My Story - Part 3

Sorry I didn't post yesterday...it was one of my computer fast days.

Moving right along all the way to age 8 :)

I left out a few things from those first 5 years that were more evidences of God's love and comfort. When I was with my mammaw she would hold my hand until I fell asleep at night...she would also sing me songs about Jesus. My mammaw's husband (they divorced when I was 5) treated me like little girls are suppose to be treated by grandpas for the short time he was in my life. These expressions of His love were anchors of hope for me in the storm.

Shortly after I met my dad, my mom moved back to California and left me with my mammaw...this time for about a year. I went to kindergarten. (After kindergarten I only have one other school memory before the 2nd grade). I remember feeling very shy and out of place at school.

I would go visit my dad sometimes. He had frustration towards me because I did not treat him like a dad. To me he was just Chuck. I had no ability to live up to his expectations. I had no idea how a daughter was suppose to treat a dad...nor did he know how a dad was suppose to treat a daughter. He did the best he could. I suppose I did too. When he didn't get the response he desired, he gave up and faded out of my life. This rejection was a threat to distort my view of the Dad I had in heaven...the One who would never give up on me...the One who would never leave or forsake me.

I felt loved, safe and secure with my mammaw. All that was about to change.

My mom came back from California a year later. We lived with my mammaw.

My mom started stripping. Crazy men seemed to sense her weakness. The strip club offered her a buffet of psycho men to choose from. One was a biker who lived in the hangman clubhouse where several other bikers lived. This was where I stayed when I had the measles. It was a dark, dingy place and made me feel yucky.

The next guy she hooked up with I will call Freddy. He took us down a road that inflicted wounds so deep that we are both left with permanent scars. We lived with him in a trailer in the country. There was an abandoned oil well near the place we lived. To punish my mom, one time he tied her to this oil well...he left her there all day before coming back to get her. I am so sad that she felt she was not worth more than the cruelty of this man. I didn't find out until after I became a christian just how much evil controlled Freddy's life.

Once my mom was arrested for shoplifting when she and I were in a grocery store. This left me in Freddy's care. While she was in jail he went to a bar, went inside and left me in the car. I remember feeling so scared and filled with panic. I had to use the bathroom and held it until I started crying. I finally peed all over myself. I just sat and cried. I remember during this season praying less. Instead I would cry and talk to myself when I got in situations that made me feel anxious...I know now that He was still listening.

Next we lived at another house with Freddy. This is where he molested me. This is the first time I remember feeling a deep shame. I also felt a fear unlike the fear I had felt before. This was a paralyzing fear that numbed me. I felt I had no control over anything and I was beginning to lose the child like faith I had at 5. My fear was beginning to consume my focus.

Shortly after this my mom tried to leave Freddy. He kidnapped me from school and used me as bait to see her. He convinced her not only to get back with him but also to pull me out of school and sell everything we had in a garage sale so we would have money to go on a "road trip." I remember that my two most prized possessions were a bike that my dad had given me and a roll top desk that was a gift from my mammaw's ex-husband. The last few tangible things that had meaning were stripped away. I felt like that what was important to me had no worth or value therefore I had no worth or value.

Freddy, my mom and her younger brother, my Uncle Ronnie, packed our clothes into Freddy's truck and headed for Louisiana. We would stay at camp sites along the way. I have vivid memories of Freddy and my mom getting in fights and him beating her up. Somewhere along the way they argued over who would steal cigarettes from a convenient store. My Uncle Ronnie finally agreed to do it and got caught. He was arrested. We just left him and kept going.


We eventually made it to Louisiana and met a family where we were camping at. They offered Freddy a job working construction. They took us to their house. The first night with this family Freddy and my mom got into a terrible fight. The fight ended in him beating her up and me getting caught in the middle of it. My mom was 8 months pregnant at this point with his child.

This time my mom didn't stay. She took me in the middle of the night to try and hitchhike back to Oklahoma. Freddy came and found us. My mom came out of that night covered in bruises that lasted for weeks.

The next morning when Freddy went to work with the husband, the wife took my mom and I to the county line and dropped us off on the highway. We hitchhiked back to Oklahoma. My mammaw got a call from a trucker who told her that he had her pregnant daughter and grand daughter. He also told her that my mom was beat up pretty bad. My mammaw came and picked us up from a motel and took us back to her apartment....

I will pick up here tomorrow.

Thank you for being patient with me. I hesitate in sharing so many specific details. It is my belief that not only does God knit us together in our wombs...but that He pursues us from birth out of His desire to have intimacy with us... I am giving you the full picture so that when I get to the part where He redeems me and makes all things new in my life...He will get as much glory as possible!

I also want to apologize if some of this seems choppy. I only want to write about what I remember...so you are seeing the gaps where I simply have no memory or information to fill them in.