Why Butterflies Chasing Mustard Seeds Christian Ministry?

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It was the year of 2015

I closed my second real estate office.

I knew I had became very sick with Chronic Hep C from the transplanted Liver. 

If, I  survived treatments, it was not going to be a easy task.

My hopes of  pulling our family through another downfall began to dewindle.  

My body and mind had not healed completely from the transplant in 2009. 

I was not prepared mentally or physically to be forced back to work a real estate market that was nothing but Short Sales & A Foreclosure Market. 

You see, I had a Liver transplant in August 16th, 2009, two rejections, lung surgery and the real estate market had already began experiencing a housing market crash that completely bottom out.

Don't miss understand

I am grateful in and for everything. 

I give thanks unto God. 

I owe, a special thank you to my donor and his family and to all the physicians and staff at Duke Medical Center, Durham, NC.

And, to  Dr. Mark Jackson, Fort Sanders Regional Knoxville. 

I am blessed to survive to tell this story and I give God all the glory.

( we all have a story, i get that) :) 

It had  been a long hard road from hell.

The good news is we WIN in the end.

Richard, my husband suffered a horrific stroke March 5th, 2010. 

God had given me the strength to step up as I always did and face my adversities head on. 

Richard was holding his own the best he good in the situation he had found himself. 

Richard, a tough man could hold his own. 

I had stepped back out on my own and opened a second real estate office on main street in Sevierville, Tennessee November 2012. 

It happened suddenly, one morning as I walked into Barnes and Associates. Within  minutes, something felt like it was taking over my body.

My nervous system was failing, the young man's liver had Chronic Hepatitis C and I was dying all over again.                                                                                  The disease liver had become active. I had gone from stage zero immediately after transplant to end stage four within a three year period. 

The GOOD News! 

A cure is out for all types of Chronic Hepatitis.

My life was saved once again.

The six months of Harvoni treatments resulted in me taking at least three months too much medicin. 

I felt as if I were dying again.

I developed brain fog, and severe fatique.

My body and mind struggle five years to stay afloat. 

We had spent all our resources before transplant to keep me alive. 

I became afraid and made the decision to closed  my 2nd office, Barnes and Associates Real Estate.  

II had not received any confirmation from TN. State Bank that they would extend our ten year Heloc and I I knew I could not leave my husband and children to move out of our five thousand sq. ft. home Richard and I built. There was a slim chance I would survive. 

Fast Forward, It was July 17th, 2018. 

It happened our home was foreclosed on. We did not have $84,000 dollars to pay off the ten year Heloc in full. 

Displaced four hundred miles away from everything they had known for twenty seven years is a under statement. 

The separation from church, family, friends, home and work was complete devastation and our first grand baby was born. 

Looking back  to 2018 now in 2025. 

If my husband and my mind were thinking clearly. We would have survived better by renting a place and giving up the old home place in Conway. 

Note: We had planned to sell the old home place in Conway to pay the Heloc equity line. 

The transplant, rejections, stroke, market crash, Harvoni snowballed before we could make it happen.                                                                 

My mind could not longer handle all that was thrown at me. My body was still we. 

I began to suffer a nervous breakdown mid 2019.

It was 2020 when Nancy became determined to make a comeback mentally, physically and hopefully financially.                                                  

I've spent six years regaining mental and physical strength.                                              

I traveled back in my mind to when I was twelve. 

I began to wait tables part-time and think about how the little girl with determination to persevere from a broken and dysfunctional family survived.

Leaving home in 1973, at age thirteen, traveling on a Trailways Bus with ten dollars in my pocket. 

I had child-like faith that life, on the street may not be as hard as life was the first twelve years.

I spent a lot of time alone with God. 

The plan was to sell the SC. home and pay off the equity line on our Tennessee dream home. 

We had no plans to move back to South Carolina.

The old home place was in need of major repairs. 

All, I could think about was how to gain the mental strength I needed. 

I had sold real estate many times from my hospital bed and never lost focus. I liked the real estate life. I first began selling in 2002. 2002-2018. 

I began to suffer  signs of a nervous breakdown. The PTSD from all the trauma became too much to fast.

I could no longer to play the role of wonder woman. 

The losses were too many back to back includint the loss of my precious mother right after the loss of our dream home.                

Richard was fighting his own battles to  recover from the stroke that had paralyzed him three in the beginning.

His left leg, arm, mind and voice had been effected.                                     Richard spent day after day for years wasting his life in a TV. He too lost his ability to stay focused. 

Our family, the strong man was bewildered and struggle quietly internally, not to give up. 

Searching for work, online when you knew nothing about a computer or a smart phone was a monster, from hell. It was hell for Richard and I. He kept trying to fill out applications electronically to no avail.                                                                                                          I could no longer fight for us both. I could not teach him and help myself at the same time. 

Something, in my mind was not connecting properly. 

No more than it was in Richards. 

Our minds were suffering. 

I had worked in overload before transplant and again after transplant, the hepatitis treatments caused massive confusion.
I began to experience the feeling of not wanting to live. Similar to what I had experienced at age twelve, and again at age twenty. 

I was shocked to see that I was experiencing this again at age sixty. The emotional roller coaster is something I would never wish on anyone.                                                                          I knew from previous experience, the only hope I had,  was if God rescued me.                                                                    I spent endless days and nights studying God's word  reading daily, and sometimes many times a day. 

I read the late Dr. Charles Stanley's 365 Day Daily Devotional, the book laid on the table in my bathroom. I read many pages daily

Richard and I were not able to communicate effectively with each other.                                                                     I listen most Sundays, sometimes all day and evening to pastors and teachers on TBN. 

When I could mustard up the strength. I would attend a few local churches. 

It took Satan twenty years to break me. 

I knew It was God who allowed him to break me. What I could not understand was the why? 

Richard and I both had always worked diligently and spent our time at home with our kids. 

We were like many other good middle class citizens. What had happen, We did everything we knew to do right. We did our best to live by the golden rule. 

We broke and we broke hard. 

The GREAT NEWS! 

We both have recovered, we are walking miracles many times over.