This is going to be a long one, and just skimming the surface of my life. I will be writing about key times that had an impact throughout and posting them as I get them done. So, if you want to know more in-depth parts to my story and testimony, hit the “Join The Journey” Link to have full access, see all of the posts that are coming, and be able to comment to talk with me and others on different topics that I will be covering. Thanks for reading, & prayers sent up for you & your journey with Christ.

Well, we made it here. I’ve had the thought of putting my life down on paper, (in theory) for a long time. I’ve always been one to write things down, take all of the pictures, making sure I can remember, and have those memories. But this one, starting from childhood, to where I am now, I can’t say that it won’t be difficult. I have felt a push. A gut feeling that maybe, it can help someone even if it is only one person. By the end of reading this, if you feel like you need someone to talk to, pray with you, get things off of your chest that have happened to you, I encourage you to reach out. This is what I am doing this for. To let whoever will hear know that my life has not been what most may think it has been, and how God can change their trajectory just like He has for me. We are here to further His kingdom, and lead those who don’t know to the truth. He is a good, good, Father. He has us in his hands. He loves us and gives us peace when we seek it from him. This is the least I could do to fulfill the plan he set for us all. So, here we go!

I was born in ’94. I had my mom, dad, one full brother, and 2 half-brothers. I had 2 aunts, 3 uncles, and all of my cousins that came with them. All of us spread out from here, to Nashville, to Memphis. But my closer cousins that I grew up closest too were all boys too. So, naturally, I grew up running with the boys trying everything they did, while being “bullied”, made fun of, & always the butt of the jokes! I also always had their protection and love through it all though, and they honestly are probably a big part of how I got through things as I got older. Growing up we went to church every Sunday, and Wednesday. They kept us in sports, were at every game, read with us, we were, or seemed to be a pretty normal family. But no one really ever knew what it was like when we were home. Except for people I’ve gotten close too enough through the years to share it all with. I can still hear the screaming in my mind. I can still hear the words they yelled at each other, as loud as thunder rolling. I can see the pushing, the shoving, and the taunting. The slamming doors, coming home to furniture flipped, and things being thrown about like someone had broken in and rummaged through everything. Me and my brothers didn’t understand or know why. I have had times where I get the same feeling, being so scared, sitting in the hallway by their bedroom door, as they’re yelling so loud, they can’t hear me, screaming, crying, begging them to just stop. Lord, the things we heard. There were times we would have to call our grandparents to come and separate them. It would be so late in the night and just didn’t seem like it would ever end. One of my most calming memories of my grandmother is when she came and got them calmed down one night, and rocked me in the recliner, and just told me it was okay. That feeling, and her doing that, now thinking of it, was God. He had her there for me. That calm and peace I felt, I feel only when I get overwhelmed and anxious, and go to God with it.

My dad was an alcoholic, & my mom, an addict. We knew dad was a drinker, daily. We didn’t know about our mom until we got older. There were good times, they would take us to do all kinds of stuff. He took us to the river a lot and had bonfires. He took us fishing, and hunting. They loved us, they took care of us. They didn’t know how what was going on would affect me as I got older. They had their problems within themselves that they hadn’t had anyone help them with. Those problems mixed with alcohol, and pills, and mashed together was just a recipe for disaster.

My mom had finally got her teaching degree and was working. Until around the time I was in 7^th or 8^th grade. This is when we found out and realized what part of the problem had been all along. She started to have seizures. Taking pills, then coming off of them, back and forth for so long was all coming to the surface. My dad took her to doctors, had so many tests done, and no one could figure out why she was having them. She wouldn’t admit she had a problem. The addiction progressed through the years of course. When dad realized and found out the pills were a cause of the health issues she was having, she would fight him over it. She would put him down, call him names, throw his drinking, and trauma from his childhood in his face. She was in denial, she put the blame on everyone but herself. She did not want to admit and have everyone know what she had been hiding for so long. She had gotten another job, and we moved to Troy. The last fight, I still have in my mind and remember so vividly. Dad had reached his point of not being able to help her and could not fight and try to help her anymore. She lost it. It got physical. Dad got up, and tells us, with tears in his eyes, that he was not trying to hurt her, that he was holding her to keep her from hurting him because she was just out of her mind at this point. He kept trying and finally made it out of the house with her trying to not let him leave and gets to his truck where she attacks him again, scratching and pulling the cloth off the ceiling of his truck, and I cannot really say I remember how we finally got her to let him go. That was, finally, the end of the fighting.

Waiting for divorce court and all of that, we stayed with mom. If you know anyone who has had an addiction to pills, there’s stages of feelings they go through. I honestly believe the pills caused her to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I do not remember a time of her being the way I saw in these days before then besides the fights, but there were many causes for those. I am no doctor, though. She would lose it at the drop of a hat. Daily being put through the mental abuse, and threats, I decided to go and live with my dad. My older brother went to our grandparents, and the other stayed with mom. Being separated from them was really hard. They were the only ones who saw the things I saw, went through it with me, protected me, and even held me at times through the fighting. We just have had that bond our whole lives, and always will.

Now, the fights, and emotional abuse, was over. But the trauma lingered and showed up in relationships, and situations I got in, all the years up until I made that decision to give it all to God. I let people talk to me how they wanted, treat me however, as long as I thought they cared about me. I had friends, or thought I had friends. Most of them I lost after switching schools when we moved, but I gained some there. Looking back at the friendships I had, they really were not that friendly to me. I took things they would say as jokes, just because I was so used to being “picked on” and stuff by my brothers. I was just always an easy target, I was always the one to just laugh and not give it another thought, because if I thought on it too much, I would be hurt, and I had had enough hurt for a lifetime. Laughter got me through most “friendships” and going along with whatever, they said or did instead of what I wanted or thought. I hid myself a lot thinking they would think I was stupid, or weird. If you know me though, it’s hard to hide, I am goofy, I have a sense of humor that not everyone gets. When I would get comfortable with friends and show that side, they would change up and treat me different, or just ignore me, and I would just go on my “merry” way. I would tell myself this is just how it is. People will come and go, friends will not be around forever, and it’s not worth feeling less than, or left out. Friendship and fitting in just were not my thing, and there was nothing wrong with that, it made me be the person I am to this day, that will always want everyone around to be included and will stick up for others when they are being put down, to their face or behind there back. I know how it feels to be talked about, left out, and always felt like I was just going to be that person picked last. I got that I do not care attitude and stopped caring about what people thought and spoke my mind. I had a few close friends through high school, that stayed, and loved me despite my goofy, blunt, do not care mentality.

As I got older, I realized that I tried to make up for not having “friendships” that lasted like others, mixed with the trauma I had from my earlier childhood, by thinking I just needed to find a guy. A guy to “love” me. Someone that would care that I could tell anything without judgement, that would ultimately protect me, and take care of me. I thought if I found someone, and fell in love, and had that comforter I always needed, that it would be enough. That was all I needed. Yep, y’all know, I went through them. Any boy that showed me attention. I had a lot of guy friends anyways, I just got along with them better I guess since I was raised with all boys. If a guy showed a sign of maybe liking me, I went for it and had so many boyfriends man it is embarrassing to think about now. I can laugh about it now, but dang I was an idiot. I even told them I loved them, after a week or two. In my defense, I am a very loving, genuine person, I meant it, it just wasn’t that intimate, real, true love. But I have always just loved everyone. Even now, I tell everyone I love them even if we just met and talked a few times, I just think everyone deserves to know they are loved and that someone, anyone cares. Hey now, most of them boys said it back though so, boo to them too. LOL. Anyways, I met one in 8^th grade. I’m being fully transparent here. Yes, I started young, lost my innocence, would do anything for that boy to love me and not leave me. I thought he was it. My first love. Always had that mindset that I would have that, and that would be the only guy I’d be with. We would get married and live happily ever after and that it would never be like it was with my mom and dad. Of course, y’all know how that goes. We were young, stupid, jealous, had all the temptation around us and just made mistakes that most do when we’re growing and thinking were grown and know everything since we are doing grown up things. So that ended. That first heart break. I tried to fix it with every other guy that came along and acted like they cared and wanted to be with me. I believed every guy, that said or did the right things for a moment. I was taken advantage of and used. Through all of this, I moved in with my nanny, until they found my journal and read all of the things I had done, been doing, lying and telling them I was going somewhere with a friend, when i’d really be out dying in a field somewhere drunk, with friends and guys that I was messing around with. The good ole days. They send me back to my dad’s. I was grounded for a bit, but after, I kept doing all the things, lying to him, going and drinking and smoking with friends. I thought I was hiding it all good and everything was fine. My stepmom was also an alcoholic. Which was so much fun. Her and my dad together. They didn’t argue much, but she just made me feel like she didn’t care for me too much after a while, we butt heads and ended up getting into it pretty bad. My dad stuck up for me to her and told her they were going to figure something out and be done, I thought. He tells me everything is okay, and that he’s going to find a place for me and him to move too closer to his work and let her keep the place we were at. I didn’t want to stay around her while he was looking and finding a place for us though, so he took me back to my mom’s.

She still was out there. Me, her, her boyfriend, my brother, all of our friends, would smoke together, drink and pretty much just party, do whatever we wanted. Mom was out of it most of the time and didn’t know any different, and partly just wanted us to stay with her and not leave her again, so she may have thought that just letting us do whatever we wanted and being cool with everything when she was up and around. I was drinking and smoking so much, I don’t remember much. But I remember being places I didn’t know where I was, going with whoever wherever, coming to after being passed out drunk with guys on top of me, being in houses where I was terrified of what could go wrong in them knowing what all was going on around me, but I was with a friend, and I didn’t ask questions, or let them know how uncomfortable I was in any situation. I was to the point I was tired of losing people. I just went with whatever, didn’t say anything, and acted like I was just cool with it all. I didn’t want to tell my friends that I thought what we were doing was wrong. I had made the choices I made to get to where I was it was no one’s fault but my own and I didn’t know what to do to get out of it. Needless to say, dad stayed with the stepmom and never came back to get me out of there.

I turned 17, graduated high school with my Cosmetology License, ready to change my life and get out of everything I had gotten into, ready to get away from my mom’s house, ready to just start a life of my own that my past couldn’t touch. Wrongo! I did work for a bit, and I met the guy who would end up being my first son’s dad, and my first husband. We dated a few months, and I ended up getting pregnant not long after. I was 18, and we decided, and our parents had agreed that we could move his with his granny to be together through the pregnancy and save up for a place of our own and all of that. Things were good, for a while. We loved each other, so much. Our son is one of my greatest blessings. He was a good dad, a good husband, he provided for us, he was there for me, we laughed, never fought. Something in me though, from childhood I assume, just got to a point where I kept thinking, I don’t know if this is it. How can this be real, true, “love”? We never argue, we don’t have that fire for each other like we did in the beginning. Little did I know that that was just what a healthy, real, marriage was. But I just couldn’t shake the feeling, and thoughts. I told him how I felt, a few times. Nothing would make it better, or help. I ended up going outside of our marriage to find the feeling of love that I was looking for, which would be one of the biggest regrets I’ve ever had. It was me, the whole time. It was the issues I had from what I had seen in marriage my whole childhood. He literally did no wrong, and didn’t deserve anything I put him through, and it made me miserable within myself for so long knowing what I had done. We had had our second son before I had just made up my mind that I couldn’t deal with the guilt I felt for what I had done to him. I just kept telling myself, there’s no way to save our marriage, or for us to be “in love” again after I had done what I did. No matter how much he told me we could and tried to reassure me that he had forgiven me, and we could get past it all. So, we split, and of course, the cycle of my mind starts up again. I’d meet people, have that “new person” feeling for 5 minutes and just kept chasing that in every next guy that came along.

I was a broken mess. I was quietly, falling apart on my own. The days our boys were with him, my heart ached. It hurt worse than anything I have ever felt. So, I turn back to drinking, but now I’m old enough to actually go to the bars and meeting a lot more people. I was working, got my own place, and acted like I had it all together for so long. When, I was just getting worse and worse, I was just the only one who knew it. At this point I’m thinking, now I need a man that this feeling actually lasts with, that will love me and my kids, and take care of us like their dad did. That was always a big cycle, and one of my biggest issues. I just wanted someone, what my idea of real love was in my head. I am a hopeless romantic, but also a runner. At any sign of change, or bad feeling, or thinking that I would get hurt, I’d run. I fall hard, and fast, and then as soon as it’s not what I think it should be like, I run. It wasn’t always fair, but I was protecting myself, I thought. I ended up realizing, nothing I was doing was helping. None of the things I had been trying for so long were working or making a difference. My cousin had become a recruiter for the National Guard, and I decided I was going to join, and really make that change I needed to. I was committed. I knew I needed to get away from everything, and make a change in myself, and that was how I was going to do it, at last. I leave for basic and go through all the things you go through there. I thought being away from my kids the 2-3 days a week when they went with their dad was hard, this felt like torture after a couple weeks. My state of mind was just such a mess, I was depressed being away from them for so long, and feeling like I had abandoned them, I kept talk down to myself, and getting deeper and deeper down to myself as time went on there. Nothing I had to do at basic was harder than what I was putting myself through mentally. And it ended up having me to the point where I was pretty much too emotionally unstable to finish basic training. Yet again, I have failed.

I felt like everything I tried, no matter how hard I tried, how determined I told myself I was, no matter how hard I tried to be positive and just get past it all, I failed, every time. Failing had become the only thing I never failed at. I had been called a quitter a lot by my mom when I was younger, because I always wanted to try different things. Gymnastics, cheering, softball, basketball, and I would end up wanting to quit because I got my feelings hurt or I just didn’t like it or whatever the reason may have been. I can say that her words definitely stuck with me more than I ever thought they would. So, then I am back home from basic, I lie to everyone and tell them I got hurt and they sent me home, so they don’t think I’m just some kind of chump not being emotionally strong enough to make it through. Because in reality, no one really seemed to know, see, or care, how much emotional turmoil I had endured over the years of my life. It was always brushed under the rug. I was always just being dramatic; it was not that bad. It never mattered how I felt, to anyone, because I guess I had just been overly emotional too much, so everyone was just over me and my “feelings”? I will never know how no one could see how bad my mental health was, but I do know that that whole laughing through the hurt I mentioned before, could have hidden it all some. I could talk to someone about things I had had done and said to me and just laugh about it. That is, until one of my very best friends to this day, called me out on it. She knew. She could tell, she could always tell, and I can honestly say I do not know where I would be today if it wasn’t for her. I still had trouble trying not to do it anymore, after it being my main coping mechanism for forever. I continued going out to the bars when I got back on the days the kids were with their dad. I had nothing else to do, and if I stayed home, I was even more of a mess.

I ended up running into a guy, I had known since 7^th or 8^th grade, but never really hung around or anything. We just kind of got along, and realized we had fun together when we would all be out drinking and playing beer pong at the bar. We hung around the same people, so we were all together some of the time. I pretty much, told him he was my boyfriend, and made it “Facebook official” after a bit. His mom had gotten married and was moving out not long after, and it would just be him in his grandmother’s old house. So, let’s just make this great decision and go ahead and move in together after we just got together. LOL. We kept going out when we didn’t have the kids and carrying on as usual. This went on till the jealousy, and things had happened that we did not like that each other did, so the arguing started and got worse as time went on. I left I don’t know how many times, to just go back in a day or two. I have been hopelessly in love with this man since we got together. There was no leaving him for good. I just kept running at the hard times like I always had done. He kept bringing me back in though, he kept letting me come back, he still wanted me, and loved me no matter what we threw at each other. Were so different, but so much alike at the same time. So naturally we butt heads from time to time, but when we were drinking, it was just bad. I ended up getting pregnant a few months in and had told a few people. We weren’t going to be going out anymore, we were excited; going to be better and treat each other better. I was around 8-9 weeks, when I started spotting. He took me to 3 different hospitals. I was just not believing what they were saying. He took me anyways. When it finally just sank in, that we were losing the baby, it hit us both, hard. I lost my grandmother the same week this was happening. I’m failing, and going down, again. We go out, drink, argue, love each other one day, hate each other the next, and restart the cycle.

We end up finding out that I am pregnant again, with the sweetest little boy who would end up changing our lives, for good. We were probably separated more than we were together throughout the pregnancy. He kept drinking and going. I could not. I may have resented him a little for it. I just hoped and prayed that he would just stay home with me and not want to do that stuff anymore. Currently, I am over going to the bars. Something bad happens every time, and I do not want to have only have this child half of the time like I had been doing with my first. It just caused a whole new set of issues and trials we went through. He would go out, I would be home alone with the boys not knowing when he would be home, or if he would make it home. I would leave. He would leave. We always came back though. We could not let each other go. But the cycle just kept, on, repeating. We swear things will change, we will be better, it will not happen again. We would be fine for a month or so, and we would think it’s okay if we just have a couple drinks and go home. A couple drinks turns into way too many and were leaving again. We got engaged and swore for the umpteenth time it would all get better. He goes and drinks, gets in a wreck, gets a DUI, a week before the wedding. I am at a loss. I do not know what to do. Do I still marry this man? Or end it and fail, again, on another child, me, and him. We cried, talked, and made it to the wedding day. It was perfect. But we still were not.

I know y’all are thinking, how many times do y’all have to go through this, until y’all end it or finally get it right? Probably as many times as it took Jesus telling his disciples and those who followed them parable after parable, trying to get them to understand the way to follow and trust in the Lord, and telling them the only ways to be saved and make it to Heaven, until they finally understood and believed it was true. I never realized how many times He had to tell all of them folks the same thing, in different ways, for them to still be trying to test and question him. For them to still not repent and believe that He was sent by God to tell us and show us the way. I’m sure they were up there in Heaven watching us go in these circles like, “are y’all kidding me?”

We had separated twice since the wedding, on the verge of me filing for divorce. I went to my cousin, and my best friend who told me that Jesus said, If the husband does not want to leave the wife, she should stay with him and keep trying. Not in those words, but that is the jist of it. I got back into church, was reading my bible, doing study groups at church, praying all day every day, and I knew that I was leaning towards better, more than I had been doing all the other things of the world I’ve done. I stayed. I kept begging my husband to stop drinking, because he just couldn’t stop once he started. I kept telling myself, I didn’t have that problem. I could drink a couple beers and be fine and not treat him any different or anything, that it was fine for me to continue as I had been, but he had to stop. After a bit of thinking that way and going to church, one day it just hit me like a ton of bricks. How is that fair? How is that loving and caring for your husband? How is being that way helping your husband stop, when you’re doing it? That’s not how it works. If I wanted this marriage to work, I had to give up things, just as he would. If I wanted life and our marriage to get better, we had to sacrifice things we had grown accustomed too. The things we’ve grown up doing, thinking was fine. We got saved that one time so were good. We didn’t understand before. My cousin and his wife, my best friend, talked with us. He talked with my husband. I had been thinking so wrong for so long. I didn’t know why God wasn’t answering my prayers, why nothing was changing, or why nothing was working like so many have said it would. The day that He came to me and like a whisper in my ear, I heard, “Give it all up, and follow me.” That day, I had gone through having some health issues, lost a job, lost a friend, almost lost my marriage, hadn’t hardly spoke to my dad in years, moms on and off the wagon, my brothers are both 2-3 hours away from me, and I just felt alone. I felt like I was losing it all and failing my kids. I talked to God. I cried with Him. I pleaded with Him. I had nothing else to lose. I was broken and had been for so long. I didn’t have much, but I gave it all to Him. I forgave my mom and dad. I forgave people that I had held grudges over for so long. I went through my mind and forgave every single thing I could think of that still came to my mind periodically that I had always said I could never get over or forgive them for. I vowed to stop trying to find a feeling, a job that would make me happy and help provide, to stop trying to figure it all out on my own. I gave Him my whole heart that day. I quit my thinking of I can do this, he will forgive me and understand, it’ll be okay. I only want to do what he has for me to do. Nothing more, nothing less. Me and my husband quit drinking. We started going to a new church that we both love. We both have given up all the things that the world told us is okay. When Jesus clearly tells us what is okay and what isn’t. We just have to be willing to do that. Give it all up and follow Him. Ever since then, we have started communicating better, stopping ourselves when were about to say anything we shouldn’t, stopped thinking about the past and just focusing on what God has for our future. We are in no way perfect but were a heck of a lot better than where we started, or even a year ago. I have repented, and asked for forgiveness, and any time I catch myself doing even the smallest thing, I ask. I’ll ask him to forgive me every day for the rest of my life. He sent His Son to die for our sins so that we can learn from Him, and trust in him. He loves us and provides a way. We just have to take the time to have those moments alone with him, to be still and listen.