The Joy Fairy a.k.a My Story

***WARNING***

This post has some things in it that may be hard for some to read.

I work with special ed. at a middle school and one of the sweet kids I work with told me the other day that she thinks I should be called the "joy fairy". I absolutely love that! How awesome it is to me that the joy of the Lord within me is evident to a child! When I stop and consider what I’ve been through in my life, it’s hard for even me to imagine how I could be filled with such joy. It wasn’t always like that for me…

Usually, when I tell my story I rattle it off like a laundry list. I think I do that as a way of disassociating from all of it. I also am seldom able to remember the whole list at once and my memories can be sketchy. I’m sure that is because it’s all a little overwhelming. Anyway, so here is the laundry list…

At around 5 years old my grandfather called me and my sister (she was about 3) into the restroom at his house and proceeded to expose himself to us.

At close to the same age, I watched as a 13 yr. old boy molested my sister. He was the son of the woman who ran our daycare center.

My own father began molesting me at around the age of 8 (at least that’s the age I first remember anything happening…I have a strong feeling there are a lot of things I don’t remember where that is concerned).

When I was 12 I ran away from home, the police found me and I told them about what my dad had done; from what I understand, there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute so within a couple of weeks things were status quo…this is actually one of the most traumatic of my life experiences because it made me feel like they didn’t believe me.

When I was 15 I was raped and over the next three years (until I was married) I found myself in several other situations where I was sexually assaulted; some would argue that I put myself into those situations.

When I was 17 my ex-boyfriend committed suicide on homecoming night of our senior year.

Also when I was 17 I was in a convenience store when a man walked in, pulled out a gun and told the checker and me to go lie face down on the floor in the back of the store; he then robbed the store and walked out (I’d heard before of a story where something similar had happened, only the robber shot those people in the back of the head).

I know there are several other things that could be added to the list since I don’t ever remember all of it at once, but I guess you get the point. I’ve seen some tough times in my life. As a result, for a long time fear completely ruled my life. I was always waiting for the next bad thing to happen and always trying to keep the bad things from happening.

In my mid-30s some other things occurred that again shook me and after so many years of trying to carry the load on my own, I finally got to the point where I just couldn’t do it any longer. That’s when I finally let my mind go quiet enough that I started to understand how God wanted me to live. And that’s when things began to change for me… (to be continued…)

You can find Part Two Here, and Part Three Here