About
the Author
Marianne has led praise and worship in various settings for
20 years. Her book,
Praise: The Gateway
To Miracles, draws from her personal experiences in
ministry and in parenting as a mother of five girls. She and
her husband Steve actively minister in their home church,
Queensway Cathedral in Toronto through leadership, prayer
and teaching. Through their itinerant ministry they encourage
pastors and their congregations to experience revival.
Marianne's Testimony
My lifestyle of praise began when I was young. My fondest
memories are hearing my mother sing her way through life’s
circumstances and my father pray with his Dutch accent. My
parents bought an old piano, but with eleven children, they
could not afford piano lessons for me. I relished evenings
alone in the basement, longing to express the fullness in
my heart as I learned, note by note, to play the songs we
sang at church. As soon as I had my first part-time job at
age fifteen, I began to study with The Royal Conservatory
of Music. Ever since, my passion has been to express praise
to God through music and teach others.
When I left my parents’ home for university, I experienced
a stressful time in my life. As other things consumed my interest,
my desire to seek God steadily dulled. Eventually, my life
lost direction and I was tossed about. Frustrated, disillusioned,
my grades suffering, I wondered why my half-hearted attempts
to witness for Jesus had no impact.
One afternoon, my thoughts in turmoil, I heard a voice say:
"Go home." An evangelist was scheduled to speak
at our home church that evening. I immediately went home to
attend the service. During the message, all I could think
about was getting to the altar to meet with God. When the
altar call finally came, I knelt on the floor, wept and poured
out my heart to God in a flood of tears. After a few moments,
God’s presence filled my soul with supernatural peace.
Suddenly, I began to praise God with words I did not understand.
That night I received the fullness of the Holy Spirit according
to Acts 2:4.
All of them were filled
with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as
the Spirit enabled them.
Daily I grew in Holy Spirit faith, freedom and confidence.
After getting married, my husband Steve helped me receive
more of God’s unconditional love and share it with others.
While hosting a ladies’ Bible study, a new dimension
of praise became real to me. I discovered how to hear God’s
voice, not because of a crisis, but for the sheer joy of getting
to know Him and finding out what pleases Him. I began to journal
my walk of faith as God’s Word became my personal love
letter. I also began to write songs to express the spiritual
truth I received. For many years, I have accepted every opportunity
to lead praise and worship. These included Bible studies,
prayer meetings, church services, retreats and outreaches.
God has always been faithful to save, heal, deliver and set
people free as we have praised Him.
After filling many volumes of journals, the Lord inspired
me to write a book. A message burned in my heart—how
praise brings breakthroughs in our everyday lives. Practicing
the progression from praise to worship into God’s supernatural
realm becomes possible only when we understand praise and
how it works.
Praise: The Gateway to
Miracles parallels the five stages of pregnancy with
the progression of praise, to show how praise releases miracles.
Topics include
Spiritually Awakened,
The Body Language of Love, Touching Jesus, God’s DNA,
Divine Cravings, Brooding, The Cry of Travail and
Shouting
Praise, with sketches from my own experiences of birthing
and raising five daughters, as well as from many well-known
and some unknown praising men and women of God.
I pray that you too will develop a lifestyle of continuous
praise, to open Heaven’s gates and receive multiplied
miracles in your life.
A Message from Marianne
You can experience the power of God’s breakthroughs
in your life by practising the progression of praise. Begin
with a desire to know God. As you encounter the presence of
God, you will want to know Him more and more. Yield your life
to Him. Allow His Spirit to change you and fill you with His
powerful love. But don’t stop there. Keep pressing in
through praise until His love overflows from your life to
bless those around you. Praise opens the way for God to release
His love and supernatural power in you and through you. Listen
to what He says: “All these blessings will come down
on you and spread out beyond you because you have responded
to the Voice of God, your God (Deuteronomy 28:2, The Message).”
Praise Him!
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