Welcome

Hi there! My name is Lynne LaBrake, and I am thrilled that you’ve stopped by to check out my site. Just to share a little bit about me, I am a married 51-year-old stay-at-home mom who loves Jesus and felt a calling to share my faith and some of the life experiences which have shaped me and strengthened my relationship with my Heavenly Father. My husband, Steve, and I have been married for 19-plus years and have five children between us. We share a son who will be 20 this year, I have an adult daughter who recently blessed me with a precious granddaughter, I am a stepmother to three more adult children, and a step-grandmother of two. 

There are so many labels that can be used to describe me: Wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, ex-felon – yep, you read that last one right (more on that later). For so long, I’ve reduced myself to one of those labels. Don’t get me wrong … I am proud of each one of those labels for one reason or another. But there is one label that is more important to me than any other. I am a child of God.

I accepted Jesus into my heart and life and was baptized at the young age of six years old. I was raised in church, attending Sunday School and worship services on Sunday mornings, Training Union and worship services on Sunday evenings, GA’s on Wednesday evenings. Any time the church doors were open, we were there.

My dad surrendered to the ministry when I was eight years old. I didn’t understand at that age the pressures of being a PK (Preacher’s Kid), but as I became a teenager, the stigma that came with being a PK challenged every one of the Christian values that I’d grown up with. It wasn’t bad enough to deal with the normal peer pressures that every teen goes through … I also felt I had to prove that I could be bad just like everyone else. And be bad I was! I often joke (though if I’m honest with myself, it’s probably true) that I am responsible for each and every grey hair on my poor Daddy’s snow-white head. In fairness, my brother is probably responsible for the hairs that are missing from that same head!

My disobedience did not stop there. As I grew into adulthood, I continued to disappoint God at every turn. I continued going to church for a time, until one day I just quit church altogether. At first, I stopped going to Wednesday evening prayer meetings, then I dropped out of Training Union, and later Sunday School. Eventually, I discontinued attending Sunday evening services, and finally, Sunday morning services as well.

I guess I had gotten to a point that I felt like a hypocrite for even going to church! How could I go there, with all the sin in my life, and expect God to shower blessings on me? I was so undeserving of His grace and forgiveness – and yet, God desperately continued to love me anyway.

I tell you that to say this … Yes, I accepted Jesus at a young age. Yes, I grew up in church. Yes, I had instilled in me all the Christian values you can think of. And yes, I messed up more often than I care to admit. The good news is that even though I messed up, God never stopped loving me and He never stopped guiding me. (For the record, neither did my earthly father and mother.)

There are many things that I am not proud of. There are things that I wish had never happened. There are things that I would love to sweep under the rug and never face again. But the fact is, every one of those things have helped to shape my life into what it is today. Those experiences, whether good or bad, were all part of God’s plan for my life, all leading me to this very day. You see, God tells us in His Word that His grace is sufficient, and that His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 2:9). There is nothing that I have done, that God cannot use for His glory.

It is my prayer that you will find some comfort in the knowledge that God will never give up on us. He didn’t give up on me … quite the opposite. He has placed a calling on my heart to use my experiences as a witness to His mercy and grace. Do you remember the children’s song “He’s Still Working On Me”? One of the verses sums everything up so perfectly.

In the mirror of His Word, reflections that I see,

Makes me wonder why He never gave up on me.

He loves me as I am, and He hears me when I pray,

Remember He’s the potter, I’m the clay.

I pray that He will continue to mold me into the woman He wants me to be for His glory. Who’s ready to join me on this journey?