Patty Mason Finds Peace

CBN.com Christmas is the time of year for parties, presents and fun with friends and family.  Christmas has special meaning for Patty Mason now, but as a child, she didn’t understand the true meaning of Christmas.  Discontent, she couldn’t wait to leave home and spread her wings. She took an exciting job as a travel agent.

“I was looking for something in the travel, I was looking for something in the success,” Patty said.  But when Patty returned home from each of her exotic trips, the glamour of her lifestyle never seemed to be enough.  “I just thought that pursuing the things of this world, pursuing men, pursuing money, pursuing success, pursuing a career, pursuing a family – that all of these things were somehow going to validate me and fill that empty void.”

Patty decided to settle down and start a family – thinking it was the missing piece to a fulfilling life.  By the time she was 35, she had a husband, three kids and a flourishing sales career, but the reality of her emptiness hit her at a company awards banquet.

Patty remembers, “I was on stage in Dallas, TX receiving an award – one of the highest levels of achievement in the company and I was standing on the stage surrounded by all kinds of what I call ‘hoopla’.  There was all kinds of music, thunderous applause in the audience – it was just a moment that should have been the peak of my life.  But it was in that moment that it all hit me.  Success, family, travel – none of these was going to fill me, none of it was going to give me what I was longing for.”

Subsequently, Patty plunged into a deep depression, “My children were very young then so I would put the girls in front of the TV and put in a video. I’d put my son in his crib and I would go sleep off another day.”

Patty started drinking. At first, it was just a glass of wine.  “And once I began to realized that he alcohol took a little edge off the sadness, I began to drink a little bit more and a little bit earlier and I finally got to the point where I started drinking at maybe two or three o’clock in the afternoon.”

Patty hid her depression from her husband and friends. Alone, and helpless, Patty began to have thoughts of suicide, in an act of final desperation, Patty cried out to God.  “I’m not really sure what went off in my mind as to why I went to God. He wasn’t part of my life, he wasn’t vital in my life. He was something I did on Sunday mornings when I was a child.  So for me, he was a last resort. However, I began to cry out to God. I said, ‘You’ve got to help me. You’re the only one who can help me. Help me!’ I was asking for a miracle,” she said.

One week later, Patty saw an advertisement for a Christmas play. She felt like she should take her children. 

“It was a four part play. They did a lot of singing with the old Christmas carols. I was enthralled; it was like I was seeing it for the first time. And the last section they did a reenactment of the birth of Jesus. This time there was something different. It was like I was seeing it for the first time. And at the end of the Christmas play, the senior pastor came forward and began to explain salvation. Even though I had grown up in church I had never heard the plan of salvation. What he was sharing with me was new, but it was also very wonderful and I wanted it. I wanted to make Jesus a part of my life. So as the pastor prayed, I remembered echoing his every word. I cried through the whole thing, but instead these were tears of joy. He changed my life in that moment.”

Today, Patty has total freedom from her depression and her family is completely restored.  She shares her story with women all over the country. Patty pleas, “If you are searching for anything else to fill you – whether it is the things of this world:  money, success or career, you’re only going to come up dissatisfied.  The only pure joy, the only answer, the only hope is in Jesus Christ.”

God has made it possible for you to know Him and experience an amazing change in your own life. Discover how you can find peace with God.