…about God’s Story in Paula

 I was born on March 13, 1961 to Oscar and Shirley Hill.  I was 3 months premature and wasn’t expected to live past nine years old.  I went through many surgeries and spent a lot of time in the hospital.  There were some very close calls but my immune system finally kicked in when I was five years old and I began to thrive.  My parent’s marriage, on the other hand, did not thrive and they divorced around that time.  We lived with Mom and saw Dad less and less.  One Christmas Eve we waited a long time for him but he never showed.  I threw his gift away and said I never wanted to see him again.  I sat and cried on the back porch until I fell asleep.  When my stepfather came to take me to bed, I hugged him and called him “Dad” for the first time.  It was like my father had never existed and my stepdad had just always been my dad!   I learned early in life how to push things to the back of my mind and not think about them.  That is how I have dealt with pain and trauma ever since.

For the most part, I think I had a good childhood even though I was bullied during my early school years.  I was overweight, had no teeth and so talked funny.  But I found friends in the same predicament and, repressing the feelings caused by the bullying, I just acted like it was no big deal.  We moved from Fort Worth to Richland Hill and my permanent teeth came in.  That caused me to talk even funnier and so I was sent to speech therapy.  As I began to speak more clearly the bullying got less.

Mom started taking us to church and praying for Dad.  After a while Dad also to attend church.  After a while longer, he quit smoking and drinking beer.  Then he began working toward getting his GED, a degree and becoming a Methodist Minister.  My dad became the associate pastor at the church we attended and we all loved to help out when we could.  One of the Deacons took me under his wing, so to speak, and had me help him whenever he was at the church.  He was trusted and no one thought anything about it.  When I was 11, he raped me and threatened me.  I was afraid to tell and he raped me often.  Eventually he was fired and moved away.  Once again, I repressed what had happened.  I didn’t really understand until a few years later what had actually been done to me - I just didn’t want to think about it.

My oldest brother had cancer removed from his leg early in life.  When I was around 13 years old, the cancer returned and after a 3 year battle my brother died at the age of 24.  I again repressed most of my feelings.

I loved and did great in school.  I found Christ and loved church until I was told I couldn’t sing in the youth choir because I couldn’t sing.  That was an awful feeling.  Church was not as much fun then but I still had to go.

I was very busy in high school.  I lost weight and kept it off.  I was in marching band, rifle corp, and German club and had a steady boyfriend. During the summer, I worked at Six Flags, I had a car and a group of friends.  Life was good but something was missing.  Senior year was a blast!  We won both our marching and concert UIL competition in band, getting 3rd at State.  I made first chair at UIL competition for oboe and All-Star at UIL.  Our band trip was to Nashville.  The prom was great.  There were a lot of tears at graduation and I broke up with my boyfriend that summer.

I had a scholarship to North Texas Women’s College and was going to chase my dreams.  The plan was to stay home and commute for a semester or two until I made friends and settled.  College life was quite a change from High School but I was getting the hang of it.  I got a job at a Piggly Wiggly in the same neighborhood where my ex-boyfriend’s family lived.  I was good friends with his sisters and so began hanging out at their house.  During that time, I was introduced to a family friend, Ruben, and we began hanging out and then dating.  Things moved fast and it wasn’t long before he told me he loved me.  I liked Ruben and enjoyed hanging out with he and his family.  I felt bad and so finally gave in and told him that I loved him, too.  My younger sister got married to her childhood sweetheart a week before her graduation and soon after found out she was pregnant.  About a month later, I found out that I was pregnant and moved in with Ruben.  My plan was to continue to go to school but circumstances prevented that and we moved to Frost, Texas where we lived with another of his brothers.  We were married and two months later my daughter, Sabrina Jean, was born.  I learned to love Ruben and we had two more children, Jessica and Charles.

I wasn’t really happy but I was content.  I wanted to be happy but didn’t know what to do about that.  Ruben was very controlling and became mentally and emotionally abusive.  When he was drunk he would become physically abusive.  Because of the pregnancies and life in general, I gained a lot of weight and felt ugly and worthless.  I went through a time of wanting and trying to look and feel better but the abuse continued.  His family was also abusive and mean.

We moved to Lake Worth and began to settle in.  The kids got involved in school, with friends and in Youth Association.  I met people and became good friends with the mom of one of Sabrina’s friends.  She was pregnant when I met her but was unhappy in her marriage.  After her daughter was born we joined a bowling league and did lots of other things together.  I actually had a friend after all those years!

I got pregnant again but wasn’t sure I wanted another - until I felt her move!  My friend and all our kids were so happy and excited about the baby.  She helped me with getting everything ready.  There were baby showers and lots of cool gifts.  When I was nine months pregnant, Ruben got drunk one night and was leaving.  I tried to stop him and he pushed me down.  My mom lived in Graham and I brought the kids to her to stay while I had the baby.  On the way back to Dallas my placenta broke.  Blood got to the baby and heaven got Grace Ellen.  During all this, Ruben was in a motel room with another woman.  I decided to leave him the minute I had a chance.

Before I got the chance to leave, I got pregnant again with another girl.  At about six months, they discovered the cord had wrapped around her neck and choked her and she died.  I gave her body to science.  I called her Robin in my heart and immediately began pushing all the pain down to that place I always push the bad stuff.  Then I divorced Ruben.  I tried staying in Lake Worth.  I got a job at Whataburger but with no help with the kids, it was impossible.  I moved here to be close to my mom and have help with the kids.  It was hard to leave our friends, the kids’ cousins, our youth association family and we all cried all the way to Graham.

I moved here with plans to move back to Lake Worth but we are still here.  About a year after moving here, I met Collin.  It was a rocky start. Both of us had issues.  A little over a year later, Collin moved in with us.  I didn’t realize he drank so much until after I had fallen in love with him.  He treated me great except when he was drunk and then the anger would just come bursting out.  The years passed and life just happened.  The kids grew up, got married and had kids.  There were good times and bad.  He would quit drinking and then start again.  He would do drugs and then quit.  I would join in occasionally. During an eight year period my brother, my dad, Collin’s mother and then my mother all died.  During that same period, I went back to school and got a degree in Paramedic Medicine.  I later used that degree for Special Needs Home Health - a job I loved but eventually threw away.  Like the rest of the times, I just pushed the pain and my feelings way down so that I wouldn’t have to deal with them.

During all this time, I would go to church off and on, talk to my kids about God, even pray but it was all on the surface.  We started smoking crack on the weekends.  I made sure the bills got paid and food bought.  That didn’t last long.  I became depressed and all the stuff that had been pushed down exploded.  The drugs helped numb the pain.  When we could no longer find crack, we switched to meth and I was addicted for real.  I tried to fight the addiction.  I had a couple of stints in jail, tried out-patient rehab.  Then one day I looked around at my life and decided that enough is enough.  I dropped to my knees and cried out to God, asking Him to do what I couldn’t do by myself.  I gave up drugs for Lent in 2019 and haven’t touched any since.

It has not been easy.  For so long it was right there under my nose because Collin hadn’t quit.  I restarted an out-patient program.  I yelled at God.  I didn’t know how mad I was.  I am still not done apologizing to some people or forgiving others.  I am a work in progress.  God has done this.  I am still finding out who I am and God’s purpose for me.  Even though Collin’s life is being turned around, too, life is not easy!  I still get anxious and overwhelmed at times.  I will never be everybody’s cup of tea.  Feelings still confuse me at times and past feelings flood down on me unexpectedly at times but I know that God’s got me!  I have a peace that I’ve never had before and I know a darkness that I never want to see again.  Pain has its reason or lesson.  Don’t run from it because it will catch up and overtake you.  Instead, lean on Jesus - He’s got you!