My name is Allison Best. I was raised in a Christian home, one of six kids, and the church has always been a part of my life. My dad started as an elder, became worship pastor, then was asked to plant a church where he became the lead teaching pastor. All of my early memories are in the church. In high school, I used to help sing worship, and our church also had a traveling worship group. We would go to prisons to lead chapel time, or sing at music festivals in Seattle spreading the gospel.
Around Senior year in high school is when I started to stray a lot. Looking back now, I know it’s because I didn’t have a firm foundation or understood what I believed about the Gospel, which made it easy to waver when I went around secular kids. I started to experiment with drugs….trying mushrooms, ecstasy, smoking a lot of marijuana, or getting drunk at house parties….And I also started to let culture shape my worldview. I was also extremely feministic.

My relationships were always matriarchal and I always told my boyfriends “I don’t NEED you in my life, I just want you in my life”. I cheated on every one of my boyfriends and never felt guilty about it. To me it just was a game and guys were something for me to use. When I graduated, I moved to downtown Seattle in a neighborhood that was a predominantly homosexual area and at age 18 started using my sisters ID to get into bars. I hung out at a lot of gay bars, always went to the Gay Pride parades, and partied a lot. Like Tuesday-Saturday.

Sunday I’d go to church. I could speak Christian very well and look modest. But the other 6 days of the week I could do whatever I wanted. I believed wrongfully that all I had to do was say the “Christian Prayer” and ask Jesus into my heart…..And eternity was sealed for me. So I didn’t have to deprive myself of anything….I Can have fun like I see all my friends doing…..As long as I believed that (which I truly did in my heart) then I’m good right? At least that’s what I was taught. I knew nothing about repentance or the weight of my sin, or even internalized what Jesus did on the cross for me. Instead, it was a backwards view of “Jesus died for me so I can keep sinning”.
So That’s what I continued to do going into my 20’s. A whole lot of partying, promiscuity….drugs…..I graduated to cocaine and crack, but by Gods grace never the needle.

At my lowest point I found myself in my studio apartment, high and cutting myself in my
bathroom. I remember thinking this is all just a sick game. We’re Gods chess pieces. What’s the point? But the fear of the Lord was deep in my heart….Because even though I strayed so far….I knew I didn’t want to commit suicide. Because then I had to face Him! That was too freaky. So I just sat there cutting myself hating life. God is very patient though and He slowly started to draw me in. He started with Jason. I met
him two weeks after I cut myself in 2006. We met in a night club (of all places) when we were drunk. But I had no clue how he would use this man to sanctify me. He gave me the most opposite person of me you could give, probably because God knew he’s the only one that could tame my spirit. I started to see the world through Jason’s eyes….BEAUTIFUL. He’s constantly only seeing the good in everything. Laughing about nothing. And his glass is alwaysfull. He’s an extreme optimist and I was an extreme pessimist, and we got married in 2007.

The early parts of our marriage were very secular. I believed marriage was legalistic.
50/50…..everyone just do their part. And I approached it as “Well if it doesn’t work out, I can always get a divorce”. Together, we did a lot of smoking, drinking and more partying. But then one day, randomly, I remember Jason saying “we should start going to church”. That was awkward for me, because I knew all about the church…..but I agreed because I did notice SOMETHING was missing in life. We started going to Mars Hill in Seattle in 2010, and thats was when God started to break down my view of the church. I had a VERY jaded view. Christians were fake. Sheltered, they honestly knew nothing of the real world like drugs or depression, and Sunday morning is just a show for everyone. We started going to community group and that’s when a lot of my sin was exposed. Selfishness, pride….A lot of pride exposed….Conviction of our lifestyle. We stopped smoking weed, stopped partying, and really started to get plugged in at church, and God continued to work on us through community group relationships. I met women who have been abused, couples who were divorced with blended families, women struggling with addiction…..And everything I thought I knew about Christians was thrown out of the window. We also formed the most amazing relationships with other couples in the same season of life as us and I learned everyone is going through something which you know nothing about.

After my view of the church was torn down. God started on my marriage. Because he knew through that season, we would need other Christians to point us to Jesus continually. Our pastor did a sermon series called Real Marriage which also talked about biblical manhood and womanhood. That was mind blowing for me and honestly the first time I’ve heard anything about it. The last part of the series was confessing sin we had committed to each other. This was the first time I had ever felt the power of the Holy Spirit. People always talked about it, but I never felt Him. I remember walking to the car after service…..And the conviction and the weight inside me was so heavy I just started bawling. Jason was freaked out and was like “What’s the matter??” And in the car….In the parking lot of church, I confessed to him I had cheated on him twice, with two different men. I had promised to myself that I would take that to the grave and deal with it when I got to heaven, because I saw what infidelity does to marriages. But I did it. I told him, because that convicting power I felt inside me to confess to Jason was almost audible it was so strong. And I remember the INSTANT feeling of that weight disappearing when I did. It’s a freeing feeling that was so crazy! And after we worked it out….That freeing feeling continued. Just like Romans says “Sin shall have no dominion over
you”…..That is TRUTH! Not carrying that burden anymore, no more secrets, no more feelings of shame or guilt when I looked at him. It was freeing.

One month after Jason and I confessed sins to each other, I got pregnant with my first son. I honestly believe it was because God knew in order to go through the next season of life….Parenting….We needed to have a unified marriage. And a marriage that mimicked Christ, not the world….And He was setting that up. He started with my view of the church….Then my view of marriage….Then I think God was like “Let’s look at you Allison”. Which, if you are a mom….You’ll know SO MUCH of your sin is exposed through parenting. It’s self-less….Constantly giving to someone else other then you. You are the first to wake up and the last to go to sleep and sometimes the last to eat. You have to teach yourself to find Joy in mundane every day activities. Counting all your blessings. And when you’re tired or feeling unseen and unappreciated…..You have to be in constant prayer and know that MY GOD sees me, He has a purpose for me, all things will glorify Him, and in EVERYTHING that I do, my life should be an alter revealing who He is. God continued to work on my heart, and I learned how to love the phases that I’m in and not grumble.

Also, my view of God started to change. I used to view him as this All powerful, wrathful, God in the heavens. But now I started to see him as God the father and could relate so much as a parent. The love and Joy I get when my kids are happy is unexplainable. How I want nothing more then for them to understand the dangers in this world so they can make good choices. How when they are throwing a toddler tantrum because they can’t have 10 popsicles, and think I’m the most evil being depriving them of happiness….They don’t understand it is for their good. Man how much grace God gave me everyday, as I threw my tantrums, yelling at him, telling him his rules are depriving me of
happiness…..Yet he still loved me and pursued me no matter what! That is the unconditional love of God the father.

In those 5 years we continued to faithfully go to church, hosted community group, and I
consumed a LOT of theology. I read a whole bunch of books, was constantly listening to
sermons from Matt Chandler, Francis Chan, John Piper, and relearning everything I thought I knew about the bible. One day I remember…..Everything was great. We had an awesome church family, my marriage was amazing, and I finally got a hold on this whole parenting thing.

But I never wanted to be complacent in my faith and I feared becoming a luke warm Christian. So I wrote in my prayer Journal “Lord please give me something to SPARK my faith! Something to make me feel your presence” because I kind of just felt blah. In my mind…..God would send a friendship my way that challenged my faith…..Or maybe like a Mormon or Jehovah’s witness that made me dive into the word. Nope. God gave me Nico, my 3rd son.

Nico was an unplanned pregnancy. Or should I say….Not our plan but Gods plan.
When we went to find out the gender, we found out Nico had a congenital heart defect.
Regular hearts have 4 chambers….His had one which mixed oxygen and Co2 together. Through this journey of my walk, I feel like God was saying “You’ve consumed enough. Let’s see if you can live out your faith now. Do you believe I am omnipotent? Can faith really move mountains? Is there power in prayer? Can you live life in light of eternity?” Nico’s journey taught me all of that. We were approached many times encouraging abortion. One time they told us “you are being set up for a lifetime of caring for a medically needy child. Abortion is a really good option”. Another time they said “If he does survive, he will not have a good quality of life. Abortion is the best bet”. I yelled at them and told them to never bring up abortion again. Because through all that fighting….Abortion was never an option. I continued to carry the little man for 9 months….Knowing the possibility that he might not make it when I gave birth. I have a Type A personality, and don’t do well when things are out of my control. Nico’s
journey was 100% of letting go and letting God. They told me since he wasn’t using his lungs in utero, they aren’t certain his lungs are fully formed yet. So when he took his first breath….Most likely he wouldn’t be able to breath on his own and would need life support. We also found out he had a total of 5 congenital heart defects and a condition called Heterotaxy. A rare birth defect that happens 1 in every 10,000 people. Because of this, his heart mirrored itself, he had two superior and inferior vena cavas, his pulmonary veins rerouted themselves through a different organ, his stomach developed on the opposite side of his body, his liver mirrored itself making a bow tie shape instead of a boomerang, and he didn’t have a spleen….So he would have to be on amoxicillin his entire life. All of these things. All of them were examples of how small I was….and how I can not control
any of it….and how BIG MY god is….and how he would use all of it.

When Nico was born, he took his first breath and the doctors said it was a miracle he was
breathing on his own. The doctors saw how his stomach and intestines were functioning
despite being flipped and on the wrong side….Which was a miracle. Nico went through three open heart surgeries the first three months of his life, and every time they were able to successfully close his chest without complications, they said it was a miracle. The first and second open heart surgery they told us he had a 50% chance of living. And when the third one happened….They didn’t even offer a percentage. But God kept working and Nico made it out of every one miraculously. When he was 3 months old, he had to finally be put on the transplant list because there were no more corrective surgeries they could do. His skin was blue because his oxygen saturations were low, and ultimately he needed a new heart. The doctors told us the chances of getting a donor heart is very slim. Because we need a newborn size heart….and it has to be within 6hrs from us in order to transport and accept it. But by now, this didn’t scare Jason and I. We’ve spent consecutive months in the ICU. Jason was working graveyard and I had a 3yr old and a 1yr old at home. We learned how to lean in on God for physical strength, and stayed in the word for spiritual strength. We lived 50 miles from the hospital, and traded off being there or being at home with the toddlers while Jason continued to work graveyards. My prayers changed from “Lord please heal my baby” to “Lord Help me be at peace if you do call him home” to “Lord Your will be done. Continue to use Nico and my family as a vessel to spread your Glory”. And as much as it would hurt to lose my son….I found peace in knowing that this life is temporary…Is not the end….And I’d see Nico again in Heaven.

When I truly surrendered that to God in my heart…..That’s when we got the
call that we had a donor heart! When Nico was back in the OR, they had prepped the whole room with life support machines. The doctors said because Nico was so sick going into the transplant…..He’s going to need life support for a while when he’s done and it might take months to wean him off. But Nico came back from the OR, they closed his chest with no complications or swelling, and again miraculously, he did not need life support. We spent 9 consecutive months in the ICU. And even after we were discharged, we spent the first 3yrs of his life in and out of being in-patient. The common cold would send him to the ER because he is immunosuppressed. His feeding tube problems like vomiting blood in the middle of the night. Or other surgeries that needed to be done like caths, biopsies, G-Tube surgeries or adenoids taken out were still things we had to deal with. But still to this day it is very clear how God used Nico for his Glory. Through miracles of healing, He showed his omnipotence. He taught Jason and I how to suffer well and praise His name, even though it felt like life was falling in on us at times. And suffering well, made others curious for the Hope that was in us…..Which opened up so many doors to share the gospel! It also taught me….An arrogant, impatient, always irritated pessimist, how to extend Grace. How to love like Jesus. How to
leave it at the cross….And not pick it back up. How to move my faith from just books smarts in my head, to actually living it out. And how to live life in light of eternity.
This life is temporary and filled with sin and sickness….But Jesus will one day make it right. God’s not done yet….Because a Christians life is of constant repentance, and there are so many things I still have to work out. But until then, we just have to fight the good fight, finish the race and keep the faith!

Thank you for letting me share my story with you.