Ok, we are coming up on the best part of the whole story. Every one's eager anticipating of the great meeting has me motivated to try and plow through the last of the story.
So, I guess we stopped at moving in the guy. But wait, first. I just have to say, I love writing this blog and I love sharing my story. Sometimes, though, I feel so exposed. Sometimes it hits me that all my darkest secrets are on the World Wide Web for anyone to read. People that I see everyday and people I have never met know all my secrets. I mean, I love telling my story, sometimes, though, I just think, you are telling people things that any normal person would keep secret locked away in a vault. They say that you are only as sick as your secrets and that the power of a secret is in the fact that it is a secret. So, once they secrets are exposed to the light, it has no power any more. Don't make too much of this little rant. I don't regret sharing. I want to tell the whole world my story b/c it is such an amazing story of God's grace and redemption. I just sometimes have a moment where I think what an odd thing it is the my blackest deepest moments are in print for all the world to read.
I moved in with this guy. It was kind of an awkward situation b/c I was married to this Squid character (he wasn't dead yet); I was pregnant with Crab's baby, and I was living with this other guy. At the time, we were really into inhalants. We would frequently mix them with LSD. There was a lot of LSD floating around that place. I had just gotten back from Cali and the LSD was not very strong. I cannot really remember how long I have been staying there. I don't think it had been very long. We took like 6 hits of LSD (for Cali standard at the time, that wasn't much, normally that is quite a bit). It just so happened this was a point in time when there was really, really strong acid going around. So we took quite a roller coaster ride, all of us. The whole night was pretty insane. I was pretty out of touch. It wasn't the type of out of touch that I can't see what was really going on now, but at the time things were pretty weird. I can say, I am not sure why I took so much LSD when I was doing drugs b/c I have very few good trips. Most of the time, I was miserable. It caused me mind to be so paranoid and weird. Everyone used to think I was so cute when I was tripping b/c I would keep one hand in my mouth with a big smile on my face. I was really actually scared out of my mind most of the time. I usually thought that Satan was after me or that someone was trying to kill me. Now tell me, why would someone want to repeatedly put themselves in the position to be that scared, but I did it hundreds of times over my drug career. I couldn't tell you how many times I did it. So it was a pretty strange night. At one point, I kept hearing this strange noise in the living room; we were in the bedroom hanging out. I thought that my boyfriends room mate was cooking the cat in the microwave (what I really heard was the hippy beads hanging between the living room and dining room every time some one passed through them- of course I did not realize that until we had come down). At another point, I became convinced that my best friend and boyfriend thought I had stolen something from them, so I cleaned out my pockets and told them to take anything that belonged to them (of course they looked at me like I had two heads). Then while laughing I caught sight of one of the boyfriends knives laying beside the bed and was convinced that they were plotting to kill me. That really freaked me out. Of course, in my paranoid state I did not share what I was thinking b/c I didn't want them to know I knew what was going on.
I must share the religious views represented in the house that night to give you a framework of what was about to happen. I was a proclaimed Atheist (my mom had met Jesus a couple years before and I thought she was crazy). My best friend was an agnostic. The boyfriend and his roommate were proclaimed Satanists who like stealing tombstones from the graveyard (they were all over the house). The boyfriend had been raised a Christian in a Charismatic church and turned away. I have a sense that he wasn't shown a very authentic Christianity. Then there was this one guys who claimed to be a Christian.
We were trying to just chill and the Christian (who was tripping too, was our LSD dealer and was huffing carburetor cleaner) kept coming in bringing up God. He is the one who started us on the religious talk. We all ended up in the living room tripping and huffing every kind of huffable chemical you can imagine. At one point me and Star were on the porch huffing Glade and watching the "sun rise" only to be told it was 10 pm so whatever we were looking at was not possibly the sun rise. There was starting fluid we huffed a bit. Then the Freon came out. Now, lest you forget, I am about 5 months pregnant with Ally at this point. Thank God, for His grace and mercy, b/c she is perfectly normal, super smart and a tremendous blessing in my life.
We were all huffing stuff and arguing over religion. I was calling all of them idiots for believing in anything. I said, "You guys are stupid, there is no God, no Satan, no heaven, no hell. You are all going to rot in the ground and feel stupid for believing in all this non sense." Then I took a huge gulp of Freon. Now, this part of the story must be told in two different perspectives. The first perspective is mine. I heard a deep guttural voice come from out of the floor that said, "Go get her boys." Imagine the voice a movie would give a demon or Satan; that is the voice. Immediately, I fell through the floor and fell for a couple minutes. When my feel landed I was in Hell. I will do my best to describe what I saw, but I have trouble putting it into even verbal words. There were flames all around me, but they were sort of transparent. I felt this horrible feeling inside of me that I came to realize after I met Jesus was total separation from God. Then I realized that there were demons all around me pointing and laughing at me. I knew that they were mocking me as if to say, "ha!! we tricked you, we got you to not believe in us or God and now you are here and there is nothing you can do about it." I truly believe that every person that ends up in hell will experience this mockery as the hoards laugh in victory. Then came what I have called "the dooky monsters". I know that you probably LOL ed over that, but when I came out of the hallucination that is the only thing I could come up with to describe them. They looked like sleestaks from the old school Land of the Lost, only they had glowing grids on them like the old Tron game. The walked kind of like sleestaks too. As they got closer to me, they jumped at me and then I was inside of them. It was like I was inside thick gelatin. Then I sort of flashed from scene to scene in hell. I was retarded for a minute, then some other places I don't really remember. The next think I knew I was back in the trailer, one of the guys had a hold of my arms and the door to the trailer was knocked off the hinges.
Now, the perspective of the observers. I took my big hit if Freon, then suddenly I was screaming bloody murder, stomping on the guy that was laying on the ground beside where I was standing while I tried to get something off of my arms. The guys said that they had never heard anyone scream like I screamed before. It was blood curdling as they said. The guys had to grab me to keep me from stomping the other ones face in. And I was still going so crazy I knocked him into the door and knocked it off of its hinges.
As I came too, everyone was staring at me wide eyed like, "what the hell, just happened?" I was like, "wow, what the hell was that?" Then I said, "I don't know what just happened. I don't know where I just was, but I don't think I am an atheist anymore. I don't know what I believe, but I feel like if I ever end up in that place again, I will not be able to leave it. and...I don't want to go back." I was pretty flipped out the rest of the night. To this day, the group of friends that I hung out with at the time says that I had a bad trip and went religious.
So, the next day, I called my mom. I knew she would be able to help me understand what had happened b/c she was into this religious thing.
Now stop for a minute and really think about what you have read in the previous parts so you can really see the miracle here and really see the power of God. Forgive me for becoming an evangelist for a minute. This is the girl who used to kick in peoples wind shields. This is the gutter punk who stole and conned, manipulated and attacked people. This is the drug addict who just wanted to die in a numb overdose. Hopeless, angry, bitter, broken, and done with life. Who do you know, that is a hopeless case? Who have you just given up on? Who is the person that you have spoken over and over to only to have them reject or even laugh in your face? What is the situation that you despair has an end, an answer, a hope? Think about in a minute.
Don't cheat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stop!!!!!!!!!!! Think!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Find it in your mind!!!!
Now, you can read on. That girl who wasn't even looking for God, that angry girl who would have stolen your wedding ring right off of you finger, and spit in your face while she did it, God reached from eternity and grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her, and said "here is what you are choosing for eternity, wouldn't you like to have something better?" There is NO HOPELESS SITUATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God is the God of Hope. He is the God of redemption! He is the only one who can change us. He is hope for the hopeless, healing for the bleeding, salve for the wounded, peace for the tormented, joy for the sorrowful. He loves, forgives, and restores.
Now back to my story. I called mom and I said,"mom, I know you don't approve of me doing drugs while I am pregnant, but something happened last night and I need to talk to you about it." I told her the story and asked her what I should do about it. I said, "I am not sure I believe in God, but I am afraid to take the chance on going back to that place. I don't want to spend eternity there." Her response was the wisdom if our loving Father in Heaven. I believe that He told her exactly what to say. She said, "This is what I would tell you to do. Pray and say, 'God if you are real show yourself to me.' If He is real, He will show you. If He is not, you haven't lost anything and no one ever even has to know that you prayed that prayer." So I started praying that day. I prayed it every night for a couple months. I broke up with the boy and the adoption agency I was talking to about having my baby adopted helped me get an apartment. I was working the night shift at Whataburger.
Then one night when I was about 7 months pregnant, I called me mom and said I want to go to church with you tonight. It was a Friday night (the church she went to had Friday night services). She was a little shocked, but said she would pick me up. I walked into that church that night 7 months pregnant (huge belly), in a tiny little mini dress, Doc Martins, leather jacket, bright red mohawk (standing straight up). They started doing Praise and Worship and as I looked around everyone seemed so happy and they seemed to be really into the God thing. Tears kept streaming out of my eyes. I kept wiping them away and I was so annoyed that they wouldn't stop. (I never cried, ever!!) I think the tears were b/c I could feel the presence of God around me. I have no idea what was preached that night. At the end of the service a man named David Fees stood me up and began to "prophesy" as they called it. He spoke right to my heart. It was like he cut through every layer of denial, hurt and fear I had and got right into my true heart. He said to me, "The Lord wants you to know that He loves you and that He has seen your tears." I still get tears in my eyes and chills every time I say or write that. I began to weep uncontrollably. No one had ever loved me. My mother and father didn't even love me. She does now and she really did when I was a child as well. She just didn't know how to love b/c she was so broken and devastated herself. I had never felt loved by anyone. I had never felt like anyone valued me at all. But then David spoke to me and told me that someone did love me and that someone loved me enough to die on a cross for me. Well, really he died on the cross for all of humanity, but that is a whole theological discussion for another day. David asked if I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart to be my savior and I did pray and I was never the same.
My transformation was immediate. It was like night and day. There was nothing gradual about any part of it. I did a 180 and hit the ground running. I even went to hang out with some of my old friends that night and began to tell them about this Jesus who loved me. I didn't really know anything at all about Him or the Bible or anything, but I knew that He loved me and I loved him. I knew that I prayed and I felt His presence. I had prayed and asked , "if you are real, show yourself to me" and He showed up and He showed himself to me. I knew I would never be the same. It didn't matter who believed me or who mocked me. No one could change my mind Jesus loved me and no one else really mattered to me anymore. I have never done drugs since that night. It was actually a few weeks before that night, but I count my drug sobriety date as that night b/c that is when I knew I never wanted drugs again. Jesus was so much better!!! That was July 17, 1992. At that point, I was intending to give the baby up for adoption and they had no idea about the drugs.
I am going to stop for now and pick up more on that later. But for all of you who have been eagerly awaiting this part of the story, there you go. Thanks for reading. I love to tell this story, it is so good, He is so good.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
In the beginning part 4b
Okay, new house, hopefully new rhythm of writing several times a week. I have received so much positive feedback the last couple weeks about my blog that I am feeling very encouraged.
I decided to write part 4b b/c I feel like I skipped through the California time too fast and missed some details. I wrote about all the big stuff, but I didn't really talk about the day to day things of California squatter years. California was such a strange environment for me. Even though, I wasn't a Christian, I had been raised in the Bible belt and so I had a bible belt set of morals and standards that I wasn't even really aware of. I would imagine many of the people I know who were raised in Texas probably take for granted the things that we think. Amongst our group of squatters, which was a pretty big group, there were a couple of the guys who were pimps to girls who were prostitutes. I remember, even in my state of little or no morals, thinking that it was really strange that everyone treated that like is was normal. I had never really hung out with any prostitutes. In Texas there was just kind of a stigma and taboo about the profession. Now I am not saying what I did, which was trade favors for drugs or just not value my body enough to be dignified, was any better, but the overt way it was promoted just struck me as odd. The girls would go out and do there thing and come back with money; everyone just treated it as normal. I even remember them sending the girls out so we could get money for drugs for us. It was just not something I was used to seeing. Some of the girls also seemed a little developmentally delayed which I also found odd. They were either developmentally delayed or had done so many drugs that they had become delayed. Not sure why I felt to write about that except that the sense of weirdness about the whole things still strikes me as strange.
I was also struck by the vast numbers of homeless teens in Hollywood from all over the place. I met people from all over the US. Alexandra's dad was from Utah, for example. We knew of about 20 squatters in Dallas (Young, punk squatters that is). In Hollywood there were probably close to 500 to 700 spread out all over. They arrived fresh daily.
We found a squat with about 10 others off of Melrose Ave. I am not sure why all these houses were abandoned. Up on the Blvd there were tons of kids staying in abandoned warehouses. I do remember having to sneak in after dark and get back out as soon as we could in the morning. I remember we used the bathrooms in spite of no water. The tub and pot were full of human waste. (Sorry, I know that is gross.) It smelled horrible. We used to steal toilet paper from the restaurants on Melrose. There was this food stand where we would all go get food called Okey Dogs. They had the biggest burritos. I think they were like 2 dollars and would totally fill us up. We would go out and start pan handling to get enough change for a burrito and some cigarettes. Then later in the day we would start pan handling for money to drink. I remember exactly what I would say; I said it over and over so it stayed with me. "Hey, you got any change you can spare? quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies?" When they would ask me why, I would say b/c I want to get high, and believe it or not, that worked for me. People would give me money. Then we would start drinking or tripping or whatever we decided we wanted to do that day. That was before I met the guys with the meth. The meth changed things a lot. I have always been a speed freak. Well, once I started doing drugs. I have spent most of my life feeling like I wanted to sleep. For whatever reason, I ended up with way more drive than energy. In recent years that is much better do to change in food choices, exercise and life changes. But b/c I always felt like sleeping, I did not want to do downers; I wanted speed and a lot of it. I really never gave much thought to doing too much or overdosing. I took all I could get my hands on and as fast as I could get it in. Funny I have always been a person of excess. I guess one might see excess in my running 10 to 12 miles a day, but I choose to call it discipline. Anyway, when it came to drinking or doing drugs, I did it hard and fast. When I was drinking, I could out drink most of the people I knew, including my husband. I didn't wait for it to hit me; I just hammered it down as fast as I could pour it. What used to worry my husband was how much I could put away and still walk and talk normally.
So, on one of the last nights I was in Hollywood is the night that the whole Sunset Strip was tripping on LSD. On the weekends we would all go up to the strip and hang out all night. We weren't in clubs, just on the streets/ side walks hanging out. Sometimes the strangest things seemed to go on. One night we were all sitting and this whole bunch of our punk friends were walking in a line down one side of the street, across and up our side of the street. They were walking in this big square for a really long time. I don't know why, but I can remember thinking it was really strange and not having any idea why they were doing it. I guess that's what we did when we were really high. So, I was panhandling for money to get some LSD. I was using my standard panhandling method. "You got any spare change, quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies?" These guys asked what I was panhandling to get and I told them LSD. (For those who aren't familiar with drugs, LSD is a hallucinogen. Depending on how strong it is, it can take you quite far from reality. You never know what you are going to see.) These guys asked how much I had; I said $4.32 (something pretty close to that-I know you probably are shocked that I can remember the amount. That would by why my husband likes to call me rain man. Because I can remember the strangest details about stuff.) They said give us what you have and put out your hand. I did and they poured a hand full of liquid LSD into my hand. (Liquid is really strong and hits you really fast. It usually only takes a couple drops and I got a LOT!!!) That night these guys had come down to the strip to distribute a lot of LSD. They were following the Grateful Dead on tour. They weren't really looking to make money b/c they were pretty much giving it away. Several people ended up tripping who did not necessarily want to be tripping. I heard that dozens of people were tripping on the strip that night and there were people running up and down the strip naked. It was like something that happens in a movie. I don't remember much of anything from that night at all. There are a couple fuzzy moments, but most of it is a complete black out. I believe I left Hollywood the next day. My best friend, Star, stayed behind. I left in a white stolen jeep Cherokee. It was driven by Pilot and contained me, Crabs (Ally's biological dad), and a girl called Chaos Pony. Yes, we all had really strange street names. Mine was Spider. If you have ever wondered why I have all those stupid spider tattoos even thought I am petrified of spiders, that would be why.
So we took off for Dallas. The clutch went out right outside of California. Of course no one had the money to get it fixed. This is where I learned to power shift. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is how you shift a car that is a standard without a clutch. Yes, you can drive a standard without a clutch. It is not good for it and probably not very safe, but we got all the way back to Dallas that way. We would stop and panhandle for money for gas; we may have done a couple of gas runs too. You start out in 2nd gear and chug a lug to get the car going then you shift with the rpms. The hardest part is getting it going. I remember that Nirvana had just gotten really big at the time. We listened to Smells like Teen Spirit all the way back to Dallas. It was on all the radio stations, so we heard it a lot as we went from station to station across the US. At some point a long the road I called my mom to tell her I was on the way back. She let us come and stay. We didn't tell her we were driving a stolen car. It is so funny that we managed to get all the way from California to Dallas, Texas in a stolen car that we were having to power shift to drive. I think it was pretty close to Christmas, too. I am not sure, but there seems to be some kind of remembrance in me that says it was. I am pretty sure we were in Cali for Thanksgiving. Mom, let us all stay with her a couple days in her apt. We smelled super ripe. She tells me that she had to throw the blankets we used away when like 3 washings did not get our stench out. I am not exaggerating. We were nasty. I personally had 1 set of clothes I wore. Every once in a while I would go into a gas station and wash out my underwear then wear them around wet. Man, I cannot even imagine that now. I don't ever go a day without a shower.
We ended up in Deep Ellum drinking and eventually left Dallas. Crabs got put in jail for fighting while he was drunk. When he got out, we went to Austin for some reason. On the way back from Austin we did a dye and dash (we went into a Sally's and ran out with a bunch of hair color. Man, we were idiots.) Then about Waco we did a dine and dash. Right outside of Hillsboro we got stopped by a state trooper. He actually took us in for having an open container. It was a bottle of vodka with literally 1 gulp in it, but it was enough. They arrested the 4 of us and impounded the car. The next day 3 of us got out, but the girl who owned to car stayed in for warrants, I think. We were stuck in Hillsboro, though. We all had mohawks and were wearing leather jackets, combats boots, etc. The folks in Hillsboro did not like us at all. There was one place that could take wire transfers in the town. We were trying to get someone to wire us money to get the car out of impound. The police got us kicked out of the only place where we could have money wired to us. They kept telling us to get out of town, though. I am not sure what they wanted us to do. I remember being really scared that once it got dark they were going to make us disappear. We finally convinced someone to drive down and get us; we left the other girl and her car. We just wanted to get out before we woke up buried alive or something. We got back to Dallas. We went to party at some really big ritzy house, stole a bunch of stuff and took off for Minneapolis. We had convinced these two girls to drive us. We also convinced them to do all of our dirty work b/c they looked normal and we didn't. They used to credit cards we had stolen to gas up and buy all kinds of stuff. We had them pawn a ring for us too. That happened later in Columbia, Missouri. We all took off in a Sunbird (tiny with a hatch back). I am pretty sure there were like7 of us in it. I was laying on top of the three people sitting in the back seat. To make the trip go by fast I took 2 xanax (which I had stolen) drank a bottle of nyquil and drank a couple beers. I am lucky I woke back up. We ended up stopping in Columbia for a few days; I am not sure why. We met some people some how and stayed at their house on the floor. Crabs and I had strep throat really bad. We were so so sick, running fever and all. They ended up leaving us in Columbia b/c we all knew we were probably going to be squatting in Minneapolis and were afraid Crabs and I would end up dead b/c we were so sick. Eventually Crabs and I took off hitch hiking. We ended up stuck on the side a a highway. No one would pick us up. The midwest is a really bad place to hitch hike. They don't like to pick people up. We even had hats on. I remember we kept going back to this truck stop and couldn't get any help. My toes were frozen to my wool socks in my boots. It was so miserable. This is where my absolute hatred for cold was really solidified. Finally someone picked us up and drove us into Kansas City, Kansas. We went to a shelter in Kansas who helped us get to Travelers aid. All they did was put us on a bus that took us into Kansas City, Missouri. At the bus station we called a shelter. They picked us up and took us to the Hospital where we got treatment for our horrible strep. Then they took us to the shelters. We had to be in separate shelters which we didn't like at all. We left on foot after like 1 day. We asked around and found the place where all the punks hung out. We met some folks and found a place to stay. I think we were in Kansas city for a couple months. It was here I realized I was pregnant. I got tired of Crabs. He was a jerk for the most part. I called a friend from Dallas and he drove up and rescued me. He actually lived in Norman, Ok so I stayed with him for a bit. Finally, I ended up back in downtown Dallas. I hooked up with one of my old friends ?? (I decided to remove his name, due to possible incrimination of him- that is not my place to expose) and moved in with him and his room mate.
Now we are coming up to the part where you get to hear how I met Jesus, but alas, I must go pick up Chloe so this part of the story will wait for another day.
I decided to write part 4b b/c I feel like I skipped through the California time too fast and missed some details. I wrote about all the big stuff, but I didn't really talk about the day to day things of California squatter years. California was such a strange environment for me. Even though, I wasn't a Christian, I had been raised in the Bible belt and so I had a bible belt set of morals and standards that I wasn't even really aware of. I would imagine many of the people I know who were raised in Texas probably take for granted the things that we think. Amongst our group of squatters, which was a pretty big group, there were a couple of the guys who were pimps to girls who were prostitutes. I remember, even in my state of little or no morals, thinking that it was really strange that everyone treated that like is was normal. I had never really hung out with any prostitutes. In Texas there was just kind of a stigma and taboo about the profession. Now I am not saying what I did, which was trade favors for drugs or just not value my body enough to be dignified, was any better, but the overt way it was promoted just struck me as odd. The girls would go out and do there thing and come back with money; everyone just treated it as normal. I even remember them sending the girls out so we could get money for drugs for us. It was just not something I was used to seeing. Some of the girls also seemed a little developmentally delayed which I also found odd. They were either developmentally delayed or had done so many drugs that they had become delayed. Not sure why I felt to write about that except that the sense of weirdness about the whole things still strikes me as strange.
I was also struck by the vast numbers of homeless teens in Hollywood from all over the place. I met people from all over the US. Alexandra's dad was from Utah, for example. We knew of about 20 squatters in Dallas (Young, punk squatters that is). In Hollywood there were probably close to 500 to 700 spread out all over. They arrived fresh daily.
We found a squat with about 10 others off of Melrose Ave. I am not sure why all these houses were abandoned. Up on the Blvd there were tons of kids staying in abandoned warehouses. I do remember having to sneak in after dark and get back out as soon as we could in the morning. I remember we used the bathrooms in spite of no water. The tub and pot were full of human waste. (Sorry, I know that is gross.) It smelled horrible. We used to steal toilet paper from the restaurants on Melrose. There was this food stand where we would all go get food called Okey Dogs. They had the biggest burritos. I think they were like 2 dollars and would totally fill us up. We would go out and start pan handling to get enough change for a burrito and some cigarettes. Then later in the day we would start pan handling for money to drink. I remember exactly what I would say; I said it over and over so it stayed with me. "Hey, you got any change you can spare? quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies?" When they would ask me why, I would say b/c I want to get high, and believe it or not, that worked for me. People would give me money. Then we would start drinking or tripping or whatever we decided we wanted to do that day. That was before I met the guys with the meth. The meth changed things a lot. I have always been a speed freak. Well, once I started doing drugs. I have spent most of my life feeling like I wanted to sleep. For whatever reason, I ended up with way more drive than energy. In recent years that is much better do to change in food choices, exercise and life changes. But b/c I always felt like sleeping, I did not want to do downers; I wanted speed and a lot of it. I really never gave much thought to doing too much or overdosing. I took all I could get my hands on and as fast as I could get it in. Funny I have always been a person of excess. I guess one might see excess in my running 10 to 12 miles a day, but I choose to call it discipline. Anyway, when it came to drinking or doing drugs, I did it hard and fast. When I was drinking, I could out drink most of the people I knew, including my husband. I didn't wait for it to hit me; I just hammered it down as fast as I could pour it. What used to worry my husband was how much I could put away and still walk and talk normally.
So, on one of the last nights I was in Hollywood is the night that the whole Sunset Strip was tripping on LSD. On the weekends we would all go up to the strip and hang out all night. We weren't in clubs, just on the streets/ side walks hanging out. Sometimes the strangest things seemed to go on. One night we were all sitting and this whole bunch of our punk friends were walking in a line down one side of the street, across and up our side of the street. They were walking in this big square for a really long time. I don't know why, but I can remember thinking it was really strange and not having any idea why they were doing it. I guess that's what we did when we were really high. So, I was panhandling for money to get some LSD. I was using my standard panhandling method. "You got any spare change, quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies?" These guys asked what I was panhandling to get and I told them LSD. (For those who aren't familiar with drugs, LSD is a hallucinogen. Depending on how strong it is, it can take you quite far from reality. You never know what you are going to see.) These guys asked how much I had; I said $4.32 (something pretty close to that-I know you probably are shocked that I can remember the amount. That would by why my husband likes to call me rain man. Because I can remember the strangest details about stuff.) They said give us what you have and put out your hand. I did and they poured a hand full of liquid LSD into my hand. (Liquid is really strong and hits you really fast. It usually only takes a couple drops and I got a LOT!!!) That night these guys had come down to the strip to distribute a lot of LSD. They were following the Grateful Dead on tour. They weren't really looking to make money b/c they were pretty much giving it away. Several people ended up tripping who did not necessarily want to be tripping. I heard that dozens of people were tripping on the strip that night and there were people running up and down the strip naked. It was like something that happens in a movie. I don't remember much of anything from that night at all. There are a couple fuzzy moments, but most of it is a complete black out. I believe I left Hollywood the next day. My best friend, Star, stayed behind. I left in a white stolen jeep Cherokee. It was driven by Pilot and contained me, Crabs (Ally's biological dad), and a girl called Chaos Pony. Yes, we all had really strange street names. Mine was Spider. If you have ever wondered why I have all those stupid spider tattoos even thought I am petrified of spiders, that would be why.
So we took off for Dallas. The clutch went out right outside of California. Of course no one had the money to get it fixed. This is where I learned to power shift. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is how you shift a car that is a standard without a clutch. Yes, you can drive a standard without a clutch. It is not good for it and probably not very safe, but we got all the way back to Dallas that way. We would stop and panhandle for money for gas; we may have done a couple of gas runs too. You start out in 2nd gear and chug a lug to get the car going then you shift with the rpms. The hardest part is getting it going. I remember that Nirvana had just gotten really big at the time. We listened to Smells like Teen Spirit all the way back to Dallas. It was on all the radio stations, so we heard it a lot as we went from station to station across the US. At some point a long the road I called my mom to tell her I was on the way back. She let us come and stay. We didn't tell her we were driving a stolen car. It is so funny that we managed to get all the way from California to Dallas, Texas in a stolen car that we were having to power shift to drive. I think it was pretty close to Christmas, too. I am not sure, but there seems to be some kind of remembrance in me that says it was. I am pretty sure we were in Cali for Thanksgiving. Mom, let us all stay with her a couple days in her apt. We smelled super ripe. She tells me that she had to throw the blankets we used away when like 3 washings did not get our stench out. I am not exaggerating. We were nasty. I personally had 1 set of clothes I wore. Every once in a while I would go into a gas station and wash out my underwear then wear them around wet. Man, I cannot even imagine that now. I don't ever go a day without a shower.
We ended up in Deep Ellum drinking and eventually left Dallas. Crabs got put in jail for fighting while he was drunk. When he got out, we went to Austin for some reason. On the way back from Austin we did a dye and dash (we went into a Sally's and ran out with a bunch of hair color. Man, we were idiots.) Then about Waco we did a dine and dash. Right outside of Hillsboro we got stopped by a state trooper. He actually took us in for having an open container. It was a bottle of vodka with literally 1 gulp in it, but it was enough. They arrested the 4 of us and impounded the car. The next day 3 of us got out, but the girl who owned to car stayed in for warrants, I think. We were stuck in Hillsboro, though. We all had mohawks and were wearing leather jackets, combats boots, etc. The folks in Hillsboro did not like us at all. There was one place that could take wire transfers in the town. We were trying to get someone to wire us money to get the car out of impound. The police got us kicked out of the only place where we could have money wired to us. They kept telling us to get out of town, though. I am not sure what they wanted us to do. I remember being really scared that once it got dark they were going to make us disappear. We finally convinced someone to drive down and get us; we left the other girl and her car. We just wanted to get out before we woke up buried alive or something. We got back to Dallas. We went to party at some really big ritzy house, stole a bunch of stuff and took off for Minneapolis. We had convinced these two girls to drive us. We also convinced them to do all of our dirty work b/c they looked normal and we didn't. They used to credit cards we had stolen to gas up and buy all kinds of stuff. We had them pawn a ring for us too. That happened later in Columbia, Missouri. We all took off in a Sunbird (tiny with a hatch back). I am pretty sure there were like7 of us in it. I was laying on top of the three people sitting in the back seat. To make the trip go by fast I took 2 xanax (which I had stolen) drank a bottle of nyquil and drank a couple beers. I am lucky I woke back up. We ended up stopping in Columbia for a few days; I am not sure why. We met some people some how and stayed at their house on the floor. Crabs and I had strep throat really bad. We were so so sick, running fever and all. They ended up leaving us in Columbia b/c we all knew we were probably going to be squatting in Minneapolis and were afraid Crabs and I would end up dead b/c we were so sick. Eventually Crabs and I took off hitch hiking. We ended up stuck on the side a a highway. No one would pick us up. The midwest is a really bad place to hitch hike. They don't like to pick people up. We even had hats on. I remember we kept going back to this truck stop and couldn't get any help. My toes were frozen to my wool socks in my boots. It was so miserable. This is where my absolute hatred for cold was really solidified. Finally someone picked us up and drove us into Kansas City, Kansas. We went to a shelter in Kansas who helped us get to Travelers aid. All they did was put us on a bus that took us into Kansas City, Missouri. At the bus station we called a shelter. They picked us up and took us to the Hospital where we got treatment for our horrible strep. Then they took us to the shelters. We had to be in separate shelters which we didn't like at all. We left on foot after like 1 day. We asked around and found the place where all the punks hung out. We met some folks and found a place to stay. I think we were in Kansas city for a couple months. It was here I realized I was pregnant. I got tired of Crabs. He was a jerk for the most part. I called a friend from Dallas and he drove up and rescued me. He actually lived in Norman, Ok so I stayed with him for a bit. Finally, I ended up back in downtown Dallas. I hooked up with one of my old friends ?? (I decided to remove his name, due to possible incrimination of him- that is not my place to expose) and moved in with him and his room mate.
Now we are coming up to the part where you get to hear how I met Jesus, but alas, I must go pick up Chloe so this part of the story will wait for another day.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Really silly short post
It has been so long since I posted. I really hope that as we get settled here, in our new home, I can get into a rhythm of posting several times a week. I still have many parts of my story to tell and lots of great lessons to share.
So as we downsized, moving from 2022 sq ft to 1107 sq ft, we meticulously went through boxes. Some of these boxes have been packed for years. Some of them have been moved to at least 2 different houses still in boxes never gone through. We decided to crack these boxes and see what they contained and if it was even important to keep a lot of them.
Seriously!!!!
Some of it was ridiculous.
One of the most asinine things was several boxes/bags containing hangers. Funny thing is I remember when I became obsessed with hangers. Yes, I did just say obsessed with hangers. It is so funny the things we become obsessed with hording. Anyone who has any thing that they hoard can look closely and find the root if they want to. I have two things that I have, in the past, had a tendency to hoard. One of them, I truthfully still struggle a little with hoarding. Hangers and plastic ware are the things that I used to buy compulsively. For some reason growing up we never had enough of either. Even when Ally was younger, before I was married, I lived with mom and we didn't seem to have enough of either. We were extremely broke so we didn't really buy those two things. Now, I have to interject here that we spent a lot on fast food.
I don't really spend much of anything on fast food now (maybe once every 3 months we might go out to eat- there are really two reasons for that 1) my system is so sensitive that there are very few restaurants my body will tolerate; Chewy's veggie bean burrito is always a winner. 2) I am a little tight fisted with money; when I compare the cost of going out to eat next to the food budget- one meal equals 10 to 20% of two weeks worth of groceries, that rubs me the wrong way.)
What I was saying was that we were "broke", but we would spend money on eating fast food. Interesting. My theory on finances is (sorry if this steps on any toes), we can afford what is important to us (what we want to afford).
I got a big set of plastic ware for a wedding gift and loved it. I was so thrilled that I bought more and bought more and bought more. I don't really buy it any more, but I have trouble letting go of what I have, which is way, way too much. I have so many plastic dishes that they fill and whole cabinet and I cannot find what I want b/c the cabinet is so full. Maybe I need to get rid of some, huh?
Now, back to the hangers. I had boxes of hangers. These were not hanging in a closet where they could even be used. They were in a box in the garage. Just in case I might need them, I guess. Do you think I was, at this point, even aware they were there or could have found them if I had needed them? NO!! Ridiculous!!!
Pretty funny!! They say Lucille Ball hoarded pencils. They kept disappearing; they found a whole closet full of pencils in her office. She owned them all, but she still felt the need to hoard them away, just in case. She had been so poor growing up that she couldn't have pencils. She had more money than she needed, but was afraid she wouldn't have a pencil.
So when we are wounded and carry it around, it effects us. Many times we are not even aware of the baggage we are carrying around with us. We may do the strangest things and have no idea why. I would like to challenge my readers. What are you carrying around that you are not even aware of. What behaviors are you exhibiting that you need to let God reveal the roots of to you. What He reveals, He heals. Let Him have it. What do you hoard or hang onto so tightly that it turns your fingers white? Why? Let Him show you; let Him heal you. Liberty is so amazing. Freedom is so much better than the pain. It is worth the price. It is worth the discomfort. It's like having a baby. It does not feel good, but when you have the child in your hands, your realize it is so worth it. Give it to Him. We are only as strong as the weakest point of our armor. Jesus walks with us and protects us, but what we will not give to Him, He cannot heal and therefore has to let the weakness remain. The enemy points His arrows precisely at those places in our armor. He knows us well and tailors the attacks specifically to hit those places where we are weak. We don't have to heal ourselves. We just have to be willing to let Jesus have them. Once we give it over to Him, He transforms and heals. Remember His yoke is easy and His burden is light. If we are trying to carry it or fix it, it is really hard. He can fix is with one touch of His garment. It isn't hard when we let Him do the work. All He asks from us is to give it to Him. As one who has seen Him take some pretty devastated parts of me and totally transform them, I say it is worth it. He is so able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ask or think. There were wounds in my heart that I was sure He could never fix. There are parts of me that I have despaired over for all of my life and especially the last 17 years since meeting Him, that He has healed in the last 3 months. It is the most amazing feeling to be free from something that has been with you for as long as you can remember. I cannot even begin to describe. Sometimes things are with you for so long that they are woven into the fiber of your being and seem to be a part of you. Only the Lord can remove those things that grow in like that. If you have ever seen a tree that has barbed wire growing through it b/c it was there and it became a part of the tree, it is interesting to look at. You cannot remove it without destroying the tree. Some of us are like that, those things have grown into us and cannot be removed without destroying us, with one exception. Jesus can remove them without destroying and for that I am so grateful. To be free from something you despaired ever being free from is more beautiful than words can describe. Even saying thank you seems like such a small offering compared to the grace of healing.
So as we downsized, moving from 2022 sq ft to 1107 sq ft, we meticulously went through boxes. Some of these boxes have been packed for years. Some of them have been moved to at least 2 different houses still in boxes never gone through. We decided to crack these boxes and see what they contained and if it was even important to keep a lot of them.
Seriously!!!!
Some of it was ridiculous.
One of the most asinine things was several boxes/bags containing hangers. Funny thing is I remember when I became obsessed with hangers. Yes, I did just say obsessed with hangers. It is so funny the things we become obsessed with hording. Anyone who has any thing that they hoard can look closely and find the root if they want to. I have two things that I have, in the past, had a tendency to hoard. One of them, I truthfully still struggle a little with hoarding. Hangers and plastic ware are the things that I used to buy compulsively. For some reason growing up we never had enough of either. Even when Ally was younger, before I was married, I lived with mom and we didn't seem to have enough of either. We were extremely broke so we didn't really buy those two things. Now, I have to interject here that we spent a lot on fast food.
I don't really spend much of anything on fast food now (maybe once every 3 months we might go out to eat- there are really two reasons for that 1) my system is so sensitive that there are very few restaurants my body will tolerate; Chewy's veggie bean burrito is always a winner. 2) I am a little tight fisted with money; when I compare the cost of going out to eat next to the food budget- one meal equals 10 to 20% of two weeks worth of groceries, that rubs me the wrong way.)
What I was saying was that we were "broke", but we would spend money on eating fast food. Interesting. My theory on finances is (sorry if this steps on any toes), we can afford what is important to us (what we want to afford).
I got a big set of plastic ware for a wedding gift and loved it. I was so thrilled that I bought more and bought more and bought more. I don't really buy it any more, but I have trouble letting go of what I have, which is way, way too much. I have so many plastic dishes that they fill and whole cabinet and I cannot find what I want b/c the cabinet is so full. Maybe I need to get rid of some, huh?
Now, back to the hangers. I had boxes of hangers. These were not hanging in a closet where they could even be used. They were in a box in the garage. Just in case I might need them, I guess. Do you think I was, at this point, even aware they were there or could have found them if I had needed them? NO!! Ridiculous!!!
Pretty funny!! They say Lucille Ball hoarded pencils. They kept disappearing; they found a whole closet full of pencils in her office. She owned them all, but she still felt the need to hoard them away, just in case. She had been so poor growing up that she couldn't have pencils. She had more money than she needed, but was afraid she wouldn't have a pencil.
So when we are wounded and carry it around, it effects us. Many times we are not even aware of the baggage we are carrying around with us. We may do the strangest things and have no idea why. I would like to challenge my readers. What are you carrying around that you are not even aware of. What behaviors are you exhibiting that you need to let God reveal the roots of to you. What He reveals, He heals. Let Him have it. What do you hoard or hang onto so tightly that it turns your fingers white? Why? Let Him show you; let Him heal you. Liberty is so amazing. Freedom is so much better than the pain. It is worth the price. It is worth the discomfort. It's like having a baby. It does not feel good, but when you have the child in your hands, your realize it is so worth it. Give it to Him. We are only as strong as the weakest point of our armor. Jesus walks with us and protects us, but what we will not give to Him, He cannot heal and therefore has to let the weakness remain. The enemy points His arrows precisely at those places in our armor. He knows us well and tailors the attacks specifically to hit those places where we are weak. We don't have to heal ourselves. We just have to be willing to let Jesus have them. Once we give it over to Him, He transforms and heals. Remember His yoke is easy and His burden is light. If we are trying to carry it or fix it, it is really hard. He can fix is with one touch of His garment. It isn't hard when we let Him do the work. All He asks from us is to give it to Him. As one who has seen Him take some pretty devastated parts of me and totally transform them, I say it is worth it. He is so able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ask or think. There were wounds in my heart that I was sure He could never fix. There are parts of me that I have despaired over for all of my life and especially the last 17 years since meeting Him, that He has healed in the last 3 months. It is the most amazing feeling to be free from something that has been with you for as long as you can remember. I cannot even begin to describe. Sometimes things are with you for so long that they are woven into the fiber of your being and seem to be a part of you. Only the Lord can remove those things that grow in like that. If you have ever seen a tree that has barbed wire growing through it b/c it was there and it became a part of the tree, it is interesting to look at. You cannot remove it without destroying the tree. Some of us are like that, those things have grown into us and cannot be removed without destroying us, with one exception. Jesus can remove them without destroying and for that I am so grateful. To be free from something you despaired ever being free from is more beautiful than words can describe. Even saying thank you seems like such a small offering compared to the grace of healing.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
In the beginning part 4
Okay. I am posting less and less often. I am moving this week and have been packing on top of everything else I have to do, so I hope that getting moved will help me get back to posting more often.
A friend asked me the other day about the term "gutter punk" stating she was afraid to find out what that meant. Gutter punks are punk rockers that are homeless. They don't shower, brush teeth, change clothes, etc. Those behaviors are not really uncommon to the homeless; the difference is that "gutter punks" are really quite proud of being dirty. He who stinketh the most wins.
As I said in the last post, I got married to a guy named Squid. We broke up and I went to a few different places to stay after that. I ended up moving in with my friend Star (who would later become my best friend of 20 years). She had an apartment that her mother paid for while she was finishing up high school. We didn't stay there too long before we decided we would skip town. Our friend Mark had moved to California to live with his mother, so we thought we would hitch out to see him. Star and I packed up a couple bags worth of stuff; we had maybe $50. I can't remember for sure. Our friend drove us out to 35 and left us with our thumbs out. One guy picked us up and drove us back to the bus station where he said he was going to buy us tickets so we wouldn't have to hitch to California. He left us there which really made us mad. I guess he thought that if he left us back in Dallas we wouldn't hitch. We got another friend to drive us out to Mesquite to the truck stop so we could find a trucker going to Cali.
Not to confuse my readers, but I just remembered something. As a teenager at 16 or so, I was staying down town on the streets and one night I slept on the JFK monument. It doesn't fit into the time line here, but I thought it would be interesting to add it since I forgot it. The JFK monument is a flat marble square about 3 feet off the ground it is about 5 ft by 5 ft. It is really, really uncomfortable to sleep on. It is really hard. The reason I slept on it, though, is that it is surrounded on all four sides by these tall stone pieces like walls. You get in trouble for just sleeping on the side walk or in a park, but they can't see you in the monument. Funny, huh?
We found a trucker who was going to Cali; he said he would take us all the way there. He was kind of scary. He looked like Abraham Lincoln meets Charles Manson. When he would stop to sleep I had to lay beside him b/c he wouldn't keep his hands off of Star. He would literally try to crawl over me to get at her. It was great fun, but we tried to just endure so we could get to Cali. We did finally make it out there. It took a few days, but we were so glad to make it. We called Mark and found out that the trucker had left us like right down the street from his apartment. We stayed with him for a couple days, then the three of us got on a bus and headed for Hollywood Blvd. I forgot to mention that he lived in Los Angeles. He helped us find some folks to hang with and then headed back home. The time on the Blvd is kind of blurry. We drank a lot. It is a really weird atmosphere and culture. It was very different from Texas. We ended up hanging with some people who were squatting on Melrose avenue. Like I said, very blurry. I did a lot of LSD there. We could not trust anyone. Everyone tried to scam everyone else. We all slept in our Doc Martins and used our leather jackets as pillows so no one could steal them from us. Eventually I worked my way into hanging out with some people with a lot of Meth. I was doing lots of Meth and LSD. I actually walked away and left Star stranded b/c I wanted to do more speed and the people with the speed did not want her to come. I abandoned my best friend for speed. After being awake on speed for like 120 hours straight and I started to lose it. It had been a few days since leaving Star stranded and I didn't really have anyone I could trust.
I should interject here that I am naturally a very paranoid person. Okay, maybe I should not say naturally, but I tend toward paranoia. Even to this very day I tend toward paranoia. The difference now is that I am able to talk myself down out of paranoia now. I can look logically at the situation and tell myself that what I am thinking is tainted by paranoia and center myself. I do firmly believe in a lot of conspiracy. My husband loves to say that it is just b/c I am crazy.
Take that tendency toward paranoia and add the other factors in (1. not knowing the Lord yet and not being healed at all, 2. a lot of drugs going into my body and mixing of drugs, and 3. no sleep for over 100 hours) and you have a really big mess. The mess was big enough that I cannot tell you today what really happened. I have had a lot of hallucinations in my days, but usually once I came down I could see what really was going on during my drug induced hallucinations. The events that went on this day have no base in reality for me to say what happened.
First, as I sat in an apartment, I kept seeing this shadow on the wall. It looked like a man holding a butcher knife. I would get up and walk over to where it was and look around and look in the bathroom and no one would be there. Then I would go sit back down. No one could figure out what was wrong with me. I was too paranoid to tell them what I was seeing. I started to think the man must be crawling up into the ceiling when I would go look for him. One of the guys was moving back to Dallas so we took a several boxes of his stuff to the post office so he could mail them back. For some reason, they kept all leaving me in the line at the post office with the box. I think they were outside smoking cigarettes, but it really kept freaking me out. I really and truly thought that they were plotting to blow up the post office and let me be blamed for it. I thought for sure that the box must have explosives in it. I kept walking off and leaving the box in the line by itself b/c i didn't want to be alone with it. Then I thought I saw one of them drop a box in the mails slot and knew that it had to be a bomb. I don't know what was really going on, but I was convinced that the bomb was going to go off and I would be blamed for it. We finally got done at the post office and went back to the guys apartment where the girl I had been hanging out with was. She had stayed behind b/c she was starting to crash and wanted to sleep. As we approached the door to the apartment I had a flash in my head and I just knew that my friend was going to be dead inside. Someone had murdered her and I was going to take the fall, or so I thought. I could see how the blood would look all over the walls. I was thinking that the man with the butcher knife was going to kill her and then crawl into the ceiling and somehow I would get blamed. We opened the door and she was fine. There was no blood and no dead person. At this point I was really starting to lose my grip on reality. Me and the girl left the guys and went back down to the blvd. We had some meth left and I had a big knife that I kept in my boot. Somehow I got the idea that one of the people around was going to narc on me so I started plotting how to get rid of the stuff. I ended up dumping my knife in a trash can. Then I dropped the baggy with the last of the meth right behind a cop. I thought that if I dropped it behind him I would be safer. We wandered around more; we ran into a friend of mine who, I would have sworn dropped something into my boot. I just knew that he was trying to frame me for stealing something. I must have taken my boot off a dozen times looking for whatever I thought he dropped into my boot. I never found anything. At this point I was really losing ground. Just when I thought I might really freak out, we ran into my friend Mark (the one I knew from Dallas). I begged him and his girl to let me hang with them. I needed to be with someone I had known before and could trust. I also asked him to help me find Star. She was the only one I knew I could trust and could count on. I had left her stranded, though, so I wasn't sure if she would have me back again. I proceeded to tell Mark about all the weird stuff that had taken place that day. I just wanted to come down and go to sleep so I could find reality again. We were driving around with one of the other punks, I think in a stolen car. I kept seeing shadow people come out of the pavement and mail boxes. It was not a fun night. We hung out and that night they helped me find my way back to the squat on Melrose. I met up with Star; she was still pretty mad, but she let me come into squat to stay and threatened to kick my ass if I didn't got to sleep so I would stop being crazy. She convinced one of the guys who was driving around in a stolen car to drive me back to Dallas.
Before we left for Dallas, there was a really crazy night that everyone on Sunset strip ended up tripping on LSD. I will pick up there next time. It is late and I am sleepy.
A friend asked me the other day about the term "gutter punk" stating she was afraid to find out what that meant. Gutter punks are punk rockers that are homeless. They don't shower, brush teeth, change clothes, etc. Those behaviors are not really uncommon to the homeless; the difference is that "gutter punks" are really quite proud of being dirty. He who stinketh the most wins.
As I said in the last post, I got married to a guy named Squid. We broke up and I went to a few different places to stay after that. I ended up moving in with my friend Star (who would later become my best friend of 20 years). She had an apartment that her mother paid for while she was finishing up high school. We didn't stay there too long before we decided we would skip town. Our friend Mark had moved to California to live with his mother, so we thought we would hitch out to see him. Star and I packed up a couple bags worth of stuff; we had maybe $50. I can't remember for sure. Our friend drove us out to 35 and left us with our thumbs out. One guy picked us up and drove us back to the bus station where he said he was going to buy us tickets so we wouldn't have to hitch to California. He left us there which really made us mad. I guess he thought that if he left us back in Dallas we wouldn't hitch. We got another friend to drive us out to Mesquite to the truck stop so we could find a trucker going to Cali.
Not to confuse my readers, but I just remembered something. As a teenager at 16 or so, I was staying down town on the streets and one night I slept on the JFK monument. It doesn't fit into the time line here, but I thought it would be interesting to add it since I forgot it. The JFK monument is a flat marble square about 3 feet off the ground it is about 5 ft by 5 ft. It is really, really uncomfortable to sleep on. It is really hard. The reason I slept on it, though, is that it is surrounded on all four sides by these tall stone pieces like walls. You get in trouble for just sleeping on the side walk or in a park, but they can't see you in the monument. Funny, huh?
We found a trucker who was going to Cali; he said he would take us all the way there. He was kind of scary. He looked like Abraham Lincoln meets Charles Manson. When he would stop to sleep I had to lay beside him b/c he wouldn't keep his hands off of Star. He would literally try to crawl over me to get at her. It was great fun, but we tried to just endure so we could get to Cali. We did finally make it out there. It took a few days, but we were so glad to make it. We called Mark and found out that the trucker had left us like right down the street from his apartment. We stayed with him for a couple days, then the three of us got on a bus and headed for Hollywood Blvd. I forgot to mention that he lived in Los Angeles. He helped us find some folks to hang with and then headed back home. The time on the Blvd is kind of blurry. We drank a lot. It is a really weird atmosphere and culture. It was very different from Texas. We ended up hanging with some people who were squatting on Melrose avenue. Like I said, very blurry. I did a lot of LSD there. We could not trust anyone. Everyone tried to scam everyone else. We all slept in our Doc Martins and used our leather jackets as pillows so no one could steal them from us. Eventually I worked my way into hanging out with some people with a lot of Meth. I was doing lots of Meth and LSD. I actually walked away and left Star stranded b/c I wanted to do more speed and the people with the speed did not want her to come. I abandoned my best friend for speed. After being awake on speed for like 120 hours straight and I started to lose it. It had been a few days since leaving Star stranded and I didn't really have anyone I could trust.
I should interject here that I am naturally a very paranoid person. Okay, maybe I should not say naturally, but I tend toward paranoia. Even to this very day I tend toward paranoia. The difference now is that I am able to talk myself down out of paranoia now. I can look logically at the situation and tell myself that what I am thinking is tainted by paranoia and center myself. I do firmly believe in a lot of conspiracy. My husband loves to say that it is just b/c I am crazy.
Take that tendency toward paranoia and add the other factors in (1. not knowing the Lord yet and not being healed at all, 2. a lot of drugs going into my body and mixing of drugs, and 3. no sleep for over 100 hours) and you have a really big mess. The mess was big enough that I cannot tell you today what really happened. I have had a lot of hallucinations in my days, but usually once I came down I could see what really was going on during my drug induced hallucinations. The events that went on this day have no base in reality for me to say what happened.
First, as I sat in an apartment, I kept seeing this shadow on the wall. It looked like a man holding a butcher knife. I would get up and walk over to where it was and look around and look in the bathroom and no one would be there. Then I would go sit back down. No one could figure out what was wrong with me. I was too paranoid to tell them what I was seeing. I started to think the man must be crawling up into the ceiling when I would go look for him. One of the guys was moving back to Dallas so we took a several boxes of his stuff to the post office so he could mail them back. For some reason, they kept all leaving me in the line at the post office with the box. I think they were outside smoking cigarettes, but it really kept freaking me out. I really and truly thought that they were plotting to blow up the post office and let me be blamed for it. I thought for sure that the box must have explosives in it. I kept walking off and leaving the box in the line by itself b/c i didn't want to be alone with it. Then I thought I saw one of them drop a box in the mails slot and knew that it had to be a bomb. I don't know what was really going on, but I was convinced that the bomb was going to go off and I would be blamed for it. We finally got done at the post office and went back to the guys apartment where the girl I had been hanging out with was. She had stayed behind b/c she was starting to crash and wanted to sleep. As we approached the door to the apartment I had a flash in my head and I just knew that my friend was going to be dead inside. Someone had murdered her and I was going to take the fall, or so I thought. I could see how the blood would look all over the walls. I was thinking that the man with the butcher knife was going to kill her and then crawl into the ceiling and somehow I would get blamed. We opened the door and she was fine. There was no blood and no dead person. At this point I was really starting to lose my grip on reality. Me and the girl left the guys and went back down to the blvd. We had some meth left and I had a big knife that I kept in my boot. Somehow I got the idea that one of the people around was going to narc on me so I started plotting how to get rid of the stuff. I ended up dumping my knife in a trash can. Then I dropped the baggy with the last of the meth right behind a cop. I thought that if I dropped it behind him I would be safer. We wandered around more; we ran into a friend of mine who, I would have sworn dropped something into my boot. I just knew that he was trying to frame me for stealing something. I must have taken my boot off a dozen times looking for whatever I thought he dropped into my boot. I never found anything. At this point I was really losing ground. Just when I thought I might really freak out, we ran into my friend Mark (the one I knew from Dallas). I begged him and his girl to let me hang with them. I needed to be with someone I had known before and could trust. I also asked him to help me find Star. She was the only one I knew I could trust and could count on. I had left her stranded, though, so I wasn't sure if she would have me back again. I proceeded to tell Mark about all the weird stuff that had taken place that day. I just wanted to come down and go to sleep so I could find reality again. We were driving around with one of the other punks, I think in a stolen car. I kept seeing shadow people come out of the pavement and mail boxes. It was not a fun night. We hung out and that night they helped me find my way back to the squat on Melrose. I met up with Star; she was still pretty mad, but she let me come into squat to stay and threatened to kick my ass if I didn't got to sleep so I would stop being crazy. She convinced one of the guys who was driving around in a stolen car to drive me back to Dallas.
Before we left for Dallas, there was a really crazy night that everyone on Sunset strip ended up tripping on LSD. I will pick up there next time. It is late and I am sleepy.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Finally another post
Man, has it been hard to find the time to blog. I have gone from posting every single day to posting once a week or every ten days. And, believe me, it is not that I don't have anything to say. I am just drowning in things to do. It really drives me crazy and has been a matter of prayer for me. I really want to figure out a way to schedule a daily time to write. There are just so many things that need to be taken care of and I have to make certain things a high priority. That means that the things I would like to do, like write and sew sometimes never happen.
Today I was thinking about The Kingdom of God. Actually, I have been thinking about it for weeks, but I decided to write about it today. I think the Body of Christ today is really missing a lot about the Kingdom. I think the reason that we seem to be so impotent and powerless is that we are so far off the mark and distracted that we cannot tap into the power of the Kingdom. Jesus spoke about the Kingdom over and over while he was here on the earth. Sometimes we miss it, though, in our reading b/c we have the preconceived ideas about what the kingdom is. We think of the Kingdom as coming when Jesus comes back or as the preaching of the Gospel so we can go to heaven. When we take the Gospel and make it about this event when we die we miss the point and have the wrong focus. We are being taught a lot about this at the church we attend. The Gospel, however, is not about membership in a church, which church we attend or about going to heaven when we die.
The Gospel is about now. It is about living the Kingdom now in all that we say and do. It is how we are created to live. I could probably write for days on the Kingdom and still not plumb the depths of, but the Kingdom as a whole is not what has been rolling around in my mind today. What I have been thinking about is the scripture in Romans 12:2 which says, "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God is." I really love the translations by JB Phillips, “Do not let the world squeeze you into its mould, but instead let yourself be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
What really strikes me this morning is that we unknowingly allow the world to squeeze us into its mold. I have always thought of this as me not doing "as the world does". I have seen it as sin. If I don't have sex outside of marriage, or beat people up, or treat people poorly, etc. then I am okay and am not letting myself be conformed to the world. The old don't do "sinful" things way of thinking. I have begun to see very clearly that this statement goes so much deeper. When I let my standards of success be dictated by "worldly" standards and not the Word of God, when I let the world tell me what I should spend my money on or how I should spend my time, then I am not letting my mind be renewed. When I allow my family to struggle financially and let my husband carry the stress of bills we cannot afford so that I can have "the house, car, clothes," or whatever makes me "look successful" to everyone else around me, that is letting myself be squeezed into a mold. When I consume all of my resources on me and things I don't necessarily need, knowing that my money would be better spent supporting a ministry that is bringing food and water to orphans who otherwise have nothing, I am not letting my mind be renewed. When I hold a grudge and refuse to forgive and be reconciled to anyone, regardless of who was right or wrong, I am not taking up my cross and seeking first the Kingdom. When I gossip and judge people for how they dress or act, instead of reaching out with love in my heart, I am letting the standards of the world squeeze me into a mold. As a Christian I am held to a higher standard and it is a tough standard. We are called as Christians to suffer. That is what the call of the cross is. It is not about wonderful feelings and everything being nice and easy. It is about dying daily; it is about losing my life, so I can find it in Christ; it is about knowing it is no longer me who lives, but Christ who lives in me. That is not easy; that is about suffering. Being a Daughter of the kingdom means giving up my rights, and my space and my stuff. It means that if I have one sandwich to my name and I see a stranger who has nothing that I am willing to split my one and only sandwich so that we can both have some, instead of me having enough and someone else having nothing. It means not being right all the time or even having the "right" to whatever I think I deserve. It means being willing to apologize to someone even if I am not wrong simply so that I can be a bringer of peace. It is being willing to do whatever is necessary to make a relationship right. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the Sons of God." I want to be called a son of God, but am I willing to do what it takes to be given that title. The Gospel is not easy and we have been fed such a watered down version that it has lost its power. Jesus, when He called each of us to be His child, really called us to be a servant to every person we encounter. He called us to suffer the loss of our identity, our allegiance to this world and our very life. He calls us to lose the life we came to Him with, so we can find the life He has for us. We have to give up our right to control our lives and have things how we want them. We must surrender everything to Him and walk in love. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus stated, "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all our soul, with all you mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." This is a hard saying if you really think about what it asks you. If you really try to see the implications of living that out and don't just read it as a "nice little scripture", then it is a hard saying. It is a saying that we are so so so far from living out. A couple chapter before, in Mark 8, Jesus talks about denying ourselves, taking up the cross and following Him. I wonder how much we really deny ourselves. I wonder what would happen if we started really denying ourselves and putting others needs ahead of our wants; what would the world begin to look like?
The Gospel is not easy; the Kingdom does not fit into our way of life here, but the reward of allowing God to reshape our lives into the Kingdom is so far beyond anything we could imagine that I long for and cry out to God that He would change me and make me a Daughter of the Kingdom. I want to be changed so maybe I can spread the movement of the Kingdom. It seems huge and impossible, but "with God all things are possible." Maybe if He can help me see and change and live my life based on the Kingdom then I can help other people begin to change. It could be like a virus that begins to spread, a movement. Then maybe, some of the terrible things that we see in our world could cease to be. Maybe love could really begin to conquer hate, and good could begin to conquer evil. Maybe if we were all servants to each other, then in serving each would have his or her needs met, because as we serve, others would serve us.
Crazy, idealistic, hard, yeah, but totally possible b/c that is how Jesus lived and how He called us to live. Really it leads to total freedom.
Today I was thinking about The Kingdom of God. Actually, I have been thinking about it for weeks, but I decided to write about it today. I think the Body of Christ today is really missing a lot about the Kingdom. I think the reason that we seem to be so impotent and powerless is that we are so far off the mark and distracted that we cannot tap into the power of the Kingdom. Jesus spoke about the Kingdom over and over while he was here on the earth. Sometimes we miss it, though, in our reading b/c we have the preconceived ideas about what the kingdom is. We think of the Kingdom as coming when Jesus comes back or as the preaching of the Gospel so we can go to heaven. When we take the Gospel and make it about this event when we die we miss the point and have the wrong focus. We are being taught a lot about this at the church we attend. The Gospel, however, is not about membership in a church, which church we attend or about going to heaven when we die.
The Gospel is about now. It is about living the Kingdom now in all that we say and do. It is how we are created to live. I could probably write for days on the Kingdom and still not plumb the depths of, but the Kingdom as a whole is not what has been rolling around in my mind today. What I have been thinking about is the scripture in Romans 12:2 which says, "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God is." I really love the translations by JB Phillips, “Do not let the world squeeze you into its mould, but instead let yourself be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
What really strikes me this morning is that we unknowingly allow the world to squeeze us into its mold. I have always thought of this as me not doing "as the world does". I have seen it as sin. If I don't have sex outside of marriage, or beat people up, or treat people poorly, etc. then I am okay and am not letting myself be conformed to the world. The old don't do "sinful" things way of thinking. I have begun to see very clearly that this statement goes so much deeper. When I let my standards of success be dictated by "worldly" standards and not the Word of God, when I let the world tell me what I should spend my money on or how I should spend my time, then I am not letting my mind be renewed. When I allow my family to struggle financially and let my husband carry the stress of bills we cannot afford so that I can have "the house, car, clothes," or whatever makes me "look successful" to everyone else around me, that is letting myself be squeezed into a mold. When I consume all of my resources on me and things I don't necessarily need, knowing that my money would be better spent supporting a ministry that is bringing food and water to orphans who otherwise have nothing, I am not letting my mind be renewed. When I hold a grudge and refuse to forgive and be reconciled to anyone, regardless of who was right or wrong, I am not taking up my cross and seeking first the Kingdom. When I gossip and judge people for how they dress or act, instead of reaching out with love in my heart, I am letting the standards of the world squeeze me into a mold. As a Christian I am held to a higher standard and it is a tough standard. We are called as Christians to suffer. That is what the call of the cross is. It is not about wonderful feelings and everything being nice and easy. It is about dying daily; it is about losing my life, so I can find it in Christ; it is about knowing it is no longer me who lives, but Christ who lives in me. That is not easy; that is about suffering. Being a Daughter of the kingdom means giving up my rights, and my space and my stuff. It means that if I have one sandwich to my name and I see a stranger who has nothing that I am willing to split my one and only sandwich so that we can both have some, instead of me having enough and someone else having nothing. It means not being right all the time or even having the "right" to whatever I think I deserve. It means being willing to apologize to someone even if I am not wrong simply so that I can be a bringer of peace. It is being willing to do whatever is necessary to make a relationship right. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the Sons of God." I want to be called a son of God, but am I willing to do what it takes to be given that title. The Gospel is not easy and we have been fed such a watered down version that it has lost its power. Jesus, when He called each of us to be His child, really called us to be a servant to every person we encounter. He called us to suffer the loss of our identity, our allegiance to this world and our very life. He calls us to lose the life we came to Him with, so we can find the life He has for us. We have to give up our right to control our lives and have things how we want them. We must surrender everything to Him and walk in love. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus stated, "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all our soul, with all you mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." This is a hard saying if you really think about what it asks you. If you really try to see the implications of living that out and don't just read it as a "nice little scripture", then it is a hard saying. It is a saying that we are so so so far from living out. A couple chapter before, in Mark 8, Jesus talks about denying ourselves, taking up the cross and following Him. I wonder how much we really deny ourselves. I wonder what would happen if we started really denying ourselves and putting others needs ahead of our wants; what would the world begin to look like?
The Gospel is not easy; the Kingdom does not fit into our way of life here, but the reward of allowing God to reshape our lives into the Kingdom is so far beyond anything we could imagine that I long for and cry out to God that He would change me and make me a Daughter of the Kingdom. I want to be changed so maybe I can spread the movement of the Kingdom. It seems huge and impossible, but "with God all things are possible." Maybe if He can help me see and change and live my life based on the Kingdom then I can help other people begin to change. It could be like a virus that begins to spread, a movement. Then maybe, some of the terrible things that we see in our world could cease to be. Maybe love could really begin to conquer hate, and good could begin to conquer evil. Maybe if we were all servants to each other, then in serving each would have his or her needs met, because as we serve, others would serve us.
Crazy, idealistic, hard, yeah, but totally possible b/c that is how Jesus lived and how He called us to live. Really it leads to total freedom.
Friday, February 5, 2010
In the Beginning part 3
I am trying to keep all the details in the right order, but there are some points where things start to be blurry and a little confused.
After I left Parkland, I was in a hospital in Denton. I cannot really remember what it was called. I don't think I was there very long, though. I was one of the first young patients, my psychiatrist was starting a new adolescent program. The first couple weeks I was actually on the geriatric ward of the hospital. I do remember that the wing that the adolescent unit was on was undergoing some construction. I had to go to another wing to shower and it was creepy to me. I had just read IT by Steven King and I was really scared to be over in the empty hospital wing.
When I got out of the hospital I started hanging out with some of the people that had gone to Straight and dropped out as well. I remember there was some kind of law suit going on that we were participating in. They took pictures of my arms; I don't think anything ever came of that law suit. As I said, I was hanging out with ex-straight kids and things went okay for a bit, but eventually fell apart as they always did. We started drinking and doing drugs again. We were living in Irving still and I ran away. At that point my mom couldn't make me come back b/c I was 17. I stole a bunch of stuff from the house and sold it. I had dropped out of school after finishing 9th grade at about 16 (I think?). We were spending a lot of time in Deep Ellum hanging with a bunch of punks. I ended up hanging out with a guy named Phillip who led me down a very very dark path. He was into a lot of really strange things. I let him pierce my nipple with a safety pin (what was I thinking?) I cleaned it for weeks by pouring liquor on it (brilliant, huh?) Needless to say it got infected and did not go well for me. One night riding back to the house we were going to stay at with strangers who were drunk, we got into a very serious car wreck. I have a scar on my temple still from it. We were crammed into a tiny hatch back car 9 of us. One girl cut an artery being propelled from the hatch window and coming back in (blood was spraying out of her arm), another girl never walked again, the driver and passenger got out and ran away leaving us there. I cut my head and everyone else was okay. Shortly after Phillip and I hitch hiked to New Orleans. I learned a lot of extremely disturbing behavior from Phillip. We made it to the French quarter and set out to meeting people. I drank a lot and did a lot of drugs there. It is somewhat foggy. I was there a few months and ended up engaged to a guy named Smurf. Then I went to Covenant House (a run away shelter). They helped me get back to Dallas. I wasn't back long before I decided I wanted to go back. I saved money and took a bus back. I stayed for a while and have no idea how I got back to Dallas the second time.
Around this time, my mom ended up finding a therapist who specialized in Multiple Personality Disorder. This is where things started to come together for us. They admitted me, my mother and my brother into the Bedford Meadows hospital on three separate MPD units. It is at this hospital that someone figured out that the key to the whole family was my mother. If they could get her okay, eventually we would be okay too. My brother was transferred to a hospital in Lubbock and I was discharged and went to Tennessee to stay with my childhood best friend. My mother still worked for AT&T so she had good insurance and was on long term disability so she sent money to me to live on while I stayed there. She met Jesus at that hospital and did a lot of work on her issues. I, on the other hand, had still quite a ways to go before things would change. Tennessee was pretty strange for me. I was a death rocker (what people call Goth now) and Tennessee is very, very country. I drank with all the hicks, but eventually left. Mom paid for a bus ticket back to Dallas and helped me find a room to rent. She was still in the hospital. I went to AA meetings and tried to stay sober and function. After a few months she finally got out of the hospital and we moved to Richardson. My brother got out of Lubbock too.
Oh, I forgot something important in Irving (after Straight, but before Bedford Meadows). Somehow my brother got acquainted with racist skinheads. We hung out with them for a little while. They ended up finding out that I had had physical relations with an African American person (or dozens actually), and that did not go well for me. They were going to beat me to death, not sure how I got out of that one.
In Richardson, I attended a lot of AA meetings and stayed clean for a while (maybe 6 months). Eventually I met a guy named Matthew through AA. We started having a relationship. He was a recovering heroin addict who introduced me to the speed ball (cocaine and heroin). This was my first experience with intravenous drug use, but I was always down for a new experience. I slowly got into the circle if shooters that he was acquainted with. I shot up a lot of drugs with a lot of people all using the same needles (see, I am truly blessed b/c I should have HIV, TB and hepatitis). I got tested once a year for about 7 years after I got saved before I felt safe that I was clean. Fortunately for me, I met up with some pretty hard core punks at this point also and they were very anti-needle so I migrated toward them and spent less time with the junkies. It was here I met my first husband, Squid.
Squid and I were married about 2 weeks after we met b/c we thought it would me fun. The Justice of the peace we went to was less than thrilled with us. We had a bunch of punks with us and we were all obnoxious. We all lived in a squat (an empty building). It was some abandoned apartments off of Spring Valley (they aren't there any more,:it is a self storage place now). We broke up within about a month. I actually never divorced him; I was working on the paperwork when I had been walking with Jesus about a year, but he was stabbed to death by his girlfriend in California; mutual friends told me about it. It is through this group of friends that I became a gutter punk. More on gutter punk and what follows later.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Thanksgiving
I was thinking today as I ran about being an "optimist". I wake up every morning excited to be alive and to have been given another day to walk with God, be a mom and walk on this earth. I don't really struggle with depression or bad moods. As I thought about this and why it is, it hit me. I am so grateful for all that I have. The first thoughts that are in my mind as I begin to run are thoughts of thanksgiving. I just begin to thank God for everything I have, big and small. It's something that I have done since I started walking with God. At first, I made myself go through thanking God, b/c I needed to be reminded and it helped me get into a joyful mood in the morning. I did used to struggle with depression and having a bad attitude when I first met Him. Over years it has just become a habit to wake up and start thanking Him. Sometimes I end up thanking him for 30 or 45 minutes of my prayer time. Then I reel myself back in and start praying about the things I need to pray about. I think that is what helps me keep a really optimistic outlook on life. It is hard to have a bad attitude or be too down when you are thinking about all that you are grateful for.
I really felt like I wanted to write about the things I am really thankful for. There are so many things that we take for granted. I don't know, maybe this will help someone else, or maybe I just want to be reminded.
I am thankful for... my hands and feet, and arms and legs, and fingers and toes (imagine life without them, many are missing some). My toe nails and fingernails (how bad would it hurt to just have nail beds). My eyelashes. That I can see, taste, touch, smell, and hear. That I have a house, a bed, food (I used to dig my food out of dumpsters), running water, electricity, and gas. warm baths, and soft towels. my ipod, sewing machines, computers, tv and dvd player. That I can chew and swallow my food. My children live in a country where they can go to school and worship God and cannot starve. I am thankful that I was able to conceive children against all odds (when many people pay and pay and pay to try and conceive.) and give birth to them without a c-section (that was really important to me). That I was able to breast feed all of my children (I have had friends that really struggled with that or could not). I am grateful that God let me get Rheumatoid Arthritis b/c it changed the way my family and I eat. I am grateful to be off drugs. I am grateful that God let me struggle with alcoholism and then helped me get free from it (I learned to be gracious to those who struggle). I have more clothes than I can wear (I used to have 1 pair of pants, 1 pair of undies, 1 bra, 2 shirts, a skirt, leather jacket, 1 pair of socks, and a pair of boots). I am thankful I don't have AIDS, hepatitis, or TB, nor do my children. I am thankful that I met God at 20, before I had a chance to really damage Alexandra. I am thankful that my brother went to jail and got off of drugs. Grateful for friends and that I can realize now how many friends I have and can be a friend. I am grateful that my life had such a hard beginning so that I would grow to have the strength and passion that I have. I am grateful that I am an artist and that God allowed Satan to steal that from me for so many years and because I have had to fight so hard for it I am passionate about developing creativity in other people. I am grateful that I have picked up so many tools along my journey to help people. I am grateful that God gave me Alexandra and used her to save my life, keep my off drugs when there was no other reason I could see. Thankful that He protected her from my stupid, selfish and self destructive behavior. I am thankful that I walked into The Early Church on July 17, 1992 and met Jesus there. I am grateful that I learned so much and grew so much there. I am grateful that I met Larry there and that they separated us so that we went through all that we went through and in the end had a much stronger, passionate and committed love between us. and i am grateful that the church closed it doors. I am grateful that God gave us Stephen and used him to keep us connected and then spoke through him to bring us back together. I am grateful that Stephen was God lesson on grace to me. I am thankful that God has allowed me to home school Stephen, that he made me willing, gave me the resources and commitment and caused Larry to agree and allow it. I am thankful that I have had a hands on part in teaching him and seeing him begin to succeed and realize that he is not stupid. I am thankful that God made it easy to give up my career for his benefit. I am thankful that my husband loves me no matter what (fat, skinny, drunk, sober, red, pink, purple or black hair, tattoos, piercings, baggage, issues, OCD, all of me). Thankful for Chloe and her sweet disposition as well as the stubbornness of the other two. cars, dogs, refrigerator, bread maker, camera, computer, treadmill, makeup. I am thankful that I get to stay at Sigler and that I have gotten to start an art program and for the vision to do even more. I am thankful for my Bible and that God has allowed me to read and absorb so much of it and that I can even read. I am thankful that no one can come take my son and make him a child soldier nor can anyone decide we need to be their slaves. I am thankful that I have found a church that is helping me grow to be more like Jesus. I am thankful that God has allowed my mother and I to develop a closer relationship and that He is healing the damage more and more each day. I am so so so grateful that my children were born into a Christian home and have not had to suffer abuse and neglect. I am thankful for the stability and wholeness God brought to me very quickly so that my children could grow up in a health environment. I am thankful that my husbands family is so wonderful and that I was able to get to know my father in law. I am grateful for peanut butter, vegetables, water, tea. I am grateful that "if God be for me, who can be against me and nothing shall separate me from the love God in Christ Jesus, and that He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it." I am thankful that God has helped me lose my love for things and has given me the heart to want to be a servant (even though I still struggle with doing that).
I really felt like I wanted to write about the things I am really thankful for. There are so many things that we take for granted. I don't know, maybe this will help someone else, or maybe I just want to be reminded.
I am thankful for... my hands and feet, and arms and legs, and fingers and toes (imagine life without them, many are missing some). My toe nails and fingernails (how bad would it hurt to just have nail beds). My eyelashes. That I can see, taste, touch, smell, and hear. That I have a house, a bed, food (I used to dig my food out of dumpsters), running water, electricity, and gas. warm baths, and soft towels. my ipod, sewing machines, computers, tv and dvd player. That I can chew and swallow my food. My children live in a country where they can go to school and worship God and cannot starve. I am thankful that I was able to conceive children against all odds (when many people pay and pay and pay to try and conceive.) and give birth to them without a c-section (that was really important to me). That I was able to breast feed all of my children (I have had friends that really struggled with that or could not). I am grateful that God let me get Rheumatoid Arthritis b/c it changed the way my family and I eat. I am grateful to be off drugs. I am grateful that God let me struggle with alcoholism and then helped me get free from it (I learned to be gracious to those who struggle). I have more clothes than I can wear (I used to have 1 pair of pants, 1 pair of undies, 1 bra, 2 shirts, a skirt, leather jacket, 1 pair of socks, and a pair of boots). I am thankful I don't have AIDS, hepatitis, or TB, nor do my children. I am thankful that I met God at 20, before I had a chance to really damage Alexandra. I am thankful that my brother went to jail and got off of drugs. Grateful for friends and that I can realize now how many friends I have and can be a friend. I am grateful that my life had such a hard beginning so that I would grow to have the strength and passion that I have. I am grateful that I am an artist and that God allowed Satan to steal that from me for so many years and because I have had to fight so hard for it I am passionate about developing creativity in other people. I am grateful that I have picked up so many tools along my journey to help people. I am grateful that God gave me Alexandra and used her to save my life, keep my off drugs when there was no other reason I could see. Thankful that He protected her from my stupid, selfish and self destructive behavior. I am thankful that I walked into The Early Church on July 17, 1992 and met Jesus there. I am grateful that I learned so much and grew so much there. I am grateful that I met Larry there and that they separated us so that we went through all that we went through and in the end had a much stronger, passionate and committed love between us. and i am grateful that the church closed it doors. I am grateful that God gave us Stephen and used him to keep us connected and then spoke through him to bring us back together. I am grateful that Stephen was God lesson on grace to me. I am thankful that God has allowed me to home school Stephen, that he made me willing, gave me the resources and commitment and caused Larry to agree and allow it. I am thankful that I have had a hands on part in teaching him and seeing him begin to succeed and realize that he is not stupid. I am thankful that God made it easy to give up my career for his benefit. I am thankful that my husband loves me no matter what (fat, skinny, drunk, sober, red, pink, purple or black hair, tattoos, piercings, baggage, issues, OCD, all of me). Thankful for Chloe and her sweet disposition as well as the stubbornness of the other two. cars, dogs, refrigerator, bread maker, camera, computer, treadmill, makeup. I am thankful that I get to stay at Sigler and that I have gotten to start an art program and for the vision to do even more. I am thankful for my Bible and that God has allowed me to read and absorb so much of it and that I can even read. I am thankful that no one can come take my son and make him a child soldier nor can anyone decide we need to be their slaves. I am thankful that I have found a church that is helping me grow to be more like Jesus. I am thankful that God has allowed my mother and I to develop a closer relationship and that He is healing the damage more and more each day. I am so so so grateful that my children were born into a Christian home and have not had to suffer abuse and neglect. I am thankful for the stability and wholeness God brought to me very quickly so that my children could grow up in a health environment. I am thankful that my husbands family is so wonderful and that I was able to get to know my father in law. I am grateful for peanut butter, vegetables, water, tea. I am grateful that "if God be for me, who can be against me and nothing shall separate me from the love God in Christ Jesus, and that He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it." I am thankful that God has helped me lose my love for things and has given me the heart to want to be a servant (even though I still struggle with doing that).
I am thankful that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
I could probably go on, but that is enough. My point has been made. How can I be down when God has been so good to me and when I have more than I can even enumerate.
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