Kayla was born on Valentine’s Day in 1972 and raised in Southern California all of her life. Her parents became born again during the early tent revival days of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa with Pastor Chuck Smith in 1971. Kayla was dedicated to the LORD by Chuck when she was three years old. She grew up attending various Calvary’s and remembers loving the LORD from a very young age and reading the “grown up” Holy Bible as soon as she could read. She especially loved all the red words (the words of Jesus).
Her family lived in Orange County until Kayla was 7 years old. Then they moved to small-town Fallbrook to escape from her raging alcoholic, drug addict father. He had threatened her mother’s life several times with violence and guns. Unfortunately, he followed them to Fallbrook and continued to abuse Kayla’s mother for several years after that. Though there were periods of time that Kayla’s father was sober and on fire for the LORD, the crazy times were much too often. Finally, Kayla’s mother left him for good and began to work two jobs to support her two children.
Kayla was heartbroken and angry with God for what happened with her father and she totally turned away from God, at exactly the time she should have turned to Him. She had begun partying and doing drugs to numb the pain and suffered many hardships (of her own making). Kayla eventually married her High School sweetheart, whom she had known since 7th grade, and when that didn’t work out, he ended up marrying her best friend. Faced with another major heartbreak and betrayal, Kayla kicked up her partying another notch and “advanced” to even harder drugs.
She found herself completely immersed in the rave subculture and underground music scene. She was living a double life - mortgage loan processor by day, and down in the clubs until 5 a.m. on various drugs by night. All the while still calling herself a Christian. She had been blinded by the enemy and lured into astrology, tarot cards and all sorts of wickedness. She had even started to believe the enemy’s lie that everyone’s right and whatever you believe is, is. If you believe there’s nothing after death, then for you there’s nothing after death. If you believe in heaven or hell, you will go to heaven or hell. If you believe in reincarnation, you’ll be reincarnated, etc...She had totally lost all grasp of reality and knowledge of the true and living God.
Kayla had been attending Calvary Chapel Oceanside off and on (mostly off) since 1991 and one morning in November 2001, her family kept calling to try to get her to go to church that day. She had at least five invitations and kept telling them, “No way, I just got home from the club.” Her family persisted, and the influx of phone calls would not allow her to sleep, so finally she told them she “might” come, even though she had no intentions of really going.
She got up intending to go to work, instead of church, to order some loan documents and get a head start on the work week. As she headed north on I-5 and approached the Carlsbad Village Drive exit for work, her car would not turn off the freeway. She approached Oceanside Boulevard and was thinking, “There’s no way I’m going to church. I’m late. I missed the music,” etc…She did not want to go, yet her car kept driving toward the church.
She found herself in the sanctuary, against her will, sitting with her family - wondering why she was there. Pastor Mike Reed was teaching that day and his message was titled, “No Other Name.” He was addressing all of the weird things Kayla had recently come to believe. She spaced out for a couple of minutes to ponder the things he was saying and then all of a sudden she heard Pastor Mike say, “What part of NO don’t you understand Kayla?!,” and it matched the thoughts in her head. Then she looked over to see her whole family staring at her because he had said her name. The Holy Spirit had a spoken directly to her and Kayla was wondering how the pastor knew her name?
She later found out that Pastor Mike was telling a story about his daughter, Kayla, but the LORD had used it to minister to Kayla that morning. After that, she continued thinking about this God that would go to such great lengths to get her to church that day and speak to her in such a personal way. She continued to party, but the joy in that was gone and in the midst of partying down she would say to her friends, “We need Jesus you guys!” Months passed and she had quit her loan processing job and was going to move to San Francisco to become a message therapist and sing in the clubs up there. She was a couple of weeks away from hopping on the plane when the LORD crashed back into her life.
Easter morning in 2002 she went to church (because she was an Easter & Christmas Christian). She listened to Pastor Ralph’s Easter message and at the end when he did an alter call, Kayla thought, “I’ve already given my life to the LORD at least 20 times.” Then Pastor Ralph said, “Maybe you’ve already given your life to the LORD, but find yourself back in the world.” And he kept on going, and on the 3rd or 4th stipulation, she finally raised her hand and went forward to re-dedicate.
She tried to go back to her old ways after that, but she got a Holy Spirit whipping she’ll never forget. She went down to San Diego to visit her party friends and started to realize what was really going on down there because the veil had been lifted. Her “friends” stole her keys and she was stuck down there for almost 2 weeks. She tried several times to leave that place, but would be unable to remember where she was even though she had been there hundreds of times. She came to realize this was a central occult meeting place. There were all sorts of evil things going on there, one guy even claimed to be an “Angel of light” and said he was given authority by God to bring forth judgment on men and kill them.
Within those days down there Kayla was heavily drugged up and offered a deal from the devil. He offered her a record deal, riches, anything she wanted from this world if she would give him her voice (what he was really asking for was her soul). Kayla’s brain was totally fried on drugs, but she still knew that she was not her own and told him she could not give what was not hers to give. She said that God had made her voice and that it was His to use however He chooses. Then the LORD finally delivered her from that evil place.
The LORD miraculously healed Kayla instantly of drug addiction and has be restoring her heart and mind ever since. She has been serving at the church in many ministries and has successfully, through the grace of God, completed the Calvary Chapel Oceanside’s Intern Program. She is currently serving as leader of the Women’s Worship Team and uses the gift the Lord gave her by serving on many of CCO’s worship teams. She is also a full-time staff member, serving as the church’s secretary.
Kayla would like to say to any back-sliders out there that, “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it,” Philippians 1:6. No matter how far you may have sunk, nothing is impossible for our God! She also would like to encourage the parents out there to continue to teach their children about the LORD and take them to church even when they don’t want to go because, “If you train up a child in the way they should go, when they are older, they will not depart from it,” Proverbs 22:6, Kayla is a living testimony to that! |
