Beginnings

I was born in October and my mother regretted telling my father about me. She told me in later years that she wished she had simply left him without telling him of her pregnancy.  I’m not sure why she went ahead and told him, but she did.  Anyway, life went on and my parents stayed together for a few years before things got really hairy.

The next major event was the divorce and departure. My dad won legal custody, but my mom took things into her own hands and abducted me – although she would take serious issue with my verbage here.  My fugitive family lived all over a neighboring state, moving around a lot, changing our last name a lot, and lying a lot.  (The professionals call this parental abduction, because the professionals are so very creative at naming things.)  Anyway, during this gypseian existence, my mother told me a slew of horrible things about my father and I lived in terror of him, having no real recollection of my own.

At five or six years old, I became a Christian.  As a kindergartener, I attended a private Christian school.  (The main reason for this was because it was harder for our pursuers to find me at a tiny private school, but I believe God had His own reasons.)  My teacher told me about Jesus, and very soon, I gave my heart to Him. My conversion was very real and I was very concerned about making sure He knew that I was serious about my repentance. I prayed repeatedly to Him that I was not kidding and that I really meant everything I said. So, with childlike faith, I began my walk with my Lord. And, as a kindergartener, I began reading my brand-new King James Bible, starting with Genesis. Good Baptist.

As I grew, however, the seed in my spirit had little room for cultivation and was mostly buried.  I just lived life the way I felt like I had to and mostly forgot my pursuit of God.  Life went on and we kept moving… until they found us.

My 12th year ended in what seemed like tragedy for me. It was early December and, to spare the details both in interest of brevity and in interest of not conjuring up old feelings, a SWAT team surrounded our house with really large guns drawn and removed my mother and myself in separate squad cars. Needless to say, we had been discovered.

I went to live with my father while my mother went to live in a federal penitentiary. I was in 7th grade.

Throughout my time with my dad and step-mom, I did very well in most aspects of my life. I went back to church and became extremely involved in my youth ministry.  I also loved choir at church and at school.  And, despite the junior high school’s apparent unease at enrolling a student with such a spotty educational background into 7th grade when she was already young for the grade, I proved them wrong. I was very offended at the advice that I finish out the year I had started as a 7th grader down at the elementary school as a 6th grader.  So, they tested me.  I passed semester exams for classes I’d never taken.  After that, they let me in.  And I made the honor roll.  Punks.

Things went on similarly into my senior year. Then my boyfriend and I broke up and I found no reason to stay where I was since my life had ended. *puts the back of her hand against her forehead and sighs* So, I packed up all my stuff, informed my father that I was leaving, and I proceeded to drive myself and my little dog, (the very best dog ever in the world), to my mother’s apartment. (She had since been released from prison and remarried.)  Deluded by a misremembered memory of a life past, I thought this would be the best route for me to go.  I was in for a serious dose of reality.

I had become a different person and my memory was faulty.  My mother and I were on opposite ends of the spectrum in every way possible and living in the same house was simply not good for either of us.  I got my own apartment at 19.

Around this time, I met and began dating the wonderful, godly man my Father created for me.  God used him to initiate and to support me through a long process of learning to face reality.  God revealed to me my broken heart and my broken life in ways I was never ready to see before.  Slowly, He has confronted the evils in my life, healed me of much of my hurt, and revealed to me my own wretchedness.  I am still learning how to stop hiding inside myself and how to be the person He made me to be.  Through it all, He is bringing glory to Himself.

I have already said more than is probably necessary, so I’ll speed things up and get to the point. I am now a teacher and my husband is a foot and ankle surgeon. We (I) have a cat. (The best dog ever in the world passed away at 13 years old.  But, I now have the best cat ever in the world.  I digress.)  I have a crazy family, but my husband handles it very well and I handle it much better than I used to.  I love my family – both sides.  I try to see people for who they are as best as I can and I have to forgive the past.  How could I not? My Jesus has forgiven so much of me.

Well, I guess that was a lot to put out there in cyberspace. I felt like, for some reason, I was supposed to.  I hope that it does nothing except point you to the grace and the providence of God.  Everything happens for a reason. (That reason is His glory… for I would never have known His grace, mercy, and goodness the way I do without His unusual plan for my early life.)  Maranatha.

~LG