My Journey...........

Recently I have felt an urge to share my spiritual journey and myself more with others so I thought hey why not plunge in head first, so here goes........

I was born in Portland, Oregon on Sept 8,1980, we moved to Arizona when I was 5, around this time my parents became divorced, I never had nor do I have a relationship with my father, so my mom was single with 2 kids to raise. Around age 7 my mother remarried Doug, an alcoholic and drug user. Doug didn't really seem like he wanted kids, often times he would lock my brother and I out of the house and we would spend all day in the Arizona heat trying to amuse ourselves. Around this time my brother had some evil placed in his heart and began molesting me, this experience lasted about 3 yrs until my mother divorced Doug and she had no idea what went on until I told her at age 18.

My brother meanwhile had become emotionally distraught and began acting out, stealing, skipping school, doing drugs, etc. Eventually my brother decided to go live with my father. So then my mom met Mark through our church, and when I was 12 we moved back to Oregon leaving my best friend that I loved to death, he seemed like a perfectly nice man but over the years this changed and he became emotionally abusive, unfortunately with my brother now living with my biological father most of this was directed at me. As a teenager I became severely depressed and I began skipping school, at this point we had moved a couple more times and I was tired of being "the new kid" and at 16 I dropped out. I would just go home and watch TV and isolate myself from the world. And I Prayed, constantly I prayed, Lord send someone to love me, help me change myself, help me not hurt anymore. I remember looking out my window so many times in tears and I would see a flock of birds, or a ray of light, or some other sign saying "I'm here". You see at this point in my life I felt like God was all I had, the only one who loved me. I didn't love myself and so I couldn't see the love others had for me, something that I still struggle with today.

So now we come to the day I met Ryan, it was around 10:00pm at night and he came with his Navy buddy who's fiance I worked with. The first time I looked at him my heart jumped into my throat, I assumed that he would not be interested in me because I was 18 and he was 25. He assumed that I wouldn't be interested because he was 25 and I was 18. Needless to say we were drawn together and two weeks into dating I knew that I loved this man, I knew God had gifted him to me and had heard all my prayers. So we were married May 11, 2002 and began our life together. Right around September 11th I fell into a deep depression, I was miles away from my family and I had been going to counseling which I think brought up a lot of unresolved issues that I wasn't ready to face. I began having thoughts of suicide and was admitted to U of M for a few days and put on medication. I was able to work through this problem in time and now I am well.

When Keturah was about 3 months old we moved out this way and Adele kept asking if we would like to come to church, finally we did and my life was changed from that day on. There are so many people in my life now that I know love me. So that is me in a nutshell, now let me just explain a few more things. This was not meant to be a sob story or a pity party, the last thing I want is people to feel sorry for me because although I have experienced a lot of pain I would not change a single thing. I am a firm believer that the Lord used these experiences to mold me into the person I am. I do not blame my brother nor my mother for any pain in my life, my brother was only 7 and did not know the full ramifications his actions would have on me, my mother simply did the best she could with what choices she had made.

Now to get to the point, the power of prayer and God's love has saved my life (literally) I believe that my faith saved me from a life most people who have been through what I have would be lost to. I could have so easily been lost to drugs, alcohol, or promiscuity but I believed, I believed that things could change for the better, that someday I would find the love that I so desperately needed. And while I am still on this journey and sometimes I still go in the wrong direction (inward)I thank the Lord every day for my family because it was all of you who taught me that I was loved and that it is safe to love in return. I still struggle to this day in being open, getting close to people is extremely difficult and awkward, especially towards men. But I will continue to grow, I will continue to love and let myself be loved, and I will pray to my father who although he couldn't wrap his arms around me was there with me all along whether I realized it or not.