Despairing of life and without hope for her family, Skeet Savage thought she had committed an unforgivable sin, until she learned to know God’s heart.

“I was a broken vessel. Then God came along and said, ‘I can do something with this.’”

That’s the message Skeet Savage of Covert, Minn., shares whenever she tells her personal story of a life that was “as dark and hopeless as a life can get” until the day that God revealed Himself to her.

“He brought my life out of the pits. He gave me beauty for ashes,” Savage said.

Savage is the founder of Wisdom’s Gate Ministries, editor of three magazines, is a nationally known Christian speaker and author of the book “Homeschooling for Eternity.”

“But my big claim to fame,” Savage said with a warm laugh, “is that I met the Lord.”

That was more than 20 years ago, and Savage said in a phone interview that no one who knew her before would believe she could ever be of any use in any possible way.

Savage is a single mom who raised six children on her own due to domestic violence, but there were days when she thought she was failing them. It was that sense of failure that led to an encounter with the Savior. She said she literally “met Him with gun in hand.”

Savage had not ignored God during those dark years. She had visited churches and pastors hoping for help. She knew what it meant to be homeless, uneducated and without marketable skills.  Oftentimes her children’s meals came from sugar packets and leftovers they could scrounge unseen off the tables of fast-food restaurants. She recalled frequenting a particular store that sold bananas for 10 cents a pound.

“I would give the bananas to the kids and I would eat the peels,”

she said. Unfortunately, even church folk often treated them as hopeless cases. “We were poor. We were scruffy. We didn’t have shoes.”

Savage said most often people would turn away. Once in a while they would try to reach out; but “they didn’t want us in their churches,” she said.

Seeking help from one pastor, Savage broke down. “If not for me, then do it for the children,” she pleaded.

Acknowledging her need, the pastor said, “You obviously care about your kids.” Yet his only counsel was that perhaps she had committed the “unpardonable sin” — which he couldn’t explain — suggesting that she was living under God’s curse.

From that day on, Savage determined that she would help her kids learn about God so that they might not ever commit the “unpardonable sin.”

“You don’t want to be like me,” she recalled telling them. “There isn’t any hope for me.”

So she took them wherever a church advertised a Bible class. Then she’d pick their brains about what they’d learned, gleaning as much as she could for herself.

Eventually she found what felt like a church home. Missing their piano player, she tentatively raised her hand when the pastor asked whether anyone could play. She told him she couldn’t read music, but if he could hum a tune, she could play it. Suddenly Savage and her children found themselves moving from the back pew to the front.

“I was in!” she said. “They never asked me if I had committed the unpardonable sin.”

But eventually her welcome wore out. Unable to completely cover the disfiguring effects of yet another severe beating at home, she was met with awkward discomfort by church members and leadership. After the service, the pastor took her aside and apologetically told her, “It’s not the image we want. I need to ask you not to come back.”

I’m failing my children, she thought.

That morning, she’d heard John 15:13 preached, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends.” Savage decided then and there that if she loved her children, she’d get out of the way. After all, she felt she was “just postponing the inevitable.”

“I began to make plans,” she said. On an appointed night, having written a note and cleaned the house, Savage laid the note on her pillow and picked up a gun. But, at that moment, God intervened. As she touched the light to turn it out, she heard God call her name.

“He began to reason to me, speak to me,” she said. At that time she thought, “I’m hearing voices. I’m crazy.” Savage said she’d heard her name called and cussed many times, “but I’d never heard my name spoken that way.”

For several hours she wrestled with God, until finally she figured, “I could throw my life away, but if I was really done with it, I could just give it to Him.”

Later, Savage realized that she’d experienced Salvation just as Matthew 16:25 expresses it, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

However, at the time, things weren’t so clear. She fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning, exhausted, with her final words to God being, “Fine, I’ll give You one day.”

Savage said that the next day was so impressive, she just kept giving Him another and another. No one discipled her, but Savage credits God alone for gently leading her step by step, revealing Himself to her through His Word.

“He’ll do whatever He has to do to show Himself strong, and reveal Himself, and pour Himself out for us,” she said.

Savage’s hardships were far from over. But despite court battles, social service visits, homelessness, poverty, serious health problems and a host of other struggles over the years, God began to lead and to bless her.

Dyslexic, with little more than an eighth-grade education, Savage not only raised and successfully homeschooled her children, but God also led her to start Wisdom’s Gate Ministries. What began as a small publication with an initial print run of 200 issues has since evolved as an outreach to more than 66,000 a year.

“It’s a multifaceted ministry,” Savage said. The goal of Wisdom’s Gate is to receive people who’ve been through bad situations such as she experienced. “We want to reach out to the hurting.”

As a speaker, her ability to connect to audiences at a heart level allows Savage to minister empathetically to those who are facing great difficulties. Phil Runser of Superior, Wis., said it’s something she’s passed down to her children as well. Runser first met Savage at a Gospel music convention. Approaching the Wisdom’s Gate booth, one of Savage’s daughters stepped out to meet him. Runser said, “She laid a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘You’re carrying a heavy load. Can I pray for you?’”

He also said that Savage sometimes calls to encourage him.      

“She seems to know every time I get sick,” Runser said. “She has a gift.”

As for the ongoing ministry of Wisdom’s Gate, Savage said, “We pray daily for the Lord’s favor, that it’ll be a tool in His hands to speak to people and to show people what the Lord is doing.”

These days, Savage understands that she was not unpardonable.

“He came to seek and save the lost,” she said. “He’s ever-reaching.

His hand is stretched out still.”

Skeet Savage coming to Duluth

Skeet Savage will share more of her life story and testimony of God’s Grace when she speaks in Duluth, Minn., on Oct. 2-3 at the

Duluth Gospel Tabernacle beginning with a Ladies’ Tea on Friday evening, and prayer and ministry events to continue on Saturday. She encourages any who have suffered domestic violence, financial hardship, anger issues, health problems or are struggling with other burdens to attend. Call (800) 343-1943 for more information, or watch for details at:

www.wisdomsgate.org