About

God is in this Story is a place where I share my story in the hope that others will find hope, a sense of belonging, peace, amazement and most of all, an understanding that even in our darkest places and our most challenging times, God is present and working in our lives.

I’m Christine O’Dell. I live in beautiful Southern Illinois where I am a wife, mother, advocate for foster parenting and adoption, founder of a non-profit organization and follower of Jesus.

Together with my husband, Les, we have five children (with a span of 26 years between the oldest and the youngest), a daughter-in-law and a small retail business.

For decades I suffered from what officially is called agoraphobia, which often kept my family and me from doing the things we wanted to do and going the places we wanted to go, but we had learned to adapt.

Then, things got worse thanks to an illness that could have been a death sentence. Instead, Our Father in Heaven used it to give me a new life — one I never expected.

This is the narrative of all of it. And trust me, God is in this story.

I’d love to hear from you. Email me here.