By SYDNEY KENT
“Something happens to you when you have a baby,” Colleen Deniston said. “And when you lose a baby. The five babies that I lost were traumatic, and I was too mentally unstable to handle it. Looking back now, I could see where Jesus was with me when I didn’t know.”
Deniston became a mother for the first time while still a child herself. Raised in a controlling environment, her innocence was interrupted by unimaginable trauma.
At 13-years-old, Deniston ran away in hopes of finding a better life. She was ultimately placed in foster care, moving from home to home until she turned 18. However, the connections to her past still pulled her into a life of continued turmoil.
It was the desire to protect her daughter that allowed her to persevere in what she called a prison in her own mind.
“I didn’t want my daughter to know everything that I came out of,” Deniston explained. “Even as an adult, I didn’t feel like I had a voice, but — I do now.”
The nature of Deniston’s upbringing led to a deep fear of faith. She struggled to find safety, autonomy and agency.
The resulting hopelessness came to a peak as she sat in her car several years ago, defeated.
Deniston said she was too tired to find a way forward — both literally and figuratively. She wasn’t even sure where she was parked. It was at that moment that she noticed a small group of women exiting a vehicle in the parking lot.
“Karna (Thistles) and the Grace and Mercy girls got out of the car,” Deniston said. “I asked if this was a church. It was God’s House in Marion. Karna invited me in. I needed Jesus with skin on, you know? I didn’t know that’s what I needed. God used her to talk to me.”
Deniston was insistent that no one would believe her story. The service ended and she didn’t know where she would go next.
“So, Karna invited me to live with her,” Deniston laughed. “I followed her home that night to Bluffton. Then I asked Jesus to come into my heart. He started working in me, breaking strongholds in my life. He set me free.”
Deniston said that along with Thistles, Grace and Mercy staff Bethanie Burns and Andrea Dimond continually poured into her — despite the fact that she was not a resident. Their presence and testament of faith was a powerful force in Deniston’s life.
Though she had begun healing from the pain of her past, she worried about her daughter, Karley Vaughn. At the time, Vaughn was trapped in domestic violence in another state and struggling with addiction.
She began to pray over the possibility of bringing Vaughn to Indiana.
“We almost lost her,” Deniston paused as her voice quivered. “Two weeks after I asked God to get Karley here — I found out she was coming. Bethanie, Andrea and Karna helped me get her into rehab and then Grace and Mercy.”
Deniston began work as an intern at Grace and Mercy at the time. The position allowed her to both bear witness to and be an integral part of Vaughn’s recovery.
“I was able to help her with my grandkids and be in her life,” Deniston said. “When she graduated and got married, I took a paid position and became the House Manager. I also work at Hannah’s House part time since it has opened. I never have felt like I work there because of what they have done for me and Karley. We live a different life. They are our family.”
Vaughn, a stylist at Beauty For Ashes in downtown Bluffton, said that her mom is the most caring person she knows.
“My mother is the most kindhearted woman,” Vaughn said. “She always puts others before herself. She’s been through a lot, and because of that, she always has the best advice. I am so thankful for her.”
“It blesses my heart when one — you can tell (Vaughn) and I are mother and daughter,” Deniston laughed. “We do the best we can with what we know. God has really taken up the slack. He’s healed things I could never have healed myself.”
Darcy Johnson, the House Manager at Hannah’s House, also previously completed the program at Grace and Mercy. Johnson said that Deniston was there throughout her journey.
“She’s pretty much my mom,” Johnson said. “She is a very caring and loving person.”
Deniston said she is honored to be able to touch the women who walk through the doors of both buildings. Her work is a testament to the idea that mothering is much more than a task associated with a birth certificate.
“My mom used to be passed out on the couch, she never really spent time with me. I struggled to replace a hole in my heart,” Cheyenne Neuenschwander, a resident at Hannah’s House, said in a video testimony. “I am only 20-years-old. I still have the need for structure and a mother figure in my life. I have a house full of mother hens.”
The full video, presented at the 2024 Community Care Auction, can be viewed on the Treeboy Productions YouTube page.
“I just knew I wanted to love these girls the way I was loved and accepted,” Deniston concluded. “I knew that sometimes I needed Jesus with skin on, so I needed to allow someone to hug me so I could feel loved. I needed to belong. I needed to be safe. And that is what a lot of these women need. I just want to give back the love that I received.”
For the women consumed by grief from the loss of a mother, a child, or a chance to carry a child despite many efforts — Deniston’s words are salve for weary souls.
“I know what it is like to be lonely and desperate and scared,” Deniston said softly. “I just love the women and I know they’re hurting. I hope that the seeds are planted — I know God grows beautiful things from that.”
sydney@news-banner.com
