Jacque Deshetler Sings of Her Redemption

CBN.com After a lifetime of searching, Jacque Deshetler finally found a place she can call home. When she recalls her childhood, she remembers being painfully shy. As a military kid, she says they were always moving.

“I remember meeting so many kids: outgoing, extroverted; but I became like this crazy little shy person that went down into the interior of my soul and couldn’t climb out," Jacque said.

Not only was she shy, her mother and father were always arguing and she was all but forgotten. Jacque also says her father was distant emotionally.

"My dad was a great man,” she said. “He was a warrior. He was a veteran in three wars. But my dad was the ultimate military man in the fact that he did not express himself in any intimate ways with us at all. So I had no idea what it was like to be around somebody who actually had compassion for you or felt mercy for you.”

As she grew up, she says her shyness got even worse.

"It is like a prison that has you locked up on the inside. And not only are you afraid to show who you are, you try to be somebody else,” Jacque said.

The one thing that brought her comfort was playing her guitar and singing. 

"When I was young I started playing my guitar,” Jacque said. “Because I was so shy, I could sit in my room with my guitar for hours and that was where I found peace and joy and pleasure. I loved it.”

When Jacque was in the seventh grade, a friend showed her how to come out of her shell.

"I remember she taught me how to get into my parents’ medicine cabinet and start looking for things to take,” Jacque said. “That’s basically how I got started; because there was somebody who wanted to be my friend and this is what she did. So I was such a follower. I thought oh, this is what I need to do. That’s really how it continued along over the years. I, just because of the shyness and the prison that I lived in, drugs actually began to help me –or  what I thought was help—help me to be more outgoing.”

Years later in high school, Jacque went to church with a friend. She prayed with some workers there and her life began to change dramatically.

"I started feeling clean on the inside,” Jacque said. “Like wow. It was just like wow, so refreshed. I can feel things washing away from my life. I can feel this like, I mean, I had an amazing experience.”

Everyone at her high school saw Jacque’s changed life.

"I would get on the school bus and drive everybody insane because I started preaching the gospel. I couldn’t stop reading the word,” she said.

After high school, she pursued a career as a conservationist that didn’t work out. Soon Jacque fell back on the only thing she knew—playing guitar and singing. She started performing in bars and nightclubs.

"I ended up starting to sing in the clubs because it was the only place where I could actually make a decent living,” she said.

Jacque says the night club lifestyle destroyed her young faith.

“In the course of all that, I let my relationship go with the Lord. I let it go,” she admitted.  “I slipped into many years of some really strong drug abuse, things I never in my life would have thought, places I never thought I’d go, things I never thought I’d do in my life.”

Eventually Jacque married a man who loved to party as much as she did.   

"We were involved in shooting crystal meth and basically our motto was:  you don’t have to eat, you don’t have to sleep, and you can work really hard,” Jacque said, “but spend all the money on drugs and live in these hideous houses that were filled with trash; condemned houses, you know, so that you have the money to spend on drugs. Oh, man, it was the darkest; it was dark years.”

The long hours of work and the drugs took their toll on her health. Her marriage began to fall apart.

"I stood against the wall in one of these rooms and I remember the carpet in there was the stench of urine in the house and I began to cry,” she said, “and basically just sunk down into the floor and just begging God to come back; come back again.”

Jacque left the night club scene, found a church and became a waitress.

"I felt like I needed to quit singing for a while and so I did,” Jacque said. “During that time, I would leave the restaurant and I’d go to as many church services at Grace Church as I possibly could.”

Worship became an amazing force in Jacque’s life.

"Here I am standing in the back of a church and love is showering me. I was like, ‘this is amazing,’” she said.

Today Jacque leads worship at the Saint Louis Dream Center. 

"When you see people actually begin to melt in the presence of the Lord, where all the walls begin to fall down, it’s a tangible thing,” she said.

Jacque’s married to artist, Steve Deshetler. 

"Her creativity’s pretty amazing,” Steve said. “The music that she writes, almost exclusively, comes out of her life experiences; not just her personal life experiences with people, but her experience with God, her spiritual walk.”

"I say God is the ultimate father because even in the things that I think and don’t understand, I just lean on him,” Jacque said. “I know that He will direct the way and the path. My life’s a giant thank you because He saved my life.”

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