I am 30 years old. I am the 4th of 5 kids to parents who were never married. Matter of fact my father was married. His wife and my Mom were almost friends, you see they shared him. I have 4 half-sisters too, one of which is 6 months older than me. It seemed normal to me being I was born into it and knowing no different. When I was very little my Dad was diagnosed with brain tumors that had to be removed. They weren't cancer but they had to go. After his surgery he developed brain damage. He couldn't stand alot of noise and he would at times go into rages and get violent. I don't remeber him ever bein violent to me, matter of fact I always remembered him being very loving to me. Unlike my Mom who was brought up in an abusive household and was never nice to any of us, especially me. I reminded her alot of herself, and I guess she didn't like it. But my Dad would get enraged with her and she was in fear for her life and had him arrested and put a restraining order on him when I was about 5. When I was about 6, she met my step-dad, they bought a home together, we moved and didn't see our Dad anymore. We lived out in a countryish environment. We had some friends, Jeremy and Seth, that we would play with all of the time when our Mom was at work, and at 2 o'clock everyday we had to run home because we weren't supposed to be out of the house. We were supposed to stay in all day while she was at work. We went to a catholic church every Saturday evening. Even though we were only little kids we were expected to have our clothes clean and ready to go to church every Saturday. Well, needless to say we never did so we got the pulp beat out of us every Saturday. The best times we as kids ever had was the freedom of playing with Jeremy and Seth everyday. We built clubhouses, played in the woods, fished and just had the best time together. I had a huge crush on Jeremy. I was absolutely in love with him, to the point that I would go to bed at night and pray that God would let us grow up and get married. Well, when I was about 11 Jeremy and Seth went up to Ohio to spend the summer with their grandparents. We (me and my brother and sister) would go over to their house about once a week to see if they ever came home yet. And finally one day their Mom told us that they weren't coming back, that they were moving up there. I was horrified and crushed. I was never going to see them again. About a year later we moved also, my Mom and step-dad bought a house. Our house was a nightmare, there was always fighting and arguing, beatings. If there were good times I wasn't there. I was a miserable kid, everyone is the house picked on me, they would team up and pick on me, they made up songs that everyone would sing together about how much they hated me. All along, I just knew that my Daddy loved me and that when I was old enough I wanted to go live with him. He would never treat me that way. I was it the choir at school, and we were doing a Christmas concert. My Mom was late coming home from work, she worked at the hospital. And when she came home, she called all of us kids into the living room and told us that our Dad had died that day. He had another tumor and the doctors couldn't take it out because it would kill him. He lived with that tumor for years before he died. But I never even got to see him or say good bye. I knew that my Mom hated him and being I was always out to please her I acted like it didn't bother me. I got ready and went to my concert. The next day at school, in gym class it set in on me that he was gone for good, that I would never get to see him again, or hug him and I just fell apart. And nobody knew why. I told my best friend what happened, she told me I should go home but I didn't want to call my mom and let her in on how I really felt, but I felt hopeless. Life went on, just as awful as ever. Finally when I was about 16 my step-aunt and uncle let me move in with them, I had ran away from home a few times and they were scared for me. I was permiscuous, looking for attention, or affection, whatever you would call it. I didn't know the difference between sex and affection. All I knew was that it was attention. I met this guy named Cody when I was 17. We started a relationship and were sleeping together. A few months after I turned 18 I got pregnant, Cody didn't want a baby and I didn't have the confidence to do it on my own so I had an abortion. I realized immediately afterwards that if he had ever cared about me at all he wouldn't have let me do that, so when we got home from the abortion clinic, I pretty much never talked to him again. I got into another relationship that, me and this guy partied and did alot of drugs together. Mostly weed but we pretty much did everything else to like on weekends, but we smoked week everyday. We stayed together for about 3 and a half years. He kept wanting to stay home from work and do coke all day. We were living in this junky little motel and not getting anywhere in life. Finally I told him that if he stayed home from work to do dope again I was going to leave him. Well, one morning he started fighting with me and made himself late for work, it was too late for him to going to work, and I knew it was coming. He settled down, quit having his fit and asked me if he could go get some coke. I told him to do whatever he wanted to do and he left. Well, when he came back I had my stuff packed and I left him. Just like that, and never looked back. Looking back it amazes me how I could just leave people at the drop of a hat like that, kind of like how my Mom left my dad. Within no time I met Jason, he seemed like, a good guy, he didn't do drugs, he drank alot but didn't do drugs. He and I moved in together, the only problem with him was he liked to disappear without saying anything. He would tell me he was going to the store and not come back til the next day. We would go out drinking, and I would get drunk and he would bring me home and wait for me to pass out and and leave again and go meet other girls and stuff. Nice huh. After about 8 months I finally got tired of what he was doing to me and I left him. Well, the day after I left him I found out that I was pregnant. We tried to get back together, but he still acted the same a s before and he kept accusing me of cheating on him because he didn't think he could have kids. I knew I had never cheated on him, but I couldn't prove it. We split up and I went through pregnancy alone, which was one of my biggest fears. It was awful, I was in a bad state of depression for the whole time. I was scared to death of having a kid and having to raise it on my own. Finally when my daughter was born she came out looking just like him. She still does, she is the spitting image of her Dad. When he came to the hospital and saw her, he apologized for everything he had ever done to me and I took him back. We got an apartment together and were doing okay. 4 months later we found out that I was pregnant again. I knew that he didn't want anymore kids so I made a deal with him that after that one I would get my tubes tied. We got married and had Kelsey. We went through a time there that we were completely broke, he couldn't find a job and we were leaning very much on each other. He couldn't afford to drink and I was happy for that. Well, when worked picked back up and he could afford to buy all the beer he wanted we went down the tubes. We fought and beat the heck out of each other for about a year and a half. I was suicidal, tried to kill myself by eating an entire bottle of tylenol PMs . And when I came to from the overdose I realized that I couldn't do that and I left. Me and my little girls slept on one of my friends floors. I got a job as a bartender and stayed drunk all the time but i got me an dmy gilrs a plac eto live within 2 weeks. I met an older man who was actually friends with my dad, and we started a relationship. I went from being a bartender to a stripper and got into more drugs. We stayed together for a year, I knew that I was in a severe state of depression the whole time. I couldn't stand the way I was living anymore and I took Jason back. We did okay for a little bit but it was me who couldn't keep my nose clean. We sat down and agreed to go our separate ways. I went back to stripping. A little way down the road I found another guy named Brian. We stayed together for a couple years. I worked and he stayed home with the kids. It wasn't that I wanted it that way, he just lost his job and never bothered to go get another one. Eventually I lost respect for him and kicked him out. What man is going to call himself a man and drop him girlfriend off at a bar to get drunk and flirt with other men and dance around half naked for money. Well, I turned around and got back together with the older guy and quit my job. We stayed together for a year. He fed me pain pills, I sold week for my spending money, we gambled alot, and every so often we would get some coke or some meth and party for a couple days. I often was very depressed, well, actually i was still living in a state of depression, just sometimes were worst that others. My sisters started going to church. They had both been on drugs and were now all holy and stuff. I would let them bring my kids to church but as for me I didn't want any part of it. My house was a wreck, I could never seem to get it cleaned. it would take me days and days to get it clean. I was a wreck. I decided that I wanted to get some glass (meth) and just get loaded and clean my whole house. So I asked my much older boyfriend to buy me some and he said no. I would get these voices n me head that would tell me crazy stuff. The same voices that told me to eat the bottle of tylenol pm. Well, whe he told me no I started to have a fit. The voices told me, "You'll never be happy, you should just slice your throat." I was like, no, that's crazy. I felt like I was on a downward spiral. I argued with him and the voices. It was crazy, Decided I would just go have a few drinks. Just as soon as I walked out of the door the voices said "Good, you can just go wrap your car around a tree instead.' I stopped and sat down on the porch. I couldn't get teh voices to stop. I came back in the house and the voice screamed at me "JUST GO SLICE YOUR ____ THROAT!" I grabbed a razor and came into my room and was going to slice my throat and my EX hit me with one hand and grabbed the razor with of the other. I fell to the floor crying "God, help me. I don't want to live like this anymore." My ex just sat there looking at me, he didn't know what to do. He was scared for me and scared of me. The next morning, I was still crazy, I went out and found some pills because my ex refused to give me any. When I came home I was sitting there and heard a car pull in my driveway. I though it was my friend, but I went look out anyway. Well, low and behold, it was my sisters getting out of their car grabbing their bibles off of the dashboard and marching up my porch. I thought to myself great, this is all I need. I wanted to curse them out and throw them out of my house but all I could do was sit down and shut up. They walked right up to me, laid their hands on me and started praying for God to set me free, and casting the devil out of me. They prayed and prayed and I felt like waves were passing over me. And with each wave I felt lighter and lighter. God helped me to understand that I was carrying all the pain from my life, everything from childhood and everything I had ever been through, and he took it all from me just as soon as I let it go. Which when I realized that I was carrying all of that I didn't want it and I dropped it right there at his feet. I went to church that very night, and have been in church ever sense. God delivered me from drugs and alcohol and I have never wanted them since. God had me to let go of the older guy, he told me that he IS my father and not to hold on to this father figure anymore. I lived for a solid year, just me and my kids, I didn't work and I never needed for anything. God took care of all of my needs. I would run out of money and the next thing I knew someone was showing up with money they had owed me forever. Last December(05) I was going somewhere and I passed in front of the place where we lived when we were kids. When we were so free and happy during the day when our Mom was gone. I had my neighbor with me and I told her a few stories about us living there and playing with Jeremy and Seth. Those were good days. I never did forget Jeremy and Seth. Matter of fact I thought of them everytime I passed in front of that place for years and years. But this time was different, I couldn't stop thinking about them. And being a Christian now I knew that if I were thinking about them like this I should pray for them. So I would pray, and all i could find it in me to pray for was Jeremy. I knew something was going wrong for him. I would pray blessings for Seth and pray for Jeremy to be free and saved again. You see when we were kids they were Penticostal and lived in a very Christian household. I prayed for him alot for a few weeks, just had a huge burden to pray for him. I was up late one night on the phone with one of my friends, and I was telling him about this need I was having to pray for Jeremy and he suggests thtat I look him up on-line. Duh, I had never even though of that, so I got up and did a search for him and found him. Well I didn't find him, I found Seth, but that was close enough. So the next morning I called Seth's house but no one answered. Then he called me back, we talked breifly and he gave me the # to get it touch with Jeremy. I called all day, and he never answered the phone. Finally that evening, his Mom answered. We talked for a few minutes, she told me that Jeremy was an alcoholic, divorced, depressed, and had 2 little girls. So then I knew why I had to pray for him. I talked to him for 8 hours straight that first day. Matter of fact the first day I asked him to think about coming down here and sobering up. I asked him what was he doing wasting his life away like that. I could hear misery in his voice. It was a God thing, and Jeremy knew it to. We talked on the phone everyday for 4 months, matter of fact about 8000 minutes a month, thank God we had unlimited long distance on our phones. (which actually there is a limit, they charge you 50 dollars at 5000 minutes they might even charge another 50 at 10,000 I don't know we never made it to 10,000 minutes) We prayed together, cried together, and told each other everything. We fell in love over the phone, he gave his life back to God and hasn't had a drink since January 15th 05 which was the day before I fisrt called him. He moved here in April we were married in our church on June 24th. And that is my childhood sweetheat in my pictures with me. We wondered why we had to go through all of the things that we went through. When I was a little girl, I prayed that we could "grow up" and get married. Imagine that. If we had been together during the time we were going through the things that we had to go through we probably would have just ruined each other if not killed each other. Anyways, we finally got to go up to Ohio and see his family for the first time. It was the first time I had seen them since I was 12. It was awesome, our daughters are happily sisters, Seth is still the same, crazy thing. Pictures on my profile. Hope my testimony can be an inspiration to someone somewhere. And if you are praying for someone who is like how Jeremy or I used to be keep it up, your prayers are not just bouncing off of the ceiling. And when you see someone who is living the way Jeremy or I used to, don't look down on them. It is those of us who have suffered much that will be rewarded much. Take their suffering upon yourself and pray for them. No telling what kind of miracles you will see God do in their lives.
