This is Part IV of my testimony. The first three parts can be viewed below.
Today is a tough day to write. I have a dream to reach others and to be a blessing in the best way I know how, by writing and maybe even speaking one day. The economy has hit hard, and the future seems uncertain, with the good news I have been hoping for with my "day job" falling by the wayside. I am anxious about many things, and yet - anxious for nothing (Phil 4:6) Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. How curious and strange to look out at the darkened horizon with a blanket of peace over my soul! When I was approached today by friends at work about my 'closed door' meeting, I didn't really have any "good" news. As I felt that familiar choking feeling of seeing no real answer to all the pressing needs, I couldn't help but comfort my comforters with the belief that God is in all our tomorrows, and working all things together for good! What a great day! Thank You, Jesus! It is such a blessing to be able to write my testimony...His testimony of love and grace...
I came home at the age of seventeen. I wasn't the same kid who left to live with my mother when I was twelve. I was already promiscuous, having thrown myself into the arms of anyone who would make me feel special whenever Wayne and I separated. I had no relationship with either of my birth parents, and I was dieting, exercising and taking laxatives to achieve that perfect body. I was jealous, insecure, and bitter. I had no time for God, and less time for Paul and Meredith. One night, they asked me to leave, after finding some explicit "love" letters I had written to a boyfriend. I wound up living in nineteen different places in the next two years, sometimes on friend's couches or even in my car. I just drifted. I found drugs, alcohol and parties. I still remember the first time I tried cocaine, I was driving around with my friend, Tracy, and we were laughing because it felt like I was playing a video game. How I survived those years, I'll never know.
When I was fifteen, I received a letter from my father saying I would never have children due to a ruptured appendix when I was nine, which spread poisonous gangrene throughout my reproductive tract. I nearly died, and was kept in the hospital for a month and one more surgery. Now, at age 19, I had nothing to live for. I had only wanted to be a mother when I grew up. Now I was nothing. I wanted to die. I ended up in psychiatric day hospitalization program, in which a therapist eventually brought me to the city welfare department requesting that they put me on permanent psychiatric disability because I lost even the drive to communicate. I barely spoke. My heart could barely breathe. I didn't even know whether I still existed. I never went back to the welfare office to follow up on the request.
About that time, I began spending time with one of Gram and Grampy's grandsons. Being with him made me remember the wholeness of my childhood. One night he reintroduced me to that cute boy from the house that had hid me from my dad when I was twelve. I was completely smitten. He and I began spending all our time together and moved in shortly after. I was still battling my past (as I would for many, many years), and he would calmly put up with all the rage I threw his way. I got a pretty good job, and he became a police officer. He told me in no uncertain terms that I could no longer play around with drugs if I wanted to be with him. I gladly gave them up, but continued to drink nightly after I left my second shift job.
One day, one of my girlfriends from work asked me to go with her to the on site clinic to get a pregnancy test. She didn't want to go alone. I agreed, even though I knew I wasn't pregnant. It felt good to take the test and pretend what it would feel like to get back a positive result. A day or two later, we went back for the results. She was told her test was negative, and I was told mine was "very" positive. I was pregnant! I went back and told my boyfriend. He uttered an expletive and walked away. I went outside and began to cry on the stairs. A few minutes later, he came and sat down next to me, drew me into his arms and said, "We're going to have a baby." Just like that. I threw away the alcohol and the cigarettes, swore off soda and caffeine, and braced myself to tell Gram and Grampy.
At first, I just kept going to see Gram and help her around the house. My belly grew, but like a lot of first time mothers, I just ate everything in sight, so everything else grew, too. I kept waiting for her to say something. She never did, and I began to panic as I entered my fifth month. What if she rejected me? And Grampy - I knew I would break his heart! I would lose them for sure! I fidgeted and chewed on my pen as I sat down to write one of the toughest letters I ever had to put on paper. It took many tries and lots of rough drafts. Finally, I stamped it and put it in the mail. I had already given her my neighbor's number because we had no phone. Four days later, Sandy knocked and told me I had a call. Nervously, I trudged to her house. It was Gram, and she said one sentence, "We got your letter, we love you, and we want to see you."
Grace came pouring down from heaven washed over me in that very instant. I can only say that I had never known God's grace before that moment in time. I had only known Him as a righteous, controlling being who would never accept me because I was such a loser. Never before did I know that God would ever say to me, "I love you". God said it, and Gram was the messenger. My heart began to bask in His mercy that very day! "Heaven came down, and glory filled my soul".
Again, there is a pattern. Love. Where, oh where would I be without love? I have rejected it and even answered love with hate in the past. Gram showed me that love is love, no matter what the circumstances are. Love never fails! As I wrapped up a seventeen hour labor with a few last pushes, a new dimension of love broke through the veil of my soul as my newborn daughter was laid on my chest. She cried. I cried. And all was well. I looked at her that day and vowed never to break her heart. What high and lofty plans new mothers have! I determined in my heart that I would bring her up to know God - the right way. I had never been so complete. God had brought me up out of the fog and into a clear, new beautiful existence, with Him, with my baby girl, and with my new husband. How would I ever doubt Him again?
Dear Heavenly Father,
I sure wish I could put a period at the end of my testimony now. Remember how I talked to you all the time back then? Remember how I just wanted everyone to know You? I did love you then, but it was an immature love (am I so much more mature now? I wonder sometimes). Why do some of us run away from You when we know from experience that it's not worth it?! We can't hide ourselves, but somehow, we just give up. Again, I pray that You will keep me focused on you in the hard times, and yes, even in the good times. I love You, Lord. In my imperfect way, I love You, and I thank You for my life and my testimony! Please guide me as I continue on. In Jesus' name...
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Testimony Part III
This is part three of my testimony. Parts I and II can be viewed below.
Wow, there is so much to say, and so much to pass over! I pray once again, as I relay former events that there is, well, a point. My story is just a story without the grace of God and His powerful salvation, both as I look back, and also reaching forward into all eternity. Jesus makes every life worth living. I can say that with all conviction, and pray that my readers will look inward and see how great a salvation He truly offers. If my humbled life was lived for this moment in time - to point even one wounded person toward the Father, then I do not regret a day of it.
Jesus said, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33
We are never promised that we will avoid trouble in this life, but knowing that He has overcome the world had changed my entire perspective!
Time alone at my dad's was tough, but the day finally came when my father told me I would be moving in with Gram and Grampy. Just as when my stepmother moved out, I could show no joy to him over this. I had learned my lesson before. When Lisa was still with us, Dad told us one day that we would be moving to Meredith and Paul's home "until we were 18". Paul was Gram and Grampy's son, and Meredith - well, Meredith had been a part of us since the day we moved into The Home years ago. I'm not even sure how old I was then, but I do remember repeatedly asking Dad, "Until we're 18?" I couldn't believe my ears! He had let us visit since we began living with him, but now we really never had to go back! We could be with people we loved so much, and who loved us, too! We would finally be a part of an honest-to-goodness family for the first time in our lives!
We weren't there long. Dad's birthday came and went, and I didn't send him a card. Lisa did. I saw her making it, but I just wanted him to be a character in some bad dream I had finally awakened from. It never occurred to me that I should wish him a happy birthday. Suddenly, he swooped down into our new, wonderful family and snatched us away in all his rage and anger. I hated myself for years for breaking up our family. The worst part was, we never spoke of it. Lisa and I whispered to each other to cry in our pillows on the way home so Dad wouldn't get more mad at us for crying. And so we once again lived out our isolated existence, with the memory of true love, a real mom and dad, and our secret desires unfulfilled..
Now, here was Dad again telling me I had to move out. I think I was eleven, and I moved into my haven of love once again. Gram and Grampy had been called "Mr. and Mrs. Beal" by me until that time. One day, Grampy took me aside and asked me if I would like to call them Grammy and Grampy, like their grandchildren. I eagerly said YES, and ran and told some of their grandchildren. The secret joy of belonging remained in my heart, even as the kids told me, "You can call them that, but you're not really their grandchild." I don't think kids ever really know how much they can hurt with their words. But now here I was - part of family holidays, get-togethers and their grandkids became my best friends and playmates. When we see each other now, we often talk of those days, with all the goofy and ridiculous circumstances we found ourselves in. I'm always so thankful to have had them in my life. The memories are wonderful!
Life was filled with school, friends, sweet slumber, and growing pains. I would go downstairs to Grampy's bookstore and listen to Christian kids' albums on the record player, and listen to Grampy talk about the Lord with his customers. In the evenings, the kids and I would play hide-and -seek or softball. I spent time in my room again - by choice. I was a voracious reader, and read everything I could get my hands on. Slowly, I was turning into a young woman, with my body changing faster than my years. I went to summer camp at the age of twelve, and everyone thought I was a counselor. I looked more like sixteen or seventeen then.
I even got to see my mother for the second or third time in my entire childhood. Lisa and Robyn had each gone to live with her eventually, and she came to New England to give a presentation for her job. She brought me with her, and I got to know her a little with Lisa right there. My father had previously said so many frightening things to me about her, that I got hives the one time she visited me at his home. He told me she would try to kidnap me, so I was always fearful whenever I was out alone. Now, seeing her as something less than a monster for the first time, and with much encouragement from Lisa, I agreed to give her a chance. My mother flew back to Virginia, and Lisa and I came back to Gram and Grampy's home until Lisa had to leave.
I guess my fahter began to stew about me having that visit with my mother, and he arrived one night with a State Trooper, telling me to get my things and that we were leaving that night to go live in New York. Somehow I was able, with Grampy supporting me, to tell my father I didn't want to go with him. It was the first of only two times I would ever stand up to him in my life. Dad called me a pig, and Grampy jumped up from his chair to stand toe-to-toe with him, telling him I was a girl, not a barnyard animal. Dear, peaceful Grampy. My hero. The trooper talked Dad into leaving that night, with the promise that he could go to the courts to get an order for Grampy to release me the next day. Lisa and I went to bed, and I listened to her soft breathing after I cried myself to sleep. I was so afraid. My faint heart just cried out, "Not again. Oh, please, not again!"
The next morning, a wonderful lady from our church came to pick me up to swim at her house. Her son was there. I thought he was the cutest boy in the world. He was three years older than me, and was somehow shy, yet "cool". I would find out years later that she had been hiding me at her house so my dad wouldn't find me as my mother hopped on a plane to come get me. When I got home, I was told my mother was taking me with her to live in Virginia. Lisa was there, so I was happy to go, though I looked back at Gram and Grampy with tears in my eyes. They were still my very own mother and father, and at twelve years old, I choked back the good-bye. I loved them so.
And so the next three years of my life had begun in Virginia. I was just out of sixth grade, and now began attending school at a progressive, new-age school which encompassed both junior high and high school, in Arlington. The teachers were called by their first names, we could smoke, walk around barefoot, and were never reprimanded for not attending class. I got a job in the school cafeteria, but began to skip work because my teachers would come through the line and ask where I had been. I didn't even see one of my report cards, and now my mother was shut up in her room after work. If she was told I was truant, she never said anything to me about it.
My sisters and I would walk a mile to a fabulous youth group at a local Baptist church. There were a ton of teens and youth leaders, and we went on field trips in the summer. While I was resentful of my mother, and still aching from a rocky childhood, I loved going to church. I was in the junior high group, and began to get rides from some of my youth leaders on late nights after church. Wayne, one leader in particular, began offering rides all the time. He talked of love and played music for me. He was in his early twenties. We had an all-nighter for New Years, and by morning, I was lying on the couch, with other kids draped exhaustedly around the room. I felt Wayne behind the arm of the couch, and he began stroking my hair. On the way home, he kissed me. Frightened, yet somehow thrilled, I pretended I knew what I was doing. The little child in me cried out in fear, but just as I could never stand up to the other adults from my past, I did not stand up for myself with Wayne.
As time went on, Wayne got closer and closer, asking me to skip school to be with him, and telling me dirty jokes, asking if I knew what he meant. I pretended I did. There was no attention at home, and Wayne used to take photos of me, telling me how pretty I was. The day finally came when Wayne made his move. It took me many years to call it what it was - rape. As he began to try to get intimate, I told him he was hurting me. He warned me that girls who don't go through with it the first time, never will again. He told me I would become a lesbian, so I allowed him to do what he wanted, and then curled up in pain later that night. After that, Wayne and I practically lived together. I went to school in eighth grade a total of only a few weeks. He dropped out of Bible college and became a security guard. I felt that I should marry him because I knew only married people were allowed to do what we were doing. I still thank God that I never became pregnant during that time.
Soon, he began hitting me when he was angry with me, telling me that I was so stubborn, I made him "lose it". I was fourteen and he was twenty-two. Abuse became part of my life once again, and I sank deeper into a state of black hate and rebellion. When I was fifteen and basically a jr. high school drop-out, he joined the Army, and came home for me after basic training. He was moving to California and wanted me to run away with him. My mother protested a little, but I went anyway. She never tried to get me back.
We brought an immunization record with us to Las Vegas and tried to get married. I didn't look old enough, so Wayne found a call-girl, falsified the immunization records, and they brought the marriage license back with them to the motel I was waiting in. The call-girl's name was Jessica, and kept saying, "Praise the Lord" over and over again. We drove to the Little Chapel of the Flowers on July 19th, 1982, and got married with the fake license. Then we drove down the street to the A&W for a root beer float. I tried to make him some eggs for our first "married" breakfast, and he tipped the plate onto the rug and said, "You know I hate runny eggs."
Wayne was stationed in Monterey, California and I would sit outside his classes as he learned the Russian Language. He was a Russian linguist with a top secret security clearance and a teenage bride. When I wasn't waiting outside his classes up to eight hours a day, I was alone in our apartment, or getting beat up when he was home. I began secretly trying to figure out what I could sell so I could get a ticket out of there. This went on for two years, with me leaving a few times. Once, his parents came to visit and saw my black eye. They bought me a plane ticket to go live with my sister, Robyn, who was in the Marines in Chicago by then. He sent me a bus ticket back to him. Finally, when I was seventeen, on New Years' eve, I made a collect call to Paul and Meredith from an airport. He had just left me there. They brought me home, and once again, I was with my family, back where the love of God always brought me when things fell apart.
Are you beginning to see a pattern? I just look back in awe sometimes when I think of how God always brought me back from the brink. How His love was working my life out to be brought into His presence, His peace, His secure, everlasting arms. How do I know there is a God? I look at my life, and how could I not know? Yes, I was becoming a callous, angry young woman, but I was also that quaking little child who needed Jesus to hold my hand and draw me up into His lap. He did that through the powerful love of my Gram and Grampy, and Paul and Meredith. If not for them, I would have never known that I was worth anything. I would never have known love. I wouldn't be here today with a lump in my throat, remembering how they prayed for me and allowed Jesus, through them, to embrace me.
Dear Heavenly, Holy Father,
How can I say thank you for bringing me out of the darkness? How can I worship you for all You have done? Why did I reject you so much in my life? How deep and perfect Your compassion truly is! May You guide me as I write about You, and may people read this and glorify You in their own lives. I know we can all look back and see You everywhere if we're willing. Let us not focus on the pain, but rather on the theme of Your love through it all! Please help me as I continue on. In Jesus' name...
Wow, there is so much to say, and so much to pass over! I pray once again, as I relay former events that there is, well, a point. My story is just a story without the grace of God and His powerful salvation, both as I look back, and also reaching forward into all eternity. Jesus makes every life worth living. I can say that with all conviction, and pray that my readers will look inward and see how great a salvation He truly offers. If my humbled life was lived for this moment in time - to point even one wounded person toward the Father, then I do not regret a day of it.
Jesus said, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33
We are never promised that we will avoid trouble in this life, but knowing that He has overcome the world had changed my entire perspective!
Time alone at my dad's was tough, but the day finally came when my father told me I would be moving in with Gram and Grampy. Just as when my stepmother moved out, I could show no joy to him over this. I had learned my lesson before. When Lisa was still with us, Dad told us one day that we would be moving to Meredith and Paul's home "until we were 18". Paul was Gram and Grampy's son, and Meredith - well, Meredith had been a part of us since the day we moved into The Home years ago. I'm not even sure how old I was then, but I do remember repeatedly asking Dad, "Until we're 18?" I couldn't believe my ears! He had let us visit since we began living with him, but now we really never had to go back! We could be with people we loved so much, and who loved us, too! We would finally be a part of an honest-to-goodness family for the first time in our lives!
We weren't there long. Dad's birthday came and went, and I didn't send him a card. Lisa did. I saw her making it, but I just wanted him to be a character in some bad dream I had finally awakened from. It never occurred to me that I should wish him a happy birthday. Suddenly, he swooped down into our new, wonderful family and snatched us away in all his rage and anger. I hated myself for years for breaking up our family. The worst part was, we never spoke of it. Lisa and I whispered to each other to cry in our pillows on the way home so Dad wouldn't get more mad at us for crying. And so we once again lived out our isolated existence, with the memory of true love, a real mom and dad, and our secret desires unfulfilled..
Now, here was Dad again telling me I had to move out. I think I was eleven, and I moved into my haven of love once again. Gram and Grampy had been called "Mr. and Mrs. Beal" by me until that time. One day, Grampy took me aside and asked me if I would like to call them Grammy and Grampy, like their grandchildren. I eagerly said YES, and ran and told some of their grandchildren. The secret joy of belonging remained in my heart, even as the kids told me, "You can call them that, but you're not really their grandchild." I don't think kids ever really know how much they can hurt with their words. But now here I was - part of family holidays, get-togethers and their grandkids became my best friends and playmates. When we see each other now, we often talk of those days, with all the goofy and ridiculous circumstances we found ourselves in. I'm always so thankful to have had them in my life. The memories are wonderful!
Life was filled with school, friends, sweet slumber, and growing pains. I would go downstairs to Grampy's bookstore and listen to Christian kids' albums on the record player, and listen to Grampy talk about the Lord with his customers. In the evenings, the kids and I would play hide-and -seek or softball. I spent time in my room again - by choice. I was a voracious reader, and read everything I could get my hands on. Slowly, I was turning into a young woman, with my body changing faster than my years. I went to summer camp at the age of twelve, and everyone thought I was a counselor. I looked more like sixteen or seventeen then.
I even got to see my mother for the second or third time in my entire childhood. Lisa and Robyn had each gone to live with her eventually, and she came to New England to give a presentation for her job. She brought me with her, and I got to know her a little with Lisa right there. My father had previously said so many frightening things to me about her, that I got hives the one time she visited me at his home. He told me she would try to kidnap me, so I was always fearful whenever I was out alone. Now, seeing her as something less than a monster for the first time, and with much encouragement from Lisa, I agreed to give her a chance. My mother flew back to Virginia, and Lisa and I came back to Gram and Grampy's home until Lisa had to leave.
I guess my fahter began to stew about me having that visit with my mother, and he arrived one night with a State Trooper, telling me to get my things and that we were leaving that night to go live in New York. Somehow I was able, with Grampy supporting me, to tell my father I didn't want to go with him. It was the first of only two times I would ever stand up to him in my life. Dad called me a pig, and Grampy jumped up from his chair to stand toe-to-toe with him, telling him I was a girl, not a barnyard animal. Dear, peaceful Grampy. My hero. The trooper talked Dad into leaving that night, with the promise that he could go to the courts to get an order for Grampy to release me the next day. Lisa and I went to bed, and I listened to her soft breathing after I cried myself to sleep. I was so afraid. My faint heart just cried out, "Not again. Oh, please, not again!"
The next morning, a wonderful lady from our church came to pick me up to swim at her house. Her son was there. I thought he was the cutest boy in the world. He was three years older than me, and was somehow shy, yet "cool". I would find out years later that she had been hiding me at her house so my dad wouldn't find me as my mother hopped on a plane to come get me. When I got home, I was told my mother was taking me with her to live in Virginia. Lisa was there, so I was happy to go, though I looked back at Gram and Grampy with tears in my eyes. They were still my very own mother and father, and at twelve years old, I choked back the good-bye. I loved them so.
And so the next three years of my life had begun in Virginia. I was just out of sixth grade, and now began attending school at a progressive, new-age school which encompassed both junior high and high school, in Arlington. The teachers were called by their first names, we could smoke, walk around barefoot, and were never reprimanded for not attending class. I got a job in the school cafeteria, but began to skip work because my teachers would come through the line and ask where I had been. I didn't even see one of my report cards, and now my mother was shut up in her room after work. If she was told I was truant, she never said anything to me about it.
My sisters and I would walk a mile to a fabulous youth group at a local Baptist church. There were a ton of teens and youth leaders, and we went on field trips in the summer. While I was resentful of my mother, and still aching from a rocky childhood, I loved going to church. I was in the junior high group, and began to get rides from some of my youth leaders on late nights after church. Wayne, one leader in particular, began offering rides all the time. He talked of love and played music for me. He was in his early twenties. We had an all-nighter for New Years, and by morning, I was lying on the couch, with other kids draped exhaustedly around the room. I felt Wayne behind the arm of the couch, and he began stroking my hair. On the way home, he kissed me. Frightened, yet somehow thrilled, I pretended I knew what I was doing. The little child in me cried out in fear, but just as I could never stand up to the other adults from my past, I did not stand up for myself with Wayne.
As time went on, Wayne got closer and closer, asking me to skip school to be with him, and telling me dirty jokes, asking if I knew what he meant. I pretended I did. There was no attention at home, and Wayne used to take photos of me, telling me how pretty I was. The day finally came when Wayne made his move. It took me many years to call it what it was - rape. As he began to try to get intimate, I told him he was hurting me. He warned me that girls who don't go through with it the first time, never will again. He told me I would become a lesbian, so I allowed him to do what he wanted, and then curled up in pain later that night. After that, Wayne and I practically lived together. I went to school in eighth grade a total of only a few weeks. He dropped out of Bible college and became a security guard. I felt that I should marry him because I knew only married people were allowed to do what we were doing. I still thank God that I never became pregnant during that time.
Soon, he began hitting me when he was angry with me, telling me that I was so stubborn, I made him "lose it". I was fourteen and he was twenty-two. Abuse became part of my life once again, and I sank deeper into a state of black hate and rebellion. When I was fifteen and basically a jr. high school drop-out, he joined the Army, and came home for me after basic training. He was moving to California and wanted me to run away with him. My mother protested a little, but I went anyway. She never tried to get me back.
We brought an immunization record with us to Las Vegas and tried to get married. I didn't look old enough, so Wayne found a call-girl, falsified the immunization records, and they brought the marriage license back with them to the motel I was waiting in. The call-girl's name was Jessica, and kept saying, "Praise the Lord" over and over again. We drove to the Little Chapel of the Flowers on July 19th, 1982, and got married with the fake license. Then we drove down the street to the A&W for a root beer float. I tried to make him some eggs for our first "married" breakfast, and he tipped the plate onto the rug and said, "You know I hate runny eggs."
Wayne was stationed in Monterey, California and I would sit outside his classes as he learned the Russian Language. He was a Russian linguist with a top secret security clearance and a teenage bride. When I wasn't waiting outside his classes up to eight hours a day, I was alone in our apartment, or getting beat up when he was home. I began secretly trying to figure out what I could sell so I could get a ticket out of there. This went on for two years, with me leaving a few times. Once, his parents came to visit and saw my black eye. They bought me a plane ticket to go live with my sister, Robyn, who was in the Marines in Chicago by then. He sent me a bus ticket back to him. Finally, when I was seventeen, on New Years' eve, I made a collect call to Paul and Meredith from an airport. He had just left me there. They brought me home, and once again, I was with my family, back where the love of God always brought me when things fell apart.
Are you beginning to see a pattern? I just look back in awe sometimes when I think of how God always brought me back from the brink. How His love was working my life out to be brought into His presence, His peace, His secure, everlasting arms. How do I know there is a God? I look at my life, and how could I not know? Yes, I was becoming a callous, angry young woman, but I was also that quaking little child who needed Jesus to hold my hand and draw me up into His lap. He did that through the powerful love of my Gram and Grampy, and Paul and Meredith. If not for them, I would have never known that I was worth anything. I would never have known love. I wouldn't be here today with a lump in my throat, remembering how they prayed for me and allowed Jesus, through them, to embrace me.
Dear Heavenly, Holy Father,
How can I say thank you for bringing me out of the darkness? How can I worship you for all You have done? Why did I reject you so much in my life? How deep and perfect Your compassion truly is! May You guide me as I write about You, and may people read this and glorify You in their own lives. I know we can all look back and see You everywhere if we're willing. Let us not focus on the pain, but rather on the theme of Your love through it all! Please help me as I continue on. In Jesus' name...
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Testimony Part II
This is part two of my testimony. The previous post is part one.
As I sit at my keyboard, getting lost in those childhood memories, I can now view them from a godly, grown-up perspective. My life was my life, and I can look back and thank the Lord for His hand through it all. There are some things in my past that still make me misty eyed and wistful, wondering how different my life would have been if certain things had not happened, or if other things had. I know that I know that I know - that nothing happened which God didn't allow, and that my story can touch other people's hearts and help them release the pain of past devastation's to God. There is peace, forgiveness, and power available to every single hurting person who will give all the shattered pieces of their hearts to God. He will take anyone "as is". And so my story continues...
I have already written, in Gram's blog, www.97yearsofblessings.blogspot.com, about the events that happened after they left The Home. Things were not the same. A sadness settled on my tiny shoulders like a large cloak of lead. The sun wasn't as bright, and the laughter seemed empty. Although I had put my faith in Jesus, I didn't know how to give him my hurt. My father began to visit more frequently, bringing with him his new wife. Within a few months, they removed me and my two sisters from The Home one very terrifying night. My father had dark brown eyes, black hair, and a very deep voice. I felt like I could faint in my shoes whenever that face and that voice became angry. He and my stepmother brought me to the Beal's house the night he removed us from the only home we ever knew, and the joy of that night was almost too much for my happy little heart to bear.
After a short time, my sisters and I moved into my dad's apartment, where life seemed good. We saw the Beals' pretty often, and my stepmother laughed and joked with us. We though she was the prettiest woman we had ever seen! Dad was a toy salesman and surprised us now and then with little toys from his boxes. We all ate together as a family at the table in the kitchen until one night, my dad told my sister, Lisa, that she ate like a pig, and banished her to the bathroom to eat on the toilet. Lisa could no longer eat with the family. Then, my sister, Robyn, who was eleven by then, began getting regular beatings. One day, Dad was hitting her so hard on my cot, she wet herself. In her humiliation, she had to apologize to me in front of him for getting my bed and shoes wet, and was forced to sleep that night under my soiled blankets. Our stepmother began to only speak to us in angry, hour long outbursts in which we would have to maintain eye contact as she screamed and yelled at us for not washing her hairbrushes the way she wanted, or for overlooking a spot on the dishes that we washed each night. We were dragged out of bed to wash every single dish in the house when we failed to live up to her expectations.
Soon, we learned that Robyn would be moving in with a cousin of our mother's. I secretly wished I could do something so bad that my dad would send me away, too, but I was too afraid to do anything wrong. After Robyn left, Lisa and I were told one day that we would have to eat in our room because Dad and Maum couldn't stand the sight of us at the supper table. They bought us a child-sized table and chair set, sent us to our room, and permanently shut the door. We were not welcome in any other room in the house after that, except the kitchen, to make our own meals, and the bathroom, after Maum was finished getting ready for work in the mornings. We would lie in our beds, waiting for her to leave, and then come out and get ready for school. Dad stopped working and generally slept late every day, so we made sure we wouldn't wake him up.
I often think of that room Lisa and I shared, and realize now that God had provided a little "haven" for us, away from the hate and anger that plagued my parents. I felt safe in that room with Lisa. We quietly played, shared stories, listened to Bill Cosby on our little Mickey Mouse record player, and crawl into bed together when the night just seemed too frightening. Lisa and I lived like that for nearly two years. I already knew the heartbreak of losing my "real" mother and father, and thought nothing could ever break my heart again, until the age of nine, when I was told that my dad was sending Lisa away. She said good-bye at school one day, and the next day, I walked to school alone. I came home from school, and my dad said, "I left her outside at the church down the street. I hope someone comes to get her," and then he watched me cry my heart out. My stepmother embraced me, and soothed me that night. I still wonder why she was so tender that night, and see it now as another gift from God. I don't know how I would have made it through the agonizing realization that I may never see my sister, my best friend, the love of my life again, if Maum had not cradled me in her arms that night, letting me pour out my heartbreak.
Life alone, shut up in my bedroom began to make me angry. I did pray, but my mind would scream hateful things to God. I knew He was there. I knew He could have prevented all of this pain from happening. I felt that He just didn't care about me. God so loved the world, but forgot there was a scared little girl alone in her room day after day, week after week. When summer came, I was told to leave the house a daybreak. I couldn't come home until dark. The days were long, and I spent them at the local park, watching other kids there with friends and parents. No one talked to me, and I didn't talk to them, either. I felt invisible. At home, at school, at the park, and to God. My anger and rage were slowly building.
One night, my stepmother left. I had heard screaming and crashing as I lay in bed, but that wasn't anything new. When I got up to go to school the next day, our TV was on the ground outside their three story bedroom window, and shampoo bottles and other toiletries were strewn all over the street. When I got home that afternoon, Dad told me she was gone. I tried to look upset, but inside I was hopeful that Dad would be happier without her there, but then he began to have bouts of depression and spent day after day sitting in the living room in his underwear in the dark, singing, drinking and crying.
Through it all, I had times when I could be with Gram and Grampy, and spent weekends and times in the summer with them. These were the moments when I knew God loved me. They spoke so confidently and loving about God, I couldn't help but bask in the joy of His presence. It seemed to be everywhere in their home. I would curl up on Grampy's lap as we watched Hogan's Heroes after supper. He would watch the show, and I would lay my head on his chest, listening to his heart beat and the sound of his breathing and laughter. I would once again follow Gram around the house, talking with her about anything and everything. She was so beautiful to me in her worn house dresses and slippers, cutting up apples in the kitchen, putting her "kerchief" on for rides in the car, giggling over something silly as only she could do. There was a peace and a sense of belonging with them that was like a soothing balm to my blistered and charred soul. I didn't feel like that invisible nine, ten or eleven year old awkward girl with the bushy eyebrows and the scratchy knees. I was their girl, and I was wanted.
As I look back, I see these times as redemptive days. Life at Dad's was dark and hopeless, and yet God, in His wisdom, brought me into the light of His love at just the times when I felt like my soul was about to plummet off a steep cliff. He knew that I needed to see His hand in bringing me back to Himself through the love of the only parents I knew. He showed me, by their example, what it means to be a true child of God. Grampy quoted scripture often in the course of his day, counselling people downstairs at his Christian bookstore, or even in conversation with me. Those verses became a part of me. They helped me through the dark days.
And so, I once again give my testimony as a picture of God's light, searing through the blackness of despair. He still amazes me!
Dear Heavenly Father...
Thank You so much for keeping me safe as a child! Thank You for giving all of us glimpses of You through even the most hopeless times. Oh, God...Your love is so perfect, and so pure, I am humbled to realize how much you love me. Please help me to exalt You as I testify of Your compassion through the empty and lonely years! And please help others to heal. In Jesus' name...
As I sit at my keyboard, getting lost in those childhood memories, I can now view them from a godly, grown-up perspective. My life was my life, and I can look back and thank the Lord for His hand through it all. There are some things in my past that still make me misty eyed and wistful, wondering how different my life would have been if certain things had not happened, or if other things had. I know that I know that I know - that nothing happened which God didn't allow, and that my story can touch other people's hearts and help them release the pain of past devastation's to God. There is peace, forgiveness, and power available to every single hurting person who will give all the shattered pieces of their hearts to God. He will take anyone "as is". And so my story continues...
I have already written, in Gram's blog, www.97yearsofblessings.blogspot.com, about the events that happened after they left The Home. Things were not the same. A sadness settled on my tiny shoulders like a large cloak of lead. The sun wasn't as bright, and the laughter seemed empty. Although I had put my faith in Jesus, I didn't know how to give him my hurt. My father began to visit more frequently, bringing with him his new wife. Within a few months, they removed me and my two sisters from The Home one very terrifying night. My father had dark brown eyes, black hair, and a very deep voice. I felt like I could faint in my shoes whenever that face and that voice became angry. He and my stepmother brought me to the Beal's house the night he removed us from the only home we ever knew, and the joy of that night was almost too much for my happy little heart to bear.
After a short time, my sisters and I moved into my dad's apartment, where life seemed good. We saw the Beals' pretty often, and my stepmother laughed and joked with us. We though she was the prettiest woman we had ever seen! Dad was a toy salesman and surprised us now and then with little toys from his boxes. We all ate together as a family at the table in the kitchen until one night, my dad told my sister, Lisa, that she ate like a pig, and banished her to the bathroom to eat on the toilet. Lisa could no longer eat with the family. Then, my sister, Robyn, who was eleven by then, began getting regular beatings. One day, Dad was hitting her so hard on my cot, she wet herself. In her humiliation, she had to apologize to me in front of him for getting my bed and shoes wet, and was forced to sleep that night under my soiled blankets. Our stepmother began to only speak to us in angry, hour long outbursts in which we would have to maintain eye contact as she screamed and yelled at us for not washing her hairbrushes the way she wanted, or for overlooking a spot on the dishes that we washed each night. We were dragged out of bed to wash every single dish in the house when we failed to live up to her expectations.
Soon, we learned that Robyn would be moving in with a cousin of our mother's. I secretly wished I could do something so bad that my dad would send me away, too, but I was too afraid to do anything wrong. After Robyn left, Lisa and I were told one day that we would have to eat in our room because Dad and Maum couldn't stand the sight of us at the supper table. They bought us a child-sized table and chair set, sent us to our room, and permanently shut the door. We were not welcome in any other room in the house after that, except the kitchen, to make our own meals, and the bathroom, after Maum was finished getting ready for work in the mornings. We would lie in our beds, waiting for her to leave, and then come out and get ready for school. Dad stopped working and generally slept late every day, so we made sure we wouldn't wake him up.
I often think of that room Lisa and I shared, and realize now that God had provided a little "haven" for us, away from the hate and anger that plagued my parents. I felt safe in that room with Lisa. We quietly played, shared stories, listened to Bill Cosby on our little Mickey Mouse record player, and crawl into bed together when the night just seemed too frightening. Lisa and I lived like that for nearly two years. I already knew the heartbreak of losing my "real" mother and father, and thought nothing could ever break my heart again, until the age of nine, when I was told that my dad was sending Lisa away. She said good-bye at school one day, and the next day, I walked to school alone. I came home from school, and my dad said, "I left her outside at the church down the street. I hope someone comes to get her," and then he watched me cry my heart out. My stepmother embraced me, and soothed me that night. I still wonder why she was so tender that night, and see it now as another gift from God. I don't know how I would have made it through the agonizing realization that I may never see my sister, my best friend, the love of my life again, if Maum had not cradled me in her arms that night, letting me pour out my heartbreak.
Life alone, shut up in my bedroom began to make me angry. I did pray, but my mind would scream hateful things to God. I knew He was there. I knew He could have prevented all of this pain from happening. I felt that He just didn't care about me. God so loved the world, but forgot there was a scared little girl alone in her room day after day, week after week. When summer came, I was told to leave the house a daybreak. I couldn't come home until dark. The days were long, and I spent them at the local park, watching other kids there with friends and parents. No one talked to me, and I didn't talk to them, either. I felt invisible. At home, at school, at the park, and to God. My anger and rage were slowly building.
One night, my stepmother left. I had heard screaming and crashing as I lay in bed, but that wasn't anything new. When I got up to go to school the next day, our TV was on the ground outside their three story bedroom window, and shampoo bottles and other toiletries were strewn all over the street. When I got home that afternoon, Dad told me she was gone. I tried to look upset, but inside I was hopeful that Dad would be happier without her there, but then he began to have bouts of depression and spent day after day sitting in the living room in his underwear in the dark, singing, drinking and crying.
Through it all, I had times when I could be with Gram and Grampy, and spent weekends and times in the summer with them. These were the moments when I knew God loved me. They spoke so confidently and loving about God, I couldn't help but bask in the joy of His presence. It seemed to be everywhere in their home. I would curl up on Grampy's lap as we watched Hogan's Heroes after supper. He would watch the show, and I would lay my head on his chest, listening to his heart beat and the sound of his breathing and laughter. I would once again follow Gram around the house, talking with her about anything and everything. She was so beautiful to me in her worn house dresses and slippers, cutting up apples in the kitchen, putting her "kerchief" on for rides in the car, giggling over something silly as only she could do. There was a peace and a sense of belonging with them that was like a soothing balm to my blistered and charred soul. I didn't feel like that invisible nine, ten or eleven year old awkward girl with the bushy eyebrows and the scratchy knees. I was their girl, and I was wanted.
As I look back, I see these times as redemptive days. Life at Dad's was dark and hopeless, and yet God, in His wisdom, brought me into the light of His love at just the times when I felt like my soul was about to plummet off a steep cliff. He knew that I needed to see His hand in bringing me back to Himself through the love of the only parents I knew. He showed me, by their example, what it means to be a true child of God. Grampy quoted scripture often in the course of his day, counselling people downstairs at his Christian bookstore, or even in conversation with me. Those verses became a part of me. They helped me through the dark days.
And so, I once again give my testimony as a picture of God's light, searing through the blackness of despair. He still amazes me!
Dear Heavenly Father...
Thank You so much for keeping me safe as a child! Thank You for giving all of us glimpses of You through even the most hopeless times. Oh, God...Your love is so perfect, and so pure, I am humbled to realize how much you love me. Please help me to exalt You as I testify of Your compassion through the empty and lonely years! And please help others to heal. In Jesus' name...
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Testimony Part I
I've said it before. I'm no one, or at least I used to be before grace washed over my obscure and cloudy existence and I became, in an instant, a princess. The daughter of the King of kings and Lord of lords. I have not sat down to write or share my testimony until now because I know the scarred and unsteady bricks that make up the path from "there" to "here". As I dawdled in my office, sitting down, then standing and distracted by my own uncertainty, I came across a book that belonged to my foster parents. It's a little hardcover devotional book titled Forget Me Not, which must be well over a hundred years old. There is no copyright date that I can find in the pages. On the front inside cover is a colored drawing of a basket of flowers (I'm guessing they're Forget-Me-Not's), and a verse. Commit thy way unto the Lord, and He shall bring it to pass (Psalm 36:5)
I know I'm not anything close to what I want to be in Christ, but I also know He gave me a testimony of deep and complete redemption. I have no right to keep my story to myself. My past does not always - or even usually - portray a life of which I am proud. That's not the point. I was saved from myself, and for the glory of God. If you find that I am not the perfect example of your idea of who a Christian is, I can only reiterate that we are all saved by grace. And so my story begins on a winter day in New England, 1966...
I was the result of a botched contraceptive attempt. My mother already had two daughters, Robyn, who was just turning 3, and Lisa, a little over a year old when she and my dad tried not to have me. I would find out the details later in life when each of them told the story of the pregnancy that wasn't meant to be. Mother, laughing. Dad, raging.
My parents were never married, and Robyn, Lisa and I were in a strained home environment. Both of my parents discovered shortly after my birth that they couldn't live with each other and since neither of them wanted to care for us girls on their own, they found a group home for us to live in. My mother told me many years later that she had considered a much larger home in Massachusetts, but was wary of how all the kids were directed by bells. Bells for rising, eating, bedtime. She also told me that she had two requests for God when she dropped us off - keep us safe, and keep us together. Once good-byes were said, my mother moved to Washington, DC, and we didn't really hear from her much after that. I was eight months old the day she left.
My earliest memories were of love and laughter at the Boylston Home for Girls. I remember being in a crib, bathing in the old claw foot bathtub, curling up in bed for nightly bedtime stories and prayers, helping whoever was baking cookies in the pantry, and racing around the three story Victorian home with my sister Lisa, in stocking feet. And, oh, the love. I just remember being so very, absolutely, madly in love with "Mister", who would later become my very own foster dad and renamed "Grampy". Mister and I would drive in the car together. He would take me to the "wholesalers", and would fill the cart up with all kinds of food for the Home. Missus, (later my foster mother, renamed - you guessed it - "Gram") was my friend and playmate during the day, but when Mister was home, I only had eyes for him. Meredith was there as a staff member, and she loved us all as only a mother can. I used to hope she would sit down next to me on the couch in the TV room, because if she did, I might be able to lay my head in her lap and she might absentmindedly curl my hair around my ears as we sat together. It was hard getting a spot next to Meredith because all the girls clamored for her.
Memories of the Home for me were warm , bundled up in childhood joy. Some girls came and went, but there was a core family of girls who were there for most of my seven years at the Home. There were some warning signs along the way that may have cautioned an older, wiser child that things were not always going to be so easy, but in my mind I was a part of a big, happy, loving family. The pain I had over seeing kids at church with their "real" parents, or my secret, embarrassed scribbling of Mother and Father's Day cards to Missus and Mister went away after a few hours. The saying that we were "all family in God's eyes" seemed to overshadow the certainty in my heart that we really were, honest to goodness family. Things were "right" until a little voice deep down told my tiny heart that it couldn't last forever. And it didn't.
I was seven when my world came to an end. Mister and Missus, now called Mr. and Mrs. Beal to us girls, were leaving. I knew somewhere they had tried to prepare us for that day, but I couldn't remember them saying it would be so, well, soon. They were saying their good-byes, and I was a brave child, not allowing myself to cry. Mr. Beal picked me up and hugged me. I can't remember if Mrs. Beal hugged me, but I'm sure she tenderly told me, "Love is for keeps". Once they were out the door, I quietly crept to the Music Room and watched the car back out of the driveway. Only then, did I begin to sob, "Mr. Beal, Mr. Beal, Mr. Beal", over and over again. I couldn't think of any other words. I loved Missus, but he was my hero. I watched until they were out of sight, and my heart felt that breaking, aching, heavy wrenching that only comes when it is acutely broken. Though I never felt the loss of my own parents, the sting of this perceived "abandonment" in my immature life was the first experience of many which would begin to form a muddy, black coating on my heart.
What I didn't know then was that God was working all things together, for my good, and for His glory.
I just love Psalm 10:14 But You have seen, for You observe trouble and grief, to repay it by Your hand. The helpless commits himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.
This blog is titled "Healing the Locust Years" because of God's promise in Joel 2:25 "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten..."
God has repayed my trouble and grief, and He heaps blessing upon blessing daily as He repays the years the locusts have eaten!
As I dawdled here in the office, wondering whether I should attempt to write my testimony and whether I would be able to even make sense as I try to bring glory to God, I flipped to the September 14th entry in the little Forget Me Not devotional. It reads: The Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded (Isaiah 50:7)
Dear Heavenly Father,
You know I want to bring glory to You. I don't know what to say, or how to say it sometimes. Please bring blessing and hope to others who may be reading this. You know there is so much more to write. Please direct me in writing only what pleases You, and may I remember that even the hard things can be used greatly by You. And oh, Lord, keep me humble! In Jesus' name...
I know I'm not anything close to what I want to be in Christ, but I also know He gave me a testimony of deep and complete redemption. I have no right to keep my story to myself. My past does not always - or even usually - portray a life of which I am proud. That's not the point. I was saved from myself, and for the glory of God. If you find that I am not the perfect example of your idea of who a Christian is, I can only reiterate that we are all saved by grace. And so my story begins on a winter day in New England, 1966...
I was the result of a botched contraceptive attempt. My mother already had two daughters, Robyn, who was just turning 3, and Lisa, a little over a year old when she and my dad tried not to have me. I would find out the details later in life when each of them told the story of the pregnancy that wasn't meant to be. Mother, laughing. Dad, raging.
My parents were never married, and Robyn, Lisa and I were in a strained home environment. Both of my parents discovered shortly after my birth that they couldn't live with each other and since neither of them wanted to care for us girls on their own, they found a group home for us to live in. My mother told me many years later that she had considered a much larger home in Massachusetts, but was wary of how all the kids were directed by bells. Bells for rising, eating, bedtime. She also told me that she had two requests for God when she dropped us off - keep us safe, and keep us together. Once good-byes were said, my mother moved to Washington, DC, and we didn't really hear from her much after that. I was eight months old the day she left.
My earliest memories were of love and laughter at the Boylston Home for Girls. I remember being in a crib, bathing in the old claw foot bathtub, curling up in bed for nightly bedtime stories and prayers, helping whoever was baking cookies in the pantry, and racing around the three story Victorian home with my sister Lisa, in stocking feet. And, oh, the love. I just remember being so very, absolutely, madly in love with "Mister", who would later become my very own foster dad and renamed "Grampy". Mister and I would drive in the car together. He would take me to the "wholesalers", and would fill the cart up with all kinds of food for the Home. Missus, (later my foster mother, renamed - you guessed it - "Gram") was my friend and playmate during the day, but when Mister was home, I only had eyes for him. Meredith was there as a staff member, and she loved us all as only a mother can. I used to hope she would sit down next to me on the couch in the TV room, because if she did, I might be able to lay my head in her lap and she might absentmindedly curl my hair around my ears as we sat together. It was hard getting a spot next to Meredith because all the girls clamored for her.
Memories of the Home for me were warm , bundled up in childhood joy. Some girls came and went, but there was a core family of girls who were there for most of my seven years at the Home. There were some warning signs along the way that may have cautioned an older, wiser child that things were not always going to be so easy, but in my mind I was a part of a big, happy, loving family. The pain I had over seeing kids at church with their "real" parents, or my secret, embarrassed scribbling of Mother and Father's Day cards to Missus and Mister went away after a few hours. The saying that we were "all family in God's eyes" seemed to overshadow the certainty in my heart that we really were, honest to goodness family. Things were "right" until a little voice deep down told my tiny heart that it couldn't last forever. And it didn't.
I was seven when my world came to an end. Mister and Missus, now called Mr. and Mrs. Beal to us girls, were leaving. I knew somewhere they had tried to prepare us for that day, but I couldn't remember them saying it would be so, well, soon. They were saying their good-byes, and I was a brave child, not allowing myself to cry. Mr. Beal picked me up and hugged me. I can't remember if Mrs. Beal hugged me, but I'm sure she tenderly told me, "Love is for keeps". Once they were out the door, I quietly crept to the Music Room and watched the car back out of the driveway. Only then, did I begin to sob, "Mr. Beal, Mr. Beal, Mr. Beal", over and over again. I couldn't think of any other words. I loved Missus, but he was my hero. I watched until they were out of sight, and my heart felt that breaking, aching, heavy wrenching that only comes when it is acutely broken. Though I never felt the loss of my own parents, the sting of this perceived "abandonment" in my immature life was the first experience of many which would begin to form a muddy, black coating on my heart.
What I didn't know then was that God was working all things together, for my good, and for His glory.
I just love Psalm 10:14 But You have seen, for You observe trouble and grief, to repay it by Your hand. The helpless commits himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.
This blog is titled "Healing the Locust Years" because of God's promise in Joel 2:25 "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten..."
God has repayed my trouble and grief, and He heaps blessing upon blessing daily as He repays the years the locusts have eaten!
As I dawdled here in the office, wondering whether I should attempt to write my testimony and whether I would be able to even make sense as I try to bring glory to God, I flipped to the September 14th entry in the little Forget Me Not devotional. It reads: The Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded (Isaiah 50:7)
Dear Heavenly Father,
You know I want to bring glory to You. I don't know what to say, or how to say it sometimes. Please bring blessing and hope to others who may be reading this. You know there is so much more to write. Please direct me in writing only what pleases You, and may I remember that even the hard things can be used greatly by You. And oh, Lord, keep me humble! In Jesus' name...
Monday, September 13, 2010
Time for Testimony
It has been an incredible week of ups and downs, as my last post indicated. I'm so thankful I can say that I was able to sit down with the 'someone' I referred to in my last post that had let me down. Normally, I rarely address these kinds of issues with the person who has hurt me. I do one of two things (or both). I swallow the hurt, and end up resenting the other person, or I talk to everyone but that person, about my hurt. God has really been speaking to me about this! I knew this person and I had a meeting, and I prayed with all my might on the way to the meeting that I would be able to speak up in love. Isn't God just so wonderful to answer our heartfelt prayers?? Long story short, I was able to lovingly tell of my hurt and feelings of being let down at a moment when I had reached out. We talked briefly about this, and God was so gracious in allowing healing by way of that person's apology, and my acceptance and forgiveness. Let me just say, the miracle to me wasn't my ability to forgive (this time), but I was just so amazed at how God had prepared the other person's heart to understand the hurt. I don't know about you, but when I am approached about something I have done that has hurt someone else, my first reaction is one of self-defense. I'm just so thankful that the time we spent talking about tough things was in a spirit of love on both sides, just as it should be.
I know some of you have read a little about me in the September issue of Guideposts. I do think it's time for me to begin giving my life's testimony in this blog, and my next post will begin with part one of my testimony. It's fine to read all the other entries, but if you don't know what brought me to this moment in time, it doesn't really have as much significance to you.
Elizabeth
I know some of you have read a little about me in the September issue of Guideposts. I do think it's time for me to begin giving my life's testimony in this blog, and my next post will begin with part one of my testimony. It's fine to read all the other entries, but if you don't know what brought me to this moment in time, it doesn't really have as much significance to you.
Elizabeth
Monday, September 6, 2010
Even As God, For Christ's Sake, Has Forgiven
How do I begin? Where do I start showing my kids that the life I led hiding from Christ is in the past. It's over. I gave up myself and gave in to God. I have been clinging to His life, freedom and joy for over a year, now. It's not like it was before, in the 15 years of "following" when I had self-imposed rules and little inner joy. Christianity was a burden to me before. I wanted to do the right thing, and did what I thought was right pretty consistently (in my own estimation), but I just didn't have that love relationship with Christ. The light bulb hadn't yet come on. My viewpoint when I was a younger Christian agreed with the what I heard this past Sunday on a well known televised religious program. A young woman spoke of her pain because she thought God was always mad at her (because of her shortcomings and failures). She finally "got it" when she realized He wasn't "mad", He was "madly in love" with her. The chains of guilt and self recrimination fell off and she moved forward in joy.
Oh, I still have my moments. Would I be human if I didn't? I bask in my new understanding of God's amazing grace and unfailing love, and I'm so thankful for His everlasting arms! I have a tendency to forget the past, because I know I am one hundred percent forgiven. Guilt over the sin which has been laid at the foot of the cross is a tool of Satan. I refuse to be bound by or identify with who I was back then until...
My kids remember me "when". They still hurt over the choices I made. I come crashing down to earth when I hear the blame in their voices (well, one child in particular, lately). Anyone who knew me then and knows me now, knows I have completely changed. But the kids...they still suffer because of the instability I forced on them as I dragged them along on my quest for things that never satisfied. Things I thought would help only hurt. Promises to give them a better life only left them unsure and empty. They were the ones who were unwillingly strapped into the emotional roller coaster. It's all now a part of the big, ominous thing called a "childhood". You know, the word that people use as a reason for all their successes or failures in life.
I reached out for help the other night. The situation seemed dire, and emotions were raw. My past was relentlessly thrown in my face by one of my kids, and we needed help fast. I didn't think we would make it through the night with things on the course they were headed. This child was raging, defending his wrong behavior. The excuse? Why should he follow my rules when I so miserably used to break them myself?
I needed to sit down and talk with my child about forgiveness. I needed to ask for forgiveness in an angry setting in which my past was once again the source of all the problems we were facing. I also needed to forgive my child for not forgiving me, if that makes any sense. I know I have been forgiven by God, but I don't expect my children to have that supernatural attitude of, "Well, Mom is sorry, so we'll put all that behind us now." Though I don't expect their hearts to automatically have that spirit of love and understanding, I know the beast of an unforgiving heart will devour their souls and destroy their peace of mind. I am no stranger to that beast. I used to be in the same position, hating my parents for too many painful years. I hurt for my kids because I know forgiveness is one of the toughest choices anyone has to make. Some would say it's impossible. With God all things are possible. But how do we get from there to here?
The people I reached out to said they would pray. They promised to call the next day to check in, then they forgot. I was adrift. I felt that God was prompting me to see this situation with my child as something I could no longer keep to myself. It was for my child that I cried out for help. When no one came ,it hurt. A lot. I prayed that God would show me what to do next. And He did.
I picked up the phone and called someone I had lost touch with years ago. She and I were pregnant together back in the day. We used to have "play dates" and take the kids to the beach. We went to church together many years ago. I knew she, of all people, would tell it to me straight. When we talked on the phone I simply told her I needed to talk. She told me to come on over, and said, "That's what friends are for." I was able to tell her all that was troubling my family, and how I needed to learn how to help my kids heal. She let me talk and listened, and after it was all on the table, I waited to hear whether she, too, would condemn me for my past. I should have known better.
I left this friend's home with a new sense of peace. "We all have our troubles", she said. She didn't minimize the damage I knew I had done, but she did tell me that we all mess up. We're all in this together, so to speak. No one is perfect. She urged me to go back to my child and express the love and remorse for how I had hurt him. She reminded me of the havoc hormones can wreak on teenagers, but also agreed with me that he needs to express his frustration more appropriately. She said, "I don't have a lot of answers, but I want you to know I'm here for you". What true friend can offer more than that?
Why did I feel that this was a good topic for my post? Because I know I'm not the only one who is facing something like this. I want to "be here" for people who need a place to go when they feel like misfits in the traditional Christian world. People like me can feel lost and out of place amidst the Christian "lifers" who have never divorced and have never had their children blame them for their disastrous decisions. Sometimes the very place we go to find God's acceptance is the place that condemns us for becoming who we are today - sinners, saved by grace.
I can't promise that your kids, or others you have hurt will forgive you. I can't promise that you will be welcomed back into God's family with open arms. These things are important, but we can walk on in victory even if the harmony and love we desire is elusive, because of one thing. God is on our side. He loves us more than we could ever imagine and has blanketed us with Christ's righteousness! There is nothing we could ever do to take that love away, and we're always one honest prayer away from forgiveness and harmony with Him.
If God be for us, who can be against us?
Dear Heavenly Father,
Again, I thank you with all my heart for Your love. I pray for my children and those I have so desperately hurt with my selfishness! Help them to turn to You with their pain and allow You heal their hearts. I ask You to keep me from hurting them in the future, by Your grace and with Your help. Please also keep my own heart from being tainted with a spirit of unforgiveness toward those who let me down. Allow me to continue to love and be patient, even as You are compassionate with me when I let you down. May I remember that we're all in this together! These requests I lift up to You, in Jesus' name...
Oh, I still have my moments. Would I be human if I didn't? I bask in my new understanding of God's amazing grace and unfailing love, and I'm so thankful for His everlasting arms! I have a tendency to forget the past, because I know I am one hundred percent forgiven. Guilt over the sin which has been laid at the foot of the cross is a tool of Satan. I refuse to be bound by or identify with who I was back then until...
My kids remember me "when". They still hurt over the choices I made. I come crashing down to earth when I hear the blame in their voices (well, one child in particular, lately). Anyone who knew me then and knows me now, knows I have completely changed. But the kids...they still suffer because of the instability I forced on them as I dragged them along on my quest for things that never satisfied. Things I thought would help only hurt. Promises to give them a better life only left them unsure and empty. They were the ones who were unwillingly strapped into the emotional roller coaster. It's all now a part of the big, ominous thing called a "childhood". You know, the word that people use as a reason for all their successes or failures in life.
I reached out for help the other night. The situation seemed dire, and emotions were raw. My past was relentlessly thrown in my face by one of my kids, and we needed help fast. I didn't think we would make it through the night with things on the course they were headed. This child was raging, defending his wrong behavior. The excuse? Why should he follow my rules when I so miserably used to break them myself?
I needed to sit down and talk with my child about forgiveness. I needed to ask for forgiveness in an angry setting in which my past was once again the source of all the problems we were facing. I also needed to forgive my child for not forgiving me, if that makes any sense. I know I have been forgiven by God, but I don't expect my children to have that supernatural attitude of, "Well, Mom is sorry, so we'll put all that behind us now." Though I don't expect their hearts to automatically have that spirit of love and understanding, I know the beast of an unforgiving heart will devour their souls and destroy their peace of mind. I am no stranger to that beast. I used to be in the same position, hating my parents for too many painful years. I hurt for my kids because I know forgiveness is one of the toughest choices anyone has to make. Some would say it's impossible. With God all things are possible. But how do we get from there to here?
The people I reached out to said they would pray. They promised to call the next day to check in, then they forgot. I was adrift. I felt that God was prompting me to see this situation with my child as something I could no longer keep to myself. It was for my child that I cried out for help. When no one came ,it hurt. A lot. I prayed that God would show me what to do next. And He did.
I picked up the phone and called someone I had lost touch with years ago. She and I were pregnant together back in the day. We used to have "play dates" and take the kids to the beach. We went to church together many years ago. I knew she, of all people, would tell it to me straight. When we talked on the phone I simply told her I needed to talk. She told me to come on over, and said, "That's what friends are for." I was able to tell her all that was troubling my family, and how I needed to learn how to help my kids heal. She let me talk and listened, and after it was all on the table, I waited to hear whether she, too, would condemn me for my past. I should have known better.
I left this friend's home with a new sense of peace. "We all have our troubles", she said. She didn't minimize the damage I knew I had done, but she did tell me that we all mess up. We're all in this together, so to speak. No one is perfect. She urged me to go back to my child and express the love and remorse for how I had hurt him. She reminded me of the havoc hormones can wreak on teenagers, but also agreed with me that he needs to express his frustration more appropriately. She said, "I don't have a lot of answers, but I want you to know I'm here for you". What true friend can offer more than that?
Why did I feel that this was a good topic for my post? Because I know I'm not the only one who is facing something like this. I want to "be here" for people who need a place to go when they feel like misfits in the traditional Christian world. People like me can feel lost and out of place amidst the Christian "lifers" who have never divorced and have never had their children blame them for their disastrous decisions. Sometimes the very place we go to find God's acceptance is the place that condemns us for becoming who we are today - sinners, saved by grace.
I can't promise that your kids, or others you have hurt will forgive you. I can't promise that you will be welcomed back into God's family with open arms. These things are important, but we can walk on in victory even if the harmony and love we desire is elusive, because of one thing. God is on our side. He loves us more than we could ever imagine and has blanketed us with Christ's righteousness! There is nothing we could ever do to take that love away, and we're always one honest prayer away from forgiveness and harmony with Him.
If God be for us, who can be against us?
Dear Heavenly Father,
Again, I thank you with all my heart for Your love. I pray for my children and those I have so desperately hurt with my selfishness! Help them to turn to You with their pain and allow You heal their hearts. I ask You to keep me from hurting them in the future, by Your grace and with Your help. Please also keep my own heart from being tainted with a spirit of unforgiveness toward those who let me down. Allow me to continue to love and be patient, even as You are compassionate with me when I let you down. May I remember that we're all in this together! These requests I lift up to You, in Jesus' name...
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