AMAZING STORY
Flight Attendant Gets Spiritually Grounded
By Audra Smith Haney
The 700 Club
CBN.com -In the 60s and 70s, it was a job full of glamour and exotic travel. You had to be the perfect weight, the perfect height, and full of charisma. And Suzanne Berg was born to be airline stewardess. “I applied at Northwest Airlines. The gentleman said, ‘We will hire you.’ I had to resist jumping across the desk to give him a great big hug and kiss. I was so excited.”
Despite her position and charm, no one could have guessed that, for years, Suzanne experimented with drugs and struggled with crippling insecurities. Suzanne enjoyed a happy childhood and a loving family. At 7 years old, she won a beauty contest and became a local celebrity in Minnesota’s twin cities. She loved to sing, excelled in school, and she longed for the approval of others. “I would have to get up in front of audiences of 500 people. I was in commercials. I met some movie starts and it was a very fun time for me. But, I tried to find my security in the wrong things.”
In her teens, Suzanne wanted to be popular with boys her age, but they barely noticed her. It shattered her confidence and her grades suffered too. “Education at that time was not important. Boys were more important.”
When she turned 21, Suzanne was naturally drawn to a career as a stewardess—and the attention that came with it. “Guys started paying attention to me, so I was on top of the world. I had lots of boyfriends, and I made sure that they were not all in the same state or in the same part of the world. I had one in Greece, one in Italy, one in Washington State, Washington D.C., Sweden and just many places in the United States. And, I felt good about that because they liked me. I didn’t realize many of them were possibly just were taking advantage of me.”
Suzanne searched for love and affirmation in every time zone. “When you are an insecure person, you do what everyone else wants you to do. People would say to me, ‘Oh Suzanne, you are so funny when you are drunk.’ So I would get drunk. It was accepted to do drugs, so I smoked marijuana, did some mescaline. I was always trying to do what everyone else wanted me to be.”
Suzanne partied all through her 20s, while her friends married and started families of their own. In her early 30s, Suzanne decided she was ready to settle down. She soon met and married Raymond. But, three years into their marriage, Raymond started travelling extensively for work and Suzanne was home alone many nights. “My imagination just went wild, and I was imagining all these things. I was petrified to stay at home. I became very frightened, very anxious, and then I became very depressed. And it went into severe depression. And I’m thinking, ‘How could this be? I’m a very happy person. I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful home, fabulous career. I have everything.’ So I thought.”
As Suzanne struggled with depression, her best friend told her about God. “She had just become a Christian and she was excited. She said, ‘Suzanne, have you ever put your faith and trust in Jesus as your savior?’ To which I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t very nice to her at all.”
“Well, fast forward 6 months later. I was in her home again and I said, ‘Gail…I’m losing my mind. I cannot function anymore. I don’t know what’s going on.’ And she said, ‘Suzanne, now, do you want to place your faith and trust in Jesus?’ Well, at that time all I wanted was peace of mind. I wanted to be normal again. I said, ‘Yes.’”
“So we prayed a simple prayer. And it was, ‘Jesus, help Suzanne. Take this anxiety away from her. Come into her life.’ It was a very, very simple prayer. And, when I prayed that prayer, there was relief. There was hope.”
Suzanne started going to Bible studies with her friend Gail on a regular basis, and as she did, the anxiety and depression began to fade away. As I studied the Bible, I learned more and more and more about Jesus and what He did for me, how He died on the cross for me, and how He suffered for me.”
“I brought Jesus from my head to my heart and He was my Master. He was my Savior. He was everything to me. Because I concentrated on Him, I didn’t concentrate on my depression, my anxiety, my fear…you can’t concentrate on both of them.”
Immediately, Raymond began to see a change in his wife’s mental state, and three years later he accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. Today, Suzanne is retired from her job as a flight attendant after 40 years. She is also a full time Christian speaker, sharing that Jesus is now all the security she needs.
“I lived my own life. I did not live for Jesus. I lived for Suzanne and I also lived for everybody else. After I put my faith and trust in Jesus, I started living for Him…and Him alone. I want to tell as many people as I can tell about Jesus Christ.”
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