A Mutt, Raised by God: How Cassie Edwardson Turned a Broken Beginning Into a Life of Purposeful Kindness

"I was born into this world as a mutt, and I've been on my own ever since."

Cassie Edwardson says it without flinching — almost lovingly, like she's introducing an old friend. It's not self-pity. It's the truest, shortest summary she has of where she started: no birth father in the picture, in foster care by age three, in her third foster home by the time most kids are still learning to tie their shoes.

Abandonment could have made her hard. Instead, she chose kindness — a choice she made before she had words for it.

She was around seven or eight years old, still years from anyone teaching her a verse of Scripture, when she started talking to Jesus.

"God raised me. He was my only father figure since I can remember. And I had terrible things happen to me. But before I really even understood the Bible, I had a relationship with Jesus — and He was there, protecting me through all of the horrific things that happened in my life."

That relationship didn't look like Sunday school answers or memorized verses. It looked like a girl, scrappy and surviving, speaking honestly to a God she couldn't see but somehow knew was beside her.

A Faith Forged Before It Was Taught

Cassie was adopted and began attending Transfiguration Lutheran Church in Bloomington, Minnesota, at age four. Something in those early services planted a seed. But the roots of her faith ran deeper than any sermon she heard. By the time she was a teenager, walking miles alone through the night to escape a dangerous situation, she wasn't praying out of desperation — she was having a conversation with someone she already trusted completely.

"I knew I was going to get home safe because He was with me. But I said, I don't want this stuff and these individuals to ruin me. I know I'm a remarkable person because I've lasted this long. I know you're making me for something."

That midnight walk became a defining moment. Not just a prayer for safety, but a declaration of identity. Cassie chose — at fifteen — to refuse bitterness. To protect her heart. To remain someone capable of love, even after the world had given her so little of it.

Years later, reflecting on another difficult season, she'd find language that also echoed her earlier life: "I was split... between the emotion and the physical and the world and God." Life would ask her to make that choice again — this time not as a frightened teenager escaping danger in the dark, but as a mother.

The Hardest Stand She Ever Took

When one of her daughters announced she was converting to a different faith tradition to marry the man she loved, Cassie was shaken — not in her own belief, but in the tension between her roles as mother and as a woman of conviction. She wanted to be at the wedding. She wanted to see the birth of her grandchild. She wanted Sunday dinners and holidays and all the ordinary sacred moments that make up a family's life.

But she wanted something more for her daughter than any of that.

"I can grieve not being there at your wedding. Not being there when my grandchild is born. Not having Sunday dinners with you. But I refuse to be a witness to you losing your soul and giving up your eternity."

For nearly a year, there was distance. Then something shifted. Her daughter began reading the Bible again, started attending church with her partner, and reached back toward the family.

"These children — yes, we gave birth to them, but they're God's children. They're His, and they're on loan to us. By me stepping back in that manner, it opened the Bible again for her. That's the greatest gift I can give her. Not a dress for a wedding day. Eternity."

"I gave her life twice — earthly life, and then everlasting life by teaching her the Word of God. And that is what we're here for."

The lesson didn't stay inside her family. It shaped the way she now leads, serves, and shows up for others.

What Christian Leaders Can Learn from a Woman Who Shows Up

Ask Cassie what advice she has for faith-driven business leaders, and she doesn't reach for a framework or a strategy. She reaches for a posture: don't judge, lead with what you can give, show up when no one's watching.

"Some of my most reliable business partners and the people I can reach the most have come from individuals who don't share my lifestyle. Look at people for how you can help them, not how they can help you. The smallest assistance you give somebody — without them asking for it — comes back to you like times ten."

She's honest about the cost of that kind of living. "Sometimes it feels like years go by and you're just doing and giving and doing and giving, and there's nothing left — you're depleted. But you forgot to see all the little things that have been coming back to you along the way that you forgot to note."

She's also learned that showing up for others — physically, tangibly present — is one of the most countercultural things a person can do. She became for others the kind of faithful presence she experienced from God when no one else did.

"I didn't have people showing up for me. And so when I get invited to things... if I can make it, I show up. Because we all need to just be there for one another and spread kindness."

From Healthcare to Entrepreneurship — and a Calling Hiding in Plain Sight

For nearly thirty years, Cassie worked in healthcare. She had a gift that went beyond clinical skill: she could see what a person needed before they could articulate it themselves. That instinct — shaped by her own story of being overlooked and unseen — made her exceptional at her work.

When she transitioned into entrepreneurship, the same gift followed her out the door. Through her work with Melaleuca, she began networking with entrepreneurs and business owners across her community — and everywhere she went, she kept seeing the same thing: people with unmet needs and no one paying attention.

Eventually, that instinct became a ministry of its own. When her daughter joined the U.S. Navy, Cassie found herself thinking about everyone serving far from home — and everyone else, closer to home, who needed the same reminder that they weren't forgotten. She founded CJ's Kindness Kits, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit now serving three groups: deployed military troops, survivors in battered women's shelters, and veterans transitioning back to civilian life.

"Someone who is displaced from their home — a pillow, a blanket, simple. It speaks volumes. These kids going off to protect the country may have a support system back home, but there's little needs just to say: hey, we're thinking of you. We see you. We value what you're doing."

Each kit is built around the same premise that shaped Cassie's own childhood — that being seen, even in a small way, can be the difference between surviving and being held. The organization's tagline says it plainly: Spreading Kindness One Kit at a Time. You can learn more about the work — and how to support it — at cjkindnesskits.org.

The Message She's Still Living Out

At 55, Cassie Edwardson is still scrappy, still tired some days, still honest enough to tell God when she needs a break. She raised five children and brought every one of them to faith. She built a healthcare career, transitioned into entrepreneurship, and founded a nonprofit that turns small acts of kindness into declarations of worth.

"Spread kindness. Open your hearts. The world is lacking it. And the more we continue to just spread love and God's word — it makes this place worth living in while we're here."

That's not a nonprofit tagline. That's a life's testimony.