BESSIE BARRICK

Editor

My name is Bessie Barrick. I spent most of my early years growing up in Mora, Louisiana. My parents were heavy drinkers when my sister and I were small. They started going to church when I was about five, and my happiest memories start around that time, when we all went to church together. The happy memories ended at about age twelve when my parents stopped going to church and started drinking again. I promised myself that if I ever had kids, my kids would never see me in the condition I saw my parents in, and by the grace of God, they never have and never will. God's grace and mercy, and the support of two Christian women, helped sustain me emotionally during that time. I graduated from high school and went on to Northwestern State University of Louisiana (NSU) in Natchitoches, where I met my husband, who was in the Army. We were married after I graduated and sent to Hawaii a year later. I'd never been so far away from home where I couldn't get back easily. I didn't know a soul, so I decided to go to church. I was saved and baptized in the Pacific Ocean the first Sunday I went to Calvary Independent Church in Wahiawa, Hawaii. I promised God then that I'd never turn my back on Him, and I haven't. When we were transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia, I joined Grace Baptist Church in Columbus, and I'm still there. Both my children, Patrick and Alicia, grew up at Grace and are still at Grace. I have taught Sunday School there for over twenty years, and also help with the Master Club program and in Children's Church. I met Darlene when she was searching for someone to edit her first book, God's Rose. We worked together on it and have worked together on The Master Shepherd and Rose, the revision of God's Rose. We just finished the editing of Simple Steps. Darlene loves the Lord with all her heart and desires to do His will. Her main goal is to help hurting, abused women, and you'll find her books and her presentations directed toward this goal. I'm happy to be used by God in the God's Rose ministry.