging me to work for the things I wanted, rather than to just ask and receive. I am so thankful that I learned at a young age how to be financially responsible and how to work for what I need and want, rather than going into debt and living miserably because of it! They raised me to be independent, which, coming from a girl who got married right out of high school, I assure you has been very helpful in the transition out of high school and into college and the “real world.”

Like I said earlier, my parents gave me the morals that I have today. And while I did have some rebellious years, the ultimate reason that I changed my life at that point was because I couldn’t stand the hurt that I knew I was causing my mom, and I was tired of continuing to lose her trust.

They only ever wanted the best for me, and they knew that meant that I needed to stay out of trouble. At the time (middle school years), it angered me because that often kept me from hanging out with the people I wanted, but once I put those people behind me I realized exactly why my parents were trying to keep me from them. It was done with their best intentions, and who knows what I would be like today if they were careless about what I did or who I hung out with back then..

So ultimately, wanting to gain my mother’s trust back was what originally made me snap out of the inappropriate ways I was acting. It was then, in high school, that I found that great group of role models: Karly Heidemann, Ky’Lee Baumert and Bailey DeKoning. In my first post I didn’t mention their names, but I hold such high views of those amazing girls that I feel they deserve the acknowledgement for also morphing me into who I am. And then, as I mentioned in the second part of my story, after Ryan and I begun dating, we also pushed each other to be a better person.

I could continue on, but I think this is a decent place to end. I just really felt compelled to let everyone know that I am not only very blessed and thankful to have Christ dwelling inside of me now, but also I am so thankful for the way that I was raised. My parents were my main guidance for 18 years and without their love and support, I would not be the person I am today and I cannot even imagine how differently my life would have turned out.

So, mom and dad, THANK YOU. I love you both so much.

Part Three - My Story

Part Three: My Story

(...continued from Part One and Part Two)

I have revised this last section a bit in order to not step on any toes. Offending anyone has not been my intention for telling the story of how Christ saved me.

...Meanwhile, after both of our conversions, Ryan and I had begun to really dig deeper into finding out who God was. 

I found out that a few of those very close to me had some hard feelings toward Christianity for whatever reason, and they seemed to be quite against the idea of creation and giving one’s life over to a “god” who wanted to rule or orchestrate every action in our lives.

But the more Ryan and I learned about God, the more we wanted to talk about Him. We would talk to those near to us about the characteristics of God, which are discovered by reading the Bible. They didn’t agree with anything we were discussing and I began to feel a distance between myself and those loved ones that I had never felt before.

I began to feel afraid to talk about this relationship I was forming with God. I was afraid of opposition, which I got a lot of at the time. I knew that Christ saving me was the biggest moment of my entire life, and I felt like I should be filled with so much happiness. And I was – I had found a joy in Christ that I had never experienced before.

But at the same time, I felt more opposition and negativity coming at me from my loved ones than I had ever felt in my entire life.

I didn’t understand. I knew I was supposed to be happy. I knew that I was supposed to be joyful and let the light of Christ shine through me. But I think it was then that I started to shut out some of those I loved the most in my life because I couldn’t deal with their negativity in a time where my life was changing so radically.

I needed to feel the same love of others that I was trying so hard to give, and I wanted to get away from all the negativity. Thankfully, I was able to connect with my close friends (my bridesmaids) and Ryan and I had already begun attending worship services at NorthRidge Church and had met some amazing, Godly people. We (Ryan and I) had started a bible study with the Drahotas and the Ackermans, both couples who I just love, and I loved that in that time of need I was able to surround myself with these lifetime friends who share the same love of God that I had.

I waited about a month or so before getting baptized, however, because I feared the disapproval of my loved ones. I was so concerned with what they thought that I was avoiding such a strong conviction I had in my heart to become baptized in the name of Jesus. I eventually decided that I could not let fear of disapproval stand in the way of my relationship with Christ, so I got baptized.

However, I just didn’t tell my family.

I remember the day of my baptism so clearly. I was shaking with nerves the entire service because I was so nervous to get up in front of all of these strangers that I didn't know at the time. But, when the time finally came for Jason to baptize me, I felt a lot more at peace. Afterward, I remember seeing my aunt and uncle on my dad's side of the family. My aunt came over and embraced me in a hug, and we both started crying.  She was so happy for me but when she asked if my family knew, I started bawling, because I had not had the nerve to tell them that I was taking that step in my faith.

I thought that was the best thing to do at the time because it let me escape the initial opposition I knew I would receive. However, looking back, I regret my decision because there were a lot of other loved ones who were hurt when they found out I had gotten baptized without them knowing. I think that my grandmothers both wish I had told them, and my mom was upset that I had kept such a huge transition in my life from her.

But... regardless of that decision I made to not tell any of my family, my life really did change radically from the time Christ saved me.

It didn’t take long before Ryan and I both felt a strong conviction for spreading the gospel to the nations. We could clearly see that God was speaking to us, through the pages of His Word (the bible), about taking the gospel to the nations. 

The Great Commission was something that we knew we couldn’t avoid.

We jumped at the first opportunity we had to go on a short -term mission trip in August, which happened to be in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Meanwhile, two days after my high school graduation in May 2011, Ryan and I got engaged and set a date for August 13 of that summer. :)

We spent just a little bit of time in Haiti where God seriously opened our eyes to the multitudes of people who need Christ. I didn’t want to leave! I wanted to just stay in Haiti and see what God could do there through me. The wonderful Glace family, who traveled there with us, even offered to perform a wedding ceremony there so that we didn’t have to come back to the States to get married! ;)

It was definitely an eye-opening experience that led us to the absolute knowing that God called us, little Ryan and Cheyenne, to do great things through Him, cross-culturally.

Although we didn’t care where He sent us, an opportunity to go back to Haiti came about rather quickly. We spent the next two and a half happy years of our marriage getting through college and preparing to go to Haiti.

And here we are now. Ryan and me… two unworthy people who didn’t even realize who God was or that He even truly existed three and a half years ago.

In three years, God has become our Number One. He is at the center of our lives, at the center of our marriage, at the center of our decisions. He is there in the joyous times, and in the hard times yet to come. He will be there in the transition to life in Haiti, and in the relationships we form there. He is present at all times. He is the reason we live.

And He has given us eternal life and knowledge of Him, not so that we can be selfish and keep Him all to ourselves – but so that we can lead others to Him so that they, too, can spend eternity in Heaven, being in absolute worship and awe of our amazing Creator. 


This morning's church service really swept me off of my feet. Kelsi Walton's worship team sang some songs that really moved me today and if you haven't heard it already, right now you should go listen to the song "Worth It All" by Meredith Andrews. 

The chorus sings:
I let go of all I have just to have all of You
And no matter what the cost I will follow You
Jesus everything I've lost I have found in You
When I finally reach the end I'll say
You are worth it all

I just felt so connected to God this morning, and between the worship music and the message on how our beliefs shape our actions, I realized just how clearly I am understanding that this path Ryan and I are on is definitely heading in the right direction. 

I will continue to face opposition, and as weak as I am by myself, Jesus strengthens me and I will push through it all. Jesus, He is worth it all. He isn't worthy of getting only part of my life. Jesus Christ, the son of God, our savior who bore our sins in His body while dying on the cross, that Jesus... He is worth it all. And weak as I am, I am not going to be a coward and let opposition get in the way of taking action upon my beliefs. Otherwise, what good is my word if my works do not show my faith? 

Part Two - My Story

Part Two – My story
(...continued from Part One)

Now that you know that I wasn’t always an angel, I’ll move on to my sophomore year of high school.

I had just turned 16 when I started talking to Ryan. Of course I thought he was all that and a bag of chips :), and I was SO excited when I found out he wanted to date me. I loved everything about him.  I thought he was so handsome and funny. It didn’t take long at all before we were inseparable.

Cheesy, cheesy, I know, but I still get butterflies just thinking about how much fun we had my last few years of high school. We were in love. I don’t care what anyone else has to say about high school love! :)  We knew we wanted to be together forever – when we thought of the future, 5- 10- 30- 50- years ahead, we always imagined ourselves next to each other. Not only did we have a lot of fun together, but there was something that made us both want to be the best person we could be when we were with each other. We didn’t know why, but we both knew that we wanted our lives to change for the better. So we worked hard to make each other be the best person we could be.

Everyone thought we were crazy. He was out of high school of course, and everyone would ask why on earth I would want to be in such a “serious” relationship at my age. We both just knew we would get married and have a life together, but there wasn’t a whole lot of “serious” about our relationship – we really just had a lot of fun together! (I know, I’m a cheeseball!) But, to this day, we have never had to work hard to love each other. I’m truly a blessed girl.

It was my senior year of high school when we were both introduced to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Coming from a background of no knowledge or thoughts about religion, I was pretty skeptical of the whole creation story and everything leading up to salvation and eternity with an all-knowing, all-powerful God.

It all just sounded… crazy.

Almost everyone who knows us has heard about how the Drahotas evangelized to us for months and eventually lead us to Christ. But for me, it really did take a long time to let go of my skepticism for long enough to just open my eyes, ears and heart and listen to the gospel.

I know this sounds totally cliché in every possible way, but one day, I just knew. For some reason I have always been embarrassed to tell this story, but…

Here’s a quick background story: My entire life, I have had a serious fear of darkness, closing in around me. No matter where I was at, if I were alone and walking somewhere with darkness behind me (whether it be at night from a car to a house, or from our basement bathroom to go upstairs) – I would see things. I would see these faces behind me; most often, I would see the same man’s scary face looking at me through corners of doors. That happened throughout my entire life. (Weird, I know.) But anyway..

I was working at a law office and one day and I had run down to the basement to file some documents. It’s a really long, dark basement where you have to turn off several lights on your way back up, so when you are leaving there is a lot of darkness behind you. That always gave me the real heebie-jeebies and I would have this sense of fear creep up and I would sprint as fast as I could to get up the stairs and out of there. (I bet if one of my co-workers from that office read this, they might chuckle at me for that..)

Well, one day I was getting ready to head back upstairs and I was turning off the lights. Like every other time, I had fear of what was lurking in the darkness, that something might somehow get me. Instead of running as fast as I could to get out of there, I just stopped where I was standing, with several dark rooms behind me.

I stopped and I prayed.

I prayed right then and there that I would find Jesus in my heart. That, if He were really there, I could stop being afraid.

It was in that exact moment that God had softened my heart and filled me with the Holy Spirit. I felt this peace in my soul that I had never experienced in my life before that moment.

In that moment I surrendered to Christ and He saved me.

I wasn’t afraid any longer. I knew that He was right there with me, that if there were evil spirits lurking around me, I would be safe.

From that day forward, I knew God was real. I had felt Him come into my life in the instant that I felt I really needed Him, and He hasn’t left my side since.

Jason baptized me about a month later.
(to be continued..)

Part One – My Story

Part One – My story

What’s my story? (Since this is very long, I’m posting it as three separate sections.)

For the most part, I’ll save you the entire autobiography of my childhood. :) But to get to how I came to follow God’s path and not my own, I should probably include a few details.

I grew up in a nonreligious home. My parents (to my knowledge) were never interested in religion much and we never ever went to church, let alone even talk about the subject. Because of that, I am absolutely serious when I say that I knew nothing about God. Nothing.  I was oblivious in all ways possible. I have mentioned in the past that the only thought that ever crossed my mind about a higher power was the saying that when it lightning and thunders, God is up in the clouds bowling. (Funny when I think back to that, but I always imagined that every time it stormed – that there was some HUGE mythical god up in the sky, deciding when it should rain or snow.)

And then of course, not knowing what else would happen when I die, I had the same thoughts of many Americans in the sense that I assumed my entire family and I would go to “heaven” because we were all good people.  Thinking back on that, isn’t it a weird (or scary) thought that non-Christians often believe, in at least some sense, that they are going to heaven when they die? Since Christ saved me, this has always been a real wonder of mine. It is weird enough in the sense that some of the people (who believe heaven is where they will go) do not even believe in God – so why would we/they think there is a heaven? Is it just because it is a much nicer thought than becoming worms when we die? And lastly, I have noticed throughout my life and now that nearly all of those people who are “nonreligious” but believe in heaven seem to not even acknowledge hell. As if there is only a beautiful, heavenly place in the universe that we will all go once we die, and at the very least, only the murderers (and maybe a few of those people we have never really liked in our lives..) might go “down below” into the fiery furnace of hell.

But that really is a subject that makes me wonder because I, too, grew up believing or assuming that I would go to heaven for being “good.” And what constitutes as being a “good” or “bad” person when you’re not a follower of Christ? US. We believe we get to decide based on our own opinions and morals. When in reality, NONE of us are good and we are definitely not worthy of God’s grace and eternity with Him. But alright, I’m done with that side note!

So, back to “my story.” For some reason people always assume I have been a good Christian girl my whole life.  I haven’t figured out why people assume that, but I would have to give the props to my parents for trying their hardest to keep me out of trouble growing up.

My mom was always very serious about not wanting me to hang out with “the bad crowd,” and of course that was the crowd I wanted to hang out with! That crowd, of course was the cool one – or at least in my eyes.

Not to an incredibly far length, but I had a few rebellious years in middle school. I would go as far as to sneak out of the house in order to hang out with those friends that my mom was against. And sure enough I got caught EVERY. Single. Time. And I would get in pretty serious trouble with my parents. I don’t know why I did those things, probably just because I wanted to be cool like I thought the people I was sneaking out with were.

Thankfully, I really never did anything stupid when I would sneak out or go somewhere my parents didn’t approve of. But I was risking my reputation so that my “friends” could go do whatever they wanted to without having to sneak out of their houses alone. It was really stupid.

But besides getting into some major trouble with my parents, the funniest thing is that I really didn’t want to risk my reputation. I still wanted everyone to think that I was a really sweet girl. It’s almost like I had two personalities – one side was that I wanted to fit in with those friends, but the other side was that I didn’t want anyone on the outside to think I was a bad kid. I think I did a pretty good job of hiding my rebellious side from most people (other than from my mom – who seriously would find out about everything! How did she do that?).

When I got into high school, I became friends with a group of great girls who were two classes ahead of me. They became my best friends and for the most part, I had decided that getting into trouble with the other crowd wasn’t worth losing my mom’s trust in particular, let alone any one else’s. I stopped hanging out with nearly all of the girls I used to be friends with, and those older girls became really great role models for me. They all loved Jesus and I knew that I wanted to be just like them because they were so nice to everyone all the time. Even though I didn’t know who Jesus was, I knew something was different about these girls – and it was that He was shining through them always. Those girls helped put my life back together and maybe it was because I didn’t want to disappoint them, but I think that is when I started to get my head back on straight. :) Those girls ended up standing beside me in my wedding, and of course I still love them to this day!

(to be continued..)

Cheerful Weekend

Yippee! I graduated this weekend! J

Unfortunately I had a bit of a mishap during my graduation walk… just ask any of the 1000+ people who attended the graduation ceremony.  Yep – they all got to watch my cap fall off while shaking the president’s hand. But, as Ryan says, at least it was caught on video so that we he will be able to laugh about it the rest of our lives!

Don’t worry – if you see us very often, I’m sure Ryan will be thrilled to let you see the video. He’s so proud of his clumsy little wife; after all, I am the only graduate that did anything even relatively embarrassing during the entire ceremony. That even earned me a few giggles in my direction after the ceremony was finished! Lucky me, right? J

Although I have turned bright red each time Ryan has retold the story and showed the video, it actually makes me laugh just thinking about it. Of all the people, it had to be me, when just walking across the stage in front of all those people (without any mishaps) is embarrassing enough! And to the people who will continue to tell me not to worry about my fright of getting in front of people and being the center of attention – I will now have an even more legitimate excuse of why I avoid doing anything of the kind, at all costs! Hahaha. Oh boy. I’m sure there are lessons God is waiting for me to learn through this. I’ll let you know when I figure them out!

Anyway – I was really excited to have my family and a few friends there for support. And I was literally surrounded by people I love ALL day Saturday. 

I’M SO INCREDIBLY BLESSED! 

Among many other things, I am so thankful for being blessed with the opportunity to live in this house until we leave and having the space to be able to have everyone over to celebrate.

We also had a wonderful, festive evening full of friends, food, silly kiddos, and..... 

....tacky sweaters. J

What a weekend!

And now that I’m free of anything school-related, I’m excited to get back into the routine of intensive language study this last month. I’m also really looking forward to my brother coming home for the holidays, who I haven’t seen in a YEAR! And like everyone else, I’m also so excited for all of the family and friend get-togethers coming up!

Alright, I think that’s enough about all of the excitement going on around here. I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures that will either make you say, “Awwww!” or they’ll just make you giggle at how cheesy we can be! 

Because we were so late getting pictures taken (but at least we got some - thanks Mom!!), this post might be as close to Christmas cards as we will get this year!

Maybe here is where I should include: Merry Christmas, from the Weavers! :)