Michelle Kernicky Story
Michelle Kernicky:
As a young child, my parents divorced at the age of five, so I grew up in a single parent home. We were not believers at that point. At probably the age of seven, my mother came to Jesus. Once she did, it was we're following after him and that's it. I mean, her eyes were focused on the prize. And I just remember always seeing my mom at that kitchen table and she'd be studying God's word and she'd be praying and just trusting in God's faithfulness.
Michelle Kernicky:
As a teenager, I was having one of those times where I wasn't trusting the Lord, and I just remember my mom looking at me and saying, "Michelle Lisa, you're either going to trust the Lord or you're not. You can't just be in the middle. You're either not going to or you're going to." And I just remember to that point that I needed to trust the Lord and that he had a plan and that it was all going to work out as he planned, and there was going to be a story to it, and he got me through as he always does.
Daphne:
So I met Michelle Kernicky 31 years ago. We were working for the same company, and they told us in a manager's meeting that we were going out of business.
Michelle Kernicky:
I was going to be the manager in charge of closing out these five stores at one location.
Daphne:
When we left the meeting, most of us were very, very upset, and Michelle wasn't. And there was something that she had that I didn't have, and I wanted to know what that was.
Michelle Kernicky:
And God just gave me the opportunity to start sharing the gospel. She was just asking all kinds of questions and just the opportunity to share Jesus. And through me losing my job, Daphne came to know the Lord, and little did I know that she was going to become like my sister in Christ, my absolute best friend. Mary had Elizabeth and Naomi had Ruth, and God gave me Daphne.
Michelle Kernicky:
2011, when I was on a retreat that I wasn't even really supposed to go to but God worked it out, and at that ministry, I met a young lady who happened to be a foreign exchange student from Germany. And she came to Christ that weekend. And when I got to share the gospel with her, God just intertwined our hearts, kind of like Jonathan and David. It was like nothing I've ever experienced before.
Michelle Kernicky:
I remember the first time she called me spiritual mom. It just made my heart just feel just so warm. So just to know that love. And from that moment on, we did studies for many years via Skype as she went home. She grew like crazy. To my knowledge, she led about three or four young ladies to the Lord in that time period.
Jackie:
Hey, everyone. My name's Jackie and I'm from Germany, as most of you may know. I was an exchange student in Kansas four years ago for my sophomore year of high school, and I actually came to Christ in the spring of 2011 at the retreat Vertical that Westside has that a friend invited me to. And I just want to share with you how I've been living the Christian life ever since.
Michelle Kernicky:
After I had met Jackie in 2011, she came here Christmas 2015, and it was great. We always wanted to spend a holiday together. It was great. After she went home in early 2016, I noticed some changes. A depression was setting in. As the year progressed in that October of 2016, God allowed me to go to Germany to visit her. What I found out through that visit was God was allowing me just to see really how bad it was.
Michelle Kernicky:
Rolling into the new year of January and just hoping for new things like we all do. We all make our resolutions and just hope for what's on the schedule for us for that year that God has. On January 16th of 2017, excuse me, I woke up to a message from one of her roommates that she was gone and I was like, "Gone? What does that mean? What does gone mean?" I immediately text back, "What do you mean? What do you mean?" And so Ruth, her roommate, called me and said that they had found her, that she had taken her life. Absolutely the most devastating thing that has ever happened to me, devastating.
Michelle Kernicky:
One night I was laying in bed and I was like, "God, how will I ever, ever get through this?" And not in an audible voice, it's like he just said to me, "No, you can't, but we can." And it was just God reminding me, "I've got you, and I will carry you."
Daphne:
That was the hardest thing I'd ever seen my best friend go through, but her steadfastness was just incredible. As a best friend, there's times where you just don't know what to say, and that was hard. But to watch Michelle go through that and watch the strength that God gave her and her lean into God was incredible.
Michelle Kernicky:
I go the next four years just on a continual healing journey, because healing is not a sprint. It's a journey.
Daphne:
Several years later, in this last year, we both at the same time in the same room heard her diagnosis, stage three cancer. For me, in a moment, it was a moment of anger and then transparency to know that I could be mad at God.
Michelle Kernicky:
We're getting in the car. We're riding back, both in shock. She's very angry, which I understand. We pull over, and it just took me a few minutes just to kind of sit in it. Okay, God. Let people see Jesus. Just let people see Jesus.
Michelle Kernicky:
I am almost six months in remission, and God has been, again, so faithful. And I know that God is going to use this for his good. I had a friend ask me once, "But how?" and I said, "I don't know how, but God does." And because I want to lean into that, I know that he'll honor that prayer. And my prayer is that somebody comes to Jesus through this.
Michelle Kernicky:
Joy is not the absence of sorrow. It's the presence of Jesus. Our happiness can fluctuate, but we can have joy in knowing that God has a plan. Jesus walks with us every single day.