It was when my children were 5, 3 and 10 months old that I just felt the desperate need to get to know God through the pages of my Bible. And as a result, I started a Bible class in my city for the primary purpose of being in it.

I think of religion as man's attempt to reach God, and you can't do that.

Abraham is such a fascinating figure. Three world religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - all claim him as a patriarch. He was raised in a religious home. And yet he rejected religion in order to pursue a personal relationship with God.

When I was a teenager, I was trying to please people. I kept changing who I was to please the people I was with. And so once I just decided I wasn't going to do that anymore. I was going to live my life to please God. And so from that day to this, that's been my aim. Some people don't understand, but you can't please everybody anyway.

If I can center down and strengthen the core of who I am, and the core of who I am is my relationship with God, then that helps me maintain peace deep down. If I can maintain a healthy spiritual core, I think that's enormous for helping the stress.

Around 1998, I went through lots of pressures and struggles. My children got married within eight months of each other, my son was diagnosed with cancer and went through major surgery and radiation, my mother had five life-threatening hospitalizations where I stayed with her, my husband's dental office burned to the ground.

God cannot be less than Himself. And God is good. And active. And faithful. And He cares.