Inspiration in the Nations: Maria from Austria

By Joy Teague Matienzo

I had the privilege of working on a team with Maria for five years. She was cheerful, fun, full of empathy and love for Jesus and others. Maria’s story is one of redemption and she has dedicated her life to being part of facilitating the redemption and restoration of other women.

Joy: Maria, please tell us about yourself and some of your family dynamics growing up.
Maria: I am 36 years old and I grew up with three brothers in a small town in Austria. My mother stayed at home with us and my father was a religion teacher, who later was ordained as a deacon in the Catholic church. As we were well-known in the community, it was always important to him that our family had a good reputation.

But our homelife was problematic. As a child, I felt very lonely and helpless. A lot of times I wanted to run away from home and I wished badly that I would have grown-up in a different family. My father believed beatings were a normal education method even for minor wrongs, was very authoritative, strict, and prone to sudden, out of control attacks in which we were at times severely injured. The most prevalent emotion I felt towards my dad was fear.

I went to church every Sunday, because I was afraid that God would punish me if I stayed at home, but we never really practiced our faith. The image I had of God was that He was very far away and not really interested in my personal life, yet was easily angered and would be quick to punish me for making a mistake.

My mother suffered from severe depression which made her emotionally unstable. She never protected us when my father had one of his rage attacks. She was verbally aggressive and emotionally abusive. While my brothers were definitely more often hit by my dad, I was a lot of times a personal target for my mother. She would use curse words and call me all kinds of names, mostly animal names, and tell me that I was stupid, that she wished I wasn’t born, that I was just a pain in her back. I can’t remember a moment in my childhood where my parents ever told us that they loved us or that they were proud of us.

Joy: How did this effect you as a teenager?
Maria: During my teenage years I became very rebellious. At 13 years old, I did everything to belong to the “cool friends” group, had my first alcohol poisoning and started smoking cigarettes and later pot. I wasn’t able to differentiate which friends were a negative influence. I just clung to everyone who gave me a bit of love and attention to fill my empty heart.

At the same age I met a 19-year-old guy during our summer vacation in Italy. I longed for attention and a boost to my low self-esteem, so the result of his interest and compliments was getting me into his home where he sexually assaulted me. I was so overwhelmed by what was happening and didn’t know who to talk to, so I wrote everything down in a journal.

My mother found the journal, read it and told my father, who completely lost control. He beat me up and told me that it was my fault because I dressed like a prostitute. My mother was upset as well and blamed me for causing her so much trouble. I remember feeling a deep shame and so much guilt.

A few months later, I met one of the most popular guys in my home town at a friend’s party. In the beginning he made me feel special, beautiful and interesting, but soon he became verbally and physically aggressive and very manipulative and controlling. He also abused me sexually and forced me to do a lot of things. He knew he could get whatever he wanted, because he threatened me to tell my dad about it if I didn’t obey. I was more afraid of my dad’s reaction so I just did what he wanted. I remember praying every day that God would deliver me from this whole nightmare.

After almost three years, I finally found the strength to end the relationship. But even though I was no longer with this person, my life was completely shattered. I felt so insecure, so full of shame, and I thought that my life was over. I was convinced that I could never end up happy like other people are.

Joy: When and how did things change?
Maria: Right after this toxic relationship ended, when I was 17, I went to Canada during my summer vacation to be a nanny for a Christian family. My heart was so moved by the love they showed me and each other as I saw how naturally they made their belief a part of their everyday life. My host-mom took a lot of time to sit down with me and answer all the questions I had about God. It was the first time I met people who authentically lived out their faith and I realised that Christianity was not about religion, but that it had everything to do with a personal relationship with God. It was the first time that going to church was so much fun and I remember feeling so much joy afterwards. After I came back to Austria, however, I didn’t have any contact with real believers and soon God became less important again.

When I went to University to study Social Work I met a girl who was also a Christian. I was very fascinated by her deep relationship with God, but I was still very afraid to give my whole life to Jesus. I couldn’t fully trust that God really had the best for me in His mind. Because I envisioned God as someone strict and boring, it was hard for me to give up control and allow Him to take over the course of my life.

In the meantime, the situation in my family kept getting worse. I had almost no connection at all with my father. We had hardly spoken in years and my mother had been placed in a Mental Institution after a suicide attempt where she was diagnosed with manic depression. When I came to visit her in the hospital, she screamed at me and told me to leave the room, because it was my fault that she was sick and she was about to have a heart attack just by looking at me. I was so hurt by all her rejection and thought that it was better for me to die, if not even my own mother thought I was lovable. My life seemed so broken and hopeless that I had no more vision for my future. I suffered from severe insomnia and eventually thought I would end up in a Mental Institution myself.

My Christian friend knew that I was going through this difficult time and she was always there for me, prayed for me and kept inviting me to church. I started attending regularly and week after week I could sense God’s love in a very real way. In 2006, at the age of 22, I went to church again and after the sermon the guest speaker asked if anyone wanted to open their heart to Jesus. I was so ready to give my whole life to Jesus and was the first one to raise my hand. I was so desperate and the only thing I wanted was to never ever spend a single day anymore without God. It was a simple prayer but this decision changed my life radically. I realised that God was not waiting for me to get it all together and figure things out, but that I could come to him just the way I was – with all my mistakes, my guilt, my shame, my brokenness, my pain – and that he wanted to give me a new beginning.

This decision was a complete turnaround in my life. The first thing I noticed was that my insomnia was completely gone and I woke up with such a deep joy in my heart, looking forward to the day ahead. All my fears about the future were gone, because I knew that God had good plans for my life and that as long as he was by my side, everything was gonna be okay. Little by little I learned that Jesus was completely trustworthy and that it was safe to place my future in his hands. Also after having been a smoker for 10 years I stopped immediately without any withdrawal symptoms.

Joy: How did your decision to follow Christ and his work in your heart impact your family dynamics and what has redemption looked like over the years?
Maria: Over the years, the biggest miracle was that God enabled me to forgive my parents and the men who abused me. My relationship with my mother was so broken that I thought we would never be able to speak to each in a normal way again. To be honest I hated her. But after I got saved and realised how much Jesus forgave me, it was suddenly easy to forgive my parents. Even though the behaviour of my mother didn’t change, I suddenly felt so much love and compassion for her. I knew that this forgiveness was not something I could have produced out of my own willpower, but that it was God’s love and grace that enabled me to forgive.

At first, my father became extremely upset when he found out that I didn’t attend the Catholic church anymore. When I told him that I was moving to Spain as a missionary, he said that if I did this I would no longer be his daughter and that I should never contact him again. For a few years, he hardly spoke to me, but I kept praying for him and over time, God totally softened his heart. At my wedding, he even spoke a prayer of blessing over me and my husband, which was a huge miracle. Today we have a great relationship and my father is more involved in my life more than ever before. My relationship with my mother continues to be challenging, especially whenever she struggles with another episode with her mental health. However, I keep trusting that God is working in her life and that he is going to set her free from her pain that she has been having for such a long time. I know that God is going to finish the work that he started in my family.

Joy: How did you meet your husband?
Maria: I met my husband while I was still a missionary in Spain. He came to Madrid as a tourist and contacted me, because we had the same friends in Vienna. A couple of years later we started dating and then got married in 2015. And I’m not only happily married to the most caring husband, I also have the privilege of being a mother to two incredible boys – a life that seemed completely impossible when I was in my early twenties. My favourite thing about being a mom to boys is how adventurous and full of energy they are.

No matter how difficult my past was, my future was no longer affected by it once Jesus stepped into my life. God indeed gave me beauty for ashes and abundant joy for my mourning.

Joy: What kind of ministry did you do in Spain and what are you doing in Austria now?
In Spain, I was mainly working with young women from 18-25 years old. Most of them experienced very traumatic childhood experiences and I realised how God was using my own pain and past experiences to reach out to them. After leaving there I led the young adults ministry of my new home church in Austria. Today, my husband and I are the leaders of Teen Challenge Austria, so my focus is working with women who are struggling with drug addiction.

Joy: Can you tell us about a time when a group of Christian women has been a source of encouragement to you?
Throughout my whole Christian walk, I’ve received an incredible amount of support from different groups of women. I think the group that impacted me the most was the first women’s Small Group that I attended shortly after I got saved. I was the only new believer and each one of them welcomed me with open arms and so much love. They took time to pray for me, answer my questions and encourage me by telling me about the goodness of God and calling out the purpose He had on my life.

Joy: Any chance you are willing to share your secret recipe for Salmon Pasta that our team loved so much?
Maria:

Creamy Tomato Salmon Pasta

Ingredients:
1 chopped onion
1 can of diced or whole tomatoes
200 g smoked salmon, sliced
250 ml heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
parmesan cheese
400g Tagliatelle pasta

Instructions:
Heat a small pot and add some olive oil.
Add the onions and cook until translucent.
Puree the tomatoes with a blender or food processor and add it to the onions. Season with salt and pepper and let it cook on low heat for 15-20 minutes.

Heat a large pan over medium heat and add some olive oil.
Add the sliced salmon and cook until the salmon is no longer pink.
Pour in the heavy cream and simmer over low heat.
Add the tomato sauce and gently mix everything together.
Season with salt, if necessary.

Cook the tagliatelle pasta according to the packet instructions, then drain.
Toss the pasta with a little of the olive oil to loosen.
Add the cooked pasta and stir until the pasta is soaked into the sauce.
Serve immediately with a sprinkle of chopped dill or parsley and with freshly grated parmesan cheese.