I was raised in a traditional Christian home and was six years old when I learned Jesus wanted to save me from my sins at Vacation Bible School and asked Him to be my Savior.

However, even as I went to church every Sunday, sang all the Bible songs, and learned about God, there were other influences in my life, and because of those influences I became absolutely fascinated by the occult. Ghosts, witches, mediums, psychics, haunted houses…I was interested in it all.

When I was nine years old I wanted to be a fortune teller when I grew up (or a missionary in Africa..go figure). I have no idea how I learned about palm or card reading, but I found it fascinating.

As a teenager, I started reading the Bible myself and learned God warned against all the practices I thought were interesting. I loved God and didn’t want to offend Him, so I stopped participating in occult games. The problem is the interest didn’t go away, I simply pushed it aside and did the best I could to be a good Christian. As I grew older, I married a Christian man and was raising my children to be Christian

My husband and I loved God and wanted to serve Him. We were very active in church.  I knew a relationship with God was based on His mercy but somehow over the years I forgot that truth and began listening to others who suggested to be a “real Christian” you had to follow certain rules or live a certain way to be godly. You had to be “perfect”.

As a result, I became very legalistic, replacing a relationship based on grace and faith for strict religion and a desire to be “the perfect Christian”.

Over time as I worked to be godly through my own efforts, I also became angry and confused when all my efforts seemed to be ignored by God. Depression began affecting all areas of my life and eventually I stopped reading the Bible and gave up on prayer.

In 1999, I came to the conclusion that Christianity wasn’t working for me.  I believed I could never be “good enough” to meet the legalistic standards of perfection I believed were necessary to please God, so after twenty-nine years in the church…I left.

Being a person of faith, however, I knew I couldn’t live in a spiritual vacuum. Jumping feet first into the spiritual unknown, I decided to explore Wicca (a goddess/earth-based pagan religion incorporating witchcraft) I first learned about in 1995. I began to study anything I could find, surfing the internet, joining pagan message boards, and befriending those with like mind or who could answer my questions.  I studied mythology,and learned about herbs, crystals, colors, as well as divination techniques such as the tarot and pendulum.  While I eventually decided Wicca wasn’t for me, I committed myself to witchcraft, embracing it as my new spiritual path.

Over the next several years I also began exploring other areas of the occult, especially psychic development, eventually becoming a Clairesentient Medium and a ghost hunter.

Thankfully, despite turning my back on Him, God was not about to let me go easily. The Holy Spirit was always there, reminding me of His presence and convicting me of my sin. Even when I began to believe the lie that I could meld witchcraft and Christianity in my own form of “personal spirituality”, God continued to pursue me with the truth.

Finally, after eight years in the occult, God’s truth finally broke through my deception and malaise, setting me free.  I confessed my sin and renounced all I had done over eight long years and recommitted my life completely to Jesus Christ.

I was no longer “Legalistic”. I recognized I was truly “Accepted” by God through His grace and my life was restored.

What I experienced during my eight year spiritual journey was often dark and difficult, but I’m thankful for having walked through it. Now I’m firmly set in the center of God’s will.

No matter where I go from here, I will serve Him. My prayer is God will use my experiences to bring Him glory, reveal the truth of His never ending mercy, grace, and forgiveness to all, encouraging anyone who might be on a similar journey to never stop seeking Him. (Kristine McGuire)

The song she refers to in her Secret Story (see below).

I was aborted by a saline infusion abortion in 1977.

However, that attempt failed at ending my life, and instead of being born dead, I was born alive on the 5th day of the abortion procedure (yes, this is an absolutely true story…feel free to visit my website to see pieces of my medical records).

Although I was initially left for dead, the nurses and doctors quickly realized that I was alive, and they provided me with the medical care needed to sustain my life.  Although I struggled with respiratory distress, seizures, jaundice, and required multiple blood transfusions and feeding through an intravenous line in my head, I was wanted.

My adoptive parents opened their hearts and their home to me, knowing full well that they were taking a chance on adopting a little girl who would probably not live for very long, and if I did survive, would more than likely be disabled.  Knowing this did not deter them.  They loved me, unconditionally, and it was their love, and the love of the doctors and nurses who cared for me that helped me to not only survive after that failed abortion attempt, but thrive.

I may have been an “accident” (given name) to my biological parents, who were young college students at the time, but by the grace of God, my life took on new meaning.

It wasn’t until I was 14 years old that I found out the truth about my life, that I wasn’t simply given the beautiful gift of an adoption plan by my biological parents, but I had been aborted first.  Certainly, it was God’s plan for my life that I am who I am, but I struggled with it for many years.

All of the given names of “aborted child,” “unwanted,” “unloved,” “accident,” “just a blob of tissue,” “choice,” “replaceable,” all took a toll on me from age 14 on.  As much as I loved God, and knew He loved me and saved me for great purposes, I was burdened by the given names and fell silent to the world around me.  I tried hard to excel in every other part of my life, in order to avoid facing the one true thing that the Lord saved me to do–share the Gospel of truth about abortion and about Him with the world.

It wasn’t until I wrestled with God over those years and finally accepted who I am and who He truly is to me that I was able to fully received my Secret Name, embrace it, and live it out fully in the world through Him.

I am now an international pro-life and Christian speaker, a Christian counselor, and most importantly, a mother.  I am so grateful to the Lord for not only saving my life, but allowing me to wrestle with Him long enough to learn my name and be prepared for the fights that I fight in the world today.

I am no longer an “accident,”  I am WONDERFULLY MADE! This book helped to solidify for me that I am who I am, and I am doing exactly what it is that He intended for me to do.  Thanks for the great book, Kary!

An original poem from a YOUR SECRET NAME event at Moody Bible Institute.

On Sunday night I was trying to fall asleep and couldn’t. Now, I grew up in a church where God speaks…but mostly, if not only, through the Bible and the preaching of His Word. So I was very skeptical about what happened next.

While I was lying there a question came into my mind as clearly as if someone had spoken it to me:

Are you living up to your name?

At first I was confused. The only meaning I’ve ever found for my name is aborigines and it means “boomerang.” It’s a cool meaning, but I’m not really sure how one lives up to such a name. At the recollection of the meaning of my name, I cynically and sarcastically thought, “Oh yeah, no matter how many times people try to throw me away, I just keep on coming back!”

But then the thought came again:

Are you living up to your name?

It got me thinking and I came to a conclusion. If my name is meant to identify me, if my name is something that is supposed to say who I am, then I don’t even know my name. That bothered me. So I prayed:

If this is a question from you God, I need you to tell me what my name is because I don’t think I even know it.

I’ve been thinking about it and waiting for an answer. I tried to think of what the question could mean, but I didn’t want to tell anyone about the question because, to be honest, I thought it sounded kind of crazy.

Yesterday, I saw a postcard in the local bookstore that read, “Your Secret Name: Discovering who God created you to be.” I’m pretty sure my friends thought I had lost my mind with the way I reacted to it.

I have been looking on the “test” portion of the book’s site and have discovered so many of the names that the world has given me or that I have claimed for myself: CUTTER, BURDENED, UNPROTECTED, UNLOVED, ALONE.  My whole story is a long one that traverses many hurts done by a family hiding behind happy plastic church masks and those who, long ago, I attempted to open up to about what really went on in that house. But I have found so many truths already to counter the false names that I have let others give me and that I have claimed for myself.

I am continuing the search for my name and I cannot wait to see what else God is going to do as others begin searching for their names too. I’m already amazed by the stories I’m reading on the book’s site.

Thanks for letting God use you!