Happy Fun Girl: A Wretch Like Me. Chapter One.

Happy Fun Girl: A Wretch Like Me. Chapter One.:      I am so tired of being much afraid.         It says in revelation, "They triumphed over him (the enemy) by the blood of the Lamb and...

A Wretch Like Me. Chapter One.

     I am so tired of being much afraid.
        It says in revelation, "They triumphed over him (the enemy) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." 


        My life is simply not my own. I try to run it like it is a lot of times, but I truly do not love myself so much that I can keep what God has done for me quiet any longer.


        Like the woman that ran back from the well yelling, "Come! Meet the man who told me everything I ever did!" I simply want to tell everyone.


         I'm not perfect and do not have it all together. At all.
         But I'm moving forward, and walking into what God has planned for me & leaving this place new.
         I have shut my mouth and tried to keep quiet because I have daughters. I am a professional real estate broker. I am a children's author.
        And I am so tired of "being afraid" of what people might say.
        God is saying to me. "Tell your story. There is no condemnation in Christ." 
       Period.
       So here it is. Chapter one of my gory story that won no awards, or even an honorable mention when submitted to a Christian publishing contest last month. And that's okay. He will expand my territories in his own way, in his own time. 
     This is me, being brave and hoping that when it is said and done, I will hear God say, "Well Done".
        




I once heard that every great story has a tragic beginning. 
Mine is no different.

I’m trying to remember when I first knew that I had gotten so totally off track.
But, I can’t pinpoint it.
The process of self-destruction is much more subtle than that.
One bad thing leads to another and then another and another.
Before you know it, you are no longer the person you started out to be.

So here I am, living my double life.
Looking out the large picture window the view is uninspiring.
Depressing, really.
I watch the cars and their drivers pass along the freeway.
In a seemingly unconscious state of mind, they drive along, their wipers beating monotonously back and forth, back and forth.

Sometimes I participate in that same rat race, redundantly and passively participating in life.
Struggling to survive, I attempt to do the right thing, day in and day out, whether I feel like it or not.
Well, sometimes anyway.

I’m a 22 year old single mother of two preschool girls, and a top producing sales and circulation manager for the largest newspaper in the state.
 To me, it’s just a job. I desperately want to be in the newsroom telling a story.
However, this is a story I never thought I’d tell.
I’m also a call girl.
Actually, that’s just a nice way of saying, I am a whore.

Just like my dad said I would be.
I still can’t believe this is my life.
It seems surreal.


Growing up in a moderately sized Midwest town, I was a good girl.
Even in the midst of a lot of family dysfunction, I still always believed deep down that I was special and born to do great things.
Someday.
But, that was then, and this is now.
And I still can’t believe it.

Maybe it was a little melodramatic to say that my beginning was tragic.
Perhaps it was only so for my mother who found herself to be a 15 year old, pregnant prom queen. Or my father, a  high school football player with the boy next door smile and a personality that could light up a room. It was a “situation” to say the least for two Catholic families in 1967.
But courage trumped controversy.
She chose life.

It would seem unfair and ungrateful to say that my beginning was tragic, when in fact, it was brave.
Tears well up in my eyes as I remember being a young girl with long blonde hair, a contagious smile and a bright and favored future.
Just two short decades of dysfunction was all it took, to become this person, now sitting in a musty, cheap chain motel room.
I’m waiting on a regular named “John,” though there is nothing regular about him or this situation that on some days leaves me nearly suicidal.

Like I said before, I was a good girl.
I was a Girl Scout for God’s sake!

And I’d been a Junior Leader volunteer at the YMCA, played basketball, performed in band, flag guard, synchronized swimming and class plays. I participated in junior league bowling, mat maids, pep squad, served several consecutive years on student council including President, was a founding member of Students Against Drunk Driving and was co-editor and editor of my high school newspaper.

In my spare time, I took guitar lessons, wrote songs, read hundreds of books, spent weekends at the mall, roller skated every Friday night with friends and was still the number one babysitter pick for at least four families.

Of all those things, my most cherished and happiest memories were spent doing things with the Girl Scouts. We would camp, make crafts and volunteer for community service projects.
I’ve always had a heart that loves people.
My parents struggled in many ways and we were certainly not well off, but I always understood that there were people far less fortunate than myself.
I had high hopes of growing up and helping them any way I could.

High hopes.
“Just what makes that little old ant…think he can move that rubber tree plant?”
Much like the ant, I had high hopes, and felt certain I could move mountains.
Dr Seuss told me I would, “Kid, you’ll move mountains!”
And I believed him.

Everyone knew that I would be the first one in my family to ever finish college, and someday, I would be a famous writer.
Or a super hero. I always wanted to be a super hero too.
But, I’ve lived a life of compromise and contradictions and that of course, has cost me my cape.

Instead, I’m in sales.
At the office selling papers. Here, selling myself.



I credit my success in sales, back to Girl Scouts and my ability to hustle hundreds of boxes of Thin Mints in the middle of freezing Iowa winters.
“If you want to go to summer camp, you better sell those cookies!” my mom would threaten.

And camp I did. I spent several winter and summer vacations roasting marshmallows, making s’mores, singing silly songs by the campfire and learning what it meant to be kind, generous, careful, considerate, willing to help people at all times and becoming an independent and resourceful young lady.

 Girl Scouting taught me to be a leader.
 I never dreamed I’d lead myself into such a mess.
And then it hit me.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard my little girl voice reciting the important words that I had memorized long before I became jaded and cynical.
I recited it word for word.
“On my honor, I will try, to serve God and my country, to help people at all times..”
On my honor, I will try, to serve God…

On my honor, I will try, to serve God…

Serve God?
Tears welled in my eyes, my heart began to physically ache, and an enormous knot formed deep down in my chest.
I couldn’t breath.
I felt nauseous and thought I might seriously throw up.

Looking at the clock, I realized my next appointment would be here in just half an hour.
 Instinctively following the same pattern I’d formed for years when life got too real, I began to search for the joint that I had put in the nightstand drawer.
Odd.
“I know I put it in here,” talking out loud to myself as I frequently do.
“Where did it go?”

Frantically searching now as the digital clock clicked to the next number, I removed the phone book, the pad of paper and the book that comes standard in every motel room, the Gideon’s Bible.
 I could tell by the crackling noise of the hardcover that it wasn’t used often in this rat trap.
 I began to flip through the crisp, gold leaf lined pages.
“Did I put it in here for safe keeping?”

It has been medically documented that smoking marijuana can hinder short term memory. Without officially participating in a research study, I will vouch for that as I am constantly forgetting where I place things like my billfold, car keys….my car.
Funny that it doesn’t actually help you forget those things that you really wish you could.

Things like waking up from a drunken stupor only to realize that you had been sexually assaulted by a group of guys you thought were kind of your friends.
Or again after binge drinking at a frat party, when two thoughtful fraternity boys  walked you back to the dorm room and were caught in the act of rape by a friend who hurredly left. Later, she would explain that she just assumed you were a slut after all.

Wouldn’t it be nice to forget the inappropriate actions of  relatives, the man you babysat for, or even your babysitter?
 It would be helpful to forget about the band teacher you adored who touched you in not so teacher ways during your private clarinet lessons and then lied his way out of it and made you feel like an attention seeking, uncomfortable piece of crap for the remainder of junior high.
“She must have misunderstood.”
Yes, I suppose when learning to play a B flat, it is important to have a hand rubbing up and down your inner thigh.
Liar.
I’m not bitter, I’m just sayin.

Perhaps if I could forget about the time I hitchhiked across the country to get back to the Navy base and was picked up by a JB Hunt truck driver, who befriended me with his teddy bear disposition, and then later held a knife to my neck while he raped me in the back of his semi out in the middle of nowhere.
That time, I thought I’d truly end up dead in a ditch.
But I remember crying out to God in my head to save me.
And he did. Miraculously.
Thanks for that by the way Lord, just in case I forgot to say so then.

Somehow, in every situation, I always found a way to blame myself.
It was my fault.
I drank too much, flirted too much and wore the Madonna wanna be jeans with the tear in the thigh.

“Why do these things keep happening to me?” I often wondered.

 I thought about it all for just a minute, heard the next clock click, and then  remembered the hopscotch, the jacks, the hide and seek, the days on grandma and grandpa’s farm, the camping in the back yard and watching the stars and searching for UFO’s with my best friend Monica.

I remembered my beloved Barbie Dream House and the hours I spent creating my perfect life.
Oh, dear God.

 I thought about the endless rides on my purple banana seat bike with the flowered basket, and the wind blowing my hair while I rode like the wind, singing my favorite songs at the top of my lungs.
”Well I keep on thinking ‘bout you, sister golden hair so bright…”
“C’mon people now, smile on your brother, every body get together try to love one another right now…”

Two tears slid silently down my cheek, and opened the floodgate, for all the rest to follow.

On my honor…I will try….to serve God.
On my honor…I will try….to serve God.

I fell to the side of my bed, broken and sobbing with everything in me.
I cried out my apologies and asked for a chance of do-overs, to a God that I didn’t ever even consider, let alone serve.
A God, I wasn’t sure I really believed in anymore.

Every bad decision I made had brought me to this place.
The lies were sweet and convincing.
Deceptive and cunning.
That’s the thing about deception, it’s so deceiving.

All of the things that happened over time, hardened a once innocent, loving heart, and made me what I am now.
Dirty, used, trash.
Forever unforgiven.
Broken and ashamed.

I reached again for the bible on the bed.
I desperately needed to cleanse my mind from the constantly tormenting thoughts.

But, this time, when I opened it, the words seemed to leap off the page!
It was just like when you’re little, and someone reads you a story and the, “Once upon a time…” seems so super magnified. It was just like that, coming at me in 3D.

“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Tears so totally filled my eyes that I could barely see through the blurriness.
I read it again.

“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

“Oh, God!” I cried out.
“I am so sorry!”
“Please forgive me!”
Then I cried and cried, until I could cry no more.
An amazing and calming presence came over me.

Immediately empowered in a way that words cannot explain, I got up off the floor, got dressed and walked out.
I boldy strolled right past my next appointment, not really even noticing him until he called out, “Hey, where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“Home,” I said with a smile.

Happy Fun Girl: What a Bird Brain!!!

Happy Fun Girl: What a Bird Brain!!!:                                                                                                                   (photo courtesy of 123r...

What a Bird Brain!!!

                                                                                                                  (photo courtesy of 123rf.com)




Typically, I'm not a "the cup is half full" kind of girl.
I'm more of a "the cup is at least 2/3 full, but ready for overflowing!!" type.

Yes.
I am also the kind of girl that totally over uses exclamation points.
On paper. And in real life.

Lately though, I've been a little gun shy.
(Sorry for the bad timing on that phrase...and dear God, please be with those who are suffering so badly in Colorado. I can't even imagine the heartache.)

Any kind of loss is painful.
Loss of jobs.
Loss of passion and purpose.
Loss of loved ones.


And losing at love.


Some days, even hoping for better days is unbearable.
Ya know what I mean?

I've been blind sided by things I didn't see coming.

And the charming, child like faith I usually have, begins to feel more like a farce.

But then God swoops in, just like the great Jehovah Nick-of-Time that he is.
And I'm awed by his awesomeness.

For the last year or so, I have really felt that I was going to be moving.
But I remained immobile.
Totally stuck in my comfort zone which actually, eventually just got quite uncomfortable.
I haven't made the best decisions this year and didn't want to make another huge mistake.
So I just waited and prayed.


Finally, I said, "I don't care Lord. It's all yours anyway. If you want me to move, sell my house."
Not even three days later, it went under contract with a client I'd been working with for a very long time.
He hadn't even seen it!

"Don't you want to see it first?"
"No. Not really. I saw pictures on the internet."
"Did you see the cracks in the tile and the jacked up drywall?"

Don't get me wrong.
I love my house.
It's been our home.
Not necessarily a Ward and June Cleaver family style of living has gone on here, but a lot of truly wonderful memories.
And some, not so much.
I choose to remember the good.

But then I also started to remember how bad things have gone and I just kept waiting, day after day, for the other shoe to drop or the rug to once again, get yanked out from under me unexpectedly.

This time, at least I would be expecting it.

One day, a few weeks ago, I was out laying in the pool and quietly freaking out in my head and talking to God about the move and all of the what if's.
What if I can't find a place to live?
What if Natalie hates me forever for pulling her out of all she's ever known since she was two?
What if I move her back to the big city and she falls in with the wrong crowd and becomes a crack head?
What if you know who thinks I'm stalking him?
What if nothing works out and I can't make ends meet?

All of a sudden, God plunked into my head the verse in Matthew that says something about "not worrying about your life."

Okay, I just looked it up. It's Matthew 6:25.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet, your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

I'm like a bird!

So, after imagining myself more like a big fat giant buzzard, who was going to end up dining on dead deer flesh and other disgusting road kill-catessens, I noticed the cutest, tiniest little bird land on the waterfall.

And he started to drink.
And then I glanced at the sky and started to think.
Good one God.

But he wasn't done.
(God, not the bird.)
Several minutes later, another beautiful, colorful bird landed on the privacy fence in front of me, just under the mulberry tree they've been snacking on since spring.

He had the brightest, longest, almost fluorescent green worm hanging from it's mouth.
I'm pretty sure he turned to smile at me, sort of smugly, with his bright yellow bird beak.

Since I was in the pool, I didn't have my Birds of Texas bible with me and wondered what kind it was.
Then it occurred to me.
A MOCKING bird probably.
What a bird brain I can be!

And then I started to cry.
God is so good.
He's there in it all.
If I will just remember to look for him.
And give thanks for everything.

The house actually closed yesterday.
And now I'm ready to move.
I have a new perspective on things.
Before, I was dreading the what if's and the packing and didn't even know if I should.
I found myself complaining a lot about all that I have.
"There's just so much stuff!"

But today, it's different.
I feel so totally grateful for it all.
The good and the bad.
I don't have a lot of nice or fancy things, but I sure do have a lot more than most in the world.
Look at all I have to pack!
Or give away!

I shouldn't be looking at this as a burden, but a blessing for all that I do have.

Thank you God that I have a closet full of clothes, including the fabulous Not Your Daughter's Jeans that I finally bought from The Thing Is Boutique immediately after closing. (I've pined for those pants for over a year!)

Thank you that there is food in my fridge and cabinets to pack.

Thank you that I have pretty little things all over my house that mean something special to me.

Thank you that I have had a roof over my head, and daughters in their beds.

And thank you especially, for graciously loving me through all of my complaining, fears, endless tears, and disobedience and doubt.

I'm gonna go out on a 'limb' here.....
And say THANK YOU in advance for moving me in a new direction and giving me wings to fly!


And THANK YOU that I can see with my bird's eye view, my cup really is, totally overflowing!!!!!

Happy Fun Girl: Ranting & Raving about Channing Tatum

Happy Fun Girl: Ranting & Raving about Channing Tatum: Well, I've just enjoyed the largest tempter tantrum that my fixin' to be 15 year old daughter has probably ever thrown.  (I know. I swore I'...

Ranting & Raving about Channing Tatum

Well, I've just enjoyed the largest tempter tantrum that my fixin' to be 15 year old daughter has probably ever thrown. (I know. I swore I'd never use the term fixin' when I moved to Texas. Amazing what 16 years can do to you.)

I'm grateful that she really is a lovely girl, because when I went through this stage with her older sisters they were bold and disrespectful enough to tell me to 'F' off.

I have a sign in the back yard that says, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

I roll my eyes and apologize to the sky when I read it some days.

Also, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only God loving mother on the planet who deals with this kind of thing.

Once, when I was in third grade I told my mother that I hated her.

Once.

Today, I am hating on Channing Tatum and the Movie Rating Review Board.

Because of 21 Jump Street.

Rated R.

Really?

(Okay maybe I'm also just a little fleshed out and frustrated at him because I secretly would like to see "Magic Mike," but I won't.)

In the 80's, I used to love watching Johnny Depp on 21 Jump Street!

They were great role models, so what happened in 20 some years?

I agreed to go to Redbox and get the movie for her and her BFF to see.

It never occurred to me it would be rated R.

But, being the basically honest, good girl that she is, she admitted it was "R" as she walked to the box.

The defense argument began after hearing the description.

The movie, 21 Jump Street, is rated R for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, drug material, teen drinking and some violence.

I went home and watched the trailer.

And LOL'd.

I believe the term "titty twister" falls under crude and sexual content.

She's going into 9th grade. 

Her own sisters have twisted.

She should be a lawyer.

"I've been offered drugs and I said no!"

"I've been offered alcohol and I said no!"

"I've heard the "F" word a million times and Channing Tatum is F-ing hot!"

True that.

"I'm going to a bigger school. It's the real world, and it's not always pretty. You say that yourself all the time! I know what to do and what not to do. Just because I see people drinking or talking about drugs in a movie, doesn't mean I'm stupid enough to use them!"

For real.

She's not.

Thank you Jesus for this fabulous girl who wins the title for being, "The Most Righteous One in the Whole Family."

Just yesterday we had a sit down talk about writing, my blog and the books that I'm going to write.

I want to be honest, but it could be hurtful to her.

So, we talked about it.

I admitted to making some very bad choices and I didn't want my bad choices to reflect on her, because she is a good choice maker.

I apologized for not always being a great role model.

And then I started crying.

Some of my testimony is hideous, and downright embarrassing.

But I have always, always wanted to be honest with my kids.

Many have disagreed with me and told me to shut up and keep it to myself.

But I've been lied to before about important things. 

And it manifests mistrust in many ways.

I've also been a single mother with 3 girls for a gazillion years who know me way too well, and I don't think they would buy it or appreciate it if I tried to BS them.

While I am terribly sorry for some aspects of my life that are so shameful, I'm also grateful, because I truly believe that the crudeness of my credentials validates Christ.

Most of the time.

And maybe not to every one's standards.

I just care about The One.

I've also been thinking a lot about what Michael Hyatt wrote in one of his recent posts, "What kind of legacy do you want to leave for your grandchildren?"

Ouch. 

My legacy is a little legendary.

And not so much in a good way.

I further explained to Natalie, "Honey, we each have to find our own revelation of Christ. Mine came through hard times. Many of those were stupid, selfish and self-imposed."

"And I know you're sick of me falling apart during worship, and carrying on about God stuff these days, but honestly Nat...if he weren't real, wasn't living in me, and holding me every single step of the way, especially lately, I wouldn't even be here right now."

"I know mom."

"I believe."

And then I started crying again.

"I can't, not, tell this stuff. I feel compelled to share. All I want to do is let other hurting people know that God is real, and no matter how many times you screw up, he loves us and forgives us and moves us forward with his direction and his plans. He's called me for a purpose, just like he has you..and I don't want to ignore it just because it doesn't sound...nice."

This is sort of how I remember it a day later anyway. 

I can only hope it was this thoughtful.

As much as I love The Waltons and Andy Griffith, I find that life is not much like that these days.

It can be dirty and dysfunctional.

We are a messed up bunch of people with issues.

A lot of us anyway.

 

Life sometimes deserves an R rating.

My story, if told on the big screen would be at least that.

If I'm being really honest, maybe even XXX. 

"To the pure, all things are pure...to those who're defiled, unbelieving, nothing is pure."

I so totally get that.

It's hard to relate if you haven't been there.

If you haven't been defiled or unbelieving.

I have.

And I've also been pulled out of that miry pit that stinks and set on a mountain top. 

I wear perfume called Pure just to catch a whiff of what that might smell like.

"I will accept you as fragrant incense when I bring you out from the nations and gather you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will be proved holy through you in the sight of nations. Then you will know that I am the Lord." Ezekiel 20

Christ IS pure.

And it's in his perfection only, that I can get a two thumbs up, five star rating.

And, from women all around the world, "Thank you Lord for Channing Tatum." :D

 

Happy Fun Girl: "It's not You, It's Me."

Happy Fun Girl: "It's not You, It's Me.": We've all said it. The little white lie we tell when we don't want to hurt someone's feelings. I struggle with lying sometimes and af...