Free To Be Me

With encouragement from Joel, I am gladly sharing my story to encourage freedom, the gift above all gifts.

It has taken me many years to accept the fact that I am Free. John 8:32 "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free"

My father was a coal miner. He went into the dark abyss at the age of fourteen to support his mother, father, and siblings. As he grew into a man he didn't know how to be affectionate only how to live life in the moment. I was the oldest girl of four children. Everyday day was day in fear of what it would be like when he got home. My mother kept the house perfect and we kids clean, like the Queen making sure the court was in order before the arrival of the King. "Off with theirs head" if not up to the standards fitting for a King. The abuse against my mother and us was more than I could bare, I could never understand why she left us in such a volatile house. Just a brief moment in time, sitting waiting for my Dad to arrive home from work. The door opens he raises a handgun points it at my mother and fires it. I just sat there, she didn't fall down. There was no blood splattered anywhere? What happened? Looking at my dad, he began to laugh. "It was just blanks" he said. The terror I felt that day; life could be over in one moment.

I became the peacekeeper. During the drunk times and just plain mean times. I could talk him down, I could calm him down. I could see when a situation was about to erupt and stop it, all before the age of twelve. The many times I wished him dead as a child, then one spring day he didn't come home, his life was ended in the mines. I knew that I wished so hard that it happen. Could God forgive me? The Chain of guilt.

Soon after my dad passed away, my brother began to take his spot in the abusive lifestyle. There was nothing I could do with him except physically fight him. Then I learned to just stay away from him when he became stronger than me. By the age of 30 the life of self medication and drinking opened the door to the demons of self-loathing; tempted my brother into suicide. He was only one year older than me. The Chain of anger.

The Lord found me at the age of seven, I knew he loved me. He gave me the strength inside to do what I had to do to survive. He never let me go even when I was far away from him. I had to be the good girl, the one who did everything right. I thought! I was busy in sports, school activities my schedule was so busy that it didn't leave room to heal. My family life was not the families in the Norman Rockwell paintings. That is what I wanted and thought that every one lived like that. "I'm not good enough to have a life like that." The Chain of Worthlessness

Then I found it, the man of dreams. A Christian family, The Rockwell family! I married and had three wonderful children by the age of twenty-four. I was close to God, thanking him daily for the blessed family I have. What happened, there was a secret life I didn't know about. This couldn't happen; there was a darker side that I knew nothing about. He didn't he love me enough to not do the things that could hurt our family. My perfect family was not staying together. This is a very long a painful story, I will share it at another time. The Chain of Failure

Jesus revealed that "He was a gift to me" in a very intimate way. I knew then, that I was going to be just fine. God has proved it over and over again. He has gifted me with wisdom through one tragedy after another. What I have shared so far is just a tip off the old iceberg. I am strong and I do persevere. God put me in a career as a crime victim advocate; I knew and had empathy for the people I worked with, getting them through the hardest of times. Now that I am moving into the second stage of life, I want to take what God has entrusted me with to help women break the chains the binds them to an unhealthy view of themselves and life choices. I fully believe that God has the authority over our freedom, he said so......I believe so. The Broken Chain, Freedom