As a young girl, I made my share of mistakes. And God knows I’ve earned my share of payback from them. I was always told how pretty I was and you can be this and you can be that. But no one ever showed me what direction lead to this and that. At the age of seventeen, I was pregnant and confused and thought I knew everything. My family was totally falling apart, my mother and father were divorcing, and we had no clue what would happen next. I tried to act as if it didn’t bother me, but in reality, I was crumbling from within. I use to lock myself in the hall bathroom and cry like a newborn baby. I was so scared.
I come from a family that displayed love to each other all the time. So what’s going on now? My mother and father acted as they hated each other—why? Is it because I made a mistake? I’m so sorry. I just wanted to curl into a ball and die. My mother and father put up with each other until my daughter was born. For a while, everything was back to normal I thought. Then all hell broke loose. “I’m leaving,” screamed my mother. “I can’t take this anymore,” she said. That’s the day the sun completely stop shining for me. My mother’s moving out; my father is too. But not together.
So what about me? What about my brother? Where would we go? I had three sisters and three brothers all were going with Momma except my brother and me. Why can’t we go? I was told, “You’re working, you and your brother can get an apartment.” An apartment? We had hardly spent a night out of the house before. Adulthood 101 pop quiz learn fast, keep up, or get left behind. It was a good thing my mother took my daughter with her it would have been a complete disaster if I kept her with me.
Thank God for small miracles. For a while my family treated me somewhat badly, I just wasn’t their cup of tea. I was homeless for a while staying with friends, taking all kind of crap off of people just because I needed a place to stay. I couldn’t get to work because I stayed to far to walk and the bus didn’t go that far.
I was a mess. Now homeless without a job. That’s when I met my first husband “Satan’s brother.” I married this man to actually have some place to live. I was tormented everyday. Some days I prayed to make it to the very next. I was living right in the pits of hell. Fire, brimstone, and smoke—I had it all. One morning, I was awaken to a .38 in my face. He was drunk and talking a hundred miles a minute. I had no clue what this fool was talking about.
I asked God if he helped me to make it out of there I would forever be grateful. I’m here today. At that point in my life, I knew God had plans for me. I was tested, tried, and delivered. I was that rose in the midst of the junkyard. The winds blew; my stem didn’t break. The sun’s hot rays didn’t scorch my peddles and the bees didn’t rob me of all my nature. I remained in the midst of the junk yard until God said it was time
for my bud to bloom. I am here.
