Since I’ve been regularly fasting intermittently already, my thoughts on the subject of fasting as a Christian boils down to fasting is a way to become closer to God.

Christian fasting, to me, means we submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit and ask for guidance on our lives. I’ve been talking to God about different issues in my life; my health and well-being, how to overcome obstacles in my finances, and how to overcome my student loan debts – which amount to more than a quarter of a million dollars! I’ve never told anyone the amount I owe in student debt loan which is a shaming thing for me. But I have reasons for not being able to pay it back.

My reasons for not being able to pay back my student loans began by my being a battered wife many years ago. I lost custody of my daughter, Kindred C. Kohler in an illegal manner, and became threatened for many years after that. Stolen custody was done by her father’s fraud on documents written up and submitted to the court by his fraudulent attorney, Daniel Russo. Mr. Russo, a prominent attorney in the bay area submitted a document to the court that stated that I had somehow signed away full and sole custody of my daughter to the man that almost choked me to death, among other things, but I hadn’t. In fact I had brought this case to court in order to ask for full and sole custody of my daughter, not to sign custody of her away to the man who almost killed me.

In those days the police didn’t haul the perpetrator away because they saw domestic violence as a family issue that they didn’t want to get involved in. Nobody heard of battered women’s shelters except a few forward-thinking people, but by then it made little difference when the police did not arrest the father of my daughter and take the batterers away to jail. The police officer just asked me if there was anything else I wanted him to do – leaving me standing there in fear, gazing at him, after I had just almost lost my life. He took a police report where on the last line he wrote something like, “Mr. Kohler admitted he choked his wife”.

I became involved in several family law groups across the United States. This situation also caused me to declare bankruptcy where I lost everything, including a townhouse, my car and my remaining sanity. I became homeless across several states over the following years and did not recover from what had happened to me. I collected disability benefits for a year, as I remember. It was a terrible time.

This situation started a long journey into my becoming a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in writing these words I am more strongly aware that losing custody of my daughter has been the driving force for my reaching out to God in those days. Not wanting the batterer and his family and friends to enjoy hearing about the damage that Wayne Kohler and his attorney, Dan Russo, has caused me, I have remained quiet about the details of my long, abused, and torturous journey.

My Christian conversion has come very, very, slowly over the past few decades since that time. My memory has become garbled in some respects because I do not exactly remember the order of things that I struggled through. I was physically harmed and my memory has not been the same since due to memory loss, and trying to put the pieces back together has been a monumental ordeal. I have no family to speak of, so it’s been a lonely journey for me.

My belief has solidified over the past maybe five or six years where there is no doubt in my mind that Jesus Christ has saved me from the nightmare of my life and existence on this planet. My belief in the Lord is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and though it may sound shallow, I lack the words to fully describe the transformation I’ve experienced. I have healed rather slowly over decades of my life, but I have been saved instead of dying physically and spiritually, through my belief in Jesus.

I never got to know my daughter, Kindred, since she was taken from me at such a young age, but I have come to accept it. You learn to live with the pain and become used to it, but it is never erased from your mind. You get over it, as they say, but it’s been many years for that to happen. I feel absolutely no pain about it, although I know it’s a strange thing to have suffered. Losing a baby is like losing an arm or a leg at the time where you always feel that phantom limb. You know it’s supposed to be there, but it isn’t. The absence is a constant presence, crippling your mind, thoughts, and spirit.

I’m in a better place now with the Lord and have come to understand that in even losing a person in your life, you can always find peace that passes all understanding through the Lord. He never goes away.

I give all glory to God!