As you can tell from my home page, my name is Rose Mawhorter. This is my story.

Childhood

My childhood was fairly normal. I was raised as the oldest child in a non-Christian family. It was non-Christian in that we didn't attend church and we weren't taught the core Christian beliefs and values but there has always been the quiet influence from my mother's beliefs.

Through out my childhood I was set apart in school. I'm not sure if it was because I was bossy, a non-conformist, a high achiever, stubborn, or just socially inept, or maybe some combination of those things. Whatever the reason was, I was ostracized. I know that I perpetuated the bullying by tantruming but I didn't know how to get out of the cycle. I handled it for the most part until it started to really get to me in junior high. By that point I had stopped responding to taunts but I didn't have the social skills to make friends and my reputation was beyond repair. I was lonely and I didn't know how to deal with myself.

Coming to Faith

In the middle of grade ten my family moved from Courtenay BC to Victoria BC. This gave me a clean start. I still was unable to establish friendships at school but I did make one friend through volunteer work that I was doing to entertain myself. She invited me out to her youth group at a local church. At first I was a little resistant because I didn't know what to expect. When I did eventually go I really enjoyed it. I saw that the people there were different from the people that I went to school with. The leaders, especially, genuinely cared about me.

After a few weeks of attending I knew that I wanted to identify with this group. I wanted to a part of their community. I also wanted to have the intimacy with God that they had. I found all this one night when I revealed my ignorance of what I actually needed to do to become a Christian. My friend explained that I had to except Jesus into my heart. We went and found the youth pastor and the three of us prayed together. I basically told God that I wanted to do whatever He wanted. I don't remember exactly what I said but it was something along those lines. I was so eager for a change that I didn't really think of the repercussions of my prayer.

Growing in Faith

I was ignorant at that point of a lot of God's expectations of me but my attitude helped me. I really wanted to please God. I was grateful for my new found relationship with Him and I wanted to show Him. I was afraid that I would do something that would turn Him away. I didn't know just how deep God's love runs. Yes, He wanted me to work on a lot of things. I needed to learn that He wouldn't reject me if I failed and that He was there with me helping me change to become more loving ever step of the way.

About a year after I had made this step toward there was an incident in my youth group where one of the youth was badly beaten while trying to protect another youth. I was not at all close with the kid that was hurt but it really upset me that God would allow him to be hurt. I very nearly turned my back on God because of this incident. Over the course of a few days of grappling with my emotions over this subject I came to realize that I was here for God and that he wasn't here for me. I decided that I would follow him regardless of what I might suffer for doing so. I look back at this incident and think that in some ways this was my true conversion. It was at this point that I counted the cost of discipleship and chose to follow anyways. God only knows where my heart was before this point.

After I graduated high-school I went to Capernwray Harbour, a bible school, to learn more about God. This was about a year and a half after I had become a Christian. I had been growing, as God moulded me, up to that point but the eight months at Capernwray really helped me grow in faith in a more intense way. My roommates were a perfect match for dealing with the sharper edges of my personality. The staff were really caring, patient and generous toward me. I learned many lessons that year. For example, I was short on money that year but the funds would inevitably show up in my mail slot, usually anonymously. This helped me learn to trust God to provide for my needs. Most importantly I did grapple with the issue of God's love. I started to really see that God loved me and really wanted to use my life to accomplish great things.

After my time at Capernwray I moved back into my home with my family. This was a difficult adjustment because it tested the things that I had learned at school. How would my patience hold out when things got more stressful? Could I find a job? Would I need to be excepted by friends? I still had a number of issues that needed to work out. My old habits and ways of thinking were still coming through (they still do but hopefully not as much!). I did make some friends which helped me see that I was worthwhile person. It was during this year that I met my husband, Joel.

I found a job and moved out with a roommate about a year after my return from bible school. It was about this time that my husband and I started to date. We became engaged a few months later and then got married the following spring. After we got married we moved to Vancouver. I was a little lonely because I spent all of my day time by myself for that summer and fall. I learned that I couldn't rely on Joel to meet all of my needs. We were partners but I needed to depend on God to meet my emotional needs. I also grappled more with my insecurity.

The following January I went to school for a semester. When the fall semester rolled around I had enrolled in a University to take education but God had different ideas. Within the first week of classes I found out that I was pregnant! This was a real shock. I was both happy and sad. I wanted to trust that God knew what he was doing but I was disappointed because it was not what I had planned. This helped me grow in trusting God.

I tried to continue with classes but my morning sickness just made that too difficult. Truly, though, the morning sickness was God's providence. At this point my younger sister was also pregnant and due at the end of November. She was planning to give her baby up for adoption. All through her pregnancy I had been praying that her baby would be placed in a good home. At the beginning of November I had a dream that Joel and I had adopted her. I woke in tears. I hadn't even thought of the idea of adopting the baby myself. Over the next few days my husband and I talked and prayed about the idea. We didn't have long to decide as my sister could have had the baby at any point. It was a very emotional time for me. We did decide to adopt the baby and my sister was very happy with the idea.

Faith was born November 30, 2002. We flew out to Winnipeg to pick our new daughter up. We decided to name her Faith because we had chosen to adopted her through faith that God would take care of us no matter how hard the road that followed would be. Since Faith's birth I have been learning how to be a good mom. I've never had to be so self-sacrificing. God has used this to help me be more able to live my life for others.

The time while I was pregnant with a newborn was difficult as I didn't feel well and there was so much change but God carried me through. My son, Paul Steven was born May 14, 2003. Having children has taught me more self-discipline. I've had to get organized and work harder because I've realized that laziness effects more then just me. By this I mean both self-discipline in completing menial chores as well as self-discipline in my relationship with God.

Another area in which I have been growing is my understanding of sacrificial living. Over the last few years Joel and I have really been working through what it means to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. We've come to realize that we and the majority of the western church has been sinful to live in a largely self-indulgent way when millions of people worldwide live in absolute poverty. You can read an essay that Joel wrote on this subject on his website. This realization has caused me to have to evaluate every aspect of my lifestyle. I've been looking for all waste in my life whether it has been in time, money, environmental resources or any other resource that God has given us in order to put it more in line with God's call on my life. This has been a huge challenge as there is so much waste. We have been working to change our lifestyle to be more in line with the commands of Jesus.

Since our thoughts on our lifestyle has been challenged we've tried to find fellowship with like minded people. Living differently has been challenging. I have been tempted at times to accommodate the other peoples expectations of me too much and have struggled with pride. I am truly no better than anyone else. All good that you might see in me has been worked into me by the Holy Spirit.

Concluding Comments

I hope that this gives you a bit better understanding of who I am. Throughout my mini biography, I have tried to explain the ways in which I was shaped into who I am today. In the things that I mention that I have grown in, I hope that it is clear that I don't think that I have arrived in any of those areas. I'm still weak and insecure in areas but hopefully just a little less then I was before. My old habits and patterns of thought still show up but God is slowly replacing them with more constructive ones. Also, I'm not trying to induce pity; the reality is simply that I am naturally selfish, weak, insecure, and unable to understand God. This is why I need God's help. He has helped me change in so many ways. I hope that this web page shows Him that I am grateful.