When I was a little child, I attended a church for a little while. I was the sometimes hyperactive, sometimes depressed child. I was needy and whiny sometimes, I hated being told what to do. My family was poor at that time and the church members thought of me as that odd, unruly, poor child. They often cringed when they saw me coming into their Sunday school classroom. I remember two times during the years I went there that there was a very nice kind woman that told me Jesus loved me just like I was, she helped me ask him into my heart. I wanted so much to see her again but I never did, she died shortly after I saw her those two times. I kept going there and sat through endless hours of glares and “sit down, sit still, be quiet”. I hated going there. I was allowed the “honor” of attending their institution, as long as I acknowledged their superiority and holiness and as long as I promised to do everything they said without questioning. Whenever someone told me that I had to do whatever they said without questioning, it made me feel unable to sit still, it made me feel they would abuse me. They didn’t know that before I was 10 years old I had been violently sexually assaulted twice by distant relatives and that on another occasion a group of men in town had gang raped me. The rape by the men started when the sun was just going down and lasted until the next morning. Some of the men that gang raped me were store owners in town and I occasionally had to speak to them after that happened. When I saw one of the men in his store his steely eyes pierced me, causing me to say, “yes sir, it never happened”. I didn’t want to die, I was 5. I had horrible nightmares and no sense of security, I felt I could be assaulted again at any time, and I was slowly dying inside. The people at that church didn’t know that about me, Jesus knew though, and If they been listening to Him, He might have been asking them to help me and love me, just like I was.
I was naked, and a stranger, locked in a prison of horror and fear, but I was judged for my lack of civility and manners. I wasn’t clothed, taken in, or visited in my prison.
When I was young, maybe 8, my family visited my estranged wealthy relatives in the south. The civil rights law had passed and it was now illegal to treat colored people with discrimination but those relatives still had the same staff that they treated more like “slaves” that they had always had. To keep with the law they paid them a pittance and called them servants. On this visit Susy (not her real name) the maid was instructed to take us children out into the back yard and show us how to eat watermelon like ladies and gentlemen. I remember the butler or chauffeur was there too, a very nice gentleman, full of laughter and not scary at all. I was from the northwest and had never seen a colored person before in my entire life. My brother and sister and I spit seeds just like they showed us, with great aim, laughing so hard we almost fell over. Then Katie scooped me up into her huge loving arms, sat me on her lap and said, “Jesus loves you baby, oh how He loves you”. She held me and held me and held me, singing gently in my ear, Jesus loves you baby. She radiated the love of Jesus and such joy, I felt like I might be able to live again.
I saw Susy briefly over the years but only briefly because we lived on the other side of the country. When I was in college many years later I went to see Susy, I never had forgotten her love. Her half hour of love back when i was so young had carried me through many more years of darkness and misery. My grandma from the not so wealthy part of that family took me to see her at her home in the country. We pulled up to a run down, one room shack in the outskirts of Alabama. It felt like it was 110 degrees out and the humidity was horrible. When we pulled up in my grandmas old car Susy came busting out of her house with only a bra and pants on, arms wide open “oh baby I cant believe I got to see you again! They telled me you was a coming to see me! I love you baby!” she hugged me and hugged me and hugged me. With no shame she showed me her house. The wallpaper was newspapers she had glued on the walls and you could see daylight through the many cracks in the walls. She was sorry, she said, but there was no indoor plumbing, and she had nothing to offer me to drink but water. I didn’t care a bit, I was just so very very glad that Jesus had let me see this amazing woman again. Today when I think of what it would be like if Jesus hugged me, I know it would be just like when Susy hugged me.
I was hungry and she gave me true Bread indeed, thirsty and she gave me cups full of living water.
When I was a preteen I visited church, they gave me a class in understanding the bible and we read lots of scriptures and deep things about the bible. I was the one that didn’t pay attention, joked around and finally quit going because I didn’t understand any of those scriptures and the people trying to teach me were pretty stiff and intimidating. I felt no love or joy there and really had no desire to join a seminary at 12. I went back to riding my bike.
When I was early in my teens my other grandmother took me to her church that had taken Jesus out of the bible they were using, but kept lots of rules and ordinances. It was there that I heard that God was watching me, waiting for just the right moment to wipe me off the face of the earth with lightening or an earthquake. They told me I had to deny sickness and temptation by using my mind to overcome any thoughts that the devil might put in my head. They taught me that it was sinful to use medications or seek help from doctors. I found that I wasn’t ready for a life of rigorous discipline, and I gave great thought about how a person like me might hide from God.
I was thirsty and they explained how sinful it was to have wants or needs. I was sick and they explained that that was sinful too.
When I was in my mid teens I suffered more abuse from family and family “friends” and I roamed the streets a lot. I knew I was a sinner, and I was very angry. I had learned to drink alcohol very well at age 11 and I could drink away the abuse that I couldn’t stop. One desperate afternoon I went to a church and tried the door, locked! I knocked, no answer. I made a mental note to myself: if seeking Jesus, He can apparently only be found at 10 am on Sunday mornings, He must be a very busy Man that kept short office hours. Upon inquery later, when I actually found someone there at that church, I found that if I wanted relief I had to clean myself up, buy myself some new clothes, join their church and maybe I could talk to Jesus then.
I was hungry, naked, thirsty, a sick stranger in a prison of anger and rebellion they set my bars a little higher.
About this time my grandmother (not from the south) that went to the church of mental strength and paid prayer, took me to see a traveling preacher that was passing through town. I fought her for hours refusing to go, then I saw that look in her eyes again and knew I was at risk of another beating, so I just let it go , got dressed and went with her. I don’t know why she insisted I go, it was a christian evangelist named David Wilkerson that was speaking. Her church did not believe in traveling preachers, prophesying, or asking Jesus to make you be born again, all without charging a cent, but she did make me go. There were lots of people in the auditorium, hundreds. The preacher pointed to me way up in the crowd (trying to be invisible), and asked me to come onto the stage. He prayed for me and said, “he shall preach the gospel.” The crowd laughed pretty loud and he looked down at me, turned red, and said, oh, “she shall preach the gospel”. While I stood there he continued preaching about how Jesus died on the cross for any sins we committed, and that He would forgive us all of them if we confessed them. He looked at me with a big warm smile and said, “oh you are too young to have any sins”. I was glad cause I wasn’t going to confess any of them in front of the whole audience. He prayed for me and we went home.
I was wicked angry at my grandmother for having made me go there and embarrassing me in front of all those people. But I also had a sense of peace about the things that had happened to me, that if it was my sin that had caused me to be abused, (which I actually thought) then I knew Jesus had forgiven me, that I would be ok somehow. I found out later that the man was David Wilkerson, who wrote the book the cross and the switchblade. I left in bewilderment at the fact that a person (my grandmother from the sciencey church) that didn’t believe in Jesus had forced me to go see a man that only believed in Jesus and nothing else.
I didn’t go to church anywhere for a long time after that, I didn’t know where to go. The abuse at home didn’t stop but it wasn’t violent anymore and I just resigned myself to having to endure it. As soon as I could I began to slip out of the house at night. Sometimes my wanderings left me in the downtown area at 4 or 5 am kinda hanging out in the alleys. One such early morning a woman was coming out the back of her café putting something into the garbage and she saw me. She invited me in for coffee, she gave me a donut. She told me that she always had to get the café started in the real early hours of the mornings and that the front door was always locked, but the back door was always open. She never asked me any questions, she never told me to shape up, she fed me, she gave me something to drink, if she saw me in the afternoons she gave me a sandwich. I liked that café, there were always all kinds of people there, nuns in habit, street kids, business owners that were nice, it seemed like mean people never went in there. The people there were always laughing and very welcoming, even though some smoked and swore occasionally. A lot of people in that town didn’t like the owner very much, her restaurant was not clean enough they said, she wasn’t A PILLAR OF THE COMMUNITY, They said. She sometimes SWORE, they said. The fire department often wanted to shut her down, the health department began to, and then they just left her alone, they maybe had some of her sandwiches, I dunno.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38 when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39 when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matt 25:37-40
Around that time, I think I was 14 or 15, I went to a church where the pastor was young and beautiful. He was charismatic but not with the Gifts of the Spirit, he had a great speaking ability and people liked to be around him. He could convince people of almost anything, he had tremendous energy and smiled all the time. The church hired him to build up their membership. They sang traditional christian hymns, He preached the gospel with exuberance. He was dynamite with the youth group. After hearing him preach the gospel one Sunday, I ran away from home that night and went to the parsonage. Jesus would help me at last I thought, the man of God would tell me what to do and show me how to make the abuse stop. He wasn’t home when I got there but the door was unlocked. I let myself in and waited patiently for him to return home. He got home about a half hour later and came in the door wrapped in the arms of the unmarried first grade teacher. He was livid. He was saying things like breaking and entering as he called the police. The officer gave me a ride home, and said, just try to get by a little longer, you are almost old enough to leave home. The next Sunday I returned to that church and after the service was over and as everyone was leaving and shaking the pastors hand I got in line. I wasn’t angry, so much as bold, maybe something of David Wilkerson had rubbed off on me. When it was my turn, I asked this pastor plainly, do you even believe in God? Seeing no one around us, He said, I think God is a good idea some man invented to keep men honest and doing what is right. I never went back to that church, but I was wondering, is he your pastor too? Do you hire pastors because they can motivate people to attend and donate to your church? (It was sin to king david to number the people. 2 Samuel 24:10)
A while after that, my cousin invited me to a christian concert. I love my cousin, even though we seemed to be from two different worlds, she always loved me. The christian group, the 2nd chapter of Acts was in the next town over for a concert. I loved pianos and I just sat glued to Annie Herring singing and talking about the love of the Master, His deep and wonderful love for even the sinner. When she sang a song, something about “raindrops fall just like tear drops” I was enthralled with her love for Jesus, it was so great that I could feel His love. She sang about the disciples on the Emaus road and how their hearts burned within them. I heard the band preach and couldn’t follow it too well because of all the false doctrine I had heard over the years but I did hear them say that all who call on the Lord shall be saved. I went back to my life, with a spark of hope deep in my heart.
Later that summer my family went camping at a lake in the middle of nowhere. the lake had tree stumps all through it, and I decided to jump from stump to stump and lost track of time. I was sitting on a stump in the middle of that lake when suddenly several F15 fighter jets swarmed in flying practice dives. They were so low that the stump I was on shook. I shook, I couldn’t believe the roar, I thought I was going to die. I heard in my heart, “all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” and that day I screamed JESUS with all my heart. A tremendous peace instantly flooded me and I was ok, able to get back to shore. The band 2nd chapter of acts preached Jesus and the love of God, their message still speaks to me all these years later. As Jesus said, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Matt 24:35 Years later when I was filled with the Holy Spirit I was reading about the flood that lasted for 40 days and 40 nights that destroyed the earth. I thought about their song that said “raindrops fall just like teardrops.” I believe that the flood was 40 days and 40 nights of God’s tears, that God wasn’t so much angry, but weeping for us.
I was hungry and you gave me meat indeed. I was naked and you clothed me in His love. I was going to be in a prison of fear but you gave me the key ahead of time to save me from it.
When I was in my late teens I became very promiscuous. that way I got to choose who would use me. I had no reason to try to abstain, it was way too late for that, I knew what I was, I resigned myself to my fate. At that time my mother (who knew nothing of the abuse) was starting to really shine in town. She helped do so many good things in our town. She helped the people in the doctors office arrange payments instead of being sent to collections when they were really poor. There were some in town that had been fleeced by a church that talked them into donating their houses, lands and savings only to flee with their money. She helped them work out their payments with the doctors without saying anything condemning to them. She later worked on getting public transportation. She was on committees to build up the town and make new schools.
She always had an open door policy at her office with me, no matter where it was. I had never told my mother about the things that had happened to me, I was afraid to tell anyone, and I didn’t want to make her sad I think. She had had a very hard childhood. She had raised herself and her brother and sister starting when she was 8 because her mom, my grandma in bama, got divorced from my wealthy grandpa. That was way back when things like divorce got you shunned in society and excommunicated from church. My mom took care of the kids and house so that her mom could work in the 7-11 to support them all by herself.
But like I was saying, when when I was in my late teens I became very promiscuous. I had refined the art of splitting off unbearable memories and functioning in spite of unpleasant things. I had learned to do that when I was very young, the first time I was assaulted. I developed a sort of secret life, hiding my sins and fears. Our family was sort of middle class by then (my brother and i no longer had to fight over who got the last roll at dinner) and I got very good at being practically perfect in public.
I went to another church sometime after that. They preached the love of Jesus and salvation from Hell, they told me that Jesus loved me and died for my sins. I asked Him to forgive me.
The music was awesome at this church, I had never seen before a real live band doing worship. They preached for us to follow their shining example, showing us the wonderful clothing and autos and houses and buildings they had because they gave their lives to Jesus. There was a great emphasis on tithing to the church, people gave houses and lands and cars and pensions and savings. People really dressed up to go to this church. I remember talking to one young man that said he had gone there once because his parents forced him to. He said he hated church and would never go again. He said that his parents tithed to that church every penny they had extra and that was why he had to go around in shoes with holes in them. To him following Jesus meant denying your children necessities. He also said that he was quite thinking that the parishioners were fools because the church had been built with already owned land, donated materials, donated labor, and donated money, but the church still said they needed more money, and what, he wondered, were they doing with all that money? I didn’t really give much heed to the things he was saying, he liked to do drugs sometimes and so I figured he was just mad at God.
They were all dressed in very very nice clothes, flowing dresses and suits, but not one of the hundreds or thousand ever said even hello to me. When I saw some members in town they all encouraged me to go there until I felt the love of Jesus and fullness of the Spirit and then I would understand, then I would be filled with the awesomeness of it all. I tried really hard to be a new creation, I tried not to drink or smoke, but at night the flashbacks would start, the terror, the hopelessness. I stayed “holy” for a few days but then I went back to drinking. That is probably why I never went back to that church, and in hind sight I am glad I didn’t, even though I left feeling like I was a wicked sinner that could never be anything else.
I wasn’t much impressed with all the “things” things they had gotten “in Jesus name”, I had seen many more shiny toys in the world by then. I had also come to learn that the people in the world that coveted the best and finest worldly things were people I didn’t really want to be around anyway, they often used and discarded people. I saw that sometimes the people at that church would walk by poor people on the streets with their noses a bit high in the air. Even if they went to help the poor, they did it with an air of superiority and self righteousness.
One day many years later I found a scripture I always wanted to share with the skeptical young man whose parents forced him to go to church there the guy with holes in his shoes, But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. 1 Tim 5:8
One day I heard that the church leadership had moved out of the area suddenly and that a lot of money was missing, and the people that had given all they had were left with shattered faith and nothing much else. I remember reading in the bible that Jesus chose Judas as a disciple : Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, 5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? 6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. John 12:4-6 I just didn’t expect to see someone like that in leadership, or having so many followers. I wondered: if that many people were deceived, then how could I keep from being deceived? By prayer certainly, but I should ask the families of the christians what they are really like when they are not preaching. And the “druggies” who’s parents force them to go to church, I should talk to them to get a balanced perspective maybe.
You took the rags I was wearing from me and clothed me in shame, you locked me in a prison of unworthyness. You said that I and my house should go without so that the Lord would be exalted. You left me hungry and thirsty, and naked.
“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?” Isa:58:6-7
Jesus addressed this a bit also when talking to pharisees during those days about tithes: And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. 10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: 11 But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. 12 And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; 13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye. Mark 7:9-13
Later when I was almost turning 18 I was finally able to leave home. I decided to move around some and see if I could find peace in another place perhaps. I went south again and joined a small community college, where I found that colored people can hate white people just as much as white people can hate colored people. The college was predominantly african american students and when I said hello a lot of them made racial slurs to me, a few were nice to me but not many.
During this time I decided to visit a church of African American believers. I had heard they had suffered many tribulations in their lives, been rejected and abused by men just because of the color of their skin. I thought I might find fellowship there being myself an outcast that had suffered abuse. So I visited a small church, the service was already started. I finally found what I was looking for, wellsprings of Living water, food from the Word for the hungry, companionship for the prisoners of loneliness, understanding for the abused. I saw that they had the Love I had so desperately been seeking, I saw the joy on their faces as they worshipped Jesus in their church.
I found though, to my great sorrow, that it wasn’t for me, I saw that it was only to be shared with those of their own race. When the song was finished some of them looked at me in fear, some in disgust, some in outright anger that I had come into their sacred place. I was not from their town, I had a different accent and a different color of skin. I learned that prejudice was no respecter of nationalities, they never let me into that deep fellowship of love because we had different skin. I understood that they were wary of me because others of my race had injured them grievously, but I didn’t do it, I never consented to it.
When African Americans visited my predominantly white town I sought them out and helped them whenever I could, I did the same for anyone of any race. I remembered what it was like to be a stranger. They didn’t know that about me, that I wasn’t racist, but Jesus did. He would have told them, but they were also locked in a prison of suspicion and prejudice and couldn’t hear Him. Those walls are thick. I wasn’t angry when I left, just very sad. I was sad because I wanted to meet african americans from the south, the ones who could identify so closely with the sufferings of Jesus. The ones that knew exactly what it was like to have an angry mob rush in and take one of yours who had done nothing wrong, and kill him by hanging him on a tree. The ones who could share their faith with me to help teach me so I would know how to be able to endure if people bombed a church filled with little children that i attended. How to endure a time when authorities and most people would turn a blind eye to violence and murder, and knowing I would be asked to forgive them, i wanted to see how they could possibly do that. I think such a time as that is coming again, for all chrisitans, no matter what color their skin is. I wrote this awhile back but since writing I have wept when reading about the murders at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church by a white supremacist. I was so comforted when President Obama sang at their memorial service. And I was filled with sorrow again over the Covenant School shooting.
While I was in the south to go to college, I visited with my grandma from Bama, the grandma that loved me. I had only seen her every 4 years of my life but she had always loved me unconditionally every time I had seen her. One day she told me the story of how she had been working in a 7-11 and been robbed at knife point by a very dangerous and angry man. He was caught by the police and she testified against him in court. He was sentenced to a few years in jail. At the hearing he said to her, I will come back when I get out, and I am going to kill you. A couple years later she was again working late at night in that same store, she had the same color hair, the same glasses, and her weight hadn’t changed. The man that had robbed her came in with his sister, and my gramma prayed, “dear Jesus, Help me!” The man walked right up to her and said, “where is Shirley?! does she still work here?!” She answered, “no Shirley quit working here long ago”. The robber left angry, his sister with him. My gramma Shirley, who had been excommunicated from her church because her husband had divorced her, had true faith, and she showed me that Jesus was a God of miracles. Real miracles right when you need them.
I was pretty promiscuous in college as I had been before, but then I got into a relationship that was getting kind of serious. When the relationship started to get really serious I did a very bad thing, I broke it off and broke his heart with little or no explanation. I was heartless and cold. I couldn’t bear the idea of being tied down in one place with someone after I had just found freedom.
I decided to move back from the south one day. Although I really loved it there, I had seen too many people get shot right in front of my eyes, I had seen enough of white people hating black people, black people hating white people, I had seen enough drug smuggling and armed robberies. (I had also had had a great time at the country club and going out to nightclubs, I got to meet my relatives that I had known little about, so it wasn’t all bad.) All those bad things weren’t the most convincing reason to leave though.
One day my uncle and I were sitting on the front porch drinking a few beers and it got kinda windy. My aunt called to us from the house saying “come in, the weather man says…” we just interrupted her and said “we are fine go back inside”. (My uncle and I never listened to anyone, we didn’t need to.) It got really really quiet all of the sudden and we watched the tree in the front yard be lifted up out of the ground with the whole root ball attached. It came back down quietly and when we saw it laying in the yard we went zoooooooooom into the house. Maybe my aunt could be right after all! (love ya auntie!) Hurricane David had just gone over our house. I came to a quick decision. I said, I will take my chances with avalanches in the great northwest anyday! I flew home a few weeks later when the roads were finally cleaned up and the electricity was on again.
When I got home I stopped seeking Jesus in buildings with crosses. In my 20’s I was the one that poured your coffee in the restaurant. I knew who the christians were, they were the ones that sometimes shared that Jesus loved me, but seldom left a tip for me on the table. I was blessed to see some of them in the evenings also, without their wives when I would fill in at the bar as the cocktail waitress.
You clothed me with hypocrisy, you didn’t know I could see your nakedness, but you gladly told me that you could see mine.
I developed a great sense of loneliness, a need to fit in somewhere. I found that I could find fellowship in bars and nightclubs. I found that sinners would accept me, they knew who they were and were quick to invite others into their inner circles. “The fellowship of the unworthy that knew they were unworthy.” No judgement there, no having to measure up to fit in, no condemnation, they were quick to share anything they had that others might need.
I had some friends there that would lay down their life for me. they might steal my dope and then help me look for it, but if things got serious they would stand up for me. I like to be good at everything I do, so I practiced drinkin loggers under the table. I drank a fifth a day, I started drinkin first thing in the morning and quit when I passed out. if I passed out in the afternoons I woke up in the evenings and drank some more. I loved cocaine, I got pretty good at doing that too. I hurt a lot of people, I started doing things that I never would have done sober, I drank more so I wouldn’t have to feel bad about myself. I tried to quit drinking, I went to detox, that didn’t work. I went to aa, didn’t work cause when I got sober I thought about me, I couldn’t look myself in the mirror. by then I was drinking to stay numb so I didn’t have to look at all the stuff I had done or think about the stuff that had been done to me and I hated myself, my guilt was too much to carry.
We had great times but there was also great emptiness inside us. We were sure that the world and God had rejected us and so we kept that emptiness at bay with drugs and alcohol. When we heard the gospel preached by people to us wicked sinners, we heard that they lived in a place of blessedness that we could never attain to, but that we should still quit our wicked ways. We also learned “scripture” in those days. scriptures like: be not drunken with wine. be not fornicators, be not thieves, be not cussing, be not unshowered, be certain you will burn in hell and that you are an abomination to God, several more good ones about the wrath of God also.
You took your good christian mortar and made the walls of our prisons stronger.
During this time I decided to live with a man I had dated in high school. We didn’t have much in common, we both liked to party though. He preferred drugs and I alcohol. The way I think sometimes is funny, as in odd, not ha ha ha. I decided I needed to be on birth control. All those years and in all those previous encounters I had never never been on birth control, never gotten pregnant or even had a late period. I was pretty sure that I was sterile. I got on birth control anyway when i moved in with this guy.Well, one day my mom invited me for lunch and had a nice little talk with me about living in sin, and bless her heart, about how her friends and associates in town were talking about me. So I got married.
I worked very hard at my marriage trying to be the perfect wife. It was hard because we were so different, he liked to stay home, I liked to go out. I liked to drink, he liked other things. I liked basketball, and volleyball, and skiing, he liked golf. I tried golf. I was out on the course at the hole by the river and accidentally hit eight golf balls into the river. I looked in my bag and saw I was out of balls and went home, never to return.
I became very lonely during those years and one night that I will regret for the rest of my life, I went out drinking with friends and ended up in bed with another man. That destroyed me. I had always been abused in my life, and done things because I felt I had no choice. My affair changed the way I looked at myself, I wasnt just a victim of abuse with an excuse for things I did that werent kind, now knew I was no more righteous than anyone else. I tried to do what was right and blew it totally in one drunken night.
After so many years of not being able to get conceive a child, I finally become pregnant, on birth control, and had a son, I wasnt sure if it was my husbands or from my drunk encounter. He was born prematurely on April fools day and lived 24 hours. After his death I drank more, and more. I was sure that God was pretty upset with my sinful life and it was what I deserved but oh how that hurt.
I found one day to my surprise, that I couldn’t quit drinking. By then I couldn’t stay drunk enough to numb my pain and guilt, but I hated being addicted beyond my control. I desperately wanted to quit, I wanted to repent and change. I went to detox and got so scared at the people screaming in anguish that I got out of that place and had a glass of wine to calm my nerves. I started to use cocaine more often.
I got pregnant again on another form of birth control, and had another child, I was able to abstain from drinking and drugs during that time. The doctors wouldn’t let me carry her without surgery to tie my cervix shut because they said it was deformed, and because they said they couldnt risk malpractice costs if I lost this one. So I had the surgery and I carried her full term. After she was born the cravings for alcohol returned full force. I could not stay sober, and I couldn’t control how much I drank.
One night I let myself into my neighbors house at about 2 a.m. I was very near having dt’s from alcohol withdrawals. I Just let myself in because the door was not locked.(some habits die hard). I knew they were christians but I figured they might have cooking wine. The woman that lived there heard me banging around in the cupboards and came into the kitchen. I noticed a few rifles in the hall, her husband was a hunter. Instead of shooting me, she told me about Jesus. She said I know you can’t quit on your own, but Jesus has the power, and the Power is in the Holy Spirit. She prayed for me and I was instantly delivered from alcohol, no withdrawals at all. She didn’t tell me to repent of anything, she didn’t tell me I had to go to her church, or do anything at all except ask Jesus to help me and she loaned me her bible. I went back the next day and she listened to me and prayed for me, this went on for many days. I felt Jesus’ tremendous love and peace. I spent days praying and meditating on scriptures to find out more of who He was, this amazing Jesus who set me free for nothing in return. I don’t know the christian definition of meditation, but to me it means read a passage or scripture and think about it a lot. When I gave my life to Jesus I didn’t know anything, not even those little “Jesus loves me this I know for the bible tells me so” songs they sang at church. I had decided to read His book and stop listening to all the things people kept telling me in churches and see for myself. I read the bible a lot, kept the house, and had several more children, in fact I was beginning to think that if the Son shall set you free you might have to get a tubal ligation so you wouldn’t have 20 children! I attended a church that talked about Jesus a lot and had gifts of the Spirit. I grew so much in those years, I felt loved unconditionally and that I could do no wrong in Jesus eyes. He showed me His forgiveness in the scriptures, not vague ideology, but precise scriptures showing me that when He was on that cross He died for my specific sins. He explained fornication, adultery and other things I had done. He said He forgave me and would change me so that I didn’t have to do those things anymore. He called it washing of the water of the word. I was scared at first. He called sin sin and didn’t sugar coat any of it. As soon as He called my sins by name and asked me to confess them, which I did, He showed me amazing grace. He filled me with love
so deep that I had never felt before, a total forgiveness and pure mercy. Joy oh what joy I felt.
As I read the bible He delivered me from things that were called guilt, shame, and condemnation. He showed me that He wept those nights long ago when I was being abused as a child. He clothed me with His righteousness, He set me free from my prison, He fed me and gave me Living Water to drink. God bless that woman that was willing to be His minister to me.
When I had first asked Jesus to forgive me and fill me, I confessed my sins to my husband, thinking that was the right thing to do. My husband was angry, I can’t blame him for that, but then his anger turned to hate. He became demanding and controlling and abusive and it grew worse and worse. He never hit me with a fist, I never had a black eye. I did have several miscarriages and a broken collar bone and some other injuries.
One time when I miscarried because my husband raped me while i was 3 months pregnant, a friend took me to the hospital because of the heavy hemorrhaging. She was a staunch Christian and insisted on going to get my husband to have him come to the hospital after she dropped me at the ER. The doctor said I had lost the baby and so much blood that I was dying and had to have a d & c, a procedure to scrape the uterus and stop the bleeding. I really just wanted to die but they asked my husband for permission and did the D&C anyway though i had said no.
After that at our home there was a lot of yelling and constant degrading, I was expected to submit to anything and everything my husband told me to do. He had a schedule for when I should have the floors vacuumed and the dishes done and many other things. He controlled the finances and we didn’t have much food ever, unless he was home for dinner with the boss, then we had prime rib. When disposable diapers came out I was told that they were an extravagance and that I should keep washing the cloth diapers in the shower. It seemed the more I did what he said the more he hated me. I had no car, often no phone. My husband got a new car for himself (that didn’t have enough seats for all the kids) and gold plated golf clubs because of his membership at the country club. I wish he would have just divorced me instead of making me pay for my sin daily.
The book of malachi says that God hates divorce, but does He not hate abuse also? I felt inside that I should leave him, but the church I was going to strongly told me that it would be a sin for me to divorce him so I stayed thinking that he would change if I just did everything right.
My husband was locked in a prison of unforgiveness and hatred, and my church made sure that I and my children were locked in it with him.
Jesus is going to set him free from that prison one day, I heard Him say that. I spent those days in anguish and vexation of my spirit from the things going on in my marriage, but I spent those nights when my husband was working finding love and mercy and compassion in the book Jesus wrote for me. He taught me great and wonderful things, even in the midst of my chaotic life. “And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the Lord is his treasure. Isaiah 33:6″
At that time the church I attended became pretty focused on the scriptures dealing with wife submission. My husbands parents went there. The church pretty much summarized the scriptures and said that the bible says the wife has to do everything and anything the husband says. Other than that stuff though I learned some really good things at that church, I loved worshiping with the congregation. They had gifts like prophesying and words of knowledge and things like that. I couldn’t hear all of those though, because I always sat in the back and it was a big church. Members sometimes gave testimonies of how the Lord had delivered them. There were a lot of really devoted christians there, mixed with some that just appeared to be.
At one service they had a guest speaker, he told the people that Jesus had given him a gift, “The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. Isaiah 50:4″ The speaker said that “the Lord told me to ask if anyone would like me to pray they could have the same gift”. I went up for that prayer. After that I began to listen to people talk and I would remember a scripture suddenly. That was awesome because I had a very very bad memory, still do. Jesus didn’t always give me the ability to remember the passage or book, so to check if that was really in the bible I would often have to do some digging around. Sometimes I would just open the bible and the scripture was right there in front of my eyes. I usually am sitting in sheer amazement at the things I hear come out of my mouth or typewriter when this gift is flowing.
About this time my mother called me on the phone and said to me, “Iver is dying and you have to go talk to him”. Iver was a close friend of my family. Now this was really weird because my mother was not impressed with the new “spiritual” me. She often talked about religious fanatic churches in a very disdainful way. What I found later on is that my mother had known many people in the valley we grew up in that had given their “hearts to Jesus and to the new church” in the next town over. In their zeal to serve Jesus, they had given up lands and homes and savings accounts to help the church grow. This church then took their money and fled the state. My mother worked with those people in town to help them get through the difficulties of paying their bills and getting self esteem back, she was God’s cleanup squad with her uncondemning love and wisdom. She was wary of any church that came to the valley preaching Jesus in any form other than traditional non pentecostal ones.
So that is why I thought it quite odd that she was asking me to go talk to Iver. I was going to a pentecostal church myself. I prayed about it, mostly, “gee Lord everything you have been telling me to do lately has been unfruitful, I have seen no good come out of any of it, but I will go if you want me to.” Jesus said, “go, and tell him that scripture in the 23rd psalm, yea thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death… tell him that there is Light there or there would be no shadow.” That was cool so I went, very nervous though because Iver had always been a very grumpy man. So I did go and I told Iver what Jesus had told me to tell him. Iver looked at me with that grumpy unchanging expression and said tartly, “that would have thrilled me years ago, it doesn’t do much for me now.” I left praying, “I told you Jesus, why do you make me do embarrassing things all the time for no good reason?” It was 20 years later that I heard that after my visit Iver had called a christian the next morning and asked Jesus into his heart, and then he died the next day. About this time of my life I went to a womens retreat in the area and heard a woman speaker named Zoanne Wilkie. She had a lot of wisdom, a lot of quickened words from Jesus, but even more than that she was soooo filled with the Love and Joy of Jesus. She told of how her life was before Jesus and the Holy Spirit and how it was now. She explained that our walk is coming to a continual y in the road and daily choosing His way or our own. She showed how she wasn’t able to just become a perfect christian but instead how Jesus through the Holy Spirit changed her as she walked through life. When it was hard and she wanted to go her own way in anger or vindictiveness, the Lord would always help her through it so she ended up in His will instead. She told the story of a woman in the laundry room always working that met the Prince who loved her and asked her to come dance with him. So eloquently Zoanne tells how He didn’t mean the perfect woman next to her, but her. Jesus poured out His incredible love to the whole room while we listened to her talk. She explained that she had always had bad self esteem about her body and how Jesus showed her that He made her exactly how He wanted her, for the ministry. She indeed has a gift from Jesus to give, and it is easy to accept when it comes through her.
The Jesus I searched for all my life was never fully met until I met her at those retreats and she ministered the Word so completely. I was able to come out of my prison cell, even though I was so afraid, because she was not scary, or stern, she was just like meeting Jesus on the road somewhere. Everyone else gave me doctrine and good advice, deliverance and prophesying, which I need, but Zoanne introduced me to all those in the Love of God. “If I have not love I am nothing”, it is the very most important thing about Him.
I went back to my home full of love and felt great. I kept going to the church I had been going to. I was overjoyed to be in a church where I could worship Jesus and hear about Him more. I never felt I really fit in though. At lady’s bible study I would sometimes try to share something Jesus had shown me in the bible. I felt they listened out of politeness but really didn’t want to hear it. One day in bible study the leaders were having this conversation about how hard it was to get the oil in the peanut butter jar to mix so you could spread it. I went to the bathroom. While I was in there in the bathroom I heard someone come in, and she was crying. I asked the woman what was wrong, she said oh nothing, and we talked for a while. She said, “can you believe they are talking about peanut butter oil!?” “Yeah, what is that about?” I said, “I have never heard of peanut butter oil, what the heck is that?” she laughed and said, “that’s cause you don’t buy REALLY EXPENSIVE peanut butter. Most women in there have never been able to buy REALLY EXPENSIVE peanut butter either. REALLY EXPENSIVE peanut butter has oil in it and you have to turn it upside down from time to time on your shelf or it separates”, she explained, and said, “they want us to know that they buy REALLY EXPENSIVE peanut butter and don’t even know how to mix it”. then she said, “CAN YOU BELIEVE WE ARE AT A LADIES BIBLE STUDY DISCUSSING PEANUT BUTTER!!??” I loved her from that moment on.
I went to the next Sunday service and sat with her up closer to the front, and I found to my sheer delight and amazement that she was a Prophet. When she stood up and spoke the whole church got quiet. Oh I don’t remember the exact words of that first prophecy I heard come out of her but it started with Thus sayeth the Lord….then it had some, Return to Me my people, Let me lead you My sheep, Let me heal you and comfort you, I died for you on the wooden cross to set you free….and ended up something about not loving the things of the world. When she spoke I heard Jesus.
And that’s when, after that service, that I started hearing people in the hallways talking about a solid gold 8 foot cross, “that’s what she meant!” they said, “she was talking about the gold cross!” The church was apparently having some arguments about what to do with a large cross in the sanctuary. The cross was a left over from a church that had the building before them, a church that had dissolved because of embezzlement of large sums of money. The cross was solid gold and some of the congregation wanted to melt it and sell it and use the money for other things, some of the congregation wanted to keep right where it was. I hadn’t heard of the cross dilemma till then.
I got some confidence when I was with my new friend, I started saying things like “Jesus showed me how much He loves us and if we are caught in sin or condemnation He delights in helping us out of it, let me show you this scripture of His great love.” We got called into the pastors office kinda regularly after that speaking up thing that we started doing. We were asked to quit talking in church, not even to people in the hall on the way in or out. “If you feel like Jesus wants you to say something, run it by me first. Write it down and I’ll let you know in a few days if I think its really Jesus wanting you to say it.” the pastor said. He explained that he was having a hard time keeping order in church, he said that there was a church division going on. He also said that he and the elders had decided to ask me to quit sharing scriptural things, and my friend to ABSOLUTELY quit prophesying in their church.
I asked the Lord one day, saying, Lord these people are filled with Your Holy Spirit but they misuse it sometimes and don’t seem to love people except wealthy people, or people from their own”cliche”, they wont listen if I feel you telling me to share anything with them, how could you possibly do that, give them so much? I heard Him say to me, “If I gave you a new fast sports car because I love you so much, and then you took that car and got lots of speeding tickets or used it to rob a bank, would that be My fault?”
When I tried to talk about the domestic violence I was enduring with people at church they usually accused me of making it all up, “he would never do things like that” they said. “His parents are faithful members of the church. Submit to your husband” they said. My friend and I mostly quit going to church, I kept going off an on but not much. My friend the prophet and I got bored and instead fed and clothed hungry people in the slum nearby.
The first time we tried this we had no idea what to do, but Jesus would show me something and her something. One day He said to me “get some toys for children, and some spanish bibles”. He told my friend the prophet, “Get all the left overs from her new churches yard sale and some tracts in spanish.” I met some gideons during this time, and got some bibles, I think gideons are awesome! We did get those things, and then we drove to the worst neighborhood we could find, we just drove up and down the street for a while. My friend prayed, Jesus tell us where to take this stuff. He showed us exactly where. Both of us pointed and said, “that house right there”. We pulled up and an older woman came out of her house, then we noticed the 20 or 30 neighborhood children coming out of the house behind her. When she saw the bibles and tracts she looked to heaven weeping, saying gracias, Jesus! They really appreciated the peanut butter we gave them, even if it didn’t have much oil in it. That was pure delight, taking the gospel to the poor that were dying to hear it, thankful for any food and clothes we could round up for them. I heard Jesus say “it was dusty roads and dirty feet, talking to one person at a time, it wasn’t all sermon on the mount.”
I remember during these days that I was starting to get pretty mad at the people from the church. I felt like Jonah some times (very good story in the book of Jonah), God told me to go tell a nation of really mean snotty people to repent and that He loved them. I thought He loved them more than me because they had so much. And then I sat on my hill watching, silently hoping he would wipe them off the face of the earth. About that time my neighbor that went to that church came up to me and said, I cleaned out all the old flower pots you had out here and put new dirt in them for you! Gees, I was furious, but said kindly, oh thank you, and went into my house storming at Jesus. I had an amaryllis flower bulb in one of those pots, you couldn’t see it, it was dormant right then, but it was in there. I had had it for 12 years, it was the most beautiful amaryllis anyone had ever seen with huge flowers when it bloomed. I heard the Lord say, “hmmm looks like you lost you gourd.” (Jonah 4:6-10) I fumed back at Him, “and you are just going to forgive them!” He said, “yes I am, and I am going to forgive you too.” I let my anger go, even though I didn’t want to. We moved then to another town not far away and I went to a church there, it was a denomination I had never been to before but I knew a person that went. The congregation was very nice, they all greeted me right away and made me feel very welcome. The preaching was kind of loud, when the pastor got into his sermon he tended to be very very loud and full of zeal. It was contagious and by the end of the services the whole congregation was filled with zeal and excitement. I don’t really like loud, I couldn’t picture Jesus preaching like that, but I was overjoyed because the pastor always preached out of the bible. I really got into all the things they were saying about how to walk in faith, and exercise our faith, and how to be blessed by God. I gave myself intensely to reading the word, speaking the word, thinking about the word, but claiming the word I always had trouble with. I tried really hard to do it, I just didn’t have real faith when I tried though. They said if I spoke nothing negative and only confessed positive things that I would be walking in faith and pleasing God. They said I should pray about what was mine as a child of God over and over again and claim it, and not doubt it, then I would receive it. I noticed this worked, because some of them had nice shiny red sports cars that they had claimed and spoke into existence by calling the things that be not as though they were. A person in the church had died of cancer recently, because she didn’t have enough faith, they explained. One woman shared how she had prayed for her husband every day for 30 minutes for the last 15 years and now he was saved. I tried very hard to do these things, I was a claiming, naming fanatic for months. It was hard work. And something else I noticed, I was very lonely inside. I was missing someone terribly but I couldn’t really put my finger on who it was. I spent days and nights just weeping for the loss of someone. I hadn’t lost anyone recently, but I had never felt such a loss as I was feeling then.
One day I was claiming deliverance from smoking cigarettes and abstaining and I was miserable. People from the church gave me scriptures to claim about that and I tried sooo hard. The urge to smoke became unbearable, like never before. One day a well meaning member came by to encourage me, she gave me some scriptures she had printed and said, say these over and over and you will be set free. I myself yelled that day. I yelled, ” IF I COULD DO THAT WHAT WOULD I NEED JESUS FOR?!!!” The poor woman left quickly and I felt a total failure. I left that church in shame that I hadn’t the will power to become a believer like them. They left out the part about the power of God to change me and left me to repent and change myself. (Maybe they hadn’t read that part, they seemed to be working really hard).
I saw a vision that night, and heard from Jesus. I hadn’t heard from Him in ages, I had heard all about Him, I had heard what people were doing in His name, what they were doing for Him, I had heard over and over about His stripes that He took to heal us, I had heard over and over again what I was supposed to be doing to usher in His kingdom, but I hadn’t heard a word from Him. I hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t even occurred to me. I was carried away with all the doing and totally forgot that He wasn’t retired somewhere expecting me to do everything down here by myself.
The vision I saw was me on a tightrope high in the clouds, afraid to fall, using all my strength and grit to stay up there. And the Lord said to me, “you can step off that tightrope, it’s only two feet off the ground.” The vision changed and the clouds around me left and I saw that the floor was indeed only two feet above the ground and all over the floor was written: GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE GRACE. The next day Jesus had me read Galatians about beginning in the Spirit and then trying to be made perfect by the flesh. And He showed me this scripture about faith: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. Eph 2:8-9 He also showed me a scripture that says That no flesh should glory in his presence. 1 Cor 1:29
Man glorying is like saying: I prayed this car into my garage, I claimed this healing, I stood on the word of God and my brother got saved, bless God! I fasted and confessed and I got… I, I, I. Glorying in Jesus says, look what Jesus did! What a relief, Jesus is alive, it’s not up to me. His yoke is easy, His burden light. He showed me many things about what I had been doing, I wrote about some of them in the section addressed to the churches. The one thing that I remember most about this whole time in my life was how much I had missed Jesus, the lover of my soul. My daily joy, the One who always comforts and strengthens and encourages, the One I missed so desperately. My inability to deliver myself, and my love for Jesus is what turned me to repentance from dead works to once again serve the Living God. Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death…7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it… Song 8:6-7
I returned to Jesus, my first love, that day, deciding that even if my life never changed and I never got anything, and no one got saved, I wanted Jesus in my life again. I was overjoyed that love would get me out of anything that tried to keep me from following Him, even things disguised as serving Him. That love will always draw us back to His presence. That love, just like faith, is not something we can manufacture ourselves, it is the gift of God …the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Romans 5:5
A while after this, we moved again and I felt Jesus was telling me to separate from my husband. I was new at this christian stuff and the church must know better than me I thought, that must not be the voice of Jesus, so I just tried harder to do what my husband said. I thought if I was better he would change. My husband hadn’t committed adultery as far as I knew and the church said that was the only reason you could get divorced or you must submit to your husband in everything. He was often gone for days at a time which was a relief, but I didn’t know where he went. I wasn’t thinking of divorce at all, I was thinking, get some space, some counseling and let Jesus fix the marriage. I didn’t do anything about about separating though- until one of my children was abused. When the abuse of our child came to the attention of the police via the babysitter, my husband filed for divorce immediately and denied any wrongdoing. The courts found credible that he had abused our daughter gave him supervised visitation for six months. However the court agreed to let his mother be the supervisor of visitation and often she and his dad left town during his weekends leaving him at their home alone with our children.
Please don’t “help” me out by condemning my husband for me. Condemnation of others often only puts us bound into a prison of unforgiveness and self righteousness. My husbands heart and actions are in the hand of Jesus. Jesus, who is loving and merciful and forgiving when anyone repents. “but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not.” Neh 9:17″ Jesus knows the things that have caused him to be like he was. We have no idea what a person has gone through and why they do the things they do, Jesus does though, and He is quite able to judge on His own. I am glad it is Jesus that I will stand before on judgment day and not others and not even myself. I love my ex husband, we just couldn’t live together any longer. I haven’t seen or heard from him in ten years and have no desire to, but I don’t hate him, I forgive him because I know I need Jesus to forgive me and I have no desire to get into a prison of hate and unforgivenes, I have seen what that is like up close. Forgiving someone doesnt mean you dont set healthy and safe boundaries, forgiving someone doesnt mean you ever have to see them again or restore a relationship, it means leaving it up to God who will either punish with a greater punishment than any person could give or forgive if and when there is true repentance.
One day during this time I had to go to a business to buy something. A woman that worked there, that I had never met before, asked me about the dove key chain I had. She wanted to know what it meant to me. I had never shared Jesus and salvation before, but I told her what I knew, and she asked for more. I was amazed, this woman asked me to come back and share more with her when I was downtown the next day too. I did, I gave her some scriptures that spoke of Jesus forgiveness and His great love. About a month after that, the woman and her daughter were brutally murdered in their home by a complete stranger. The police spent months trying to find the killer and the town was very frightened. And so was I, I found when I read the paper that she lived on the street right behind my house. I had to walk my children to school, crossing that street with all the police still there. I was so glad that I hadn’t brushed her off that day and hadn’t been too busy to listen to her. I determined to do whatever Jesus said to me, if I saw fruit, or not.
About that time, now separated from my husband I gave birth to my youngest daughter, my fifth living child. I had been having surgery all those times before when I was pregnant but when I found out I was pregnant this last time, I was so exhausted and depressed that I found a Dr. that would take me as a patient without the surgery. I am ashamed to say it, but I was at such a low point in my life, that I prayed, Jesus I can’t go through labor again, I can’t go through surgery again, If it is Your will that I carry this child then I will trust You, if not then it is ok if I lose it. 9 months later, I was alone in labor at the hospital, I was very weak and malnourished, I weighed 89 pounds, I could see all my bones. The nurse was in a panic yelling at me “push harder, push, push! If you don’t we will to have to get the forceps out so the baby doesn’t die”. The doctor (and Jesus) looked tenderly in my face and said, its ok, relax, take the contractions as you can, the baby will be fine. I just laid there and cried. Some how I found the strength to push a few more times and they handed me the baby that would become the joy to sustain us through many more hard years, I named her Susy after my wealthy relatives maid.
At times when my other children and I were all sad in the next years, that little katie would always run up to us and hug us and tell us the best goofy jokes and get us laughing again. She actually did roll on the floor laughing when she laughed. I don’t love her more than any of my other children, I would be lost without any of them, but it was during her labor and birth that God showed me once again the tremendous love and grace of Jesus. She was His joy to us in the flesh. When I was first separated and had that brand new baby, I went to the church for help, and then I went to 5 more churches for
help. Same story everywhere I went, if you had submitted to your husband you wouldn’t be in this place of not having food, return to your husband and submit to him, have sex with him more often and he wont have to look for it elsewhere. It was a kind of small town so every church I went to said basically the same thing, we know your husband, we know his dad the church elder, you are making all these lies up about him, repent. There was no public transportation in the area yet, I had no phone, no child support, and I knew nothing about public assistance like food stamps or medical or any of that.
Right before divorce court the Lord showed me a scripture. I was reading the bible not really getting anything out of it, and then I came to a part that said, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. Matt 15:8 That really stood out to me, but I didn’t know what it meant. In court I found that several members of the church I had been going to had written affidavits raving about my successful charming husband (who never went to church anywhere during the 12yrs we had been married) and saying that in their dealings with me I acted like a religious fanatic and was probably unbalanced, and that he should have sole custody of the children. The woman that had once shared with me the love and mercy and power of Jesus in her kitchen was among them. (Jesus has already forgiven her as have I. How many of us have judged a person because they are good looking, wear nice clothes and say everything just right in public without knowing at all what they are like at home? Narcissists can put on a great fake persona to those outside the home ) The court ruled for me having custody but the stress was almost unbearable, and the realization that people could be really nice to your face in church and not like you at all was shocking to me.
And so things got really bad in my life, (divorce court with no lawyer, single parenting 5 children , very poor because I was not working and hadn’t gotten a child support order yet, flashbacks of abuse I had suffered both as a child and in my marriage,) and not welcome in any church anymore. I had found nothing but condemnation from churches since my husband divorced me. Pentecostal or evangelical churchs used to love to point to excommunication by a certain church in the 40’s and 50’s as the ills of that denomination, but they do it themselves. Not always by decree or outwardly saying, you can’t come to this church, but more the old way from junior high school. “Oh don’t talk to her, she is not part of our group anymore. She should have
submitted to her husband and this wouldn’t have happened to her. Oh we can’t help you from our food bank, you are out of God’s will”. Things like that. When your clothing styles reflect that you have been reduced to shopping at kmarche~ instead of Bon Marche~ you get the long look down their noses at you.
Eventually you get the message that you are not welcome or worthy of their company and you quit going there. My friend the prophet brought us food, sometimes cooking dinner for us, always helping with the housework. She and her husband carried us through that first period of time. But they weren’t wealthy and I knew they couldn’t support us, they had been taking the food off of their table to feed us. They are wealthy beyond compare in the kingdom of Heaven though, they fed me, clothed me, visited me and my children.
I remember about the end of that first month of being separated from my husband that I had enough food in the house to barely feed the kids, but I hadn’t eaten anything but coffee with cream for two weeks. I weighed only 89 pounds, and I was depressed thinking God had forsaken me. I wondered if the church wasn’t right, I was in this predicament because I hadn’t done everything right, forgotten to confess something or something like that. No car, no buses, no money at all, I had no idea how I was going to feed my children any more and one day I turned my back on Jesus. I said, “I don’t know where you are or why you have allowed all this to happen to me, but I can’t follow you anymore, it is too hard”. I eventually went back to all the things Jesus had saved me from, alcohol, and drugs, so that I could numb out the incredible pain I was feeling, and not have to deal with the flashbacks and memories. I got into a sexual relationship with someone that offered to help support me and my children. I will never as long as I live forget that first piece of bread she gave me, or the dinner she made after that. She wasn’t wealthy, but we now had food, we were able to make the mortgage payment and not lose the house. (I had earlier tried to find a rental but no one would rent to a single parent with no job and five kids.) I felt really loved by this person, unlike I ever had before. It was selfless love. She happily bought us groceries and paid our bills, it was pure kindness, expecting nothing in return. She had two adorable children that I love dearly and wish that back then I had had more patience and love for. They remind me so much of her love. She found another food bank, a pastor named roberson who ran a food bank for hungry people, he didn’t ask if people were sinners or not, church members or not. (He was later falsely accused of a crime and imprisoned, along with his Sunday school teacher. I don’t remember one christian outside of those in his church in the whole valley standing up for him.) She helped me get a legal aid lawyer and I finally got child support, though not much because of some discrepancy with my ex’s payroll stubs. She drove me to these places and showed me how to get food stamps and medical aid for the kids.
At that time I had much more condemnation than I had ever had in my whole life. I had gotten into a relationship to have food and shelter and there was deep real love there, but she would have helped me even if I hadn’t decided to engage in intimacy with her, which I did. I had turned my back on the only One that had ever truly understood me, that loved me enough to die on a cross for me. I turned to alcohol again because I couldn’t stand myself, I wanted to die. When the kids went to their dads on weekends I was so worried for them that I started drinking the minute they left. Then I added drugs because alcohol wasn’t enough. I tried prostitution for awhile to pay for the drug addiction, thank God I wasn’t good at it and didnt stay long in it.
Even though I turned my back on Jesus, He never turned His back on me, He is the one that gathers the outcasts. I ran from Him, but like David said: Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? 8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. Psalms 139:7-8 I began to have non stop flashbacks of my childhood abuse and times of trauma I had been through, I had seen too many people shot to death before my eyes, I was consumed with worry for my children, I was recovering from broken bones and a broken heart. I looked up an old friend and got some cocaine to get through some court stuff I had to go through. When you turn your back and walk away from Jesus a couple lines of coke isn’t enough to numb that out, so I turned to i.v. use. After a couple weeks of that, I was in the bathroom trying un-successfully to find a vein and I saw Jesus. He said, Let me help you. (He didn’t mean help me use drugs, He meant let me help you with your life) I was stunned, I said, not now Lord, I am sinning (I know how stupid that sounds but I did not know what to say). He said, you don’t need me when things are going well, let me help you now. I said yes. I put the needle down and have never picked it back up, that was 1995, i never have felt like using any drugs again. Never even thought of it.
I never went back to drugs, but I never went back to Jesus either. I saw Jesus again months later in the midst of a my addiction when I was trying to put cocaine in my veins in the bathroom. I saw Him in a vision and He said, “let Me help you”. I said, “not now Lord, I’m sinning!” I know that sounds stupid of me to say that, but I didn’t know what to say. He said, “Let Me help you, you don’t need Me when things are going good, let me help you now”. Jesus helped alright, with total deliverance! I put that needle down and have never had to pick it back up for 20 years now.
But even after that I kept drinking because my pain was so great. I prayed “Lord why did you let me starve?” He sent a christian woman from another city who came and said to me, “Jesus said ‘I expected My body to feed you, and when they refused, I did it myself’.” I was a mess inside, I was having flashbacks almost daily. Flashbacks aren’t memories of abuse, they are when you see the abuse happening as if it was happening that very instant with all the emotions of fear, dread, shame, shock, and the actual body sensations of the pain, in a video in living color that you can’t stop. It is often impossible to tell that the traumatic event is not happening right then. The struggle to just get by was more than I could do, I spiraled into a deep depression and hopelessness. We couldn’t keep up with the house payments and eventually had to move. My girl friend had 18 acres in a remote mountain area and we moved there, living in a tent with 7 children while trying to get a building permit to put a mobile home on it. The area was beautiful, tall grass, wild animals, and free range cows grazing. While we waited for the various permits for a water well and a septic permit and all that, we built a small “storage shed” with bay windows and a fireplace and bunk beds. We built a cool large gazebo with a makeshift kitchen. You could at that time build a 20’x20′ storage shed with no permit, so we built another one right next to it also, thinking we would join the two after we got the permits necessary. Winter came before we could get the last two permits and we had to leave there also, the winters were brutal and the kids couldn’t go through snow without a house. I reluctantly ended the relationship. Jesus told me He couldn’t bless a lie, and I couldn’t seem to have a non sexual relationship at that time. I moved in with my parents because they had just moved out of their small apartment into a house they had built. My girlfriend also decided to dedicate her life back to Jesus and she returned to her home town.
I made a plan to get back on my feet, to be able to support myself and my children without having to live with anyone. I worked on this plan a little at a time for the next several years. I got back into work when the kids got older and I only had two kids in daycare, at first I was making just about 2$ more a day than the daycare bill. But finally I did it, I got our first rental house, all by ourselves. My children and I lived in our own rental house for almost six months. That is when my ex husband decided that it would be good if the kids went to live with him and his new wife so that he wouldn’t have to pay child support at all. I hadn’t seen him in years and I still had a lot of post traumatic stress issues. I got scared when my neighbor said he had seen him at night going into my garage and taking pictures of my house. I began having unending flashbacks and panic attacks. He had a gun with him on a previous visit to my house in the middle of the night and he had been extremely upset then. I had no idea what he would do this time. In court he filed for sole custody and made a lot of allegations about me. I didn’t have a lawyer, and I had to figure out how to fill out and file all those court papers on my own. I crashed really hard from the intense fear and flashbacks. I wasn’t just frightened of him, I felt the fear of all those other times all my life when I had been hurt, I felt them all at once. I just couldn’t keep going. I arranged for my family to watch my children because my doctor recommended I go for a short stay inpatient at a mental health facility to get medication for the stress. I knew I needed to get a break so that I could keep making all those court dates, keep working that job, keep paying all those bills, keep putting food on the
table, keep making sure the kids got to school and had clothes to wear, so I went.
When I was in that hospital I talked to a very nice, very qualified nationally recognized doctor that specialized in extreme cases of ptsd. While I was there he asked me about some of the things that had happened to me when I was a child. He was very helpful and I returned home and felt able to try life again.
When I arrived at the next court hearing I found that my medical records from that stay in the hospital had been subpoenaed. My medical records were read in open court, in a small town where I knew almost everyone, and almost everyone knew my family. They read the things I had said to the dr. about abuse from my relatives when I was growing up. I had no lawyer, and my ex’s attorney said that because I had been abused as a child that I had made up all the lies about my ex and therefore the judge granted him custody. My ex’s attorney went even further, saying that I was a danger to my children and that I should have at least a year long restraining order of no contact with my children. In spite of my pointing out the police reports detailing my husbands abuse of the children that were sitting on the judges desk and the previous ruling by a judge that restricted my ex’s visitation with the children, this judge granted my ex a restraining order against me. He prohibited me from seeing my children for a year.
When I was leaving the courthouse I just lost it, I had lost everything in my life, I had nothing left. I saw my ex and took a swing at him and threatened to kill him. I was in a rage. My ex was much bigger than I, he had a car and guns, I had nothing. I wish I had been able to walk away, but I felt the anger of all those years all at once and just started yelling at him. There was a court bailiff standing behind me and I was arrested. They took me right back into the court and I was charged with threatening to kill the defense attorney, the guardian ad litem, and my husband. I spent that night in jail.
When I got to jail and was being booked I was terrified. I had never been to jail before and I was literally shaking. All the prisoners weren’t locked in a cell somewhere, they were all milling around in the main area. I prayed the most earnest prayer I have ever prayed, “Jesus help me, Jesus help me, I am going to die, Jesus help me.” When I was done being booked I walked over to where the prisoners were, and I was still shaking. Several of them, men and women, walked really near me and began glaring at me and sneering at me. Suddenly a prisoner from the far side of the room walked right up to me. I knew I was going to die for sure now, because he had on the “banana suit”. Red jail attire meant common inmate, yellow meant murderer.
That man walked right up into my face and he said, “Yo! expletive, expletive mama! what you do? $500,000 cash only bail!!! Awesome!!!” he high fived me and walked away smiling. Everyone else took two steps back and no inmates bothered me the whole time I was there, they were afraid of him and now they were afraid of me. “Jesus that is not a nice way to answer prayer!” I said. I thought I was going to die when that man took the first step towards me, but Jesus just used him to keep me safe.
Jail is not fun, there is usually one toilet in the middle of the cell and no walls of privacy. You are expected to shower in the open in front of all the other prisoners as well. I decided I didn’t really need a shower. Later I read that Corrie Ten Boom was strip searched in front of many people when she entered the concentration camp in germany and she remembered that they took His garments when they crucified Jesus, she prayed for His help and was able to endure it. I do not have such great faith.
I had been on antidepressants since my stay in the hospital and in jail the next morning I was beginning to have serious withdrawals. When I asked the jailer for my medications, he got very very upset and said, this is not a hospital, this is a jail! what you need is an attitude adjustment! He grabbed my arm so hard it left bruises and took me down a little hall, opened the door and threw me in a solitary confinement cell with as much strength as he had. My head hit the cement wall and the next thing I remember is many hours later, another jailer came and opened the door to lead me out. It took four jailers to help me walk and they escorted me out of there and into the arms of my brother and mother who had come to pick me up. My brother had bailed me out, he wasn’t even rich, but as always he didn’t mind being bothered by me. That jailer that abused me was in a much deeper prison than I was, he must have been really really hurt at some time to have so much hate in his heart, I pray He finds the Love and forgiveness of Jesus.
After I got out of jail I returned home and kissed my kids goodbye when the police loaded them into the police car to take them to their dads. I decided to leave town. I arranged for my oldest daughter to stay with my sister so she could finish high school in town, she didn’t have to go with her dad because of her age. Oh how I now regret having left her, she is the most intelligent capable child I had ever seen so I knew she would be ok, but I was so caught up in my own devastation that I didn’t realize that she had just lost her entire family. Her faith was badly shaken. The story of my outburst in court made the front page of the paper, and so I went home and cleared out the empty house, I stored some of the stuff at my parents house and threw the rest out. I took my children’s baby blankets, got into my truck and drove away.
When I reflect on those years I remember that it is written in the bible that Jesus cleared the temple of the moneychangers:
And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, 14 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: 15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; 16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise. 17 And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. John 2:13-17
That was the same Jesus that only a few days later walked up a hill and said:
And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do… Luke 23:33-34
Amen.
Epilogue~
Eventually I got to see my children again, some ran away from their dads and moved in with me, which he said he didnt mind as long as i didnt ask for child support because he said, he would have me arrested again if i did. So I got to have my kids again, but they were never the same, Jesus is healing them a bit at a time. During their stay at their dads they were severely abused and many of them turned to drugs and alcohol to cope, some ran away and ended up on the streets. Now and then they go into a church, or reach out to christians they meet, not often but sometimes, I pray they will find Jesus when they do. I think about these scriptures when i think of them going to church or meeting Christians:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. John 13:20
He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. 41 He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. 42 And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. Matt 10:40-42
I think I heard Jesus say,
“Look around your church next time you are there, you may see Me sitting in the back. You may see My children timidly walking in to your church one day. Some of them have walls of self assurance and cockiness, some have tattoos and piercings. You won’t see the scars on their backs or their hearts. Some of them might come in and be angry when you are trying to tell them they need to repent. They have already seen church before, Give them Me instead. You will be blessed to meet them just as they are. You may see My ex come into your church one day, give him the true gospel in love, not your condemnation.You may see a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when she is refused. You may see My lonely widow or divorcee. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. John 15:4″
Perhaps once you have read this book and know of my life you would like to have compassion on me, if I ever go to your church and meet you, I am sure you would. If we were not introduced ahead of time though, you might not recognize me. I am truly the least of His brethren. I am the one that has come out of great darkness and hell on earth and still smell like smoke, I am the one fractured by abuse and rejection. Sometimes I am anxious around large groups of people, sometimes I am awkward and stumble on my words, sometimes I stutter. I often have wrinkled, out of style clothing for the labor I bear and the poverty I live in. I don’t contribute great sums of money in the offering plate, I don’t have wonderfully profound things to share in the ladies bible studies. I don’t go out to coffee with the others, I have no café budget. I don’t cook wonderfully, my house is not immaculate, my car, if I have one, is not new. I am not confident, outgoing or popular. I am not beautiful, when I was younger I was pretty, now I have the wages of sin etched on my face. I have a criminal record and a mental illness, an extreme form of ptsd that causes me to dissociate sometimes. But if you talk to me about the One who died for me, you will see my face change, my walls go down a little, you will see joy, tears, thankfulness, and hope.
The only thing I have to offer is my love of Jesus, the one of whom it is written: “he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Isaiah 53:2-3
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