From Chaos to Christ: Breaking the Family Curse

When Karina tells about hiding from the Mormon leaders who showed up at her door with donuts, she can't help but laugh. "I was twelve years old, and these grown men were standing on our porch trying to welcome me to the local ward," she recalls. "I literally hid. With the donuts right there!"

It's the kind of story you can only tell with humor years later—when you've survived enough to look back and see God's hand in even the awkward moments.

Karina's early childhood was chaos. Parents struggling with drugs and alcohol meant she mostly lived with her maternal grandparents. Grandma Coralie Chesney did what grandmothers do: she took her to church. In this case, the Mormon church, where generations of Chesneys had worshipped. At nine, Karina was baptized LDS, genuinely loving church and devouring her KJV Bible with the Mormon scriptures attached.

Then at twelve, everything shifted. She moved an hour away to live with her dad John and stepmom Adrienne. They offered to drive her to the local Mormon ward. "But something in me had absolutely no desire to return," Karina says. Hence the hiding when the elders showed up with their welcome wagon of pastries. Instead, she started attending her parents' non-denominational Christian church.

"My dad John was the one who led me toward Jesus Christ," she says, then pauses. "Despite his own severe struggles with addiction."

There's no bitterness in Karina's voice, just wonder. Watching her father pursue Christ even while battling his demons gave her hope that Jesus could save anyone—even her.

By sixteen, Karina was heading down the same road. "I was embarrassingly focused on being popular and liked," she admits with characteristic self-awareness. "Which is ironic since following Christ is basically the antithesis of seeking popularity." She was dabbling in drugs, drinking heavily—the family pattern repeating itself with terrifying predictability.

"When I look back at the outcomes of addiction in my family, I shudder to think where that road would have led."

The turning point came after winter homecoming Karina's sophomore year. While her friends went out partying after the dance, for once she didn't want to join them. She stood in her friend's shower for what felt like forever.

"I felt like God was breaking something off of me. I was sick of the direction my life was heading, and clearly Christ was pursuing me."

A few months later, on a spring break mission trip to Mexico with the youth group, Karina decided to make a clean break from what she calls her "party girl" lifestyle. She got baptized that month.

Now, years later, a spiritual family has formed around Karina. The Pattersons, whose home was the first truly Christian household she'd ever visited. Fred and Carol Viola, who became her spiritual parents after her dad died just a month before her seventeenth birthday, walking her into young adulthood and beyond. Ed Perez, the youth pastor who baptized her. Robin Kennard, her high school Bible study leader. The list goes on.

"Dad's death was obviously difficult," Karina says, choosing her words carefully. "But I'm thankful for God's mercy that it happened after I came to Christ, not before—otherwise it might have destroyed me."

The most recent test of faith came when Karina and her husband Keenan lost their fourth child, Eleanor, to Trisomy 18 at just four days old.

"It was the most brutal loss we'd ever experienced," she says quietly. "We spent many days in painful tears. Yet even in this, we still felt God's peace and presence throughout the pregnancy and after she went to Heaven. I know God has been glorified through this situation, even though it doesn't make sense to me and I wouldn't choose this road."

Karina pauses, steadies herself. "He is still good, even when I can't see where the path leads.”

Both Karina and Keenan are what she calls "cycle breakers"—the generation that stops the destructive patterns. She always wanted stability in her home - and now, by God's grace, her children have it. 

"Following Jesus changed everything about how I see myself, relationships, and purpose," she says. "It transformed me from being manipulative and self-seeking to asking 'How can I serve and point people to Him?' instead of 'What can I get out of this?'"

The girl who once hid from church leaders bearing donuts now sees the bigger picture of God's pursuit. “It amazes me how God took a girl with no anchor, tossed by every wave, and gave her the solid rock of Christ."

Looking at Karina now—mother of four (three on earth, one in Heaven), stable marriage, thriving faith—you'd never guess at the chaos she emerged from. But that's the point, isn't it? Grace doesn't just forgive; it transforms. It takes kids heading down their parents' destructive paths and gives them new roads to walk.

Even if those roads sometimes begin with hiding from well-meaning Mormons and their donuts.