Ah mankind. If you only knew the treasures that only God can give! I am a country gal, born and raised in West Virginia. I lived in the little coal mining town of Ameagle which is all forest now. I lived there until I was 8 years old, knew nothing of the big world outside our little town, and was oblivious to things like kidnapping, molestation, and murdering little children and throwing them in a deserted part of the country. I never experienced any of that and my family life was calm, though poor. My parent's disagreed on some things, I am sure. But the real trouble didn't set in until we moved into the city and my grandmother lived with us. My Dad and my grandmother didn't get along, (she was my Mother's mother).
The quest for material posessions in the coal fields was not apparent. My Mom did get a new stove, a necessary item, and my grandmother helped us out with clothing and extra food from her brother-in-law's restaurant on the weekends, when she'd come bearing gifts for everyone. My Dad had moved into her house after he and my Mother were married. My grandmother's husband had recently passed away, and my Dad had been drafted into the Navy and spent 3 years away during WWII. When he came back, he moved into my grandmother's house instead of getting a place for himself and my Mother. Grandmother was a very outspoken woman, and had no patience for my Dad. Her husband had been a very strong man, foreman of the mines he had worked in since he was 6 years old. His lunch bucket dragged the ground because he was a child. He brought water to the miners. But he stuck with it because that's what one did in the coal fields. His oldest son Earl also worked in the mines when he was old enough, and my Dad did too after he was out of the Navy. In the coal fields, life was hard. I remember things like washing our clothes out by hand, and then my grandmother bought a washing machine and it sat out on the back porch where they did their laundry. They had to put the clothes through a balloon wringer and once my grandmother's hand and arm were accidentally drawn into the wringer and she had severe bruising. Then they would hang the clothes out on a line, even in the dead of winter. They didn't have the fancy things we have today, but I didn't know we were poor. In spite of sometimes having nothing but oatmeal for 3 meals a day, I was quite pudgy and I don't remember being hungry. My grandmother took up the slack and would make lightbread rolls, homemade fried apple pies, and sometimes fried potatoes. There was a time when the people from my parent's church took up a collection and filled our back porch with groceries. They did that for more than one famliy back there. I attended school in an old wooden school house, and I walked to school no matter the weather. Maybe that's a story other's have told their children, and it's the absolute truth. We didn't worry back there; we were safe in our little town.
Then, one day the mines closed down. I wasn't old enough to realize why or what that would mean for the folks living there. One Sunday I was reading the funny papers and I overheard my Dad and Mom talking in the kitchen. My Dad said we'd have to move to Huntington and that he would go there first and find us a house to live in. He didn't have a job yet, so I don't know how they managed that. But he did find a little 2 room house, a red one, and the process of moving became a reality. We moved in, but soon realized it was going to be far too small. My Dad and Mom went looking, shortly thereafter, for a bigger house, and they found one. A little white house, with 2 floors, and a huge kitchen and a living room. All the bedrooms were upstairs and a bathroom on both floors I think. Anyway, my Mom always referred to it as the Dial House, which was the man's last name that owned the property. I took the bus to school. My brother was 5 and I don't remember where he went to school.
We had no car, except my grandmother's, but she worked and lived in Charleston with her mother and family for a while. My father found a job selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. He wasn't trained for much. He couldn't use his Navy skills, or his mining skills. He had to take what he could find. Soon we moved to Charleston and my grandmother moved back with us. The fighting was kept to a minimum, I don't remember much about them then. We lived in a house on a very high hill and I still walked to school in the freezing cold. There was a TV in this furnished house we were renting, and we watched a lot of TV shows for past time. Later on we moved back to Huntington and we moved several times after that and I don't really remember why. Then the fighting between my grandmother and my Dad began and my Mom would just stay mute and not get involved. She was dominated by her Mother, and had been as a child too I guess. She was her Daddy's girl and he had passed away just before my Mom conceived me. She grieved for him for many years. Then my Dad began having seizures. Pent up emotions probably didn't help anything. But my homelife began to be quite a terror for all of us. I hated the seizures, was afraid of my own father, and just tried to stay out of the way.
After all the moving, it became clear to my parents that my Dad would have to go back into the Navy to make a decent living for his family, and so he did, and we moved out of state to Virginia. Alexandria to be exact.
They began collecting things like TV's, and so on, new furniture, clothes, the things everyone had way before we did. But it got so they were never happy. There was always the next thing, and the next. They had already stopped going to church. They professed to believe in God, but our homelife just got worse and worse. I tried to ignore it and just do well in school. I liked Alexandria and I was able to take field trips to Washington D.C. from the school I attended. We saw many interesting things, like the White House, the Pentagon, the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument in the city not too far from where we lived. I was happy and just concentrating on my own life.
We moved many more times, and my Dad always seemed distant to us. He wanted to be a writer. He wanted to preach. He wanted to be noticed, respected, well-paid, and so on. He never seemed to find what he was looking for. In later years, they bought a house, and were doing fairly well for themselves. The Navy became my life. We moved so much and I had attended 15 different schools by the time I graduated. The point of all this is, it doesn't take things, money, fame or any of those things to be happy and fulfilled. I had always concentrated on one thing as something I'd like to see in my future.... my own family. During the time we were moving so much, I began to get heavier and heavier. I was miserable when we moved to Kodiak, Alaska. I had been in a wonderful school with prospects of going to a brand new high school in the fall. I was active in the band and went to all sorts of concerts, and won awards. I was to be in the band again at Princess Anne High School, and had trimmed down to a size 10. I was happy and looking forward to my new life at a new school. But, one day my father came home and told us to pack because we were moving to Alaska. I was very sad.
When we arrived on Kodiak, I knew I had landed in outerspace. I hated the very sight of it from the begining. The next 3 years would be a trial. I survived it all somehow, but there were many fights over things and money and my grandmother and no one ever seemed truly happy. The only time our home was peaceful was when my Dad was at work. No fights, no throwing dishes, no seizures to deal with. This all seems so unrelated to the title of this posting, but their desire for more money, better houses, new furniture, better clothes, a new fur coat, money for this and that and fighting filled my life. It was disasterous. God seemed farther and farther away from us as a family. I knew at 15 that if anyone could set a good example for my brother and sister, it was me. I don't know how I knew, but I attended church with my grandmother on Sundays, and became a member of the Guild Girls that was a church oriented group of young teen's that would meet in the basement of the church once a week and make dinner together and pray together. I attended camp for a week at Woody Island with all the kids from Sunday school that wanted to go. I grew close to God, tried in my way to serve him, and got my best friend to accept Jesus as her Savior. I counted for something with someone warm and loving for the first time in a long time.
After 3 years, we left the island and moved to California. That's where they bought a house. I attended school in a new school in Chula Vista, and my father went overseas. He was gone for 9 months and there was peace once more. My Uncle passed away in November, and my grandmother flew back east for the funeral of her eldest child. She moved to Florida for a while and lived with one of her brothers. It was only Mom and the kids for 7 months. And so went my life, moving to new places, new experiences, most of them bad, and listening to the fighting between people who were supposed to love one another. I don't know what happened to my parents, but the quest for more things drove a wedge between them and my dad never got the recognition he so desired. Eventually he left Mom and became an alcholic, got himself thrown out of the Navy, and abandoned all of us to our fate. Eventually I found work, bought a car to get to work in, and did the best I could to be that role model my brother and sister needed. At one point I took care of my Dad's responsibilities until I became ill and ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Too much strife? Too many shattered dreams? Or was it fate? Who knew. For years I struggled to get well and carry on with my life without the support of a loving family. Is this what cravings do to you? Make you unloving and bitter and miserable? Do you tell each other you wish the other one was dead so you could pursue your own selfish desires? My parent's had. And then, I moved out on my own finally. I had got well to the point of being able to leave the hospital on my own, and I walked the 5 miles to my Mom's house. I wasn't well by any means, and had many difficult times, but I was strong because God was in my soul. He had come to me in Kodiak when I really needed a friend. Jesus came and He never left, although at times I was sure He had. I decided all I needed was someone to love me and accept me the way I was. I still wanted a family. Still wanted cihldren, but at 28 I decided all that was behind me. I settled for working till I could retire and then live until it was time to die. Not a very bright future.
But God had other plans. He had looked into the heart of this child, forgotten and abandoned by loved ones, and He brought out of the chaos a wonderful man just for me. He has given us 3 sweet and smart kids, and a home, and a good husband to take care of me. I have all I ever wanted. I was able to work for years and help my husband with the money we needed for our family. We moved several times, and always to a better place. Now I am retired, we have 7 grandchildren, and my husband has a good job that pays him well. We all share when there is extra money. No one goes without, and no leaves to pursue a different life, or fame, or more money, or more cars. We have the peace that god gives and there is no fighting and throwing things. We don't wish one another dead. I have come out of a dark and vicious illness and am able to really enjoy all the life has to give. I am free, because God has set me free! He gives us the strength to carry on in the dark of night. We face many things in life, some of them devastating, some filled with sorrow. But He never leaves us. Even when we have lived selfish lives, have abandoned those who need us, and have sought the things of the world. He still cares, is still patient, and still has the answers we so sorely need. These posts are about my life, because God has given us beauty for ashes. Both my husband and I had difficult times, and we carried on alone at opposite sides of the country. Who could have known we would meet, fall in love, and make the family I had always dreamed of? We nurtured each other, were the parent figure at times for each other, because the parent figures in our lives were almost non-existant. But those things are behind us and have been for years. This post has been extensive, because I had a story to tell. Maybe you who are reading this have experienced some of these things. Maybe you're from a broken home. Maybe you don't see the Light in the Night, but I want to tell you it's still there. Maybe you have doubts. Maybe a lot of things. But one thing is true and I'll tell you from first hand experience, that God knows
the desires in your heart. He knows those secrets that you cherish. Those dreams you have chased and thought lost. And He will fulfill you with success and will reward you with the things you have sought for your whole life. If you learn to trust in something greater than yourself, you will find what you are looking for. It's better than gold, better even than the rainbow. God Himself will be your counselor and your helpmeet. I know. He brought me out of all my dark past experiences and set me down in the bright light of the sun, where I can grow and thrive and enjoy life. He has become my salvation, and my bright morning star. He has rewarded my diligent search for love and happiness and I am happy and content in my new life. All because I dared to believe in my heart of hearts that somewhere in this world, I would find what I was looking for. Love.
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