My Brave Story- Kim Hillman — In the Wild+Wonder

I'd like to introduce you to this very talented, God fearing woman named Kim Hillman. She is a goal oriented woman who has some of the most precise organization skills that I have ever seen along with a creative mind. She is a seamstress, western woman, total dog lover and lover of Jesus Christ! Kim and her husband currently reside in Eaton, Colorado with their hound dogs where they they wish to one day move out of town back into the country. When I first met Kim I had just gotten married to my husband and we had our first "baby", a mini Aussie named Zoe. I remember being outside of the church barn when this woman with long dark hair approached me with her massive puppy named Marshal (the hound dog). At this point I knew that she was the talkative type and had a love for Jesus and dogs!!! Since then my husband and I have gotten to know Kim and her husband Marty even more so and seen the blessings God has done in their relationships with Christ! Here's her Brave story!

-Kirste

Kim, her husband Marty and their babies!!!

I usually start my story off with letting people know I was brought up a New Jersey Catholic Girl….nuf said. My perception of God was that you could never be good enough. He helped you if you begged enough, said the ‘Our Father” enough, or gave him enough money. If He didn’t help you just weren’t worthy of it. He was huge and powerful, you were nothing. At this point I remember the day that I thought He gave up on me. I was 12 years old and I was dating a boy that hurt me. Yes, at 12 I thought it was the end of the world. I feel as though I need to preface that statement with some background as that at age 12 years old I was sexually active with that boy. This is why the devastation I felt was exponentially heightened. Ok, Ok I just heard the wind get sucked out of the internet with that truth of my life. I’ve enclosed a picture of myself at 10 and 11 so that you can only imagine a year older, hormones raging and no one at home to stop me.

During this time I didn’t have my earthy father there to comfort me. Instead I went to God, except he didn’t give me what I thought I wanted. Sitting on the dock of the lake that day I yelled at Him and told God it was over! I never looked back. Well never is a long time! Never came when I was in so much pain being in and out of many alcoholic relationships. I knew there had to be another way. I spent 7 years in a program that was God based and God breathed. I still couldn’t get it; I couldn’t even read the books they suggested. Every thing was God, He, God, He...I quit again. In pain again, I went back to that program. They allowed me to have a higher power. It was the crack in the God door that He knew I needed. He had to let me find my way back to Him, to know that there was something bigger than me out there. I didn’t have to be the only one pulling myself up by my boot straps.

Some years later when I was 35, God moved me to Colorado. I always joke around saying that He moved me all the way out here to find Him. I would never have found Him in the, "what can you do for me state". I had been divorced by this time. I Left everything I knew back east, my Higher Power, my husband, my job and my family. This is when the search started. As I was lost and alone I heard, "look for me". One day I turned on the TV and there was Joel Osteen. Joel starts all his sermons off by holding up his Bible and reciting this; "This is my bible, I am what it says that I am, and I can do what it says I can do". Well that’s as far as I got. I was sobbing uncontrollably. Honestly I had no idea why I was crying, I didn’t even know what that book said about me, I just knew I needed Him, I was lost. Deuteronomy 4:29 says "But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after Him with all your heart and with all your soul". I started listening to Joel on a regular basis, trying to get to know this "God". That same God I screamed at when I was 12 years old sitting on that dock by the lake.

Five years after I came to Colorado, He God got a hold of my boyfriend (present husband). Through many events in his life, a dedicated servant of God persistently invited Marty to church. That’s when I saw the first tangible miracles God would do in our lives. He got Marty sober and saved in one hour!! How then did Marty get me to church? KICKING AND SCREAMING!!! Since that day at the lake I hadn’t stepped foot in a church. Marty begged me to go…..’Please honey…..it’s in a barn?!’ Humm intriguing….. a barn you say….maybe I could do that…. God knew again, “No stuffy Catholic church for this country at heart Jersey Girl. I’ve got her now"!

In that barn, He put the two most amazing Pastors in our lives. They taught me about this God that was a loving, caring, and accessible Father. A Father that never left, that was inside of me always, that wanted to be there for me and that loved me. For years, I used to tell people that I had a still small voice inside of me. After a couple of weeks going to this "barn church", Pastor Darin Gleghorn quoted a verse in the bible; "after the fire, a still small voice". That was the day, sitting on a metal chair in that barn that God said "I never left you daughter". Ephesians 2:8 says; "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves; it is the gift of God".

At first it was hard to listen to the still small voice because the worlds voice was louder. But, the more you seek Him, the more you will be able to discern His voice. He's loving and gentle always softly beckoning us to him. Like a father watching his child walk for the first time..."come on you can do it, I'm right here.... You're doing great.....I wont let you fall...I love you....". No matter what, He will always be there to pick you back up!