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...