Getting back to writing

It's a new year. It's a new life. I still believe God is good. No matter what I go through, I will not stop praising Him and I will not be made to feel guilty for praising Him. God still loves me and is there for me. Period. Here is my story... 2011 was a crazy year. We moved to Colorado from Mississippi. I never thought we would ever leave Mississippi unless we were to be missionaries somewhere. I thought that would be the only reason I would ever leave. We had friends and family and so many Christians that helped us through good and bad times. The support we received in MS was amazing. Some major turn of events happened in our lives that rocked our world upside down. It was a challenge learning a new area with new people, but God still showed us miracles and brought people in our lives. As soon as we moved to Colorado Springs, the kids and I immediately started serving at a local mission place. We enjoyed it so much. We loved the people that ran the organization and loved the people that came through to get food and clothes for their family. God used Crossfire so much in our lives. Many things opened up from serving there. We found a church that helped us with Christmas gifts and we never asked for help. They overloaded our van with gifts and I was so overwhelmed by God. There was also a group that Crossfire gave our names to that helped with gifts for the kids. I met with these ladies and they are so wonderful. One was from Mississippi and also knew some of the SAME people I knew! What a small world and a God thing! So, God definitely took care of us during this transition time and always reminded us that He was with us no matter where we were. After the move to Colorado, I was struggling with a lot of things. There were wounds that I thought I was healed from and after starting my book (that God clearly told me to put together), it all started resurfacing like never before. As I was doing research for this particular book, the emotions were overflowing. I could not get a hold of myself. It brought back memories from when I was a teenager and the pain was like it just happened. I almost quit altogether with this book because it was just too much. Something I thought I was delivered from over 15 years ago, was tearing me apart and I couldn't deal with it. I never wanted anyone to know this story. I wanted to go to my grave and never tell my children what happened so long ago. I was going to be one of the anonymous stories in my book. But, God was dealing with me over this. How could I be the author and not reveal that I understood the pain these men and women were going through? Why would anyone read a book so personal from someone that has no clue and never gone through this? I struggled back and forth with my own story and knew that if I came out with it, I would have to be the first one to tell my kids. That was ripping my heart out. I had only told a few people this story and only because it needed to be told in a certain moment. I wanted God to only bring it out when it could be used for His glory and if it could help a girl to not make this same decision. As I started digging into this book and getting it going, I received a lot of opposition. I was called names and slandered with peoples' tongues. I really wanted to give up. I told God I would give Him the book and for Him to do with it what He wants. The next day, doors started flying open for this book. I don't want to give it all away yet because then you will know so much before it comes out. I was hoping it would be published already, but with the turn of events in my life last year, I could not go forward with it. I have started back on it and just working on a few more things to get it finished up. I was not going to take anymore stories, but since I am not completely finished with my part, I am open to accepting more stories if anyone wants to send them my way. Even though I felt God and He was with me everyday, I didn't know how to deal with my wounds that were obviously still opened. Everytime I could get a hold of myself, I would read another story from a lady and the overwhelming pain would come back. I cried over every story that came through my email. It started by having one drink and then I began secretly drinking when the kids went to bed at night. I thought about drinking all the time. Even though I didn't do it all the time, it was still in my thoughts constantly. I could be driving in the van and want to drink. I knew not to drink of course while I was driving, but the thoughts were with me almost at all times. I would get excited to go to the store and try new different kinds of alcohol. I know this may shock some of you that know me personally, but it is time for me to be honest with my struggle this last year. I am being open and honest to all of you and knowing in doing this that more persecution is going to come. I have been treated horribly by Christians this last year. They have said they are coming to me in love, but their words were so hurtful and had me crying so much. They had no clue what was going on in my life and "the body of Christ" shocked me. I understood for the very first time why the world sees Christians the way they do and why they don't want any part of God. It was like I was on the other side seeing through their eyes and I didn't like what I saw of "the church". Not everyone acted that way. I saw some true love from a few people and I saw God through them. I truly saw God. I truly saw God's love. People may not agree with what I do, but they held my hand and reminded me that God loves me. They didn't judge. They may have felt inside that I was crazy, but they never once showed that to me. They loved on me even though they were so many miles away. Even if I didn't respond to their messages for months, they didn't give up on me. They continued to love me in my weakness and continued to remind me that God is faithful and loves me so much. That is unconditional love. I was a horrible friend. I was a loner and didn't want to talk to anyone. There are still so many messages that I haven't responded to and I am many, many months behind with responding. I am crying right now thinking of these people. In the time where I needed these words in the midst of all the condemning ones I was receiving, God showed me His love through them. If you are reading this, thank you for not giving up on me. Even if you think I am crazy, I still want to thank you for loving me anyway. Keep loving on people no matter where they are. That is what they need and that is going to make all the difference. When all these things started resurfacing, JC didn't know how to deal with them. It was not his fault and I had tried for years to get counseling with him. He never wanted counseling. We did do marriage seminars and they were great. They did help a lot. We grew our family and also adopted children. We saw God's favor on us continuously. God never left us and He continued to bring wonderful people in our lives. I was married before when I was a teenager. We thought our love could get us through anything. We had been best friends since 13 and 14 years of age. After the traumatic event happened in our marriage, we didn't know how to deal with it. I will explain that in just a bit. Let me go back to JC. JC knew of this event before I married him. I knew that if he married me, I would have to be honest of what happened so long ago. He said he was fine with it and we never had to discuss it really - until....I started this book. Then so many things were happening to me inside. JC was tired of me crying and said he was tired of hearing about this baby in Heaven. The last conversation I had with him was to tell him that I wanted to write the baby a letter and he snapped and said this is all I talk about and he is tired of hearing it. Then, he grabbed his remote and turned back to the tv. I was left in the bed to cry alone. Now, please don't think I am blasting him. There was so much going on and he didn't know how to deal with all of it. I no longer have resentment towards him even though it hurt so much. But, he has never gone through it and could not understand how to help me. That is not his fault. Thank goodness he has never gone through this! There is so much to tell and I don't even know how to tell it all. I have decided to copy and paste a letter that I sent out to a family member just because I really don't have the strength to re-write all of this. You may not understand some of it because I was answering her questions. But, this will give you an idea. This was last year so it is old now. JC and I actually got divorced last year so as you can tell, this is not the present time. But here it is.... I never thought of it as lying so that is an interesting way of looking at it and the more I have thought of your words, the more I understand how you could see it that way. I was determined to never be divorced again and I tried so hard to love JC and be a good wife. I did not mean to make it sound like it was all bad and that we were never happy. Actually, the happiest we ever were in our marriage was on our adoption trips. We had so much time alone without the kids and it was wonderful. As for as my ex-husband, it only started out with us finding Samuel's dad. We had prayed for him for so long. I asked JC and he was fine with it. There is so much you do not know and so much pain from my past that God is reconciling. I was a teenager when I was married before and did not know how to be a wife and he did not know how to be a husband. All we knew was that we loved each other and we thought as long as we had love that we could make it. Well, life turned upside down for us. I got pregnant and his family made me kill the baby. It is a long story and when I finally get it all written out, you can read it. It was the most traumatic experience I have ever gone through in my life. I did not want to do it and I wanted to let the doctor know I was there against my will. But, before the dr came in, I was given a shot and drugged up. I was screaming inside and could not move my mouth or my body. I kept screaming as they were killing this baby and no one could hear me. I have had to live with being a murderer all of my life. I have had to think about this baby all these years. I told JC this before we were married because he needed to know the truth before he married me. He was okay with it and still married me. A few months ago, I was crying a lot over the baby and I wanted to tell JC that I had written her a letter and that I would see her in heaven. He looked at me and said, "I don't care! I am tired of hearing about this!" And then he used his remote and looked back at the tv. I was left in the bed alone to cry and felt my husband was so heartless. That was the last straw for me because he was always like that with me in never listening to things that were important to me. When the baby died, Joey and I never talked about it. He felt I just killed his baby and I felt he did not stand up for me and protect me. I turned to depression and cried all the time. Six months later, I was pregnant with Samuel. Joey immediately went into the navy to try and provide a better life for the baby and me. I went to AZ to live with my mom so I was not alone and pregnant. After bootcamp, there was "A" school and then he had to go to Connecticut for Submarine School. He finally got to come for 2 weeks at the end. He was there the last week of the pregnancy and the first week of Samuel's life. Everything was great and I thought everything was going to be okay. He loved Samuel and me so much. We still never talked about the baby that had died. He suffered in silence still and I had no idea how much he was suffering. When Samuel was 8 weeks old, we saw Joey again. We were stationed to Virginia so Samuel and I got on a plane and moved there to our new house that the navy provided. Things started getting worse there. I had no family and I started getting depressed about the baby again. I loved Samuel and tried to be a good mommy. I was 18 and had no idea what I was doing, but I knew I loved him and wanted to protect him from everything. I held him all the time and took care of his needs. When he was sleeping, I would just cry in a corner and did not know how to deal with my emotions over the baby that died. I was too ashamed to tell people. I wish that Joey and I had talked about it and dealt with it together, but we did not even know how to communicate in that way. We both kept suffering in silence and he ultimately turned to drugs and I wallowed in depression. He blamed me and I never knew that he was blaming me and so I had no idea why it seemed he had changed "all of a sudden". I know all these things now because we have talked about it now after 14 years. When he started using drugs, I saw a side of him that I had never seen before. My dad and step mom came to VA and picked me up.I did not want to leave in that way, but I saw no other choice at the time. I was trying to protect Samuel and that was all I could see at the moment. I wish I had gotten us both help at the time and I wish I could have seen what the actual problem was. Here are things that I have found out: Joey came looking for us and since he left the navy for a time to look for his wife and baby, he was thrown into the brig (navy jail). For months, he was in a room with four walls all by himself. He was devastated over the loss of his wife and son and felt all he was trying to do was the right thing in trying to find us to bring us back home. He could not make the navy understand this and to them, family does not come first. Your first and foremost priority is the navy and nothing else. After isolation, he was put in a room with about 80 guys. There was one toilet in the open room and you had to use the bathroom in front of everyone. He saw things no one should ever have to see while he was in that room with the other men. He was in there with murderers and rapists and still felt all he was trying to do was the right thing. That lasted maybe 8 months (I think). He then had to stand before a few people (maybe 5...can't remember). They were sitting at a desk and he was standing in the room before them. After they spoke, he asked if he could speak freely. He told them he went into the navy to better his family's life and support them, but the navy had ruined his life. He said all he wanted to do was get out. Now, this does not just happen. You can't just "get out" of the military that easy. But, the people at the table discussed what he had said and when they spoke again, they decided that he could be released without a dishonorable discharge. They drove him to the end of the base and dropped him off on the sidewalk. He was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt because that was what he had on going into jail. It was freezing outside and winter. As he stood in the cold, he had nowhere to go and no wife and baby. He was at rock bottom. He did not care about life at this point.A buddy came and picked him up. This guy told him how he could make money and Joey felt he had lost everything anyway so he began partnering with this guy in selling drugs. Joey entered a horrible life and lived that way for a long time. He was able to get pictures from our home and even though his life was consumed with drugs and drug parties, he kept looking at our pictures and crying. No one paid him any mind everytime he was in his low point crying about his wife and son except one day a girl came and sat in his lap. He had our album out and he was crying for us. She put her arm around him while she sat in his lap and asked him what was wrong. He could not even talk. He just buried his head in her shoulder and cried and cried. This girl who he met at a drug party, became his next wife and they had two children. As time went on, Joey continued looking for us and looking at our pictures. He started getting close to God and this made her mad. She wanted to continue her current life and she hated that he was consumed in looking for a wife that had left him. I thought he was a horrible person that I never wanted my son to see. I had blocked out many memories and could only remember the bad things. I met Joey when I was 13 years old. No one (besides God) knows me better than he knows me. He prayed for 14 years for God to bring Samuel and me back. Now we can talk about the baby and we have named her the name we wanted to give her at that time. We do not know 100% that it was a girl, but we both just feel it was. We actually talk about her all the time and are both healing from this. Samuel is getting to know the dad that he never knew. I still blame myself and after hearing of how Joey's life was without us, it makes me sick and feelings of guilt overwhelm me. I know I can't go back in time and all I can do is move forward. I would not have the children I have now and that makes it better when I have the feelings of regret. I am so grateful for the kids I have and I thank God for them. I hate divorce because it hurts so many people and if I had never been divorced in the first place, all of these people would not be getting hurt right now. JC is a good man. He just could not deal with my problems. He could not understand me. Even though he felt he could marry a woman with a son, he was not ready for any of that or for the feelings he would have after we got married. I don't think any of that was his fault. When we found Joey, I had no intentions of being with him. I still wanted to make my marriage work with JC because even though it was not the ideal marriage, I wanted to make it work. But after I found Joey, it opened up many wounds and I tried reaching out to JC of how I was feeling. I wanted so much for him to hear me and he just wouldn't. I have been writing for so long and need to close now. You asked me to be honest no matter how it looked and this is me being honest with you. I know how I am being looked at and I know how I am being judged. I cannot tell you how much healing has come for me and for Joey. It was really hard at first because we had to deal with a lot of things from the past. I still had to get over many things, but since I have found Joey again, it was the healing that I needed from my past. By returning to my first love, made everything new for me again. This is why God hates divorce as well. When I gave my heart away a long time ago and made vows, I could never fully give my heart to anyone that way again. It didn't mean I couldn't love someone else. But, God didn't want us to divorce the first time. Now all of these people are hurt and it is definitely my fault because of the path I chose. I have been blasted publicly on facebook by people that I never knew would be that way. Yes I know what I have done, but God continues to be here for me and continues to pour out His love on me and my family. We still see miracle after miracle and He never, EVER left us. God is bringing in people to our home and so many have gotten saved in our home alone. I have another teenage son that is with us about 4-5 nights a week and calls me, "Mama." He is from a troubled family and God is using him. All of the children are growing so much and Natasha has gotten saved. The teens are closer to me than they have ever been. Samuel is writing music and is on the praise team at church. God still helped us this Christmas with presents. The kids were overwhelmed with gifts. God never seizes to amaze me. We are growing and even though I may have gone down a different path, God is still with me. He still loves me and He will never leave me.