…about God’s Story in Kitty

I was blessed with a Godly family starting with grandparents who knew the Lord.  I was taken to church from the beginning.  At the age of 3 1/2 I sang a solo in the middle of the service.   The winter I was 8 years old, I lived near Chicago. One night it started snowing after I had gone to bed.  I was awakened around midnight.  There was a full moon, white clouds and the ground was covered with snow making it very bright outside.  I called for my parents and my father came to see what was upsetting me.  I told him I was scared that Jesus was coming back and I wasn’t a part of His family.  My father explained things to me and shortly after that I was baptized.  I was a member of our youth group and taught Sunday School as soon as I was old enough.  I sang in the choir and led the church in singing on Youth Sunday.  Many times I saw God working in people’s lives.

I got married and my husband would not go to church and wouldn’t let me go without him.  I would try to get him up but he refused.  Our oldest son was about a year old when I told my husband that church would be a great place for our son to interact with other children.  Bernie, my husband, started going to Sunday School but still refused to go to church at that time.  Slowly he began to be more willing to go and eventually even wanting to be there early.  We moved to another state and Bernie began to enjoy the pastor.  The pastor came over to talk to Bernie about baptism and Bernie was baptized the next Sunday.

My husband was an alcoholic and for years he had times when he was out of control.  I didn’t understand exactly what was going on and thought it was stress.  The times of out of control behavior got closer and closer together as the years past.  Bernie’s behavior would be sarcastic and belittling towards me.  Once while moving from one state to another, he got tired of driving.  I took over and Bernie went to sleep in the passenger seat.  As I was driving, a tire of the trailer slipped off the road.  The trailer started swinging back and forth.  I got the trailer under control and kept on driving.  The whipping motion woke Bernie and he began screaming at me, asking if I was trying to kill the family. Bernie was yelling and a car pulled along side and backed off 2 or 3 times.  I was starting to cry when I looked at the driver.  He gave me a huge smile and a thumbs up and drove off.  That made me realize I had done the right thing.  God provided someone to keep me from being beaten down.  There have been many times God has provided someone unknown to me to remind me that I am perfect the way He made me and what Bernie thought was wrong.

I finally realized that my husband was an alcoholic.  I planned to leave him but was informed that an intervention might save our marriage.  I talked with our children and all acknowledged that their dad had a problem.  One son stated what they all felt.  He said, “Mom, we are not a family and never have been.  When I can leave, I will never again have anything to do with this family.”  Our youngest child was acting out.  Bernie’s only dealings with him was to say that he wanted to beat him to death.  That made our son act even worse.  I tried calling all kinds of agencies for help only to be told, “No one has been hurt or gone to jail or the hospital, and even though your family is in crisis, we can’t help you.”

Bernie went to rehab and got sober.  He took a job in China and while there met another woman.  One Sunday morning he called from China about 20 minutes before I was to leave to teach Sunday School.  He told me he wanted a divorce because he was engaged to be married.   I called the pastor’s wife and asked her to teach my class.  I sat in the back and cried, feeling like I was falling into a black hole.  As I sat there I was comforted because I could feel God next to me.  I knew God was upset with the loss of Bernie.  It took 12 months to get our divorce.  After the divorce, Bernie moved to Arizona.  With him gone there was no more anger and hostility in our household.

After years of drunken abuse from their father, my children wanted nothing to do with anyone in the family, not even me.  One day as I was going to cash my check, I got caught in a traffic jam.  There was a van in the next lane that had a verse written on the side.  I couldn’t understand what I was reading.  I keep a Bible in my car and, being stuck, I pulled it out and read the verses before and after the the referenced verse on the van.  It talked about tearing down Judah and then healing Judah.  I knew God was telling me that though my family was broken, He would bring healing.   My children have come back together.  Each used his brothers in his wedding.  God healed the family just as He said in the Bible verse.