A Tale of Three Wonder Women

Here are three incredible stories of champs that you should be aware of:

There are plenty of heroes that we are all aware of, be they military figures, political leaders, sports stars, and so on. But there are also unsung heroes or those who are little known. Most folks would not know about them, but God does, and you should too.

Here I briefly discuss three new books about three amazing Christian women. Two involve rather dramatic conversion stories of Americans who have recently written up their stories, while the third involves an Australian gal whose new book is equally inspiring. Here then are the three:

Ashley Lande: The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever: Transcendence, Psychedelics, and Jesus Christ (Lexham Press, 2024).

The book looks at Ashley and her journey from psychedelics to Jesus. Given that I had been on a similar sort of journey, I was eager to see what she had to say. She is an excellent writer, so her memoir becomes increasingly absorbing and addictive as one reads on.

And given what a gifted wordsmith she is, let me just offer the beginning and end of her story in her own words. In the book’s Prologue she says this:

For years, psychedelics has been my religion. They were my key to transcendence, my portal to a kaleidoscopic domain that was sometimes a palace of ecstasy. But the drugs didn’t work anymore. I couldn’t seem to have a good trip. These substances, which I regarded with as much reverence as a Christian might look on the baptismal waters, now unnerved me before I even let the blotter paper turn to pulp on my tongue or sifted the grainy bits of a psilocybin mushroom in my mouth. I was once sure they had shown me the face of God. But lately they’d shown me nothing but panic, disorder, and disintegration.

She did eventually meet the risen Christ, and she was baptised. She said this about it all:

I was no longer an exposed, quivering creature, with no refuge, buffeted by every vicissitude of life, thrown into existential crisis by every galloping, electric revelation that psychedelics seemed to disclose. I was no longer the young woman with saucers for pupils, in her hubris glutting herself on fractals in the air, cloistering herself in a secret world of spinning diamonds that once appeared a shrine but quickly became a prison. By some mysterious legerdemain of the Holy Spirit, I was a new creation. My life was hid with Christ in God. I belonged to Someone, and that Someone was the author of life, and further, Someone in whom there is light and no darkness at all – an idea inconceivable – or at least too good to be true – when I inhabited a vortex of yin-yang philosophizing.

 

The old me, inflated by the grandiosity of psychedelic visions I believed had been vouchsafed to me and me alone, would have scoffed. How silly, these people consoling themselves with this distant intimation of a religious rite. But what I once would have regarded as meaningless now seems fraught with meaning, overflowing with it. . . . God chose the silly things, the things I once despised, the modest places and modest people I’d once judged as definitely not where it’s at or who it’s with, to humble me and teach me what it means to belong to him.

Afterword

Ashley and I survived our drug days, by God’s grace, and have lived for many decades now. It is interesting how God works. I should mention that I was first tipped off to this book recently by my social media friend Hugh (thanks mate). I had just been watching a doco on Jimi Hendrix and his early death on drugs when he alerted me to the book. So I ordered it right away.

Everyone knows who Jimi is, many now might know about Ashley, and a few might know about me. Three people heavily involved in the drug scene. One passed away at just 27, while the other two of us were given a gracious reprieve by finding new life in Christ.

God allows some people to live longer lives than others, even though we are all sinners and all deserving of death. Ashley’s story and my story will go into the Lamb’s Book of Life, along with that of millions of others. The amazing and wondrous ways of God.

Linda Seiler: Trans-Formation: A Former Transgender Responds to LGBTQ (Credo House, 2023).

This is not just the story of someone who has struggled with trangenderism, and has found a way through it all, but it also offers plenty of biblical and other information about the radical sexual agenda sweeping the West, and how we can offer strong resistance to it.

As such it has chapters on what Scripture says about homosexuality; how we should understand sexual orientation and gender identity; how to engage with those struggling in these areas; the need for spiritual warfare; and how inner healing can transform us.

But since this article is looking at three inspiring stories, let me concentrate on Linda’s particular story. Briefly stated, she thought that she could live happily ever after by changing to her name to David and having sex assignment surgery. But thankfully God had other plans for her, and an eleven-year journey of transformation took place.

She says that she was always uncomfortable with her female body, even at an early age. She was even thinking about sex-change operations when she was nine years old, and she became sexually attracted to women in junior high school.

But in high school she committed her life to Christ and worked for Christian organisations while in college. However, her struggles, kept largely to herself, continued. Indeed, she felt this was a genuine conversion, but it seemed her sexual desires were not changing.

She started opening up about her struggles with counselors that she respected and trusted. Change certainly did not come overnight, but she learned that “being completely transparent with another person was tremendously healing.” Sharing her secrets with some mature believers was the first step in this decade-long process of change.

All genuine transformation takes time, and she learned that intimacy with Jesus was a key part of the journey to wholeness. Here is how she describes what she was going through as she began meeting with a counselor who once had the same struggles:

Through that counselor I came to realize that my sexual addictions were merely fruit from a deeper root. The evil one had taken advantage of wounds of rejection to lure me into believing lies about my sexuality. The path to resolving the pain in my heart was to renounce the lies, receive God’s truth, and find comfort in my heavenly Father instead of in the arms of another woman. I had met with multiple Christian counselors prior to that point, but we did more talking than praying about the roots of my disordered desires. I started to meet with several prayer ministers and began to see incremental changes along the way, but it was a slow process that seemed to take forever. I can remember at times curling up in the fetal position on the floor and screaming because I couldn’t stand the inner anguish. It was a grueling process, but I resolved not to give up. God had spoken, and I believed him. There is going to come a day when you look in the mirror and say, “I liked me” instead of “I hate me.”

She learned that rejecting her mother early on in life because she seemed weak and emotional was a big part of the problem, since that “created a vacuum for feminine love that I sought to fill with other women.” And eventually she learned to love herself as God had made her.

Her transformed life did not mean she became free of her vulnerabilities, and as she dealt with past wounds and rejections, she learned to rest in the Father’s love for her. More of her story is shared in the other chapters of this book, and it will be of real help to so many others.

Rosalie Crestani: Battlefield: Standing Firm for God and Nation (Greenhill, 2024).

My third story features someone that I do know personally, and have shared public stages with over the years. She is a politician and culture warrior who also has quite an amazing story to tell, although not one of radical conversion to Christ as the other two.

Her parents came to Australia after surviving life in war-torn Berlin during WWII. Born in Western Australia in 1974, the Christian family moved to New York for a period. While there she recalls how she challenged a visiting Bible teacher who was promoting some questionable views.

As she says, her willingness to challenge others and stand up for truth put her in good stead later in her political career, as she stood for biblical values in an increasingly hostile and secular society. The family eventually returned to Australia.

An early job in Melbourne involved working with drug addicts at a clinic. And then her sister died of a drug overdose. She married, had children, and became a local government councillor and Deputy Mayor. The bulk of the book tells that story, including a brief, kind mention of when we worked together standing up for pro-family values.

She was involved in so many issues, be it standing against the homosexual agenda, resisting drug legalisation, challenging political Islam in the community, fighting against the sexualisation of children in schools, and so on. All up she has been a very busy woman, seeking to represent Christ in some very difficult places.

And this book helps to give us an inside view of what such political involvement means. It tells us about the conflicts, the sacrifices, the battles, and the need for persistence and for prayer and spiritual warfare. The political arena is a real battlefield indeed, one that only God’s choice servants can face with courage and determination.

It is great to know that champions like Rosalie exist, and that they are seeking to be salt and light in some very dark places. She has been a tireless worker for that which is right, true and good, and she has faced plenty of opposition and persecution for daring to do so. It takes a special, tough warrior to withstand that sort of resistance.

This volume makes it clear that faith and politics can go together – indeed, they must go together. All over the Western world we are in desperate need of strong, faith-filled Christians who will bravely enter the political arena and take a stand for Christ and his values. Well done Rosalie and many thanks for your inspiring book!

And well done to all three of these wonder women. We sure can use a whole lot more folks just like them.

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