First, let me start out by saying that I have a wonderful family, great parents and siblings, and they are in no way to blame for what kind of person I was turning into. But there were certain events took place when I was little that had tremendous repercussions, one of which was the time I was kidnapped from our front yard, along with a brother and a sister. A nineteen year old boy took us and sexually assaulted us. Looking back, God surely had His hand in my life even then, because the kidnapper returned us all safely to our home when he was finished with us.
Other things happened, which I don't need to get into, but my point is, that although I didn't remember these traumatic events until I was older, they impacted my thinking, especially in terms of my self-worth.
Without understanding why, I always seemed to live in fear and self-condemnation. Whenever bad things happened to me, I felt that I deserved it.
At a very young age, I began experimenting with alcohol and smoking. By the time I was seventeen, going to bars, drinking, and having sex were all normal parts of my life. At age 18, I dropped out of school and got married to an abusive man. Even though, on many occassions I had to call the police to come rescue me from him, I still thought this was "normal" life; the kind of life I had coming to me.
By the time I was twenty-two, I was divorced and had a 6 month old daughter. I was a single mom, working full time just to provide for the basics of survival. Many men came in and out of my life over the next ten years, bringing with them, drugs, alcohol and more abuse. I felt worthless and had never known the love of a man. I had experienced so much fear and pain, yet the sad thing is, I didn't even know there was something wrong with my life.
Then I met my husband, Darryl. We had a stormy relationship right from the beginning. Three years later we were married. The first few years of our marriage were pretty much typical of my life. Darryl never hurt me physically, but he hurt me with words and his fits of rage. He told me he was a Christian, but he was so affected by the world, that he thought there must be some other truth out there besides the Bible. He lead me deeply into all the New Age stuff. We believed we were finally on to some wonderful new truths that couldn't be found in the narrow-minded realm of "religion".
Some peculiar things started happening. It was our custom to go visit my husband's family once or twice a year. What a dreaded trip...they were "saved" people, you know...."born-again". They would all get around the piano and sing their Christian songs. Sometimes they would just weep together and talk about Jesus. I used to love to hear Darryl sing, but when they talked about Jesus and got all emotional about it, I didn't understand what that was all about. Well, eventually he started acting really wierd. He started saying things to me like, "From now on, I'm not going to swear," and he said I was a bad influence on our two small boys. Naturally, I became quite rebellious, and I was still drinking heavily.
In June of 1994 our home was destroyed by fire and Darryl was severely burned. When I'd visit him in the hospital, he'd be singing "Thank you, Jesus!" I thought it was because of all the morphine they pumped into him.
And while he was praising God, I was cursing God. After all, I reasoned, our brand new home was gone, my husband would be hospitalized for a long time, I had no food or clothes for my two sons, who were 9 months old and 2 years old at the time. Plus, I had to deal with all the work associated with our insurance claim, and the construction crew who would be rebuilding our home. My next door neighbor told me, "God will never give you more than you can handle." And I told her, "Well, He's really pushing His luck with me!"
Four months later, when Darryl was feeling better, we made that infamous trip to visit his family. That was a turning point in our lives...well, at least in his life. He went on one of those kooky religious retreats, and when he got back, he made an announcement in the church. They called it a testimony. (I called it an embarrassment). Needless to say, I wasn't very happy about it. All he talked about was following Jesus. And he said he had committed his life to Christ. He was crying and telling everybody what Christ had done for him. He never even mentioned me! What about all that I had done for him? Didn't that count?
By the time we got home from that trip, I determined that I would never go visit his family again; in fact, I even contemplated divorce. There was no way I was going to be married to one of those Holy-roller Jesus freaks! I didn't even know my husband anymore...he was so different...so kind, so loving; his sudden "goodness" made all my dark ways even darker. I always had something to feel guilty about.
Eventually Darryl started dragging me to church, against my will, I might add. I felt so awful being there, and would have rather stayed home to drink. I was out of control and I knew it, but was resigned to live that way, because I was powerless to break free.
One year after he committed his life to serving Jesus, he went away on a business trip for a fe
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