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I had entered in with full intention of gathering toys to organize her room. The heavy weight I walked in with had become so normal that I hardly noticed. But as I came within a couple of steps from my toddler’s bed, I automatically draped myself across it. Crying seemed as natural as breathing in those days. It was 1982 when my husband and I were pastoring in Arkansas and he went to California for what was to be a three week revival but never returned. After the shock, I was ready to fight the battle. My faith was high as an army of comrades surrounded me with support, believing God for restoration. But the clock continued to tick and weeks turned to months. The reality that he wasn’t coming home was confirmed by the sight of the last cardboard box being carried from the parsonage and loaded into the moving van.
I continued to live in the area rationalizing to myself that it would be easier for him to come home if I stayed put. Within months an unexpected knock on the door pulled the shade on what otherwise would have been a beautiful summer morning. I was served with a legal document that began with the words, “Dissolution of Marriage”. I was rendered totally incapable of reading further, eventually someone else had to do it for me. All I knew was that the world as I knew it had ended.
I later moved to Joplin, Missouri where I secluded myself in a borrowed home spending every minute of every day asking myself where my life had gone.
I was raised in a minister's home and found it a natural progression to marry into it. In my early years, life on the road automatically sheltered me from the traps that the world can often set. The seriousness of marriage was also ingrained in me. Divorce was not an option because ministry and divorce could never co-exist which I knew meant ministry could no longer be a part of my future.
I was baffled that God had not pulled through for me as expected. In fact, His game of hide-and-seek was beginning to wear me down. I would be left wondering if this time He was gone for good, besides, why would He hang around? I was no longer “useable” . . . I had lost my song.
Now, some three years into my wilderness, I’m lying on my side as the tears rolled over the bridge of my nose in my little girl’s room. I could subtly hear them drip on the bed beneath my head. It seemed routine as usual until I was suddenly distracted by a slight movement I felt stir deep within my spirit. Over time there had been many supernatural interventions that kept me going, but this was different. I momentarily sobered up to analyze the situation.
Kimmy was eight months old when we were abandoned, making it more convenient to implement my “survival strategies.” One of which was to keep every possible avenue open for the Lord to speak to me. I needed answers and couldn’t physically tug at His robe so I devised other ways.
My dad had paid to have cable installed and it never occurred to me to use the small black and white TV set as entertainment for my little girl. Instead, I kept a continual flow of ministry through Christian Television unless sermons were being preached by way of my small cassette tape player. I placed Bibles within reach in multiple places throughout my home referring to them as “my medication.” My ex-husband had remarried within days after the divorce was final. Soon after I began hearing reports of a new home and nice car. . .while planting a church in their area. So few knew he had left a wife and baby in Arkansas that he was able to continue life as normal. The rage that would sweep over me on a regular basis made it necessary to reach for my “medication.” I didn’t care if it said, “Saul begat Saul Junior,” I would take a deep breath, lean my head back and tell myself to relax until the medication took effect. I knew desperate situations called for desperate measures, I just never knew the depth of desperation I would come to see.
On this day I was able to connect the stir inside with the voice I was hearing filter through the wall from the next room. It was a woman on television preaching under a heavy anointing. I can’t tell you what she was saying but what I was feeling as she spoke is a moment I will never forget.
I was almost embarrassed for myself as the craziest revelation followed. “Could I do that?” I wondered. My thoughts were racing as I continued to have an odd conversation with myself. “That would be my answer, if I could minister.” It had never occurred to me before. Public speaking of any kind was not my thing. I needed three surgeries on my face alone before I would feel comfortable standing before a crowd. I had always been on the sidelines and loved every minute of it. I was now sit-out all together and it seemed for good. But there were no rules against the “divorced one” ministering (Right?).
Eventually I got up the nerve to shift my attention to the Lord. “If You’ll help me”, I prayed, “I’ll do my best to figure out how to do that.” Then I added a footnote, “Will You please keep this between us?” I knew full well how foolish I looked to anyone who had a clue that I suddenly obtained an ambition for ministry. My life was a total wreck. I could not have possibly appeared more defeated, yet I now had a new vision for myself with no idea where to begin.
I wrote a letter to Anne Gimenez who co-pastored with her husband, John at Rock Church in Virginia Beach, Va. I told her what I was writing was meant as a seed that one day I may receive something equivalent to it. If someday, someone who found themselves in a desperate situation could find hope from something I had said or done, I would consider that my harvest. Before sealing the envelope I pulled a crumbled five dollar bill out of my purse and slipped it inside. No one will ever know how much money that was to me.
It was like a slow-moving locomotive as God and I began to work out the details. Months turned to years and the one common thread that wove them together was a song.
I often referred to myself as a “songwriter by accident.” It seemed as if He would speak to me in code when I was at my lowest. About the time I couldn’t draw another breath on my own, I would hear something in my ear that would seem to hook me up to “spiritual life support.” He never failed.
Slowly I took small baby-steps to wholeness and in 1996 married a business man, David Walker, which happened to be gifted in areas where I was weak. He negotiated a record deal and established my publishing company. I would speak on occasion at retreats and conferences as well as in those small-church settings. As my songs began to get recorded I realized they were best served by having others who were more vocally gifted sing them. But that made it hard to gauge what kind of impact I might be having in the lives of others.
In January of 2007 the Lord spoke to me about the next level He was taking me to but roadblocks began to erect and stand between me and what I knew was supposed to materialize. That’s when I reverted back to where it all began.
I found her website and opened the messages she had posted at full volume. I spent hours letting Pastor Anne’s voice ring throughout my home to stir that place deep within me once again. I found a donation button and with a click deposited a hundred dollars into her ministry. Thanking God that it was much less painful than that five dollar bill had been years before.
Then in the fall of 2008, it appeared that circumstances beyond my control would force me to set it all aside realizing that unless God builds the house those that labor, labor in vain. It really was okay. I was exhausted and willing to hand off my load to Who should have been carrying it all along.
A few months into 2009 on a Sunday afternoon my daughter called me from a place where she and her husband were ministering for the day. “Mom, what do you think about you guys driving down for the evening service?” It was an hour and a half away and we’d need to leave by 5:00. I was still in my Sunday morning clothes so after confirming with David I called her back and told her we would come. She said, “Bring your soundtrack to “I Plead The Blood”, I have a feeling they’re going to want you to sing it.”
I felt an anointing in the building the minute I opened the door. The service had started and we made our way down front to sit with the kids. It wasn’t long until the Pastor came to the pulpit and acknowledged we had arrived. He began my introduction by saying, “You know the song our choir sings, “I Plead The Blood”? Lona wrote that song." Then it was my privilege to tell the story of how it came to be and sing to them the song that had been sung by so many others who could do it much more justice than me. Still, it was requested that I do so and I humbly complied.
My son-in-law, Josh Dennis, preached and we all went out afterward. The pastor’s wife and I began to visit as she inquired about my music and writing. I explained to her how songwriting is such a walk of faith. “When a song gets recorded, it no longer belongs to me, it becomes known for the artist that recorded it” I said. “Then I’m not there to see the impact that it might have had on others. I may hear reports and certainly feel they are doing their job, but I can’t see it. I just know and have to believe my life is making a difference in some way.” At that point she became teary-eyed and said, “Let me tell you what “I Plead The Blood” has meant to us.”
She began to tell the story of someone who had fallen into sin. He had embraced a careless lifestyle that would lead to an illness, one from which he may never recover. After he had re-dedicated his life to the Lord he heard my song. She said their church choir learned it for him. He went to his grave singing, “I knew I was guilty as I stood before the judge. He questioned me, how do you plea? I replied, “I plead the blood."
It was at that moment, twenty-four years later, that I reaped my harvest on a faith-written letter and a crumbled five dollar bill which ended up being the best investment I ever made. What a privilege to hear others around me join in my song. . .the one I was empowered to sing again.
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