Coming
upon the 30th Anniversary (August 29th) of my crime and
the death of my daughter, I want to share a few things. If someone would
have told me 30 years ago I would love God and be following after Him, I’d have
said, “You’re” the crazy one.”
While
growing up I often asked God, “Why me, Lord?” I grumbled about my pains
from childhood. As early as I can remember I wondered why God didn’t fix
things. It seemed there were only two options, He wouldn’t or He couldn’t. And
I didn’t like either one.
Then
when I was 25 years old I became psychotic and paranoid (without the abuse of
drugs). Most people don’t know what being psychotic is like, I pray you
never find out. It made panic attacks from when I was 19 years old seem
like a walk in the park. I would never wish it on my worst enemy, it was
that horrific! I had to deal with mental illness and incarceration. I
admit I was NOT one of those lovely people who praised God through the storm.
Sometimes their testimonies just make me mad. Like maybe God didn’t give
you more than you could handle, but I for one was in way over my head. I
prayed that God would just leave me alone and I wondered why He enjoyed
knocking me down. It seemed He took away my happiness from the time I could
remember. I wondered, “Why did you do this to me?”
After
being released from Winnebago Mental Health Institute after four years, I
continued to be on supervision. I would be on supervision for life unless
I could prove I was no longer a danger to myself or others. I was monitored
by the Department of Health and Human and Services and the Department of
Corrections making a minimum of monthly contacts with each department. I
went back and forth with being thankful for my release and continually striving
for the life I lost. I wanted nothing more than to be a wife and mother,
I could easily settle for stepmother. I met a lot of men, fell in love
with their kids, not always with them and then they would fall off their
pedestal and I would be on to the next hopeful candidate. I did the same
thing with jobs. About 18 months was my average length of employment, and
then I would again be unfulfilled and in search of happiness that always eluded
me. God always seemed to step in and dash my hopes. I was tired of Him,
He could just stay where He was and leave me alone and stop messing with me!
Then
in December of 2002, I sat in the back row of a church without options because
I could no longer fight Him. There was one common denominator in the
process of switching out men, jobs and happiness, and that was me. I
basically thought, if the altar burns and I burn up with it then that’s fine
because I’m fought out. I had that visual in mind when I stepped into the
church and I fully imagined it happening. God hated me and I didn’t know
why. We were going to face off finally, wasn’t 40 years enough of this?
As
the sermon was presented and the altar did not burn, I found myself weeping. This
was new! There was a story shared about a little baby Jesus in a Nativity
scene that was missing from a manger. The best way I can describe what
happened was as if I was an apple hanging on a tree by its stem, and it was
perfectly ripe and all it took was the breath of God to gently breathe on it
and it would fall. And I did fall, right into His waiting hands. But
not to destroy me but to explain some things over the course of time. And the
first was that He loved me. I cried sweeter tears that day than I had
ever cried. At that moment I didn’t ask, “Why me?” because I knew.
Over
the next 15 years He would proceed to reeducate me on the truth of His Word vs.
other world views. That process continues to this day. One of the
main things I needed to understand was that He was not my enemy, oh I had one,
but it was not Him. The real enemy, Satan, had me believing for years
that God was behind all the pain and struggle in my life. I still have
battles to fight but I know that they are there so I learn to fight the good
fight, bringing my Father glory. I had been a pawn and I did get played,
but the strength that came from the battle could not have been achieved on my
own. I began asking a new question, “How, Lord? How did you see something
in me I didn’t see in myself?”
I
heard a man speak about his teenage son who had committed suicide. When he was asked after
witnessing many other teens coming to Christ as a result of his son’s death,
would did he feel differently about it? Sort of like would he have
approved seeing all the good that came from it. The man declared without
hesitation, “No, not my son!” I have asked myself the same question, “If
I could have foreseen the good that would come out of my daughter’s death,
would it somehow have been justified?” And the answer is decisively, “No,
never!” The man who lost his son to suicide said something that moved me
deeply. God had an identical choice to make. And with all the power and
ability to stop it the God of the universe said, “Yes, take my Son.” I
can tell you this from experience it would have been easier to give my life
than my child’s. Yet,
He gave His son Jesus to die for us. Now, that is a love that I could
spend 1,000 lifetimes and never fully grasp. I ask with “forever in your debt” gratitude, “Why
me Lord? Why would you do that for me?”
I
have found the happiness I was looking for and it has more to do with the
guidance and counsel of the Holy Spirit than it does with external things. God
has been good to me, growing fruit that lasts with the knowledge that I am His
child. I do have abundant life. I now ask, “What Lord, what can I
do for you?”
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