You may wonder why I say that I am loved beyond measure, I did not always believe that way. You see, I am the daughter of a prostitute, who chose life for me and not death. February 1960, I was born, and 10 months later my sister was born. As far as I can tell my birth mother spent her adult life in and out of prison for prostitution, which is all I know about her. There are some including my sister who do not understand, but I love her and I honor her. She gave me life.
When I was 6 my sister and I were separated and adopted, it would be 36 years before I would see her again. Adoption was not a good thing for me, there was a lot of abuse, both physical and emotional. The physical wounds healed, but the emotional I carried far into my adult life. I had often been told “that as a son I was someone they could be proud of, but as a daughter I was a disgrace.” I grew up hating being a girl and knowing that God hated me. I was also told that I was a big mistake and that the world would have been a better place if my prostitute mother had aborted me. I have always been grateful that she chose life for me. I do not know if she is still alive, but I love her and honor her because of the choice she made for me. I do not remember much of my birth father, but I do remember, he said he loved me. I found out that he died (just 5 years before the Lord showed me my birth family). I think he was trying to save us all, but I have come to know that we cannot save ourselves or others. Only the One True Triune God has the power to save.
As I grew up I was angry and rebellious. I kept getting into bad relationships; I believe that I sought them out. To my way of thinking, if you loved me, you abused me.
I have been raped, beaten and shot at. I was married to a man who had many mental problems and was an alcoholic. 5 children and many beatings later he finally left, oh I had tried leaving him, I even moved to a different state, but that proved to be very dangerous. The leaving had to be on his part, because we were property. He even tried to sell us for a carton of cigarettes and a case of beer. It didn’t even faze me at the time. I was so broken by that time, it didn’t matter. I was not allowed to look anyone in the face, I had been trained to keep my eyes downcast, and I learned my place. I was worthless and so were my children. I could not turn to my adoptive parents, because Mom died when I was 17, and Dad true to form disappeared. My Dad had a hard time; he had always had a tendency to shut off when things got bad. Dad was a workaholic and Mom was a prescription drug addict and an alcoholic. She died of cancer in 1977, after battling for years. But of course we only found out 3 months before she died. My parents were very stoic, private people. We looked like the perfect family from the outside, but on the inside we were a huge mess. I had an adopted brother too; we were adopted at the same time. So we were the perfect American family. I love my adoptive parents and I am grateful to them for doing the best they could, and I believe they loved me in their way. They were hurt and suffering themselves. Daddy, was aWWII vet, he had been listed as MIA then POW in France. He had been wounded and he carried a lot of baggage from that. Mom had been abused and abandoned on the streets of Philadelphia as a teenage girl during the Depression. The 4 of us were somehow supposed to be a family. Even though we went to church (I was raised Mormon) we were a mess. Mom had been raised Baptist and Dad, Presbyterian. Sometime shortly after they married they converted. When I was about 11 we moved from Alaska where we had lived for 2 ½ years, to Colorado, so my parents could become the legal guardians of my Dad’s sister’s 2 teenage children, after she had committed suicide. Dad and I had loved Alaska, Mom and Chris (my brother) had hated it. Growing up our home life was like that, 2 warring camps. Mom and Chris on one side Dad and I on the other. I think as children we chose sides out of a sense of self preservation. I find that I was always attracted to men who were emotionally distant, and who had a tendency to disappear. I also believe I was a lot like my birth father. I desperately wanted to save and rescue others. Little did I realize that I was the one who needed saving and rescuing.
As I have stated I was a very angry and rebellious teenager, I fought with one girl in particular a lot. We both came from “troubled” homes and we hated each other. After the last fight and expulsion, my parents decided I needed Structure and Discipline. So they sent me to a Southern Baptist private school. They had Chapel once a week and Bible every day, and they taught Creation. Most of my teacher’s were men, I remember 2 in particular. Mr. Nance, taught science and Mr. Dinwiddie taught math. These 2 Christian men made a huge impact on me. I saw them as they lived, not just in the classroom. Mr. Nance had a daughter my age, I saw her with him, and I passionately, and desperately wanted the relationship they had with my dad, but as I look back I find it strange, I was not jealous, I was drawn as a moth is to flame. Mr. Nance treated each of us with dignity and respect, he made you feel special and treasured. I can still remember how I felt as he spoke to me in my 8th grade classroom, of the loving caring God who had held me in His hands as He molded me and shaped me then placed me in my mother’s womb. That He had chosen the color of my eyes, the shape of my face. That He had formed each of my fingers and toes, just as He wanted. That each person was formed the same way, there were no duplicates or cookie cutters, and there were no mistakes. It was all done by the Master’s plan. I had never heard it explained that way before, and I knew in my young heart that what he told me was true. I had always struggled with math, my parents were mathematicians. They loved it, and it came so easily to them, not so with me. Mr. Dinwiddie is the one who explained that everything was designed by the Master and that it was done with care and purpose. There was no mish-mash, mumble-jumble. Mr. Dinwiddie made math come alive for me. I can’t say that I learned to love it, I am no longer afraid of it. He did however show me the love of the Master through math. Mr. Dinwiddie’s wife worked at the school and I saw how he treated her. It was such a drastic difference to what I saw at home. I clung to what I was learning at school, and it began to change me. I went to that school for 2 years, I would have rather been there than any other place on earth. My parents chose to put me back in public school, it may have had something to do with the way I was questioning everything, our home life, our beliefs, our church doctrine. Within no time at all I became angry and rebellious again, and was even worse than before. There was such a sense of betrayal and rage in me. I began to hate Christians and I knew that God hated me. I felt cheated and lied to. My own mother had not wanted me, my father had not wanted me, my adoptive parents did not want me, and I knew God did not want me. As I look back over my life I see that same pattern repeated over and over again.
I looked for and sought out relationships that were destructive. My first husband ended up eventually taking his own life. My life just kept spiraling down deeper and deeper into despair. I began to hate, really hate Christians. I came to despise the very thought of God, because I knew that He hated me or didn’t even care. I made very destructive choices in my life. My hope and faith was in humans not God.
My dear, precious second husband loved the Lord. I adored him so I tolerated his God. My husband became my god, and I worshipped him. I was happy with life, husband, and now 6 children. I was okay. It bothered my beloved that I would not turn to God, but as I told my love one day” what did I need God for when I had him?” God showed me. He took my beloved home. My life came crashing down around me. I broke, I was crushed and yet still I fought Him. My children went into foster care; I went to the state mental hospital .not once but twice. I lost my children and I tried, really tried to end my own miserable, tortured life. I failed at that. Finally, I gave up, there was just no fight left in me, I surrendered. All my life I believed that I was the only one I could count on, well it was all beyond me.
I was out of solutions or answers and I just wanted all the pain to stop. I could not take anymore. I was the living dead and I wanted to cease existing. I wanted to disappear into oblivion. I was helpless and hopeless. So finally, beaten, broken, abandoned and forsaken, on my face naked in the muck and mire that was my life. I cried out to God, from the very core of my being, and He heard me. He picked me up, held me in His arms, washed me clean, clothed me, and called me His own. He saved me, He did not have to. He did it because it pleases Him, He loves me, and He knows my name. He loves me, and I love Him. Not because of whom I am, but because He is Who HE is. He is everything, without Him there is nothing. The Almighty, all Powerful, Beginning and the End calls me His.
Adoption had always been a dirty word to me. It had been used to hurt. I had heard most of my life “this is my ADOPTED daughter, or my ADOPTED niece or Adopted cousin. Now it is a glorious word that bespeaks love. I now know that I am loved beyond measure. After becoming a Christian I was ecstatic but I found that I still did not belong, I did not belong outside of the church and I did not belong inside the church. I was to. To widowed, to single, to many wounds, to much spiritual baggage, to unchurched, to questioning, to bold, to spiritually dirty, to fat, to needy , not needy enough, to independent, to dependant. I was just to. So I learned to disappear in church, I became the invisible, visible. I am sure you have seen them, you know who they are, and they know who they are. With my third husband God blessed me with a wonderful son. He is my precious Kevin from Heaven, my gift from God. After my husband had many heart attacks, and numerous strokes, he left, we found he had gone to Florida and there he just disappeared one day and is assumed to be a casualty of a hurricane. So it has been Kev and I since he was 6 months old. So we went to church, still on the outside looking in, never quite fitting. Being in separate places all the time, in church and in our life outside the church. I tried to learn my place, but where was it? The Bible said one thing but life told me another. I learned to sit where I should, stand where I should, be involved where allowed, and to be as invisible as possible without completely disappearing. I longed for the Church I read of in the Bible, but I came to see it as a fantasy, maybe it had been real once, but not in this day and age. I wanted to be a women like the women in the Bible, but how, what did that mean. I read of women being loving, gentle, strong, industrious, humble, bold helpmeets and mothers. I read of passion and compassion. I read of children being cherished and seen as blessings. The greatest blessing that could be bestowed was a child and the deepest sorrow was when the blessing of a child was withheld. I read of men being men, strong powerful warriors. Fierce in the battle, yet gentle, passionate and compassionate at home. I read of sacrifice and carrying each others burden. I read of all working together, where none were invisible. The old teaching the young. I longed for what I read. I was accused of living in a “Leave it to Beaver” mentality, or even worse “Father knows Best” fantasy world. I became very numb. Yet deep down in the very core of who I was burned the love and worship of my Lord, Master and Savior. I yearned for and longed for others with a fire so deep it burned to get out, my need and longing to belong, never died it just got deeper and deeper, as the outside got more and more numb. I began to question, whether I should even read the Bible. I was not learned I had never gone to college or seminary. I was just a high school dropout who had gone back and gotten my GED. Maybe I was taking the Bible too literally. Maybe I was wrong, maybe God really did not love me, and maybe I was not fitting in because I did not belong. I could be apart of the church , my part was the crazy eccentric, old maid of an aunt, no one wanted to claim, you all knew she was related, but mostly the family is secretly ashamed of her and just wish she’d go away. For years that is what our place in church was like. If we went, fine, but if we didn’t no one really noticed. We were part of the invisible, visible. During this time God blessed me with one very dear Christian friend. She is 12 years younger than I, yet she is light years ahead of me in her relationship with God. She is my friend, my sister, a mentor and I love her. I am grateful for her. I see in her a true Proverbs 31 woman. She adores her husband, honors him, his parents and hers. She loves her children; she teaches them and guides them with a strength that is amazing. She loves me with a grace and compassion that sometimes takes my breathe away. She is used of God and she rejoices in her life. She struggles and she is real. I know her husband thanks God for her, he sits in the gate, because she is at home. Her children adore her. The Lord put this Dear One in my life at a time when I did not even know what it meant to be a friend, let alone have one. I had no idea what relationship looked like, all mine were an inch deep and a mile wide. Shallow was all I knew. After almost 7 years, this relationship is deep and growing deeper everyday. (The Lord has used her to find my sister and my children. They are all alive and doing alright. I pray they each will come to know the Lord.) We talk at least once a day we even talk when we are on vacation, and then we hold out for every 2-3 days. There is accountability and real love there. We can tell just from the sound of our voices how we are doing. She is my best friend and she is my sister. I have found that the blood of Christ is stronger and deeper and binds us together, more than any other blood. Almost 3 years ago this Dear One and her Precious husband sent my son and I to “Renew the Family Camp” in Glorietta New Mexico, sponsored by Reformation Church in Castle Rock, CO. We went reluctantly and only because this dear sister called the pastor and asked him to watch out for us. A precious family caravanned with us, without them I would have turned back and not gone. Looking back I see God wanted us there. What happened was life altering.
In that one week I saw something that was alive and breathing. It was moving and active, loving, passionate and compassionate. There were people from all over the country there, I saw the CHURCH the Body of Christ. It is alive and it takes you in. It is not proud or boastful, it is not vain and it does not compete with itself. It is real and for one precious week we were apart of it. We were not eating table scraps, there was meat on the bone, fruit was plump and fresh, and bread was hot and fragrant. There is a feast a real banquet and we were welcomed. Room was made at the table, not a separate table but right there in the middle. What a glorious intoxicating time. Then it was time to go home. Would we still be welcome, we were told we would be. We came home and went back to our church, the contrast was painful. Cautiously we visited Reformation Church. I did not trust what I saw there, so we went back and forth for, probably longer than we should have. I kept waiting for the rejection to come. We went to Family Camp the next year, and shortly after that we joined the church. My teenage son who had become a Christian a few years before was struggling and he continued to struggle for a time. He became a communicate member this past Mother’s Day. Oh the joy that is in my heart. I see him developing relationship with the men in the Body. The Body is alive; it is the Bride preparing for her groom, her Lord, her Master. It surpasses all human understanding; it is magical, mysterious, and holy. We are part of the body and we fit.
For the first time I have family and even the eccentric are wanted. I have a place in the body and I fit. I am served and I am able to serve. What a joy it is to serve. I have a husband, because He says He is husband to the widow, my son has a Father, because He says He is father to the fatherless. I am learning to love being a woman, because that is what He made me to be. I’m no longer afraid to love or to be loved. Love is not cruel or mean. There is glorious accountability and relationship. Real live involved in your life day in and day out relationship. Don’t get me wrong, it is often uncomfortable and heart wrenching, but it is real and it is deep. It is LOVE. The men have reached out to my son, and he is learning to be a man. He has relationships, accountability, painful, beautiful in your life relationship and it shows. He respects, honors and knows God chastens those He loves. And He loves us. I have seen a heart that was hard as stone, turn fleshy and pliable. I see him seeking out the men who love him and I see his heart turning to God. I see the Deacons and the Elders, reaching out to both of us, and being the “husband to the widow and the father to the fatherless. I see the Body is not limited by human boundaries but that it is bound by the love of Christ. There is mentorship, and involvement in our lives. Precious who have their own families , yet who still have time to make sure we have food on our table, and who take the time to call and or go do things with my son. I see The love of God every day thru these men and their precious families. God is alive and well and living in the hearts of His Church.
We are loved, and we love. Trials come and He is there. He is honing and tempering, He is sculpting, and yes it hurts from time to time. Sometimes I still rebel and He forgives me when I repent and I know that He still loves me. I know there is a Master plan and that it is perfect, because He is perfect. I am grateful, loved and blessed. I am still learning, learning to rejoice in all things.
I am starting to see a vision, a vision of family to glorify the Lord. I am seeing it in the heart of my son, and to think, that 49 years ago He put it into the heart of a prostitute to give her baby life and not death. I pray that He will bring forth mighty men of God and mighty daughters who will be pillars. He has and is building a firm foundation and only He knows what He will do with such a beginning.
I do not know what He has in store for me, but I know that He is faithful to continue the good work He has begun in me.
(foot note)
I have a total of 7 children -4 boys and 3 girls, slowly the Lord is allowing me to have contact with them and to know they are well. I have not connected with them all yet, but I KNOW God knows and somehow that has to be and is enough.
Posts
