A Portion From My Memoir

This is a portion from chapter 14. I still have a way to go. Thought y’all would like an update. I’m still plugging along with it.

Chapter 14: Finding God

Mike got a job that would keep him gone most of the day. He traveled to the city, an hour away, and worked a full day. I was left at Dad’s to get Lexi on the school bus. My day would then be filled with nothing. I did not have a car, which is good because I would have gone and got pills any chance I could. The sitting still and boredom started to kick in. So one day I wanted to read but had nothing to read, so I picked up my Bible and started at the beginning. 

    I read about creation and on to Adam and Eve and leaving the garden. I had heard the stories in Sunday School and other outlets, like movies and such, but I had never read it for myself. Little each day I would pick it up and read. Who knew that it read like a story? 

    One Saturday afternoon, I took a nap. I dreamed of doing crack cocaine with Mom and we were in a van careening out of control. I awoke startled and relieved it was only a dream but I knew it was a warning as well. I cannot tell you how I knew it was a warning, I just knew. That dream could have been interpreted different ways. The gist I got then was that if I didn’t do something, I was going to end up like Mom. See I had always told myself I was better than Mom and not so bad off because I didn’t smoke crack cocaine like she had. (Crazy the way we can fool ourselves.) Another way to interpret that dream could have been that the child within me was me and I was Mom in that van wildly out of control. That I would be contributing to a generational curse of addiction. I wouldn’t see this interpretation for many years to come.

    When I woke from the dream, I found Mike and asked him if we could go to his mom’s church in the morning. He said he would drive me but he would not go in. At this time I was desperate to go, but not desperate to walk in the doors alone. So I called Mike’s mom Alice and asked if I could ride in with her if Mike brought me to her. She was delighted and eagerly agreed. 

    I smoked my cigarette before I got her house and I didn’t smoke another until Mike picked me up. That is a long time for a smoker and I can tell you the urge was there. I was greeted by many friendly faces and I went to the alter at the end of the service. It was a quiet, gentle time at the alter for me and I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to find. 

    Over the months of my pregnancy, I read a little more and more of the Bible. At night, Mike and I would talk about it some. He had a lot of knowledge on the Bible from growing up in the church. He knew all the stories and the characters, as they seemed to me at that time. Every Sunday morning, Mike would drive me to his mom’s and I would go to church with her. Lexi would go with us on the Sundays she wasn’t with her dad. 

    Each week the pastor would preach from a portion of the Bible. The most amazing thing started to unfold before my eyes as he would take the church right to the part of scripture I had just read that previous week! It was such an awesome feeling and God was becoming real to me in such a loving way. I see now how He was saying to me, Here, child, let me explain what you read last week. He was cementing His word in me!

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