From a recovering alcoholic

Romans 12: 1

I was asked to share my story on morals and my response was "sure, I don't have any." Sexual abuse began for me at age 5. It was something that just happened growing up in my world with drinking, drugging and fighting parents. It continued throughout my youth into teen years. Some I was victim of and some I was the initiator.

Once I started drinking and drugging, age 19, I knew the only way to get a guy in my life was to sleep with him. I needed to be drunk for that a lot of times, that is,: partying with my cousin once, he set up two gang rapes that evening that haunted me for years.

I was a single mom of a beautiful little girl at age 19 and then had an abortion the following year. I was married that year after knowing him 6 weeks, and was the mother again of another beautiful little girl the next year. He had 3 little boys. There was definitely a full house.

That was an abusive marriage and I was abusive to all the children, physically and psychologically. This ended in divorce due to his infidelity in 1977.

I was a single mom again until I married again in 1978, and I knew him 6 weeks also. This one lasted 11 years. There was sex before marriage each time. That is just the way things were done in my world.

I drank and we smoked pot. It was an ugly marriage of drinking, drugging and fighting. Just what I was used to! He wanted to go outside of the marriage and have another woman in our bed. I started to feel sick to my stomach but I blamed the alcohol. Then one night he suggested we have one of our daughters join us. I began to hate him.

In 1982 I started on my road to sobriety. Ten months into sobriety, my children revealed to me that my father had been sexually abusing them for four years! They would visit Grandma and Grandpa for the summers. I was homicidal, angry, guilt ridden and so hurt. My father was labeled a pedophile. As things came out about my dad, it was revealed by my stepdaughter that my husband had dome something to her, and my stepson had done something to my oldest daughter. My husband ended up in treatment as well as my son. The marriage ended in divorce in 1989.

In 1991 came the sickest relationship of all. He drank, drugged, gambled and ran with other women to the tune of 4 - 6 thousand dollars a month! I was not using but I enabled this to continue for the entire relationship. I have put up cars and closed out money market funds to bail him out of situations and jail. I saw the solution as "loving him back to life? and in my world that was sex and money. I drove him to the dope house, bought his rigs (needles) and tormented him during the worst of his nightmare highs. This lasted until 1997.

Praise the Lord Jesus, as I had become homeless and my children were not in a situation to help me and would not have anyway! They were so sick and tired of hearing me whine about my life and not doing anything about it.

Acres of Diamonds is a transitional home in Duvall, Washington. It was a place for homeless women and their children, but I was given a chance as a single woman there. The Lord was being reintroduced in my life. I was a resident for 8 months and then House Manager for a total of three years over the next four. During This time the Holy Spirit came upon me.

I still had a problem leaving my ex-boyfriend alone and I continued sinning against the Lord with him. I kept this from my director and staff there and lived a lie. I asked a Pastor to talk to him, and the report to me was "P, This is a man in a rubber raft in the middle of the ocean with a hole in it." To no avail I held my ground in this relationship. I learned later that it was my selfish self-centeredness. I was trying to change someone who did not have the desire to change. I was in love with an image of a man I thought he could be. What gave me that right?? I also realized how hard it was for me to change one tiny thing in myself, let alone someone else!

I secured a good job with a family of four children, by the Grace of God, during my stay at the home. Again that started to turn my life to the Lord. Their lifestyle oozed with moral living and I was taught there was still a chance for me. (God had given me many other chances, which I ignored.) I learned that "if you do right things then the right things will happen", and "if you give respect to yourself then others will respect you", and "if you surround yourself with positive people, positive people will surround you". Folks, This is all stuff I have learned in the past four years. Simply put, my self-esteem and self worth needed a lot of work and it would happen if I would let it.

Three years ago this July the Lord brought me to Spokane. All He said was "I have some work for you to do on the other side of the mountain." I had no idea where that meant. So after living in the Snoqualmie Valley for 25 years, I rented a U-Haul and a dolly and off I went. My heart tore when I told my daughter; we had never been more than 40 minutes apart in our life, 31 years!

I thought when I got my job at a homeless shelter that was what He meant by "work". WRONG!! He brought me here to build a relationship with my other daughter and her family, and to CBC and Celebrate Recovery to continue my work in the areas of my addictions. Sex, drugs and sick relationships, in a most loving, caring, giving and forgiving manner I have ever experienced. With the Love of Jesus Christ shining though everyone!

Today to the best of my ability, I check my motives and ask "is this what the Lord would have me do?" God has placed me in another serving position with homeless women and children, They minister to me more than I minister to them! They are my sisters and comrades. We have walked the same paths, maybe not the same circumstances, but this keeps me humble before my Lord!

Today my children are not abandon by a mother seeking to satisfy my own selfish desires! They respect me and trust me with my grandchildren. Their support has been so wonderful and overwhelming during my bi-polar episodes. This is a direct result of living to the best of my ability, not perfect by any means, according to God's will for me. His will is in the Word.

It has taken a lot of years to begin to work on the sex, love and romance issues. It is just another part of "the onion being peeled away one layer at a time". The scars on my heart are what hold me together because I am right with the Lord Jesus today, by the grace of God, one day at a time, and a WHOLE LOT OF PRAYER!!

For the first time in my life, I am truly in love with my Lord. He has introduced me to a wonderful Christian man! Imagine that!! I have never dated a Christian in my life, so what an adventure this life led by the King of Kings is!! 2 Cor 5: 17