July 12, 2006

• I have offered people a chance to ask three questions for a bit of a change of pace. If  you have a question or questions here is the link: questions I am just doing one question at a time and in the order received.

  
  

  Heather

  
  

  John also known as the  Midnight bard asked the following:

  
  

  
  

  What is the most difficult time you have ever faced in your life?

  
  

  What is the happiest time of your life?

  
  

  Have you ever kept a secret from your loved ones? (You don’t have to answer that one, of course.)

  
  

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  I think that the most difficult time in my life was the point when I felt there was absolutely no hope. I was 8 years old, already abused by my parents through alcoholism, beatings, lack of self-esteem, verbal abuse, and fear for my life (they had tried to kill me three times). I woke up in the middle of the night with my father breathing on me. He told me that I was stupid, ugly, no one would ever want to marry me so he was going to take on my sexual education so at least I could get a man by sex. This began a long cycle of sexual abuse. During this time I decided that God didn’t care. I had prayed three prayers, that God would make my father love me and stop, that God would kill my father, that God would kill me. No answer to any of them, the only one I am glad that God didn’t answer at that time was the second one. I was also told that he would kill me if I told anyone, including my mom (also an alcoholic who seemed to provoke my father). I remember sleeping with my hand outside the bed because it was covered in gook but I was afraid to get up. The next morning, after he went to work, I got up and cleaned myself up the best I could. The first words out of my mom’s mouth was, “I heard him in your room last night, tell me what he did.” She wrote it down in notebooks, filling up at least two of them over the space of years. I grew up hating that question, and sleep ceased to be safe because I never knew when he would come into my room. My mom never missed a time of asking me what he did.

  
  

   

  
  

  I gave up on God, gave up on hope, gave up on me, and stockpiled a can of Draino in case things got too bad (when I got older the Draino was replaced by the anti-depressant drugs and sleeping pills therapists prescribed that I never took the way they intended). It put a wedge in anything seemingly normal in my life. I had a hidden life. I also felt like spoiled goods (and it wasn’t until later that I realized he took away my virginity, I guess I blocked that out). I also felt that something was wrong with me that my own parents couldn’t love me, that I was somehow awful. I spent most of my life imitating others to appear “normal” but feeling very abnormal. This began a period of many decades of depression, suicidal thoughts and actions, and stupid choices that only made me feel worse about myself. It all started with that first visit.

  
  

   

  
  

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  The happiest time in my life was when I got baptized and all the darkness fell off of me. I really felt like a new creation, and God gave me back my life. It took two years of a lot of loving conversation with Pastor Don to help me to realize that God did love me, that I hadn’t committed the sin that God couldn’t forgive. That I was not spoiled goods, that each and every sin I had committed could be forgiven. I said the sinner’s prayer and the next time baptism came up, I obeyed and was baptized. I have to tell you I was scared because there was a fear that God wouldn’t want me, but He did. And it has not been a trouble free time since then, but God has helped me to grow and learn more about Him. Our relationship daily grows stronger.

  
  

   

  
  

  But if you are looking for a more mundane period of happiness, my marriage to Jim has been blessed, and most recently he threw me a surprise birthday party. At that time I was surrounded by my Christian friends and family, and felt for the first time that I was given a new family that loved me. God had healed that gigantic hole in my life.

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  From left to right around table, Sonny, Loretta, Jim (my husband) my three kids, Edward, Katherine, Christopher, me (in the Red), the tip of Pastor Don’s head peeking over his wife Cynthia, my friend Julie and Tommy.

  
  

   

  
  

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  Yes I have kept a secret. My husband turned sixty a few years ago and we were arranging a surprise visit from relatives. I could not tell him, hard as it was, but the trip fell through due to health reasons of my sister. I have to tell you that I am not comfortable keeping secrets from my husband, so don’t do it. I even tell him about close calls in driving the car. Perhaps it is a reaction to not wanting to fall back into the patterns of the past. I have not told my kids all about my past, that is a need to know basis.

  
  

   

  
  

  Heather

  • 3:59 pm
  • 24 Comments