Deborah Y

My name is Deborah; and thinking back on how God has worked in my life I realized he had always been there from the very beginning. I was born Jan 1967, 2.5 months early. I weighed a whopping 3 pounds and promptly lost 9 oz. 44 years ago a preemie that small and that early had a slim chance of living but here I am. My mom left my birth father when I was less than 6 months old and again God was there. He was drunk again and mad because I was gasp of all things a little girl and not a boy so he tried to choke me. Mom hit him over the head with the closest thing she could find and fled. My mom married my dad when I was 3 years old. She had 2 more children after me. I have 2 younger brothers. As time went on dad moved from job to job and money became very tight. Mom couldn’t or wouldn’t work and things got even worse. My nana and granddad kept us afloat. Mom became more and more depressed and I became the mom. Cooking and cleaning, laundry, taking care of my brothers etc. Now that’s not to say I did it all because there were moments when mom helped. I believe she did the best she was able to do. Then dad was laid off and things became really bad. My granddad died and my mom slid deeper and deeper into depression. My dad who had always been so loving soon became mean and abusive. During this time, we kept up appearances. We went to church, I sang in the choir, and was involved in every aspect of the youth group and Sunday school. I didn’t really KNOW God at the time. I just knew that I was being a good Methodist girl by going to church every week. I lost my virginity to a rape when I was 15. It was Christmas eve and one week before my 16th birthday. My parents knew about it and pushed it under the rug. This was the beginning of a long downward spiral for me. I dealt with this traumatic event by partying. I started with beer and then graduated to pot. Still that did nothing to stem the overwhelming sadness I kept feeling. I was tired. Tired of being the parent. Tired of feeling so alone. I soon became very promiscuous. That helped for a bit but only for a while. I was tired angry and sad. I soon graduated to harder drugs and had a very protective circle of friends who were terrified for me. Crystal Meth and LSD were my drug of choice. They were afraid that I would try other drugs. Harder drugs. Finally, I attempted suicide. I just couldn’t deal anymore. And through this whole time I kept begging God to help me. I really think he was but I was just such a wreck that I didn’t see it. There were people that he kept putting in my life. I pushed them away. I moved out of my parent’s house at 17. I moved in with my Nana who was a constant beacon of light and hope. She tried to help me. She took me to her church. I stayed clean for a whole month, I read the Bible and prayed. But I just couldn’t stop the anger and I shudder to remember how verbally abusive I was to her and to everyone that loved me. I pushed everyone away that loved me. I went to my parents and told them I had a problem and needed help. They put me in rehab. That wasn’t the help I thought I needed. I was furious and they were so proud of me. I was angry still. Angry at the world, sad, and didn’t know how to get out of this hole I had dug myself. I used the same night I got out of rehab. I followed a boy to California. I was in love. He was my world. He supplied me with all the meth I needed and never hit me. It was great. Then I met HIM. He was beautiful, funny, and treated me even better than the boy I was with. We partied like there was no tomorrow and I just knew we were gonna get married. He was the one…. Until I got pregnant. His exact words to me were…. I knew I should of kicked you in the stomach when I had the chance. Yup he was beautiful all right and abusive. I went to the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Simi Valley, the nurse spoke with me about God. I knew him I said and was so convincing that I was the master of ceremonies for the walk for life. I honestly think that God gave me this pregnancy to keep me alive. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant I would either be dead or living on the street. I moved into a home for unwed mothers. I was 25 and one of the oldest ones there. This place was amazing! I honestly did find God there. I prayed, I wrote beautiful poems to God and one still hangs on the wall of Angels Way. It was a Christian home. I was going to name my son Christopher. God had other plans. He practically yelled at me MICHAEL. So Christopher Warner became Michael Warner. Which means likeness to God and a strong warrior. His story is amazing as well but will be saved for another day. I still didn’t understand that God totally and unconditionally loved me though. He was just there when I needed him…. not all the time. Or so I thought! I moved back to Illinois and when Michael was 6 months old I met the next Love of my life. We went hot and fast. I moved in with him and the partying started again. Luckily this one didn’t have my appetite for meth. I was still angry and we fought all the time. I never could figure out why I was so angry. Brett one day came home and told me he had signed up for the Navy sooooo…… back to California I went. His family was Pentecostal and very strong in their faith. I was overjoyed to be back there. I totally loved life on the beach. Navy life is full of parties only he had to quit the drugs. Thankfully I quit with him. I still think that God sent me Brett to clean me up. Again. And to teach me that it’s okay to have a daily talk with God. Navy life took its toll and we grew apart. I got pregnant with my second son. Collin. He was born a healthy 8 pounds and within 3 months was down to the smallest preemie diaper they made and it was too big. We literally did a million dollars’ worth of tests on him. He was diagnosed as a failure to thrive baby. I lived at the hospital until they said I needed to go home. I would go home pray and pray and pray and get up and go back to the hospital everyday with Michael in tow because My husband was out to sea. We were all alone except for God. We started praying for the Drs. And wouldn’t you know it…. a dr. came in that said we got your ultra sound results back. I did a quit tally in my head and said to him sorry you must have the wrong patient we have not had an ultrasound. At that time Collin had a bowel movement which were always full of blood and mucus. He asked what was going on with him as I cleaned him up and I gave him the full story of his medical history. Wouldn’t you know it….he was a gastrointologist. He did a colonoscopy on Collin and determined that Collin had a severe protein allergy. Through much trial and error, we found the best formula for him only we couldn’t afford it. It was 50 a can and a can only lasted 3 days. We had to buy it buy the case and a case was only 4 cans. Insurance wouldn’t cover it. The Dr. stole it from the hospital for us until I finally convinced the insurance company to cover it. They said it wasn’t medically necessary because he wasn’t getting it through an NG tube. At a checkup close to his 6-month birthday the drs told us that Collin nearly died and that they were petrified for us at the time because we were all alone. Looking back, I can see that we really weren’t. God was always there carrying me and giving me strength. By the time Collin was 1 we were filling for divorce. It was a long process and what started out as an amicable divorce soon turned very ugly. Through all of this I was still angry, mad, sad and blowing money like crazy. It wasn’t until I met the most amazing man ever that convinced me that I needed to talk to my dr about my anger, sadness etc. That day I did was earth shattering. I am bi polar. That couldn’t be! I started drinking again and was very quickly spiraling out of control and was in very real danger of losing my children and possibly my whole life. I missed a bottom step at home one evening and shattered every bone in my ankle. I was off work for 6 months and had another suicide attempt. I was a train wreck. I slowly started to have luck with medication. I had to take it for it to work. I crawled out of that hole but I do know that I had to break that ankle to get better. Of course I didn’t see it at that time. We moved to Rochester. I still didn’t have a regular church. Michael quickly made friends and started going to Rochester Christian Church. I thought that I needed to find a church too. I started going with Michael. I still didn’t understand everything God had done for me. Why would he love me? ME??!! I was a recovering drug addict, who pushed every good thing away from her. Michael went to his first bigstuf trip came home and got baptized. I thought…. if he can do it so can I. Only due to circumstances it was a whole year before I went through with it. During that year I continued to come to church, Sunday school and even joined a small group. I was slowly learning about Gods love for me and seeing how he had always been in my life. After Michaels second bigstuf trip he came home and said he wanted to be a pastor and anyone that knows Michael knows he has a passion for Christ and children. He was so passionate that he even baptized Collin. And thought to myself if God can change my sons so much imagine what he can do for me. He does love me and I was baptized the same day as Collin. Every day is a struggle with my Bi polar and with myself as I try to find the right meds. I also struggle with a very real desire to lead Joe to Christ. We live together and are not married. I know God knows my heart but me living with Joe was one of the reasons I wasn’t allowed to get baptized. I know I can’t save everyone but I feel that I am where I am supposed to be with Joe. I take a lot of grief from people who say I can’t be a Christian and live like I do. But I just tell them that this is between me and God. He knows my heart and knows what I want. I only have one person to be held accountable to and he is the only one who has the right to judge me. I am ashamed still to admit I’m Bipolar and only a handful of people know. It’s a struggle every day and just recently the anger has returned. But this could be due to the fact that I have lost both of my parents in 2 years, it’s a lot for me to handle. I keep turning it over to God but right now I am still reeling from losing my mom in May and I struggle every day with my faith. It’s all I can do to say my prayers. I start them but all I can ever get out is I’m sorry that I can’t be the daughter I used to be and please forgive me. I’m trying……but some days, I need a lot of help.