To the Edge and Back: A True Life Story

By Judy D. Dews

For author Judy D. Dews, life has thrown her a variety of challenges. In To the Edge and Back, she shares these challenges and shows how God saved her and has worked in her life..

Beginning with her birth in California in 1961, the third of her parents children, Dews mother tried to give her away, an action that set the tone for the strained relationship between them. Through her parents divorce, her fathers untimely death, being burned on more than 74 percent of her body, and the death of her grandmother from cancer, Dews found comfort in church and prayer.

To the Edge and Back shares the events of Dews life, and she also includes pertinent scriptures and biblical lessons to demonstrate the influence God has in our everyday lives. Through tragedy, loss, and difficult relationships, she communicates the light of Gods grace and discusses ways we can be encouraged by all of lifes circumstancesgood or bad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490879482

Judy D. Dews

Judy D. Dews is a wife, mother, and child of Jesus. She has traveled many places and loves being about the Lord’s business and ministering to all in need. Dews and her husband, Bill, live in Texas.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 Judy D. Dews.

Cover image by Micheal Lewis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7949-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7950-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-7948-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015909811

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/06/2015

Contents

Acknowledgments

1.   In the Beginning

2.   The Deception

3.   I Left My First Love

4.   The Blind Leading the Blind

5.   A New Life

6.   The Rebuilding

7.   My Knight in Shining Armor

8.   Another Great Loss

9.   Getting Reacquainted

10.   Growing in the Spirit

11.   Enjoying Where the Lord Has Me

12.   Raised from the Dead

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Lord for being with me through everything, for sending me my husband, and for writing this book through me. I would also like to thank my husband for encouraging me to write my story, my dear friend Becky and my grandkids Stephen and Jennifer for helping with the editing, and my son Micheal for providing the cover illustration. I am also grateful to my daughter Pamela for her help with this book.

My family has been there through many trials. When I married my Sweet Pea, I gained the best family ever. I also would like to express gratitude to Marissa and to my family for being with me during one of the most difficult times in my life in 2010. My family is a treasure. I am eternally grateful to all the friends who prayed for us. I thank them for being with us through it all.

Chapter 1

In the Beginning

It seems that the enemy of God and the world were trying to destroy me from the start. I want to share with you the story of how God saved my life.

The thief’s purpose is to steal and to kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life (John 10:10).

And you, Nineveh, will also stagger like a drunkard. You will hide for fear of the attacking enemy

(Nahum 3:11).

I was the baby in my family. My mother had a boy and a girl and did not want a third child. Rather than have an abortion, she tried to miscarry me by lifting heavy furniture. But God had a plan for me, and I was born on October 5, 1961, in San Francisco, California.

This is what God has to say about us:

O Lord, You have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You go before me and follow me. You place Your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; too great for me to understand! I can never escape from Your Spirit! I can never get away from Your presence! If I go to heaven, You are there; if I go down to the grave, You are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there Your hand will guide me, and Your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night; but even in darkness I cannot hide from You. To You the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to You. You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank You for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are Your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, You are still with me! (Psalm 139:1–18)

God never makes a mistake. I love what this psalm says: all days ordained for me were written in His book before one of them came to be. There are no accidents with the Lord Jesus. No one is a mistake.

We lived in California for a few years before moving to Dallas, Texas, where my dad’s side of the family was located. I attended first grade there. My father always wanted me, and he kept my mother from letting his sister adopt me. I have often wondered what my life would have been