COVENTRY, Conn.–When Candace Calver-Lori was a fourth-grader at her Christian elementary school, her inquisitive nature during Bible study time landed her in trouble.
“There were things I didn’t understand,” Candace said. “I was taken out in the hallway and told, `Don’t ask questions. Just believe what you’re told.’”
Church was just as confusing. They presented God in such a way that Candace saw Him as an angry God. And in a church where no one read the Bible and church members said prayers printed for them to recite, Candace’s disillusionment with the Christian faith took root.
Already a victim of routine corporeal abuse by an instructor and abandoned by an alcoholic father, Candace ran away at the age of 15 and soon her life spiraled out of control. In the ensuing months she would be arrested, turned over to the State of Connecticut, and admitted to a psychiatric hospital. By 16 she was pregnant and by 17 a mother.
While motherhood quickly halted Candace’s wild life, her spiritual life was on hold until 2005 when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Then a divorced parent of two, Candace began searching for something; some control; some peace in her life. Always a worry wart and an admitted obsessive compulsive, Candace’s search for control and peace led her to meditation and Buddhism.
Nine years later, Candace began reaching out to God. “I was meditating one day and Jesus started coming in,” Candace said. “I could clearly hear Him say, `Follow me, walk with me.’ And it was then I started reading the Bible.”
Last April a cousin invited Candace to a Stonecroft Bible Study and immediately her life changed. “It opened up a whole new world for me,” Candace said. “It was so easy to read. Then we went to the next one. And I began to ponder what things meant. I had to think about them; had to absorb them and accept them. And I accepted Jesus as my Savior.”
Now Candace’s OCD behavior has lost its grip; she follows the Holy Spirit instead. And though she has lost the ability to work due to MS, it hasn’t meant slowing down spiritually.
“I praise the Lord every day,” she said. “I always ask, How can I serve you today? It could be an older person who needs help. So I go out each day without knowing. That means I make plans, but something could happen.”
No doubt, Candace will be ready.