lou opened her soul today. and i stood in awe, in tears. what an amazing woman. then mandy went and did the same. and i caught the fever. oh. i can do this. i’ve said for a long time i need to share what’s been allowed to happen to me because God could really use my brokenness. but, man, that’s hard. there’s something about staying hidden. there’s something about pretending you really have it all together. there’s something really fake and distancing in it. and i don’t want to be fake. i know God knows my story. and we all have a story. so let’s not pretend any longer. if you see something that connects or resonates let me know. read lou’s story and let her know. read mandy’s and let her know. quit hiding. get real. here goes…

~i grew up with 2 half sisters. my parents are still together, but they each had a daughter from previous marriages. they’re 8 and 11 years older than me. being that much younger, we were never close. we never went to church. my parents had a difficult marriage, and i was very lonely growing up.

~i wanted a doting daddy, but my dad, for all of his love for me, was from a different generation - one that didn’t know how to really love, hands on, a little girl. i was a difficult child to raise and hard to love. but i craved hugs and unconditional love and didn’t always get that. my mom and i had a stormy relationship and pretty much still do. i can understand now how hard it can be to love a difficult child, and this helps me to give him what i always needed.

~wanting the relationship with my father and never getting that attention i so needed. i sought it elsewhere. early. often. and miserably. here’s one of the hardest parts to share. i believed every boy that said he loved me. i longed for a hug. and this combination is deadly. and painful even to this day. for me and my husband. if i could go back. i would. if i could share a hug with the young girls that are on the same path i would. the pain and the loneliness after each mistake was worse than the one before. and could only be filled by another’s “love”. there were at least 19, i don’t really remember. most of them i don’t remember their names. some of them i don’t remember their faces. and every one i fully believed would stick around, and accept me. i did things i’m so ashamed of to just get them to stay. it was a cycle only broken by my husband when i was 22. and God’s grace of giving him to me. he’s an amazing man and the knight i always sought.

~i began to seek Christ and dedicated the rest of my life to him when i was 18.

~i had manic highs and depressive lows in high school. i was diagnosed bipolar and put on lithium along with a string of anti-depressants. i went to governor’s school. i got a tattoo. i graduated with honors. i went to hendrix with a major in art and a dream of animating for disney. i dropped out after one year, because the highs were too high and the lows were too low. i planned my suicide and still have the list of items and whom i would give them to. i was put on suicide watch and given my pills each day.

~i’ve worked at tcby, a video store, pizza hut, girl scout camp counselor, day care, taught pre-k, was a family teacher at a group home, a dot-com downtown little rock. i’ve been terribly drunk. often. wonderfully high smoking weed. i designed and created backdrops for my high school plays. i sang carmina burana with a symphony orchestra. i had a ferret named silvie (for shel silverstein).

~before i was married, on my 21st birthday i was raped by a guy i trusted while i was too drunk to protest. i disappeared from life briefly. and then i trusted again. and i forgave. it’s the first time that i learned what true forgiveness was about.

~my honey was my friend through most of this from 17 on. he was the one i always ran back to. to hear that i was still worthy of life. to cry to. to laugh with.

~at a bar in little rock in jan. 1999 i waited to meet him and b. goldman and some other friends for another rockin’ night out. he walked in the door (high, might i add) and i thought, for the first time ever, “i’m gonna marry that man.” i spent the night with him and he turned down my advances. i went to see him a week later in northeast arkansas and he began to think he would be with me for good. by february we were talking about marriage, by march we were engaged, by may i had quit my job, married him, and moved to where he was living. within 6 months we moved to mississippi to work in another group home. by our 1 year anniversary we were back in little rock partying like crazy and fighting fiercely. dysfunctional to the core. we even had neighbors give us tickets to a marriage conference. i’m sure they heard our very loud fights frequently.

~during the dual ice storms of 2000 we moved from little rock to benton and stayed high. until i got sick one day. and bought a test. and life began. God was patient.

~we were, surprisingly, pregnant with our first baby. pearl stopped smoking that night. i didn’t pick up another joint, cigarette, or drink. we began to wonder how we were gonna shape a life. we started working on our fights - a battle we still wage.

~in one day, at 5 1/2 months pregnant i lost my job, our insurance, over half our income (the dot-com went under), totalled my car on the way to the unemployment office, pearl’s car died on the way to the doctor to make sure the baby was okay. and our cat got killed by a wild animal. at the doctor’s office they said if something was wrong they couldn’t save the baby. the baby was okay and did we want to know the sex? yes. it’s a boy, they said. we drove home in brian’s truck crying, with all that was lost we had what was most important in that borrowed truck. we had each other and the baby who was to be our first was okay. our life began the turn around.

~we moved to pine bluff, had our first baby, joined a church, had our second baby and began our new life.

~i’m learning to be a submissive wife, i’m learning to have the fruit of the spirit in my life, i’m learning to be a good mama.

life ain’t always easy right now, but i’ll take my plumbing problems and sciatica. but i wouldn’t trade my incredible husband, our sweet babies, or our awesome friends. and i wouldn’t even trade the trials. they made me who i am. they give me a great story, because i couldn’t have come out of that and be who i am. only Christ makes me different. only He picked me out of the dark. only He lavished my blessings on me. and my broken story connects me to other broken people. and maybe together we can be whole. are you ready? to be whole, you gotta be broken, and you gotta get real.