Annie, Mary and myself in 2009 (Boylston Home Sisters)
Yesterday, I asked Dave if I could share portions of my tribute and Annie's written testimony that she shared with a group of women when she was going through her cancer journey. It is my prayer that those who read Annie's story will realize that the same Lord who was able to take a broken little girl and grow her into a faithful missionary, pastor's wife, counselor, mother and friend, is the same Lord who's power to heal is available to everyone who trusts in Him:
"Annie was, and still is a child of God. She placed her faith in Him on December 11, 1966 at the age of twelve years old and began a life of service to Him from that point on. The Annie we all know and loved became a vivacious, yet peaceful woman who gave her all to the ministries God called her to.
In her adolescent years, Annie brought joy and laughter to our beloved Boylston Home for Girls in Manchester. Many of us sisters remained close to her and each other long after we had all left The Home.
Annie and Dave came back to Boylston Home in recent years to serve as Director and houseparents, and she would show me the catalogs of her dream home - the beautiful log house she and Dave would be able to build here on the grounds of Rumney Bible Conference, where they have lived for the past four years.
As I said before, the Annie we all knew and loved gave her all to serve her Lord and Savior. To see her joy, courage and strength, no one would have been able to guess the daunting hurdles Annie faced throughout her life, with each trial bringing her closer to the only One who could see her through the 'dark days', as she referred to them. Annie endured terrible tragedy and hardship as a child.
It was Annie's desire to share the difficult parts of her life with others - not for pity, or her own glory but to point others to Jesus, who was with her and sustained her throughout these dark times and brought her into the light of His love. Annie was an overcomer. James 1:12 says, "Blessed is the man that endures temptation (or adversity) for when he is tried, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love Him." Annie was an example to us all in her determination to bring all of her hurts and and uncertainties to the Lord. No matter how deep or how steep the path, she traveled it bravely knowing her Lord walked with her, holding her hand. Even as she looked forward to heaven, she talked of the sadness she had of leaving her loved ones behind and learned to trust that the Lord would continue to care for each one."
Annie's testimony was one of encouragement. The following is her testimony written in her own words as she spoke with a group of women:
Out of the Darkness and Into the Light - Annie Gable
I was born May 22, 1954, and became the fourth child in my family. At the time, my mother was a single mom trying to raise three youngsters on her own. It would become apparent very quickly that I, as a new baby, would prove to make life more difficult for the family because of some serious medical issues in the first few months of my life. I had to be hospitalized several times and on one occasion, it was thought that I might be blind and deaf. This was later disproved, but I continued to remain frail. As time progressed, I got healthier and began to eat better, but still had some problems with my neck which doctors thought was due to either bone or tissue missing from the right side of my neck. I had to sleep with a book under my neck for support.
In March of 1956, life was proving to be far too difficult for my young mother of four, and after complaints had been made to the state of NH regarding how we were being cared for, all of us children were taken away and placed into foster homes. From March of 1956 to 1958, I was placed in eight different foster homes. Finally, in 1958, I was placed in a foster home where I would remain for the next eight years.
I bring a suitcase with me this evening as I share my heart and my life with you. This suitcase does not contain clothes, but rather baggage, and as I share my story with you we will attempt to empty out all the baggage. My reason for sharing my story is not for pity, but to bring honor and glory to my Lord and Savior, for without his watchful care, I would not even be here today to share these things with you.
It was rather dismal as I recall the events of 'that day'. I was four years old and was being helped out of the car by a seemingly nice lady. We were in front of a house that was not at all familiar to me, and I couldn't understand why we were here, with a suitcase in the back seat. I reluctantly took the hand of the nice lady as she helped me out of the car and we headed toward the front steps of the house. She knocked on the door and footsteps could be heard coming toward us. Who was on the other side of the door? The question began eight long years of finding out exactly who was behind that door.
It is difficult to put events in any certain sequence because it seemed as though once the abuse began, it was an almost daily occurrence. When I speak of abuse, I am referring to almost a concentration camp type of environment. The abuse consisted of many forms, such as beatings, hard labor, sexual and certainly emotional abuse. I have asked myself if maybe I deserved the punishments because I must have been such a bad child. I was a normal healthy child who went through all the stages one goes through from age four to twelve. I have come to realize that no one deserves the forms of punishment I received in those eight years. I did do some things I probably shouldn't have, but many of those things I was driven to do by circumstances. Overall, I was not a naughty child.
They established in my mind very early on that I was a liar and a thief. It did not take long for me to learn what survival mode was all about and I would admit to doing things I really hadn't done because I knew the punishments would be even more severe if I didn't tell them what they wanted to hear.
In the next few minutes I will share some of the details of my life during those years so that you will be able to rejoice with me for what the Lord, and one's own determination can bring you through.
One reason I entitle my testimony "Out of the Darkness and Into the Light" is because I was often locked in a closet all night and sometimes for days at a time. When I would wake up, it would take several minutes for my eyes to adjust until I was able to find which small wall was the door that would eventually be opened. I longed for the time to pass so I could see the light of day and the sunshine. The fear I lived with for those eight years was incredible.
I was not allowed to use the family bathroom, and I had my own outhouse in the back yard. This was another place they would lock me when they needed to go away and did not want to take me along. There were times I was locked in there for a couple of days at a time and was given nothing but bread and water. You may think, well at least I had water, but the water had a large amount of salt in it. I was thankful for it just the same as it was all I had.
While I lived there, I was made to work in the big fields they had, as this was a farm. I raked hay with a rake that was bigger than I was. They provided me with water to drink, this time in a ketchup bottle that had not been rinsed out. I am not much of a water drinker or ketchup eater to this day! Some other bizarre things I was made to ingest were a meal of napkins soaked in vinegar. This happened many times and I was made to drink full glasses of vinegar at a time. I do not care for vinegar, now, either. I had to drink ammonia, aftershave, and even my own urine, along with many other things during those eight years.
The foster family had two children of their own - a son and a daughter. They took in two other children while I was there and those children were never treated like I was. There is an old saying about being the black sheep of the family, and I was definitely considered that in this family. I will never comprehend why I was singled out to receive such severe punishments, but I would have never wished that abuse on any of those other children.
As I shared early on in my testimony, I was accused of being a liar and a thief. Their son would take things from his sister's room and plant them in mine, so when they came up missing, they automatically assumed I had taken them and searched my room where they would find what the son had hidden. How was I to deny that I had taken them? This began my really lying to protect myself from even more awful punishment. Again, it was a way to survive. I would be locked either in my room or the closet after these types of incidents.
Winter for a child should be filled with happy memories of sledding and making snowmen, but for me, my memories were much different and certainly not fun. On several occasions, I was put in the bathtub and they would bring in buckets of snow and fill it up with me in there. I had to lay there until the snow would melt. I was also made to stand out back facing the garage in my bare feet and my feet would freeze to the ground. There were many very humiliating times in my life with these people.
Growing up in this home I received all kinds of beatings to all places on my body, with all manner of objects. They used belts, sticks with nails in them, a garden hose and many other things. I can remember vividly, one beating that would impact the rest of my life in a very profound way. I had been locked in the closet and had apparently done something they were not happy with, so they grabbed the closest thing to them which happened to be a mug and hit me several times, hard over the head. I remember lying in a pool of blood on the floor and them just standing there looking at me. They went and got salt and poured it into the wound.
As a child, I thought there had to be a better way. As a result of that particular beating and maybe others as well that involved my head, and I had a grand mal seizure at the age of eighteen. To this day, I go to my cupboard every day, twice a day, to take medication for this and will have to for the rest of my life. I am thankful that it does stay controlled for the most part and I can live a normal life.
Eight years is a long time to pretend to your social worker that everything is fine. But that is exactly what I did, and when they came to visit me, everything on the surface appeared to be fine. I was told over and over again that I'd better never say anything or I would pay severe consequences once they left. I believed that so I kept silent for those eight years.
One day, I guess I had just had enough, so I got very brave and decided I wanted to get out of this situation and felt I was the only one who could make it happen. Many times I literally feared for my life. Their son had a secret that was never mentioned by me, but whenever he could, he sexually abused me. So it was not just the beatings I wanted to get away from, it was also him.
So one day I was out by my outhouse washing my hands with a hose, and I looked around at all the fields and woods around me and decided I was going to run away. I truly felt like I was escaping as I frolicked through the woods all day. As the day wore on, however, I began to get very weary and decided I needed to find something to eat. As a child, you don't think of all those important things ahead of time. I had made it out to a road that I recognized and knew that my school bus stopped at a house right near there each day. I felt confident that because these people knew me, they would give me something to eat, so I proceeded to go to the house and knocked on the door and asked if I could have something to eat and drink. They were very friendly and they made me an egg, which they put ketchup on but I ate it anyway because I was so hungry. After a bit, I heard them on the phone in the other room and I knew right then I had made a mistake! I ran out of the house looking for a place to hide. It was getting dark now so I knew I needed to find a good hiding place as it would be a long night. On their property was a huge garage where they kept a big piece of machinery. I went to the back and decided this would be a great place to hide and settle for the night. Little did I realize that my boots were dangling in plain sight. When the people came looking for me, they shone a light right into the garage and they could see my feet hanging down from where I was sitting. I had been caught! Talk about fear! I was warned I'd better never pull a stunt like that again. When we arrived home I received a punishment that, as usual, did not fit what I had done wrong. As odd as it sounds, in spite of all the terrible things these people did to me, I still loved them because they were all I had.
This family had told me many times that they were going to get rid of me because I was so bad. I was told probably daily how awful a child I was. Obviously, this is not how you build a child's self esteem. Finally, after eight years of physical and emotional torture, they followed through with their threat to get rid of me. I was sent to a very expensive camp for the summer which I had been at before and had a wonderful time. They told me I would not be returning after camp was over and I don't think I really believed it at the time, because they had told me this so many times in the past and had never followed through. When camp ended, I had no home to go to. I will never forget the strong feeling of loneliness and not belonging anywhere or to anyone, that overwhelmed me that day. I watched as the last camper drove away with their family. I was all alone in the world and didn't think anyone could ever love me.
The welfare was working on a place for me to go ,but I remained in the infirmary with the nurse for about a week after camp was over. Finally, an older couple was found who were willing to let me come live in their home. I remember them coming to pick me up at the camp and they seemed like such nice people. Try to get a picture of what comes next! It is a sight I will never forget. We arrived at their home and they took me upstairs to show me my new room. I am sure my mouth must have dropped wide open There before me was my very own canopy bed with a beautiful ruffled bedspread. The most amazing thing was that I had my own bathroom and it was indoors! I just didn't know how to act with the freedom and kindness that was shown to me after being held like a prisoner for so long. I only lasted there for a couple of months and will always be grateful to these people for all they did to me.
Once again I was in need of a place to live. A social worker came and told me she had found a girls' home in Manchester, NH that would be willing to take me. When I arrived, I was the thirteenth girl living there. It certainly was a full house! Here I found love and acceptance, but it would take me five long years to ever share all that I had lived through in that foster home for eight years.
The best thing that happened to me was finding Jesus as my Savior on December 11, 1966. This was a Christian girls' home so I had a solid foundation to begin my new life with the Lord. The foster home I had lived in for eight years had been a Jehovah Witness home. I was so thankful I had found Truth and the best kind of love I would ever find in my lifetime. After eight years of spiritual and literal darkness, I was taken out of the darkness and into the light. All the glory goes to my Lord because without HIM, I am nothing and would not have been able to choose not to remain a victim.
Well, this brings us to today and all that is going on in my life now. I feel like what I just shared was the first huge journey I was asked to walk and now God has asked me to walk another difficult journey. As most of you know, on December 16, 2008 I was diagnosed with stage 3 pancreas cancer. It was a shock, to say the least, but God is still God today just was He was when I had to go through all I did as a child.
In 1Corinthians 10:13 it says, "No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it." I like to call this "Father filtered concept". He is not going to let anything touch my life without HIS permission.
As you have walked this journey with me, you know that I have had the amazing privilege of experiencing the 'peace that truly passes all understanding'. I believe with all my heart that God was preparing me way back when I was walking the journey as a child to face THIS journey with the courage and stamina HE had already given me as I went through all of that. So now I hope you can see first hand that God is who HE says He is and HE does not leave us or forsake us.
I don't know what the outcome of this journey will be, other than the fact that eventually, I will be with Him in Glory. My sadness on this journey surrounds those in my life who I love so much and will have to leave behind if that's what He chooses, but if that is HIS will for my life, HE is teaching me to trust Him to care for each of those I will leave behind.
I encourage each of you to live each day as though it is your last, because we just do not know what will come into our lives. Love like you have never loved before and ask yourself what the really important things are in life that will truly count for eternity. It is a privilege to share with you and I trust that even in a dark story you will find encouragement. This is the day!! Rejoice and be glad in it!!
***This is the end of Annie's testimony, as written in her own words. May it bless and convict us all to focus on the important things in life that matter for all eternity. We love and miss you, Annie!***
