Holly Beth Mann - the Real Story

The only reason that I've had success with anything in my life is because of God's hand in my life. I used to avoid mentioning this as I didn't think it would be wise to mix business with my personal life. But over the years of working online, I've been interviewed by people on numerous occasions. Much of my life story has been put out there online, and once that happens there is no taking it back. So with the interviews, only part of the real story was being told. The rest I kept private. But the truth is, the most personal details of why things worked out the way they did; either online or in my personal life - are all directly related to my relationship with God. Anything that is good in my life, or in me, has been from God.

When I was a young child I was not brought or raised in church.I had no understanding of the existence of God or anything like that. I went through a lot of hard times with my childhood and lack of family and supervision. I was on my own a lot and at one point called out to a distant God who I knew nothing of. I was alone with my mother in another room. She was in danger and I had an image of her in my mind, lying on the floor dead the following morning. I thought if I were to just ignore the violent setting, I would wake up to no longer have a mother.

I called out to Jesus for the first time in my life. At first I said, "God please help," and I was crying in my room on the floor. There was yelling the background when I said, "Jesus please help" and at the INSTANT I said that word "Jesus" dead silence fell upon my home. It was an odd situation for me to be in - as things so drastically changed the instant I said that word. I quietly looked around the corner out of my room. My mother came up to me and was suddenly calm, at peace and totally fine. She told me not to worry everything is fine and to go to sleep. She was no longer intoxicated. I was safe and so was she. That was the first of a series of life-changing events that God brought me through. I admire people who can live life with such faith that no outward signs or miracles are needed to keep their faith strong. But, I needed that to make me understand in the reality of God and the fact that there was a savior.

Life continued on in the unstable environment in which I lived. When I was fourteen I was spending all my time with friends whose parents were drug dealers, the friends were into witchcraft and things were going downhill for me rapidly. I planned to run away and hop on the train behind my home. I was ready to leave, but something happened that CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER.

Over Christmas time in 1996, I went to my Aunt Barbara's home in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was 14-years-old. My aunt owned a Christian book store and she needed helping conducting yearly inventory for the store. She paid for me to go there and to do the work, and I needed the money and the time away. When I was there, she didn't try to "convert" me or anything like that. But, I started to become curious and ask her questions. I was very child-like in my questions and approach, as all the terminology related to it was foreign to me. I even remember asking her what the word "repent" meant and I was excited to understand more about God. She gave me my first Bible - along with a stack of other books that I read. She told her friend that I was like a sponge, trying to soak up everything I could. I left Las Vegas and flew back to Wisconsin. My first night back, everyone was asleep upstairs in the townhouse. I was downstairs, sitting on the couch, with a large stack of books piled up next to me. It was New Year's Eve and I was reading and creating a bracelet on an Indian bead-weaving loom I got for Christmas.

I picked up one of my books (although the name is really irrelevant, it was called "Pray it again Sam") and I read the first page of it. It had some type of prayer or meditation that it asked the reader to do. For the second time in my entire life (or first official time) I prayed. I clasped my hands together and began to pray.

IMMEDIATELY God came to me at 1:13 am on January 1st of 1997. The situation was more real to me than anything I have ever experienced in my entire life. No words needed to be spoken, as I could feel each and every message through my entire being. I was crying a cleansing cry, that didn't stop throughout the whole experience. I felt the most incredible love, the most incredible and indescribable peace and joy I have ever known. I NEVER knew that God was real before that day. Every horrible experience and everything that I had endured as a young child and things I had done to hurt others - it was all wiped clean. I felt, for a brief moment - all of those things. I felt all of the things I had done to hurt others; all the lies I told and all the things I had done. In another instant I felt JESUS - specifically felt JESUS forgive me of all the sins. I cried more and more for the fact that I was happy to be free from it all.

I looked at the clock at some point in the situation (or right before I prayed) so I knew it was 1:13 am. After that, and through what happened, I felt NO TIME and NO SENSE OF TIME or anything of the sort. I felt a taste of boundless and endless and timeless peace and love. It was something I had never known before from anyone or anything. That day, God gave me a gift that I cannot properly describe even if I try (which I am trying to do! LOL). God gave me life and innocence that would have been forever lost.

God taught me of true love and how to love for others and FORGIVE. God saved my life that day - and it really is the day my life began. I was a new person. Everyone knew something miraculous had happened and how drastically I had changed. God gave me an awareness (self awareness) like nothing I had ever experienced before. I felt God's presence with me and alongside me through my daily tasks, cleaning and interactions. I was painfully aware of what I said and did, and became bluntly honest as a result.

So, if you are ever in a situation where you feel desperate, confused or don't understand what to do - just call out to God. If you are feeling empty inside, bored with life, lost, unloved or any other form of discontentment, I think it is a direct result of missing the most important part of your life: God. It is unnatural to separate yourself from the one who created you and loves you.

"Then you will call, and the LORD will answer. You will cry for help and He will say Here I am." Isaiah 58:9