I Was With You

I was raised Catholic in New Orleans, Louisiana. We went to church every Sunday. It was simply what we did. I attended Catholic school, and Sunday meant going to Mass.

But if I am being truthful, our life outside of church did not necessarily look like the Christian life.

Still, even as a little girl, there was something in me that knew God was real.

I felt deeply connected to Him before I ever understood what having a relationship with Him meant. I thought about Him. I sang songs to Him. I talked to Him. I prayed before I went to sleep and when I woke up.

Even after I moved out of my parents' home, I would still find myself sitting in church on Sundays. Sometimes I was listening intently. Sometimes I was literally counting the blocks on the ceiling.

But I kept going.

There was something sacred to me about that hour. It was uninterrupted. No phone. No distractions. Just an opportunity to be quiet and turn my attention toward God.

What I did not understand at the time was how much pain, resentment, and trauma I was carrying.

As I became an adult, those wounds began to show themselves. I turned to alcohol to numb pain I did not know how to deal with, and that created problems of its own.

Growing up in New Orleans made it especially easy to hide. Drinking was social. Everybody seemed to be drinking. What looked completely normal on the outside could easily cover what was really happening inside my heart.

Through all of this, God was writing another part of my story.

His name was Ryan.

Ryan and I knew of each other in high school, but we were not friends. We had never even really had a conversation. I remember being around fourteen or fifteen years old and playing on a softball team when he came to watch a game.

I saw him, and for a moment it felt like the whole world stopped.

I remember thinking, Who is that?

I had absolutely no idea what God would do with that moment.

Throughout my twenties, Ryan would unexpectedly pop up at different points in my life, but we never really connected. Then, shortly before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, some mutual friends invited me to meet them. When they mentioned that Ryan Hebert was there, I got dressed and went.

There was another piece of this story that Ryan knew nothing about.

I had been praying for my husband since I was a teenager.

In ninth grade, one of my religion teachers told the girls in our class that we should begin praying for our future husbands. I took her words to heart.

I did not know his name.

I did not know what he looked like.

I did not know when I would meet him.

I just believed there was power in prayer.

At that point, my faith was still much more about religion than relationship, but I prayed anyway.

Then Hurricane Katrina changed everything.

Ryan evacuated to Dallas, Texas, and we lost touch for about six months. One day, completely out of the blue, he called me.

And somehow, I knew.

I knew I was going to marry him.

For about a year, I traveled between Louisiana and Dallas. Eventually, Ryan asked me to move to Texas. I packed everything I had, and two weeks later, I moved.

We got engaged.

Then we had Royce.

Then we got married.

Yes—in that order.

I did not need a big wedding. I just wanted his last name. I wanted a family.

And then I became a mother.

Holding Royce in the hospital was one of the most profound moments of my life. As I looked at this little boy in my arms, a thought came over me that changed the direction of my life:

If this child gets to my age and does not know God, I have failed him as his mother.

There was only one problem.

How was I going to teach my son about a God I realized I did not truly know for myself?

So I went looking for Him.

And somewhere along the journey of trying to find God for my son, I found Him for myself.

I attended a non-denominational church for the first time. The pastor spoke about The Purpose Driven Life and about tithing.

I immediately downloaded The Purpose Driven Life on audio.

Years earlier, a life coach had taught me that if I wanted something to become deeply ingrained in my thinking, I needed to listen to it repeatedly until I practically knew what was coming next.

So that is exactly what I decided to do with this book.

At the time, I was living in Baton Rouge and commuting to New Orleans for work. I spent approximately four hours a day in my car.

Every day, from January 1 through January 29, I listened.

And listened.

And listened.

Then came January 29—my dad's birthday.

I was driving across the Causeway in Louisiana when I had an encounter with God that changed my life forever.

I cannot explain it any other way than this:

The Lord met me in my car.

One after another, He began bringing moments of my life back to me.

Times I had been in danger.

Times I had made terrible decisions.

Times I had been hurt.

Times my heart had been broken.

Times I had felt completely alone.

And with every memory came the same message:

I was with you.

Another memory.

I was with you.

Another moment I thought I had survived by myself.

I was with you.

Again and again and again.

I was with you.

In that moment, I completely surrendered my life to Jesus.

And I realized something that still overwhelms me when I think about it:

My whole life, I had been with God. But I had never understood that God had been with me.

He had been there all along.

I remember being overcome with joy and thinking:

I'm going to Heaven.

I was so happy. So relieved. So grateful.

But almost immediately, another conviction settled into my heart:

Who will be there because of you?

That question has never left me.

It changed the way I see my life.

It changed the way I see people.

It changed the way I define success.

And it is one of the reasons I love, give, serve, encourage, mentor, write, and share my story today.

Because when my life on this earth is finished, my greatest legacy will not be the things I collected.

It will not be the house I lived in, the money I made, the titles I carried, or the things I owned.

I want my legacy to be people.

I want to stand in Heaven one day and see a crowd of people whose lives were somehow touched because I said yes to Jesus.

People I encouraged.

People I loved.

People I served.

People I pointed toward Him.

Some I may know about.

And I pray there will be many I never knew about at all.

That is the legacy I want to leave.

Not a collection of things on earth.

A collection of souls in Heaven.

And when I look back over my entire story—the little Catholic girl in New Orleans talking to God, the young woman trying to numb her pain, the teenager praying for a husband she had never met, the new mother holding her baby and desperately wanting him to know Jesus, and the woman driving across the Causeway on January 29—I can now see the thread connecting all of it.

He was there.

He was always there.

And if there is one thing I hope someone takes away from my story, it is this:

The God you are searching for may have been pursuing you all along.

Even in the places where you thought you were alone.

Even in your worst decisions.

Even in your pain.

Even in the chapters you wish you could rewrite.

He is there.

And today, I can look back at all of it and hear the same words that changed my life:

“I was with you.”