A Little History (from 12 to 24)

 ALASKA (Written in March 2008)

GIL LORD  (Hurt people hurt people.)

Thirty-four years ago this week, my mother married Evil.  In the years since, I have learned that men are not really evil, and that God loves them all the same and yearns to draw even the cruelest--perhaps especially the cruelest—into His embrace, so that they can know true Love and their wounds may be healed.  

Gil Lord was a wounded man.  A cruel man.  A man who did not know love.  But I was twelve years old, wounded myself, and could not see beyond his evilness.  

I was born to own this world.  It must be genetic, as see it in my son, whom I say was born to be KING.  Some people are born to play.  Some people are born to heal.  Some people are born to create.  I was born to rule.  I don’t mean that literally, you must know!  But fear is not something that ever hindered me much….until I met Evil.  When I was less than two, my mom took my brothers fishing, and before they had even gotten their hooks baited, I walked out onto the stream and subsequently was washed away and had to be rescued by my brother Cliff.  Mom said I tried to “walk on water”.  When I was four or five, I went on a walkabout in my neighborhood, unescorted.  I was allowed to go around the block, but not allowed to cross the street (we lived a block off a busy thoroughfare).  But I did cross the street.  I was wearing my holster and guns, my vest and my cowboy hat.  I might even have had my stick horse with me.  I passed a man working in his yard and he asked if I was the sheriff. I said I was and he was a bad guy, so I shot him. He fell in the grass right there.  We both laughed.  I kept going.  When I decided I had better head for home, I turned a couple of corners (using my innate sense of direction) and ended up on my front doorstep.  By that time, Mom was out looking for me, and boy was I in trouble when I got home!!  I could probably go on listing times I was fearless, unknowingly so.  I’m not known for timidity or prudence, particularly.  People will often say to me, “Weren’t you scared?” when in fact, it never crossed my mind.  The world is mine and everything in it.  That’s how God made me.  

I think that is how He made Gil Lord too.  When I think back, what a surname that was for him-- “Lord”.  I always knew I was wanted and loved and treasured and “precious” (as my grandma used to call me) and had a kind heart (Nanny used to even call me “Sweetheart”).  So my dominion was not one of superior power, but one of confidence.  I don’t know Gil Lord’s story.  I’m sure it is a very, very sad one.  I’m sure God has grieved over it much.  But when he came into my life, his story was of little concern to me.  All I was concerned about was MY story, and to some extent, my mom’s story. 

I hadn’t had a particularly easy life, though I had no concept of that. I thought I was pretty normal, really, except that I didn’t have a dad.  I had had some troubling encounters in my lifetime. I had a step-father for a brief period In my life who had no use for me, nor I for him, and he responded to my sassiness once by throwing a corncob across the table at me during dinner, hitting me square on the bridge of the nose and spilling my milk.  A man associated with my family touched me inappropriately once when we were alone—so I avoided him and never let myself be alone with him again.  Another man tried to lure me into his car once as I was walking home from school.  That kind of stuff.  Those kinds of things must have been unusual events, as they stand out in my mind rather clearly.  And it seems to be that with memories that it is the unusual events that stand out, not the normal everyday things. 

But aside from that, by and large, I had a quiet life.  My mother is and always was a lady.  I cannot recall her ever using bad language.  She didn’t fly into rages and only rarely lost her temper with me (when I really, really pushed her).  There was never any doubt in my mind how much she loved me.  She was the one constant in my life.  My greatest fear was that something bad would happen to her.  But being a single mother is a mighty taxing job and between working full time and desiring a social life of some kind, I didn’t see her as much as I would have liked.  On Saturdays there was always a list of things to do….the housework that didn’t get done during the week.  As I got into the upper elementary grades, to keep me out of trouble probably, she would have me do chores after school, like vacuuming or dusting or cleaning the bathroom.  And truthfully, though I didn’t notice it at the time, this left us more time to spend together on Saturdays.  

She had had a few boyfriends that were fun to be with, but for whatever reason, they didn’t work out, which was fine with me, because frankly, I didn’t like sharing my mom especially.  But Gil Lord was bad from the beginning.  He was a shock to be around even on a good day.  He was a burly man who didn’t seem to know how to smile.  His eyes were hard and unfeeling at best.  He used language that was new to my vocabulary and that I was not allowed to repeat, and even the words I was allowed to repeat were put together in such a way that they conjured  pictures that made me cringe.  I don’t know what Mom ever saw in him, but I don’t think she had known him very many months, certainly less than a year, when they got married. 

If it wasn’t bad enough that Mom was making this monster a part of my daily life (that she made him a part of my life at all!!), it also entailed moving a million miles away from the city I had lived in all my school-age years, from the house I had lived in for the past four years, from all my best friends—all my friends, in fact—and away from all the family and friends I had ever known.  Up to that point, all my family and friends, my whole life, had been no more than an hour and a half drive away.  

At twelve, when my whole self was changing anyway, when my body was changing, my emotions were changing, everything about ME was changing; my mother also pulled the rug right out from under me, in that she was moving me to a place where I knew no one.  I didn’t want to leave my home.  I sure didn’t want to go to a new home with the Monster.  My world, everything I knew, was changing and I had no say in it whatsoever.  For the first time in my life I didn’t feel like I was the boss.  For the first time, I didn’t own the world.  And for the first time, I was to know REAL fear.   

THE FERRY 

I refused to attend the wedding.  It was during spring break and I was allowed to go to Seaside to spend the week with former neighbors who had moved away a year or so before.  It was the little piece of refuge I had before I was plunged into a world of alcoholism, verbal abuse, physical abuse and fear.  I don’t know what I was thinking, other than perhaps if I did not go, it would not happen.  But it did happen.  I was not the center of the universe any longer.  A force stronger than me, named “Lord”, was shaking the dirt off my roots and moving me to another zone.  This was not a loving force.  This was a brute force.  He did not care to transplant me, or even bag my roots so they didn’t dry out.  He just pulled me up like a weed, put me on top of the wheelbarrow and hauled me away.  And the one person who could protect me either didn’t see the danger, or wouldn’t. 

We spent a few days or a week in adjoining rooms in a TraveLodge in Bellevue. Time meant nothing at all to me.  It was April but I wasn’t in school.  I had no friends, nothing to do.  I don’t even know what Mom and Gil did all day.  There was a branch office in Bellevue of the insurance company they both worked for, so I imagine they were there.  I was rootless.  I met up with the son of the managers of the motel.  At least he was company.  He had keys to all kinds of places.  It was my first time, and I expect his too.  But it hurt, and I told him it hurt.  And he said, “It’s supposed to. I hear my mom screaming all the time.“  I had heard my mom too, but I didn’t think it was a painful sound.  But he stopped, and we stayed friends until I left. 

We took a ferry from Seattle up the panhandle.  This was probably the best part of my Alaska experience.  We had two cabins.  I think Mom divided her time between the two.  I suspect she was already beginning to know what a horrible mistake she had made.  We stopped in towns along the way and I was free to explore, and I enjoyed that.  We got to see Mendenhall glacier from the ocean, which was a treat for me, as that is a family name.  One night there was a bad storm and we had to go further out to sea to avoid smashing on the rocks, and the boat pitched and weaved.  I loved it.  It was sort of like being in a hammock on a windy day.  Of course, I had been on boats before, small boats, on the Columbia and had loved it.  Remember, I hadn’t truly met fear yet and was still enjoying my natural love of adventure.  My mom was popping Dramamine, as were most of the other passengers. 

But unsupervised, on the boat, which I came to know well, I met up with two cabinmates, “Eric” and “Jerry”, who were respectively 20 and 17, according to them.  I was beginning to comprehend that I had some power over some males, and it seemed to be the only power I had at that time.  I liked Eric better, but he was wary of me.  Jerry took me back to his cabin which had such an interesting smell.  Looking back, from later experiences in life, I know that part of the “aroma” was marijuana, and though I have smelled the other component since, I still can’t say what it was…just that I smell it occasionally, perhaps in my dreams.  It was clear what Jerry wanted.  I didn’t want that necessarily, given my previous experience, so I told him I didn’t want to get pregnant.  No problem to him.  He just pulled a “balloon” out of a box and put it over his penis.  (I guess I had missed those days of sex ed in school, because I was clueless.)  And it hurt…more than before.  Fortunately, it was over soon.  Eric and Jerry left the boat somewhere along the panhandle.  I think Eric was embarrassed by me.  

I don’t really remember much about the drive to Anchorage, other than there were moose and bald eagles and toothpicks they called trees. 

 

ANCHORAGE 

I don’t remember much about our first days in Anchorage.  I remember that kids were allowed in bars, so that was a new experience.  I remember the town seeming fairly wide and open for as few people as I saw there.  The buildings looked old, like something from an old book.  But there were newer areas too.  It seems like we had a home to go to pretty quickly, though our furniture took a while to arrive.  We had a 3-bedroom rental for $400 per month, which in 1974, seemed like a ton of money to me.  The house that Mom had bought in Vancouver just four years earlier had cost $17,000, so I imagine this rent was about three times her mortgage payment (which she was still making, having rented out our house).  It had a nice-sized back yard that seemed rather unkempt and wild, with big, tall trees (probably cottonwood).  It had a fenced front and back yard for our dog, Paterick, who, along with my cat Susie, had come by plane shortly after we arrived, having been kindly shipped by our neighbors in Vancouver.  I remember going to pick them up at the airport.  They were in separate kennels.  I was SO excited to see them!!  When we entered the pick-up area at the airport, all we could hear was Susie’s incessant yowling.  When I spoke to them, Susie became quiet and Paterick started yipping an “I’m so glad to see my people, I thought I had lost you, you have no idea all I have been through” kind of yip.  That was the start of any semblance of normalcy.  

I don’t know how long I had been out of school, or why they bothered to put me in school anyway.  We had left the middle of April and it was well into May when I started up in school.  I walked. It was about a mile.  I suspect things were not going well with Mom and Gil, as when things came to a head, before we had fully unpacked, Mom had already rented a basement apartment down the street.  So she saw it coming, I know.  Gil had been becoming more wicked.  We did things with people they knew on weekends, and though it was all strangers, at least it was “normal” people.  I was terribly homesick; but I had my Susie.  

Incidentally, Susie came into my life the very week I accepted Jesus into my heart, when I was 8 years old.  I used to go to stay with Woody and Judy and their boys in Philomath, and later Salem, for a week or two during the summer.  I loved Woody and Judy.  Judy was so good to me.  She was something special to my life, like Aunt Joan.  Anyway, my visits always seemed to coincide with Vacation Bible School.  I don’t know why I had always known God.  Other than Grandma Smiley (then Richter) always praying for me, I can’t think why I would have gone to church, or whom with.  But I remember going to church even as a very little child, before kindergarten.  And I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t know God.  So, at VBS that summer, when the teachers asked us to bow our heads and pray with them if we wanted to invite Jesus into our hearts, and raise our hands, I raised mine high. I have no idea if I was the only one, or if we all did, but it didn’t matter.  At that same time, no doubt the same day, given God’s timing, some children appeared at my house in Vancouver, asking if we wanted a kitten.  Mom said we did, but could they wait until Saturday?  She was the runt of the litter, tabby, and they called her “Teeny-Tiny”.  Mom told me later that they were so very disappointed to have to keep her several more days, they could hardly contain their excitement!!  So, the next weekend, Saturday morning, a knock came at our door and Mom called me and said, “Jodie! It’s for you!”  Mom had put Paterick out back and he was jumping at the patio door at the prospect of company.  I was, of course, delighted to finally have Susie (I had had two previous cats named Susie, one who died shortly after we got her, and one a tom cat that we got from the pound, which my brothers dubbed “Susie-Boy”).  Mom closed the front door and at the sight of Paterick pounding on the glass door, Susie made a bee line to the top of my head.  But we would develop a very close and trusting relationship.  She was my confidant for the next 12 years or so; my guardian angel in many ways, an anchor in others.  

But I digress!!  

Gil and I were not getting along.  The best we did was to keep out of each other’s way.  I spent a lot of time outside or in my room or wherever, but I think things were coming to a boil.  Then one night the pot exploded.  The neighbor boy and I were watching TV.  Apparently, TV was something special in Anchorage…either that, or we lived in a very poor neighborhood and I was oblivious.  He was a couple of years younger than I was, and he had a younger brother at home.  But he was mesmerized by the TV.  Gil was in a snit about something.  He came into the living room and complained about my cat sitting in ‘his’ chair (well, technically it was OUR chair, OUR furniture).  I told him there were plenty of other places to sit.  And I didn’t use a respectful tone, of course.  So he picked her up and drop-kicked her across the room.  I lost my temper at him…I don’t remember what happened after that…I don’t even remember if all of these events happened on the same day or if drop-kicking the cat was days previous to what followed.  But it was the same neighbor boy glued to the TV, oblivious to all around him, Gil in a snit about something, and the heavy air in the house, as if the dark clouds were about to hail through the windows.  Then it happened.  Perhaps Mom had told Gil that she was leaving.  I had been ignoring him as best as I could.  But I remember him saying, “Here!  Let me help you PACK.” And then a dish broke, and he said, “OOPS" in a sarcastic tone.  Then another dish broke and “OOPS" again.  Mom was backed into a corner, he was smashing cups that I had given her as a Christmas present years ago.  They were very sentimental and precious.  I probably would have attacked Gil then and there, it being my nature to protect my mom; but she urged me to go next door and get help.  The next door neighbor was a policeman.  When I got there and told them what was going on, the wife said, “You left my SON there?”  and while she called the police, the husband ran over to retrieve his son and my mom as well.  I don’t know what I had missed, if he had hit her, or only battered her verbally, but she was terrified.  

I had never seen my mom like this.  When she got mad, she got flustered.  But this was way beyond that.  In my innermost being, I had felt like I could trust her.  It was only in the past six months or so where I had started to doubt whether she had my best interests in mind.  And even though I was frustrated and angry at the turn she had orchestrated in my life, she was still my tether, especially here, where I knew no one and my family was at least a thousand miles away…and for sure a long-distance call…if I even knew their number!!  I didn’t even know the number of the police! (This was pre-911…am I dating myself yet?).  It was a scary, scary night.

 

UNDERGROUND 

When the police arrived, they asked Mom if there was any place she could go that she would be safe.  She said there was, as she had rented an apartment down the street (only two blocks away!!).  At that point, I had begun to see that Mom held her cards pretty close to her chest.  She WAS looking out for us, I just could not see it.  And what a risk it would have been to tell me. He surely would have found out from me in one way or another.   

The police told Mom they could escort her inside, only to provide for her safety, and she should take only what she needed, only what she could take in one trip.  But upon arriving at the house, much of our stuff had already been thrown in a pile in the front yard, for all to see (this would come back to haunt me later, in one of those posttraumatic stress incidents, when I was in junior high…but, my goodness, that is another story!!).  He had also stacked our things up against the doors of the house.  The stereo that my biological father had given Mom (he had died almost 3 years previously—still another story) was stacked in front of the front door.  Boxes the movers had packed were stacked against the back door.  Mom told the police to force in the back door and the whole pile of boxes toppled over.  The box on the top was china Uncle Gene had given Mom from Korea.  It had been packed so well, that only one dish, on the very top, broke!  Mom grabbed some clothes for us both, some toiletries, sentimental things, like the TV my father had bought, and the stereo, and a speaker, things she knew Gil would destroy just to hurt her.  I grabbed the dog and the cat, pillows and blankets.  We packed our little white VW bug full to the brim, with its white Washington plates that stood out like a flag of surrender amid all the orange-yellow Alaska plates.  And we headed down the street.  

I don’t recall for sure, but I seem to remember that Mom did not take a direct route there, in case Gil watched us leave.  The police kept Gil occupied for some time, I expect, to allow us time to get unpacked and hidden away.  We slept on the floor.  We did not turn lights on at all that night.  I don’t remember for sure, but I don’t even think we parked the car near the apartment.  I think we unloaded and Mom parked it away somewhere.  Gil was pretty drunk anyway, as usual, and so I expect the police were keeping an eye out that he didn’t leave home.  We didn’t even have a phone to call for help if he found us.  And in this place, we did not know the neighbors.  It was a basement apartment, so all our windows were eye level from inside and foot level from outside. I imagine, had we been there in the winter, there would have been no windows at all!!  Fortunately, we didn’t have to stay there that long.  I wasn’t at all sure that we had not gone from the frying pan into the fire.  Gil was probably still pitching our belongings outside and breaking our dishes.  We had no course of action here, if he were to find us, but to run.  We had little or no food.  No beds.  We were afraid to turn on the lights or to make any noise.  We were exhausted, but I doubt that Mom slept at all. 

I don’t remember how our things came to live in the apartment with us.  We must have had help.  I can’t think what circumstances might have been that would allow us to move our things from the house without Gil finding out where we lived, or following us.  They worked in the same office.  What was to keep him from following her home one night?  How could he miss seeing our white VW in the parking lot, only two blocks from his house?  I suspect Mom had lots of help from friends at work, sympathetic people.  But our furniture found us and, although we still looked over our shoulder when we were above ground, we started to ease up a little bit underground.

 

REPRIEVE 

I made friends with the family next door.  They were Aleuts—or was it Athabascans?  I don’t remember which.  But apparently the two tribes hated each other, at least according to the neighbors.  It was all foreign to me, and my first real taste of racism, other than what I saw on TV that happened “someplace else”.  Racism was not a part of the culture that I was raised in.  In fact, I could not tell poor from rich, though when I look back, I’m pretty sure we were living in the slums of Anchorage. Our apartment was two bedrooms.  I think theirs was too.  The family consisted of Mom, Larry (the 21-year-old son), Suzette (in junior high), Rosanna, a year or so younger than me, and a grade-school-aged brother.  The mom drank all the time, as did Larry.  Rosanna and the brother and I walked the mile to school every day.  

I remember being put in remedial math because I didn’t know how to add decimals.  I had always been in the highest math.  Math and science were my best subjects.  But I had been out of school for a while and had missed things.  I expressed disappointment to my teacher, who taught me in one lesson what I had missed and immediately put me in the highest math.  School was easy.  I didn’t intend to make friends.  I didn’t intend to stay long.  One way or another, this chapter in my life was going to end.  Even if it meant that I had to leave it, and my mother, behind.  I was not going to live this kind of life.  Of course, what to do with my cat.  Another anchor.  And for the time being, at least, things felt somewhat normal, and I think I was catching my breath before the next onslaught. 

During recess, I would nab a swing and spend the entire time swinging.  I didn’t have to deal with anyone that way.  The sky was so blue and so deep.  It was May.  The trees were blooming and everything was greening.  It was a sweltering 70 degrees and the natives were donning shorts and halter tops and even swimwear.  I, in my jeans and T-shirts, would swing and just hope that the chain would break on the upswing and I would go sailing off into that deep blue, and float away forever and ever, and never come back. 

One morning, my throat stung a little when I drank my Tang. (We lived on powdered everything, milk, Tang, Kool-Aid, Bisquick, even the sugar was fake because sugar was so expensive.)  By lunch time, it hurt to swallow my peanut butter sandwich (no jam, even).  I had a dime for my half-pint of milk, and that was even hard to swallow.  I went to the nurse and told her I had thrown up my lunch, because I knew I was going downhill very fast, and if I just told her my throat hurt, she would not call my mom.  But they looked down on having to clean up vomit. (At least, that was what Rosanna told me.) So Mom came and took me to the hospital.  By that time, I was shaking uncontrollably.  It was a lovely, sunny day, and I was hot and cold and my body was shaking almost convulsively.  The doctor looked at my throat, took a swab and asked me if I had ever had penicillin before.  Nope.  So he gave me pills to take, in case I was allergic.  But otherwise he would have given me a big old shot because my throat culture was the highest ever recorded there for strep to that date.  (It’s probably the only thing I’m famous for….and the record has probably been broken since.) 

Mom took me home, gave me the pills, and I spent the rest of the day, and I think the night too… don’t really remember…on the davenport.  The next morning, though my throat was still a wee bit sore, as it had been the previous morning, my energy was back to normal and I felt great.  Three cheers for penicillin!!  Of course, Mom made me stay home and rest.  But Rosanna (she was such a good friend) came and played with me and the day was not so bad.  

The days were long for May.  Across the street from us was a gravel pit.  It was a good place for a kid to explore.  It was ringed at street level with cottonwoods that snowed sneezy fluff down with the slightest breeze.  But they smelled heavenly.  Even today, when I walk along the Willamette River during certain seasons, I get a waft of Anchorage.  Rosanna and I used to go for little hikes through this abandoned area.  It must have been 4 blocks square at least, and was bordered on one side, running diagonally mostly east-west, but a little north to south, by a creek.  Across the creek was a golf course that was part of Elmendorf Air Force Base.  I don’t remember why we couldn’t cross over, but we didn’t.  We did get chased by a moose one day though, and that ended our explorations there.  

We were careful to not walk past Gil’s house on our way to school.  So we took a rather roundabout way so that he wouldn’t see us.  One fateful morning, however, as Rosanna and I looked to the right before crossing the first street, I saw Gil’s car heading toward us.  I screamed to Rosanna “RUN!!” and I took off for home.  She followed, obediently but confused, as I flew into the stairwell that led to our door.  Of course, our VW was parked right there, and even if he did not see what stairwell I was hiding in, he did see Rosanna standing there, and he did see our car.  He rolled down his window and said, in a purely evil voice, “Aha, I have got you NOW!” but he kept going.  Of course, I ran inside and told Mom.  She assured me it was not my fault and let me calm down a little before sending me on my way.  I could not have gone to school that day had I not had Rosanna with me.  I had been pursued by a car on the walk home from school in third grade, and I was terrified of having no place to run to get away, should Gil come back after me.  I’m pretty sure Mom waited until Gil got to work before sending me on my way…or maybe she drove us that day….i don’t remember.  But my reprieve was over.

 

NOWHERE TO RUN TO 

I only know the story from my perspective.  As I tell the story, and you see the outcome, you will clearly see that my perspective was very limited, that my brave and strong mother was living a double life.  She was placating Gil, pretending to have a relationship with him, putting her very life on the line, while at the same time orchestrating our escape from Anchorage and from him.  Mom says hindsight is 20/20.  I wish I had known more about what was going on behind the scenes.  I wish I had had more faith in my mother.  I wish I had trusted more and acted less.  But that is not my nature.  I am a doer, I am not a waiter.  

Gil was back in our lives.  My little burrow was no longer a safe place, either physically or psychologically.  If Gil wasn’t being mean physically, he was certainly being mean verbally.  There was nothing I could do right.  Mom bought some cherries, the first fresh food I had had in a long time and I ate more than my share, apparently.  My mother would have just left well enough alone, but Gil had to point out what a fat pig I was.  That I was a greedy girl.  Mean words were such a shock to me.  I had been raised mostly with kindness, but certainly not with degrading words.  I wasn’t used to being called things like “leech”, and his words wounded me deeply.  

He had his decent moments.  He told me I could pick the wildflowers that grew in the woods along the gravel pit, boil them down, and make perfume.  (Perhaps to get me out of the house, out his hair?).  Mom said it would take a lot of flowers to make very little perfume…but I tried.  I expect we played cards or got along sometimes.  Mom was trying hard to keep the peace.  But when he got mean, I left.  I would go to the neighbor’s, even if Rosanna was not there.  I made friends with Larry, and this bothered my mother to no end.  We even locked ourselves in the laundry room once just to get her goat….We didn’t do anything, but she didn’t know that.  

To counteract this, Mom got me involved in day trips with the YMCA.  This was actually a highlight of my time in Anchorage.  We took trips to areas surrounding Anchorage.  I learned some history and got to know the lay of the land a bit.  And it kept me out of trouble and gave me something constructive and positive to do.  And it kept me safe. 

But things with Gil continued to go downhill.  Gil got worse again.  I got angrier and more outspoken.  I threatened to run away (must have broken Mom’s heart) and he was fine with that.  He told me if I didn’t shape up, they would send me to a foster home.  I was thinking of my friends in Oregon, but he said it would be someone I didn’t know.  After one argument, I just finally decided that if he were in the house, I would not be.  I was out on the back porch once.  He had gotten mad at me and locked me out.  So I was just sitting on the back steps with my dog.  Rosanna had come over to play and had walked in the front door. (It was sticky and you could lock it and close it, but unless you leaned against it with all your might, it would not latch and could be pushed open.)  Mom told her I was out back.  She came running around to tell me that Gill had Mom by the throat and we had to help her.  We got her brother and the police, and somehow Gil calmed down.  I’m glad I didn’t see it, or I might have killed him.  

He spent the night one night.  So much for me being gone when he was there.  I was absolutely furious with Mom about this.  It was the last straw for me.  It was late June now, and there wasn’t much night.  The sun set after 10:30 and was up by 3:00.  I waited until after dark and snuck out my window, as Mom and Gil were still up.  I didn’t know where to run to.  I was not afraid of being out at night, even in wild Anchorage, where just about everybody was drunk at night, at least in my neighborhood.  My own life was much more of a nightmare than I could imagine any other life being.  And aside from the fact that my mom loved me (even if she was acting totally selfishly right now – from my perspective), I hated my life.  

But where to go.  I mostly walked around for a while.  Maybe half an hour.  Maybe longer.  The only people I really knew were our old neighbors up the street.  I went to their house and sat on their back porch singing songs from The Sound of Music.  It was late.  Who knows what I interrupted.  John came to the back door and asked what I was doing there.  He invited me in.  I could hear the shower running. I started to tell him about all that was going on and how I had no place to go, could I please stay with them.  But all he was interested in was molesting me!  I broke away and ran out the back door and down the street.  

Perhaps sleeping under the same roof with Gil Lord was not the worst thing that could happen to me after all.  A deep sadness came over me.  There was no place to run TO.  There was no safe place.  With a heavy heart and a resolve to just shut up and put up, I walked slowly, tearfully back to my window, thinking I would go back to bed and Mom and Gil would be none the wiser.  But the window was locked.

 

THE ANGEL AT THE DOOR 

I believe that God is present in our lives, even when we are not aware of it.  I have a friend who was abused as a little girl and she always prayed for God to save her, but He never did—at least not that SHE saw.  My prayer for her is that God will reveal to her how He did save her; because I know He was there and I know He saved her, perhaps not in exactly the way that she expected; but I know that when she called out to Him, her prayers did not go unanswered.  

I look forward to the day when all our stories will be told.  I look forward to seeing how God’s redemptive power has taken evil and used it for good in my life, over and over and over.  I think back to John and how tragic it was that he did not offer me kindness or refuge, or at least call the police or social services.  On the other hand, his actions drove me back to my home.  Now that I am grown, I can imagine much more dire outcomes to that little scenario than a little girl discovering that the world is not safe, and returning to a home that, although unpleasant and unsafe and destructive, was not life-threatening, and was, as it turned out, only temporarily bad.  My mother loved me.  No matter how she was acting.  No matter how confused and angry I was.  No matter that everything I was seeing her do contradicted that, still deep, deep in my heart I believed my mother loved me.  

The window was locked.  They knew that I had left.  They had looked in on me before going to bed and discovered that I had gone out the window.  It was a basement window and could not be latched or unlatched from the outside.  I could not believe my mother would lock the window.  It must have been Gil.  He hated me.  I could not even imagine that Mom was not devastated, had not called the police, had actually gone to bed rather than waiting up for me, or going to look for me.  Was she really resolved to losing me?  Really?  Had she chosen Gil over me?  How could she?  I went quietly down the back steps.  The kitchen door was locked.  I checked the other windows.  All locked.  I was beginning to panic. What to do now? Sit on the back porch and wait for morning?  I wasn’t sure.  I very quietly snuck down the front steps, past their window, and tried the front door.  Locked as well.  Oh, God!! 

And then a very calm thought came to me in the midst of my disappointment.  “Push on the door.”  Though the door had been locked and closed, it had not latched.  I leaned into it and it gave way.  I closed it as quietly as I could, making sure it latched, and snuck back into my bed.  My mother DID love me.  She let Gil lock and close the front door, knowing he didn’t know to shove it hard…or she closed it herself.  My mother was looking out for me.  I slept well that night, with a new trust in my mother, and a  new hope that she had a plan and all would work out for the best, somehow.  I did know one thing, the world did not love me—but my mother did. 

Nothing was said the next morning when I got up.  I assumed that my mom and I had a secret and I would not betray her.  No one asked.  Things just went on, at a somewhat more peaceful pace.  I don’t know if Gil was any less mean, but I expect I was probably less sassy, and I’m sure that helped.  

Down the road, when Anchorage was in our rearview mirror and I thanked Mom for not latching the door, she said she had been the one to close the door—not Gil—and she did not realize it had not latched.  She wondered how I had gotten in that night.  This was a devastating realization for me.  I realized my mother had indeed, at that point in time, given up on me.  When I look back, though, I can’t fault her.  Everyone has their breaking point, and she had hit hers.  I wonder if she prayed for my safety that night.  I wonder if finding me home in the morning was a joyful answer to prayer.  I wonder if my leaving and miraculous return had given her the last bit of encouragement she needed to finish that chapter of our lives.  

But moreover, when I ask God, “Where were you when I was in Anchorage?” The answer is, “I was at the door.” 

DON’T LOOK BACK!! 

We left Anchorage on July 31, 1974, a little over 3 months after we had arrived.  Since the angel at the door, I believed that Mom was looking out for me.  I believed she had been the one to covertly see that the door had not latched, to allow me to come home.  In reality, she was watching out for me, but in a different way.  The important thing was that I had found a renewed hope and trust in her, that she would and could take care of me.  

Mom worked with a woman in the Anchorage office named Diane Fletcher.  Her husband “Fletch” worked on the base.  I assume he was in the military.  Fletch and Diane agreed to buy what furniture we had.  Mom was making plans to escape and she was needing money that Gil did not know about.  She had made arrangements to be transferred to the Bellevue office and it was on the QT, because if Gil had found out about it, he probably would have killed her.  I mean that literally.  I was THAT afraid of him and he had never had his hands around MY neck. I’m sure Mom was even more afraid!  

So Mom packed the most precious things of ours and made arrangements for them to be shipped to Bellevue.  I’m sure Fletch and Diane handled this as well.  On the 31^st, the gang at the office was slated to go out for drinks after work,  Mom made some excuse to come home first, and everyone but Gil apparently, knew that Mom was leaving. It was mid week, so he would be less likely to follow.  Everything was by the door waiting to be packed into the car—boxes, food, clothing.  We packed our little VW to the brim.  We took the spare tire out of the trunk to make more space and put it behind the passenger seat.  We put a blanket in it, and Susie spent most of the trip curled up in the center of the tire, her litter box riding on top of our belongings in the back seat.  We could not take Paterick, who had been my dog since 1^st or 2^nd grade.  It was hard enough to say goodbye.  I didn’t know it then, but I would never see him again. 

So, having hurriedly packed, we embarked on the flight of our lives.  I’m sure I was not as afraid as Mom, but I could sense her fear and it made me afraid.  We left directly.  She checked her rearview mirror constantly. She was afraid that Gil would pursue us.  I suspect she was afraid that Anyone would follow us.  Even police were not necessarily safe, as Gil knew lots of people in Alaska and had been a police officer in Seattle.  The Al-Can highway was not fully paved in 1974. In fact, on a plaque in a diner along the way was this little poem:

 The Al-Can 

Winding in and winding out,

It fills my mind with serious doubt

As to whether the lout who built this route

Was going to Hell or coming out. 

We were definitely coming out!!  After we got an hour or so out of town, we were traveling on gravel road.  At least it stayed light until well into the night.  I don’t know how far we got on that first night.  I suspect we drove all night and found a motel the next morning, to sleep for a few hours and get a sandwich.  We looked for motels where we could park around back, out of sight from the highway.  Mom did not want to be found.  Additionally, we snuck Susie into the room as often as we could.  The first day was the scariest.  I expect Mom called the Anchorage office to find out that Gil was indeed there, and not off looking for us, and that made it easier.  But I don’t know that for sure.  I don’t even remember how many days it took us to get to Washington.  The road was gravel, pot-hole filled, and very slow going.  Not too long into the trip, an oncoming truck flung a large piece of gravel up at the car that came right in through the wing window, landing in Mom’s lap, along with broken glass.  She was scared every time we passed an oncoming car, for fear a flying rock would break a window, or worse.  By the time we got to Washington, the windshield was pitted and the hood so chipped that we had to take primer to it.  Our little white VW now had a gray nose.  So we called it a “Siamese”.  

Eventually, we hit paved road again and could make better time.  For me, the adventure lover, it was a fun trip.  I was so relieved to be leaving, for one thing, but also, the country was beautiful.  The hillsides were full of little trees and mountain sheep, and snow, even mid summer!  We were headed back to “terra firma” out of the wild country and back to civilization.  For Mom, it was not so easy.  She still lived in fear.  There was no way to hide really.  She still worked for the same company.  He was bound to find her.  But at least we were back close to family, where we could hide if needed.  

I don’t know how much of this Mom told to family.  I’m sure she was pretty humiliated by the whole misadventure.  I know she lost a lot of weight.  She was always thin anyway, but she aged a lot.  When I look back at pictures of her then, I can see the strain all this took on her body.  But, like I said before, my mom is strong and brave.  She would get us through.

 

STARTING OVER 

We found an apartment in Bellevue, not too far from where Mom worked.  We had a ground floor apartment.  Although it was rough going at first—we had no furniture, only blankets and pillows and a few clothes—it was a nice vacation for me soon enough. It was August and there was pool table and a swimming pool.  What more did I need?  

After the first night in the apartment, we went to get something out of the car and Susie bolted from the apartment.  When we opened the car door, she jumped in and curled up in her place in the spare tire behind my seat, as if to say, “Okay, I’m ready to go.”  No doubt she was relieved too, and could sense that moving was a good thing.  And I suppose, after us having left her once and the neighbors coming and putting her into a crate and then being shipped via air freight, she was probably unwilling to ever let me out of her sight again.  

Mom made me memorize the address immediately so if I got lost for some reason, I would be able to at least know where I lived.  I think she started to work almost immediately.  Within the month our stuff arrived.  Mom had bought me a new bed when we left Vancouver, not wanting to bring the old bunk bed along, and she had it shipped with the very few other things we could salvage.  She managed to save a bench, her old sewing machine, a table that my brothers’ dad had made ages ago and that one of my brothers had put a nail into.  Of course, our Korean china came and some dishes, and her pots and pans that had been a wedding present back in 1950.  With her first paycheck she bought a couch that was comfortable to sleep on, and until she could afford a bed as well, she slept on that couch.  Little by little, she rebuilt our lives.  I don’t think I suffered any.  At least I had a bed!!  And I think I would have been happy sleeping on the floor forever, just to be rid of Gil Lord. 

Soon school started and it wasn’t too bad.  I missed my old friends dreadfully, but I started to make new friends.  I walked home every day with two girls who lived in the same apartment complex.  We called ourselves the three musketeers.  We were in different grades and had no classes together, but we had met during the summer and it was at least safe to walk the mile or so to school together.  Michelle was Hawaiian, Stacey was black and was also from Anchorage.  Stacey was a fabulous singer.  Michelle’s mom practiced Tai Chi.  I remember watching her in fascination as she went through her slow-motion routine, every day.  Michelle was a good friend to me.  

I had lots of jobs babysitting, which kept me out of trouble and gave me spending money.  One Friday night though, Mom had heard through a contact at work that Gil was headed down to Washington.  She wanted to leave right after work but I had already made a commitment to babysit that night.  So she gave me a special knock, told me to be careful when I came down the stairs (from the apartment two floors above), and we would leave immediately.  Mom spent a long, terrifying evening in the apartment, with the doors locked and bolted, with the lights out, the curtains closed, and not making any sound.  If Gil found us, she did not want him to know we were home.  She even parked the car elsewhere.  When I was done, I came downstairs, we got in the car, and we headed for Aunt Elsie’s, in Chehalis, where we spent the rest of the weekend, until the coast was clear.  When we got home, someone had scratched vulgarities on our front door, perhaps with a car key or some other sharp object.  I suspect this may have been motivation for our moving.  I don’t know how many other incidents there were like this, or if Mom took legal measures to protect us (knowing full well they couldn’t really protect us).  I suspect she saw the change in me from one year to the next, and shielded me as much as possible.  

I did okay in school, but I had issues.  My homeroom teacher and I didn’t particularly get along, and I had to see him twice a day.  He always found something to criticize about me, but in the end we learned to respect each other.  We had a rule during film strips that you could not switch seats, but I sat in the back row and could not see.  So I had asked him prior to the film if I could move up and he okayed it, as long as I waited until after the film started.  But when I moved, the girl I sat beside had issues and told me I couldn’t move and we ended up on the floor taking swings at each other.  I have to admit that I had a pretty short fuse at that point, and it didn’t take much to set me off.  Probably, having lived side-by-side with violence had not helped me improve my temper, which I came by naturally, apparently, as both my grandmother and mother were pretty easy to rile.  My grandmother was a master at tongue lashings, but my mother kept it all inside, me? I had learned to hit things.  

I spent my lunch hour every day playing chess with my German teacher, Olof Kyte.  He was Norwegian and told wondrous stories about the horrors his family endured when he was a child, during WW II.  Better than any history book.  At the first of the year he beat me easily.  By the end of the year, I was winning half the time and the games were taking the entire lunch period.  

I liked my math teacher as well, and he took several of us to Seattle to a math competition.  I didn’t win, but I did place, and it was really fun.  I learned to play volleyball and tennis.  It was not an unproductive year, and I started to settle in by the end.  

Shortly after we moved to Bellevue, a man from work, who had been transferred out from Kansas City not too long before, and who had been having marital problems, moved in with us as a “roommate”.  By this time Mom had her own bed, and Jerry took the couch.  Mom seemed happier.  Lots happier.  After a few months, I asked him to marry us.  

We brought home a little gray kitten that I dubbed Missibah (after a horse I had known once) Mazmeaus (because her ‘meow” sounded like a Mazda), aka “Missy”.  She was a delight to us all.  Mom’s first grandchild, Clinton, visited us while we lived there.  He was just starting to walk and chased that little kitten all over the place.  

In the spring, we moved from the apartment to a house.  Now I had a 3-mile walk home every day, alone.  Shortly after we had arrived in Bellevue, we got a letter from Fletch saying that Paterick had escaped off his chain and could not be found.  That was heartbreaking for me, but he had gone wild up in Alaska, never having been neutered, and with us gone and no one really loving him.  One day, Mom came home with a little black ball of fluff tucked under her coat.  It was a puppy.  I think she had been missing Paterick too.  This was a little terrier, cocker spaniel, poodle mix, a terri-cocka-poo.  I think the cocker was the dominant characteristic though.  We called him Charley, perhaps after Steinbeck’s Charley?  But he was a good distraction and something to keep me occupied during the summer.  I could write a whole book about Charley…. 

It was a long summer.  I spent much of it high up in the top of the birch tree, swaying with the breeze and reading classics like “Papa’s Wife” and “Papa’s Daughter” and any Nancy Drew book I could get my hands on.  That summer Missy presented us with a litter of 3 kittens.  We found homes for two but kept the third one, Rabbit. She was white, and when she first started ambulating, she hopped like a little white rabbit.  

Things were going downhill for the insurance company.  Jerry got laid off during the summer.  Mom was one of the last to go, because of seniority, I presume.  The next fall I had to start in a different school, only a few blocks from home, but new friends and new surroundings.  I think I was adjusting well, but about six weeks into the year, we moved again, this time all the way to Oregon, where I would finally put down some roots.  Jerry had found work in Eugene, and Mom gave him all her money and he went to Eugene and put it all down on a house.  We moved in mid October.  In mid November they got married.

 

ANOTHER NEW START 

To be honest, I had never heard of Eugene.  I spent the first nearly six years of my life in Salem, but for all I knew, Oregon ended there.  I knew there was Brookings on the coast, because I had heard my mom talk about it, and I think I had heard of Ashland.  But Salem was the furthest south I had ever been.  I wasn’t keen on moving AGAIN, but at least this time my hopes were pretty high. I was ready to really, really start over, to put roots down, to make friends, to make a life, to put Anchorage and even Bellevue behind me.  It was time to be born again. 

Mom took me to the junior high that was about two miles from our house (which was a brand new house, the very last on the street—at least at that time!).  But the area was growing so fast that they had  no room for new students.  They were overcrowded as it was.  This turned out to be a good thing, though I sure didn’t think it was at the time!  They told Mom that the best choice would be to take me over to Monroe Junior High, about eight miles away, as they had dwindling enrollment and were happy to take new students.  So over there we traipsed and got me all set up.  I was disappointed to learn that I could not continue German, and after a lot of tears, they consented that if it were okay with Mom, and since I had always been a good student, I could walk over to the high school, about a mile away, and take German there.  

I rode the special ed bus to and from school at first.  Because it was the district’s fault that I had to travel so far, they had to provide transportation.  And the transportation they provided was the special ed bus.  Actually, there were several kids who were new to the area that were in the same dilemma.  I actually liked the special ed kids because they were nice and accepting.  I got teased horribly by the kids at school because of riding that bus, but I had instant friends among the kids who rode it.  

The German class I took at Sheldon used the same book I had used in Bellevue.  It was good for me to review.  Frau Stevenson was an English teacher, teaching German, and boy did I learn grammar from her!!  But she did find it odd that while my pronunciation was excellent, I spoke German with a slight Norwegian accent.  I wonder why?  

Not too long after we moved there I started babysitting for a couple down the street.  The pastor of a local church lived across the street from them, and they went to his church and invited me. I was thrilled.  My plan for my new life was falling into place, and it definitely involved going to church and straightening up.  I rode with them or with the pastor and his family, and started making friends at church as well. 

Pretty quickly I joined the volleyball team and because practice was after school, it meant missing the bus, so Dad (Jerry) would pick me up on his way home from work, or sometimes Mom would.  In the spring I joined the track team.  I wasn’t really part of the crowd, but I was trying.  I made friends with a girl named Debby who also rode the bus, having recently moved to Eugene.  She lived about a half mile from me, as the crow flies, across the filbert orchard.  This was the beginning of my undoing at Monroe.  We did okay through 8^th grade, although by the end of the year, a certain alcoholic teacher started taking an interest in her, and I went along for the ride.  Looking back, her parents were alcoholics as well, and so it was natural for her to gravitate to this man.  But she started going home with him after school, and people who saw us together, us both being relatively new, started putting my name with her face.  I started getting a really bad reputation.  I could be standing in the hallway and hear people talking about her, using MY name, and I was standing right there!  They clearly did not know who they were talking about.  But the people that did know me were hearing the rumors attached to my name and I was losing respect quickly.  

The next year, 9^th grade (junior high went from 7^th to 9^th grade back then, and high school was from 10^th to 12^th), things just picked up where they left off.  I begged Debby to stop, but she said I didn’t understand, I was on the outside looking in.  So my only recourse was to cut ties with her.  One day, during P.E., an emotionally troubled 7^th or 8^th grader, raided the lockers—well MY locker—and strung my belongings--books and street clothes--as well as things that were not mine—lacy night gowns and frilly underclothing—all over the courtyard.  I had to go pick everything up, what was mine and what was not mine, in full view of all the classrooms surrounding the courtyard, and all the students changing classes, as I was still picking things up when the bell rang.  I didn’t dare leave even the things that were not mine lying around, lest they be circulated as belonging to me.  But picking them up was as good as confessing I owned them.  

I was so completely humiliated and angry.  After school that day, I punched a metal post and broke my hand.  Only, I was too angry to even admit that I had hurt myself and played the last two weeks of volleyball with a broken hand….THEN I admitted what I had done and had it set and plastered.  My entire 9^th grade year was that kind of misery.  I didn’t have many friends, other than the teachers, who appreciated my intelligence by and large, and who knew it was not ME who was involved with that teacher.  And they knew his character as well.  The counselor became a good outlet for me.  I spent a lot of time chewing on his ear.  And I met new friends from Korea, who were also strangers and only knew me for who I was, because they did not understand the language well enough to learn of my “reputation”.  Seems I was always a friend to the outsider, the stranger, the “rejected”, like the kids on the special ed bus.  But, it seemed to me that I was in good company, because those seemed to be the kinds of people Jesus made friends with as well.  

Jerry’s daughter had come and spent the summer with us that first summer, and she was coming back this summer.  So I would have a friend all summer.  And as it turned out, we didn’t send her back the second summer, but kept her.  I was thrilled.  We rode bikes together, played tennis, sunbathed, swam at Fern Ridge…everything.  I had been asking my mom for a sister all my life.  Now, at 15, I finally had one!! 

The next school year, though, started out on the wrong foot, again.  Debby and I had parted company and things seemed to be cooling down, but the very first day of school I heard someone using my name and pointing at Debby, clear at the other end of the hallway…I had been hoping for a fresh start, people that didn’t know me, hoping the rumors and stories would have been left at Monroe.  But no, the first day, it was starting up again already.  I just lost it.  There was not room for her and me both at this school.  One of us had to leave.  So I screamed her name (now they had to know her REAL name) and sprinted at her full bore.  I tackled her and her books went flying and she landed on the concrete floor, breaking her wrist in the process.  Of course I did not know this, and I was straddling her, kneeling, screaming at her to fight.  I wanted to punch her in the face.  I wanted to kill her, but she would not fight back and in the split second it took me to decide to hit her, I was being pulled off of her by a short, sturdy little teacher named Mike Helm.  I don’t remember what happened after that, whether I got suspended or what, but I did meet the new counselors. I seemed to always be known by the principals, vice principals, office staff, and especially the counselors of every school I attended.  

But in school, she went her way, art, drama, whatever, and I went my way, science, math and sports, and our paths rarely crossed.  I’m sure she never knew why I tackled her.  She sure didn’t deserve it. 

 

A NEW NAME 

In the spring of my 10^th grade year, shortly after my 16^th birthday, Jerry adopted me and I took his surname.  What a difference a name makes.  People soon forgot my old name and only knew me by my new name.  And though the rumors still circulated, they were about somebody else, not me.  People no longer associated me with the old name.  Had I known it would be that simple, I would have changed my name long before that!!  

Things started to improve, in some ways.  I still had lots of problems, but they were mostly internal.  Bill Anderson, one of the counselors, my senior year, nailed it for me.  He said to me, “You are trying to control everyone and everything in your life.  The only person you CAN control is Jodie, and that is a big enough job for you.”  But it was true, I was trying to manipulate people to make them fit some picture of what I wanted my life to be, and it wasn’t working, and when I quit trying to do that, my stress level went way down and my happiness went way up.  I still had a long way to go to learn to love Jodie, though.  A very long way.  There was something likable about me.  I wanted to be good.  I wanted to be special.  I had a yearning to be what God wanted me to be.  One of the ladies I babysat for said to me one day, “I hope when my little girl grows up, she is just like you.”  I’m sure my eyes filled with tears as I thought in my mind, “You don’t know what you are wishing.  If only you knew me, you would not say that.”  

I’m sure, on the outside, people saw a smart, smiling, bubbly, funny, athletic, pretty girl.  On the inside though, I was so filled with guilt and hate and self-loathing and anger.  If people once saw what was inside me, surely they would not look again.  I was repulsive.  I had done horrible things.  I even told the devil one time that I would serve him if he would give me the power to control my life.  I suspect I was out of his jurisdiction.  

 

HEALING BEGINS 

One of the things I know now that I did not  know then, is that when a girl is molested, assaulted, raped—whatever term you want to use—it is not uncommon for her to become promiscuous.  She is aware way too early, her boundaries have been crossed, and until she learns to reestablish those boundaries, they will continue to be crossed.  For me, I was lacking a father.  I wasn’t particularly interested in boys, but I wanted a “daddy” and so I would get into relationships with men that started out with me getting what I needed, attention and hugs and praise from men, but then end in them getting what they wanted, leaving me feeling dirty and guilty and worthless.  This was a recurring trend throughout my teenage years.  And of course, it was all my fault.  

When I was in college, as part of my teacher education courses, I did a practicum in a 7^th grade science class.  One day, as I was among the 12- and 13-year-old girls, God said to me.  “Look at these girls.  If any one of them were to tell you that they did what you did when you were 12 or 13, who would you hold responsible—the girl for seducing the adult, or the adult for having sex with her?”  I nearly hit the ceiling, as much of the guilt and self-loathing I had carried for so many years just dropped off me and fell as a cloud of dust on the ground. 

But that was just a start.  I was still wounded.  I still hated myself.  I was still looking for a father.  I still felt like a failure.  And then I got pregnant.  I was unmarried, still in school, now too sick to work, and what was I going to do?  I moved back home with my parents and finished school.  I had to finish school so I would not truly be a failure.  I was so focused on my baby, I was really pretty oblivious to much of what was going on around me.  At church, most of the people were very supportive.  But some were not.  After Laura was born, I became more sensitive to those who were critical of me.  I had gone for a job interview at a little private church school in Junction City.  I started going there on Wednesday nights and to my old church on Sundays.  We were so totally accepted at the new church, that I started going there all the time.  It was not long before we moved to Junction City and I met my new best friend (who, 20‑some years later, is still the friend that sticks closer than a sister!).  I was still struggling in my old ways.  My heart wanted to be what God wanted me to be, but I was unable to get out of my old ways.  

When Laura was a toddler still, about 18 months old, I watched her as she lay sleeping one night and my heart just overflowed with love for her.  I had been given the gift of mother bear love for her even before she was born.  I remember looking at her and feeling all that love for her.  I knew I would lay down my life for her.  I realized that my mother loved me that same way.  I knew she loved me.  But I could not feel it.  I knew it in my head, but part of me said that I was completely unworthy and so I couldn’t accept it.  But that night, as I looked down at Laura, I accepted for the first time ever, that my mother loved me THAT much.  And then God said, “And I love you so much more than that, you will never be able to comprehend it.” 

 

RESTORATION 

In the fall, when I was 24, shortly after I had moved to Junction City, my friend Bev called and she told me all about how she had planted bulbs in her flower beds and how she could not wait until spring for them to come up.  They were going to be so beautiful.  It was prophetic, really.  I was trying so very hard to be good, but the chains of my past kept holding me down.  I fell flat on my face day after day.  I was learning that God loved me.  I was healing, but I was trying to do it all myself.  Our pastor, Gordon, says “God is old and slow.”  I wanted to be healed, to be good, to get married, to be a wife, to have more children.  But there was no prospect in sight!!  In fact, I could not picture myself being married.  Every boyfriend I had ever had I had been so cruel to, like an insect who mates and then bites off her partner’s head.  But God said to me, “I have planted bulbs in your heart, and they will grow, but you have to wait for spring.  You keep going and digging them up to see if they are growing yet, and that will kill them.  Wait for spring.”  

It was such a clear Word, that I even wrote Gordon a letter about it.  

The next spring, when I was 25, our church was doing a “restoration class”.  It was for those who had been abused or raped.  I didn’t feel like I fell into either category.  But my friend, Laurie, and her husband, who was an elder, told me I should go.  I did not see how it would help me.  But I knew they had my best interests at heart.  I knew they had no ulterior motive.  I felt like I needed to obey (not usual for me!).  So I went.  But before the class started, I was praying one night and God told me, “Write down the names of all the men who have mistreated you.”  I did.  I was shocked at what a long list it was.  But it was a place to start.  

I’m sure there was more to the class than what I remember.  There were about 12 people and two or three teachers.  Ed, Red, and Fred, if I recall correctly.  We started by doing some Bible study, learning about God and God’s nature, and learning about free will and what life would look like without free will.  We learned about forgiveness, about how God forgave us, and about how God called us to forgive those who had mistreated us.  We learned that for those who had been sexually abused, almost always it started before they were five.  Yup.  Then one by one, we told our stories, usually one person per night.  We cried for each other, we prayed for each other, we put our hands on each other, and we each in our turn forgave those who hurt us.  It was major league intense.  I think I was among the first half to talk.  But the really interesting thing is that after a while, the stories started sounding the same, with minor variations.  I had felt like I was the worst person on earth, like there was no one as bad as me; but I started to see that that was a lie of the enemy!  These hurting people were just like me!  All of a sudden, I was no longer alone.  There was power in that.  

The hardest part was forgiveness and dropping the cloak of woundedness.  For a long time, I kept a list in my heart of all those bad things that had happened to me in my childhood, but as I started to choose to forgive each person who had hurt me, my list started to become magically erased!  The memories started to fade and I started to not be defined by them anymore.  Some people were easy to forgive.  Others took years.  Sometimes, I still have to say, “I forgive you” when I think of someone.  As often as I think of any of these, I have to say, “I forgive you”.  And I had to learn to see myself as God sees me.  I had to learn to look at those 12-year-old girls and say, “You are not to blame.” Or maybe look at myself as an older person and say, “I understand why you did this. I forgive you.”  

That was a major change in my life.  That was spring.  The bulbs were blooming! 

 

It has taken me a long time to really learn to trust God again.  But God is old and slow, and He has time to wait for me to heal.  I’m still learning to love myself, to see myself as God does and to see others through God’s eyes.  But I’m learning that even when I don’t understand what God is doing in my life, He truly loves me, with a love that is truer and purer than any person can love me.  And He has my best interests in mind.  And just as He gives me free will, He gives everyone else free will as well; and just as I hurt others sometimes, others will hurt me sometimes; but God can bring good out of any evil.  And He is more than just at the door now.  He is inside me.  Nothing can separate me from the love of God. Not even Gil Lord.   Not even my own sin and guilt.  As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed my transgression from me….When He looks at me, he sees the person He created—my sin is behind Him.