Becoming Gwen By Faith

My Name Is Gwen Miller, I was born in late October of 1958; the eighth child of a family of ten children raised in the Bedford Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, NY. My parents showed me by example the importance of God in my life through weekly church services, church youth fellowship activities, home bible study and nightly prayer.

My father made sure "The Word" was center in my life. Growing up, I found all this practicing my faith stuff time consuming and burdensome. Let's face it, it cut into my little girl outside play time, preadolescent gossipy yacky , yack time. And later, growing into a young woman-boy-obsessing time.

When my father died suddenly, my faith slowly coughed off. My beliefs were driven by my father's prodding. My mother now on her own to care for us; I fell apart and distance myself from my Mom and God. My rock was gone; what can God do about that? Filled with despair, I did not want to live.

Things worsen through my early adult years which were filled with the world's trappings and sin laden. Some years later, my second eldest sister became gravely ill after a long period of remission from cancer. As I spent those last weeks with her, I was perplexed by her inner strength as her body and mind deteriorated. She prayed day and night in the hospital and it healed her spirit if not her body. One night in April 2002, I got the call that my beautiful sister Jenny was gone. My first thought was "thank you God she is no longer in pain, she is resting with you."

Since then, I went back to church and turned my life over to God. Faced with my own stretch with illnesses; I found God was always there, a Father awaiting the prodigal daughter to come back into the fold. God brought me through it all. Practicing my faith stuff is still time consuming and seemly at times, inconvenient with the busyness of life. I have made God a top priority, the time spent in the word and fellowshipping is precious and immeasurable. I even now formed and lead an at-work lunchtime bible study group. My faith journey is always changing, what doesn't change is the source from which all my blessings flow.