Month: September 2016

Stinky Face

Ami Beth CrossLeave a comment

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A note to my four children:

No matter what….

I will always love you.

Whatever comes your way, I’ll be supporting, loving and praying for you.

I am forever on your side, through your success and failure, I will always love you

Whatever you may become in this life is beyond my grandest imagination…

No matter the manifestation, I will be your biggest fan.

Your Dreams will become my own, and I shall fight when you are too tired to go to battle.

Love  always, Mom

Consider the infinite beauty of holding the perfect baby in your arms after a long arduous labor.  In that earth-shattering moment where you were physically connected just moments before, it is hard to embrace that they may embark on a life adventure that you didn’t foresee for them.

I’ve raised a son, he is eighteen, graduated third in his senior class of hundreds and he is absolutely one of the great love’s of my life born of my body, my heart, and my soul.

Caleb is currently at North Central University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  In case you haven’t heard of this private university, it is known globally for its music pastoral program.  As a matter of fact, Prince himself utilized the high-tech studio on a regular basis to record and practice when he was still alive.  My boy dreamed, trained endlessly, but most importantly followed the calling on his life.  

For those of you who know my son, Caleb, he is a mere genius.  I can list his many accolades but to not seem prideful (because I’ll admit I am)  I’ll stick to the topic.

When Caleb came to accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior he was teaching himself the guitar.  Our family had recently experienced a second deviating loss of a sibling of Caleb’s within a short time frame. My boy lost two infant brothers back to back.  Two graves, two shoebox coffins that forced a young man who never felt emotion embarked on a chasm of eternal anger or possibly a God-given outlet.  Secretly I prayed for us all (to a God I had myself rebuked for years after leaving Him twenty years prior). Caleb found the wonderful and powerful outlet of music.  At the time he was in the Medical Science Academy at his high school that was acclaimed for producing doctors and engineers.  Both of which my boy could become, as a matter of fact, this kid could be anything he wanted to be.

One dark night as I did laundry, Caleb ate his dinner after a long night of leading the youth in worship at our local church he summoned the courage to declare his purpose to me.   

“Mom.”

“Yes, Caleb?”  I stated after putting together an impossible puzzle known as matching socks.

“I feel God is calling me to be a Music Pastor.”

Great pause took place in my heart.  Caleb could be anything, ANYTHING in this world, and succeed in that endeavor past the stars.  His IQ is off the charts, his ACT scores through the roof, and his writing ability clearly announces his feelings, facts, and heart in a fluid and concise manner.  In that, he wants to go into the ministry?  To make a menial living, and live a life of constant and at times unappreciated service.  I look over at my sixteen-year-old man-child as he eats his dinner prepared with love and sacrifice by his stepdad, and all I could see on his face was a look of concern, deeply wanting approval.

…Of what I’d say.  What I’d think, how I’d react.  All I could do was swell with a pride matched by one of the greatest of moments in my history.  For instead of focusing on money and stature, he was following a deep, intense, and at times very challenging calling on his life.  I could barely tether in my smile as I answer him:

“Son, do what fulfills you.  You can always make money, you can never get back a purpose not served.  God will provide if you follow your calling.  Don’t find yourself trapped by expectations of what you are supposed to be.  Be…Just be what you are called to be.”

He is studying music at a renowned school of worship in Minneapolis, Minnesota at this moment.

My second son, Cameron is gifted with visuals, behind the scenes talent, as the captain of the camera he has an acute artistic ability.  He has an eye for the camera and his ability makes me shiver.   His love for his family forces me to marvel as he offers me emotional comfort and wise words, I would have never expected from my own child.  Cam has been my confidant, my rock, and the one who I can always count on.  His ability has endless possibilities, past the confines of any insecurity that we all hold deep within.  

Cameron volunteers at his church doing the technical aspects that allow the service to rock out and is a leader in his youth group.  But mostly,  he meets the heart of the youth that look up to him, he joins with people where they are, he cancels plans that mean the world to him in order to minister to someone who needs him more than his “fun” plans coincide with.  My Cameron, my darling gift of a son has a greater purpose than I could have ever imagined.  I asked him one day, “what do you foresee in your future?

He simply answered,

“I don’t know yet, but definitely something in the ministry.”

I once saw him directing films in Hollywood, following his starlit dreams of fame and fortune.  Yet, God called my second son to be His and serve His people.

My two little one’s futures will transpire as they grow in the goodness and trials God has in store for them.  Although, my eight-year-old son Trasen already has a passion for the word.  After summer camp the pastor told me he begged to read his Bible with his flashlight every night before bed.  He also received the “Wisdom” award at Spring Hill Camp.

Lilia and Trasen shall see the magnitude of greatness they are called into in due time.

I’ve always read a children’s book to my kids called:

I Love You, Stinky Face.

At the beginning of the book, the mother tells her child, “I love you, my wonderful child.” ~But the child has some questions, and valid ones at that.

It tells a story of a child asking his beloved mother, would you still love me if….I’m something different than what you want me to be.

What if I’m was an alien, a one-eyed monster, a big ugly ape, or a skunk with a stinky face?
Would you still love me then?

The mother answers, I will love you and I will provide the needs you have no matter where they may take you.

The mama of the one-eyed monster read bedtime stories until his one big eye fell asleep, the ape she fed a banana birthday cake and the skunk she gave a great big bubble bath.  She met the child’s needs despite uncertain and unexpected circumstances.  I mean in all reality no one really wants a one-eyed monster for a child, but if I had one I’d love it with all my being.  It’s translated into an unconditional love that a mother can exude, the kind of love that transcends time, situations, and struggle.

After reading this book that is tethered and worn after four children worth of bedtime stories, it gave me great hesitation reflecting on my current struggles.

My oldest baby has grown up and he is making his way into the world as I’ve always dreamed he would.  All of God’s endless possibilities are at his footsteps.

 But as far as me…I feel left behind.

It spreads through a familiar feeling of abandonment; my greatest nightmare, my most abundant personal parental reality, as to this day…my father is absent.  And my mother…well it’s very complicated, to say the least.

Has Caleb abandoned me?   Of course not!  He has followed God’s gracious path towards the greatness He has planned for him.  Caleb has to find his wings, his greater purpose to fulfill all he is called to be.

But I’m home.  Without his beautiful song echoing throughout my home and my heart.

 Has he left me?  No.

Is he gone?  Yes.

Do you love me, God, even though I’m a skunk that needs a big ole bubble bath?

A one-eyed monster that needs help reading her bedtime story?

God says, YES my child I love you no matter what, in spite of your failure, disparage, or in times of deep loss.  Even if it is the healthiest kind, such as your adult son leaving.

Caleb is done being my child under my roof that I worked so hard to grow up, Cameron is on the brinks. I’ve found myself in the midst of what some call a mid-life crisis, having cut my hair and gaining fifteen pounds, and at times being tugged at to fall back on unhealthy coping mechanisms, I cling to God begging Him to not take His love away from me.  Even in the midst of not living up to what I know He has in store for me I’m contemplating how to figure out this new life, new dynamic, and major transition, I have to ask Him what if today I were a slimy green alien would he still want and love me?

And do you know what my Father in Heaven says to me?

I will always love you,

Stinky Face.

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A Decade Plus Five///9.11.01

Fifteen years ago, four planes crashed onto our soil and forever imprinted dread of this day in history. Many orphans resulted from this day, and after a message from P. K last night my heart says this…

Ami Beth CrossLeave a comment

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Fifteen seconds is all it took for me to awaken to the tragedy that was upon us on nine eleven, two thousand and one.  I shook off sleep as my family on the East coast bellowed through the unsettling phone lines, “we are at war!”

Torture struck.  The enemy took.  Evil seemed to prevail  that morning in New York City, the Pentagon, and later in a barren field in Pennsylvania.  I’m old enough to recall all of the horrors of that time, the constant media coverage that wasn’t enough.  Watching non-stop news coverage, made us feel more connected to what the lost and the survivors were going through after the twin towers were obliterated by terrorists.

The United States of America was United way past the vision I see of our beautiful country today.  Due to a force on our soil that brought us into instant unification through turmoil, of the worst kind.  The enemy declaring war and a momentary victory we had no knowledge of such horrors Pearl Harbor.  

People often ask me if I write to music and the answer is always, yes.

The strongest song that prevails is always, Oceans by Hillsong United.  

(Insert eye roll) I know all too well from my teenage sons this song is overplayed, and our youth is sick of it. In the black of night and abstraction of life, I find myself the most prolific listening to the powerful words as God moves my fingers and words flow like a river chasing the ocean.  

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My feet may fail and fear surrounds me….

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So I may call upon your name.

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For I am Yours.  And you are Mine.

For all of time God has promised us His love, His mercy, and His grace.  If we follow.  If we navigate our lives through His simple, yet meaningful instructions.  

Stay away from the fruit on this one tree.

Love thy neighbor.

Give the orphans a home.

Serve the less fortunate.

We constantly fail at these simple yet imperative commands.

God tells us that without Him, without our commitment to the depth we are all capable of, we are weak and the lowest of His people can be forever lost.

Tonight Pastor Kevin broke my heart.  Yes, I was the one  in the front mid center bawling my eyes out.  The big bleeding heart with my strong soul of a husband beside me.  And because we have the heart of God and of His children we both wept, held tight, and knew that greatness was about to take place.

As somewhat of an adult orphan myself,  I will answer the call (to help how I can) and pray that God will provide me someone willing to take me into their hearts.  Being an adult orphan is hard.  Birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving, these times are difficult making me covet generations of families gathered around the table for a festive dinner.  I have created my own family and feel so blessed, yet empty of guidance and the love of an elder.  I believe in prayer, and I trust if I am faithful,  adoration will be mine a thousand fold.

As service closed and our entire church applauded the countless families up on stage, as they all proclaimed we did it all in love.  So many orphans now had families, so many parents now had children.  The circle complete, the need fulfilled.  How great is our God?

Alan and I shook with joy and love as we are blessed to have four kids of our own, serve in Journey Kids whenever we can.  But moreover, we lived through Nine Eleven.

We saw its wreckage and all the fatherless children it left behind because of a slaying that took place on our soil.  So, if you judge me for my patronize or respect for my flag, my grandfather stormed Normandy, and my God held tight all of those soldiers who took down flight ninety-three.  Respect is what I give, remembrance is what I feel. 

On the anniversary, we all hate to acknowledge because it makes us feel uncomfortable because four planes killed in excess of three thousand souls.  Also all around the world millions of children go home to a sick and small institution.  This breaks my heart and brings it all together this anniversary.  God calls us to minister to the weak and lonely and to honor the fallen in tragedy.


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A decade plus five later I was left a bawling mess at church knowing that so much is lost and yet, I am left…here for a powerful reason if I step up to the call on my heart.  I encourage all of us to join together to help.  There are so many children in the world that are hungry, lost, and cold.  But mostly lacking what we all need the most in this life….love.

What we are here to do is clear and the fruit of our commitment can be beyond our wildest of imagination;  if we only listen and commit to journey forward.

 

 

 

 

 

Chasm of Grace

I discovered yesterday that a poem of my mine hit the New York Times Best Sellers List 25 years ago…hours after I feared releasing this blog for fear of losing love due to an interrupt to succeed. Yup that is my reality. You don’t win you lose.

Ami Beth Cross4 Comments

When incarcerated, isolation is often used as one of the worst possible forms of punishment a criminal can receive.  Torture techniques include placing people in holes of darkness completely alone, depleted of any interaction with another person for extended periods of time to break the spirit of humanity.

Being alone can be more dreadful more than death.

When I became a full-time author two years ago I was on the precipice my greatest dream coming true.  When I was six years old I began writing anything and everything coming to my heart a rapid pace I would grab my pencil to put into expression my conflicted painstaking experiences.  Through the darkness of my tormented and lonely childhood, God gave me a precious gift, and a means to navigate unthinkable situations.

 

Needless to say having the ability to publish two books in fourteen months is something that I am very proud of.  My memoir ‘The Return to Happiness’ hit bestseller lists on Amazon, ibooks and Barnes and Noble, and Kobo.  MORE importantly miraculously,  my words have helped thousands and thousands of women all over the world giving a voice to the devastating grief of pregnancy and infant loss.  God once again used my torrent of torture to flow vastly into the form of words, yet this time healing others, not just myself.  What a magnificent God we serve.

But it wasn’t all celebration cakes and congratulations on Facebook, I faced the darkest time in my adult life while birthing my dream.

The first six months of pursuing my most coveted aspiration came with a lofty price that has the ability to haunt me until I meet Jesus.  I (unknowingly at the time) sentenced myself the most horrid punishment of maltreatment…isolation.

For those of you who don’t know me personally, I am the infante definition of an extrovert and a complete and total spaz. I thrive off of people, I love (most) everything about God’s people. The joy or sorrow in their eyes is my goal to discover the reason of either.  Two is always greater than one in times of celebration or despair.

As you can see isolation isn’t beneficially for anyone, especially for a person like myself.  Alone, sheltered, and wrapped up in my own fictional and nonfictional world I fell into the darkest depression and dependence on alcohol and prescription medication that I ever had faced.  Anxiety and depression have always taunted me as I have dealt with abandonment, abuse of the worst kind, a son diagnosed with a chronic illness at four and two back to back second-trimester pregnancy losses.  In prefacing that I have dealt with some mental health issues goes without strong merit.

I’ll never forget my first glass of wine.  A magnificent feeling overtook my mind and body, but mostly the pivotal escape from inner darkness and the child that always felt left behind is what continued to call my name to the lies of the bottle.  The girl who saw too much, the forsaken and tormented version of my inner child was sedated and finally left numbed.  It was the most intensely wonderful thing that I had ever injected into my body.  And I didn’t care if it was wrong.  I simply loved that I could not feel.

Labels kill the over achiever as floods wipe out the innocent.  I never wanted to admit my poison because I wanted so desperately to be loved.

I never became a raging alcoholic in those years of young adulthood.  Thankfully I never received a DUI, or put my kids or myself in danger, or lost a job.  People drink and it is widely acceptable even marketed as a way to overcome a really bad day.  I was successful in many of my areas that in enabled me to somewhat cover up my guilt with my many outlandish accomplishments (yup I’m that humble)  LOL.  A definite result of my distorted childhood was the need to please and to receive love, therefore, I was 110% or nothing.  If I was triumphant than I was loveable.

In that, it is pertinent I add a few of the prodigious things I did in my life before I drop the biggest bombshell to you all that I’ve managed to keep hidden for two years:

  • I wrote an award-winning poem at 16 and was published and hit New York Times Best Selling List in her collection of poetry, thus becoming a New York Time Bestselling author without even knowing it at fifteen.
  • I am the National Prepared Public Speaking winner for the state of Nevada and competed at a national convention in St. Louis, MO.  I can still recall the energy in my body as the electricity jolted me on the stage to shout to the world my words and voice.
  • I was a gifted runner with Olympic potential until I had a career ending injury at 16.
  • I was selected for a national band and played for 30,000 people including President George Bush
  • I learned how to figure skate at the age of thirty advancing so quickly I skated in an ice show 9 months later being the first adult to land a jump higher than a waltz.  Then I went on to perform in seven other ice shows in front of thousands of people.
  • I am a bestselling author of a memoir that will eventually be in the United Hospital System going home with grieving mothers who suffers miscarriage or stillbirth.
  •  I am the proud mother of six babies.  (Two in heaven) whose accomplishments mean more to me than an Olympic gold medal, and a husband who is my heart light.
  • I have a divorce that is healthy.  My ex-husband, his beautiful wife, her kids, and ours are blended.  We have Christmas, birthdays, and Easter, together.  We shield one another in the dark times and celebrate the joys in life.  They are my husband and my two children together godparents.  If anything happens to Alan and I, all my babies will be together in the best care I could ever imagine.

All of those things I didn’t accomplish on my own. I once had a deeply rooted relationship with Jesus and loved my Lord more than myself.  When I left Him I still continued to soar, yet slowly crumbled deeper than the sky could lift me up.On the cliff of greatness in 2014 looking off into the sunset of finally becoming a published author I knew this would top anything else I had done in my life.  Yet I was only touching the surface of my journey back to God, deeply I was falling vastly into depression and drinking.  I was alone.  Because I chose isolation.  From church  from God, from friends. I was too busy building my business, writing my books, and well for lack of better words trying to drown my sorrows.

 

I ended up drinking myself into a horrible mess, dipping deeper and darker into depression.  I called a suicide help line one night.  I felt so lost, my dad had left…again….my past was ruining me, haunting me, nightmares made my turmoil happen over and over every night so I’d stay up all night working and numbing myself into a place where my sleep wouldn’t hit the stage of dreams.  The police came to my house at three am to make sure I wasn’t going to hurt myself, waking my husband up to attest to the fact that I wouldn’t kill myself was one of my darkest moments.  The fear in his eyes was enough.  Enough to find the inner will to fight the greatest storm of my life.

A week after I called the suicide hotline I hit it.  The cement wall holding the ability to crack my skull open and leave misery-drenched in the form of red, fluid that holds the breath of death, with no hope of reconciliation.

I decided to quit drinking cold turkey soon after a dreaded night to my realization that I wouldn’t have reacted that way if I had been sober.  I mean really, me in a screaming match?  Nope,  not reality, not truth, not the grace God has instilled in me.

The whole next day, horribly hung over, I laid in my bed alone, I covered the windows with the darkest of blankets and cried.  I shook with withdrawal symptoms and when my older boys got home from school I instructed them to come up as I had to tell them something.

They entered my room sorrowful from the sheer greeting of a black room and a clearly sick mom.  They had no idea my drinking had gotten out of control as I was  the master of deception.  Remember, if I fail I’m not loved.  It’s what my parents taught me.  What else would I know?

I told my boys that I had an altercation with our neighbors and some changes were on the horizon.  My oldest son Caleb said, “Mom you need to get involved in church.  You need community, I’m worried about you because I know you and this isn’t you.”  Caleb looked around the dark sullen room and my listless body still in bed at 4 pm with compassion and concern.

My oldest son Caleb said, “Mom you need to get involved in church.  You need community, I’m worried about you because I know you and this isn’t you.”  He peered upon the dark sullen room and my listless body still in bed at 4 pm with compassion and concern.

Yet the only thing that was was in me was anger.

Church?

God!?

A God who only took from me, who wrecked me taking my two infant boys, Caleb’s health, my innocence, my father?   The love I yearned for but never received from my mother.  NO WAY would I ever serve Him again.  I was so faithful in my youth and He still gave me nothing but adult years of suffering.

My children left heartbroken seeing their mother who was usually strong lying on a bed that had the stench of death.  The woman who they watched make dreams turn into reality was truly giving up.  I can’t even imagine the pain I placed on their young hearts.

Twenty-four hours after my last drink I went into delirium tremens (DT’s) which is a possible, fatal condition caused by severe alcohol withdrawal.  I write in more detail in my upcoming book about how this felt, but I can paraphrase and say it was like a nightmarish light show that was evil instead of in celebration. Streamers fell from the sky in a brilliance of color, but it didn’t feel like the fourth of July it felt like the end of life. I reached up to grab what seemed real only to see it dissipate in the confines of my pale  hands.  Rock bottom never looked so colorful and felt so regretful.

The next morning being the hypochondriac I am, I googled ‘hallucinations after ceasing alcohol’.  Of course,  every site said get yourself to an emergency room because you could die

Deep inside me,  I knew I didn’t actually want to go to be with the Jesus yet, so I had my husband Alan take me to the local ER.  Staff became serious extremely fast as I was admitted,  and I was placed on a “seizure” watch in fear that I could seize and die.

My initial fleeting moment of wanting to die weeks earlier could become a reality and in the grips of such deafening possibility of truth I held on like I had never fought in my life before.

I saw Alan.

Caleb.

Cameron.

Trasen.

Lilia.

Mostly I saw me.

My potential.  What I meant to people.

My smile.

My love, soul, gifts, and deep torment that can be used to gift those going through the same.

I fought so hard I felt like my hero Rocky Balboa after his fight with the Russian.  Beaten, yet ultimately blanketed with a title belt around my waist.

The doctors at that point recommended rehab for dual diagnosis depression and alcoholism, with  my pride fighting to hold me back…I went.

Being in a facility akin to the darkest of places a person can go was a creation within my being I wasn’t accustomed to.  Giving in to failure, not clinging to my success. I heard stories much more tortuous than mine.  I saw heroin addicts, suicide attempts, schizophrenics, deeply depressed people and severe eating disorders.

And in that my chains were broken, for we are all at the throne.  We all struggle no matter our life path.

All of the unlovely sat at the table we ate our meals at and we loved one another, while Jesus sat at the head of the table I actually felt Him and knew through His stripes we were healed.

Eight painfully beneficial days later I left and something on the last day during one of our group meetings we were told that seventy percent of us will relapse.  \

Seventy percent of you will fail.

In essence, that means thirty percent win this battle.  And I’m really good at winning, my prideful self-self-declared.

 

But instead of victory, this time,I became a statistic. One month later I was back.

I had become the seventy percent.

In the months that followed my second visit to Rogers Memorial Hospital, I rewrote both of my books that were crafted in a non-authentic clear-minded way.  I completely stopped drinking and went on this amazing adventure that a year later brought me back to my best friend, Jesus.

 

My son was insightful in giving me powerful words from the throne of God that we thrive when we have people rallying around us not trying to cope on our own. Two are always better than one.

 

We need each other to thrive, grow, prosper, and be kept accountable.

 

In this increasingly hard time in my life with my Caleb going to college and feeling like a quarter of my heart is in Minneapolis for the first time in a while I’ve been struggling.

 

God has called me to greatness, He has predestined me to write my story of addiction and childhood/adult abandonment and how I overcame impossible odds to find my destiny  Yet, first I have to arrive.

Again I stand at the brinks of a multitude of choices to deal with transition and the pulling question of which direction will I take?  Will I allow evil to spit the ugliness of sin on my face  or will I shower myself with the grace of a Savior filed with ultimate possibility?

In my young life abandonment meant if I wasn’t the picture of perfection I wasn’t loved.  In my mid-life my parents exude the same standard.  For I’ve been shown that if I mess up, or am less than righteous, love simply leaves.  It is gone, sometimes forever. That is why sharing this with you all is so hard for me.  For I am flawed, and so blessed to have you all hugging me and praying for me in a church that is anointed and blessed, yet if you know my darkness will you still offer me light?  This hasn’t been my history so it is hard to grasp that it could be my future.

 

And I do know that my bullet point of my greatest accomplishments mean nothing, yet I needed to state them for fear of loss.  Of love, fellowship, and YOU.  Each and everyone of you who meet my eyes on a weekly basis and pray with me when I leave the service to grab a tissue because I miss my oldest boy.  I love each and everyone of you.  And I pray you still love me, even though I’m flawed, gravitated toward forgetting, and a broken child of God.

 

My shame in the perils of escape through drugs and alcohol have defined me for many years.  Success that many will never see has also defined me for many years.  And the God in my soul says NO!  None of it matters, success or failure He accepts me and hugs me like the father I long for.

 

Jesus is the King and through it is well.  Simply put… it is well with my soul.

 

Friends, I will NEVER be perfect, but I will forever need love. In my life my idea of my perfections have been rewarded with love, and mistakes that are punished with the very worst form of torture;  isolation. And sadly, as this was done to me by my parents as a child and still as an adult, it was what I gave myself in 2014.

 

If I’m writing books or in rehab,  I’m flawed, ugly with shame and still have the ability to fall.  So many thanks to you to my new family at Journey Church. I even obtained the mentor I have been praying for through her testimony one Sunday at church, of her struggle of parental abandonment and addiction.  Since then we meet regularly, she keeps me accountable and Alan and I are attending our first life group with her on Thursday…

That is community!!  The essence of where two or more is gathered greatness is imminent.  Isolation provokes death for your soul and body, yet communion invites prosperity and more joy than we can conjure up in our minds.
The chasm of greatness brings me to the soaring cliff of stamina where we all have the ability to jump to the other side of healing. That we are forever free, falling into the hands of grace and eternal forgiveness.

My Chasm of Grace

Beyond blessed , I wrote a poem 26 years ago that was asked to be in an anthology of poetry that hit New York Times Bestseller Lists. Little did I know when I wrote this blog blog the other day that this had occurred. I wanted to reveal my real self, my struggle and my accomplishments to show how great our God is in in the midst of both.

Ami Beth CrossLeave a comment

When incarcerated, isolation is often used as one of the worst possible forms of punishment a criminal can receive.  Torture techniques include placing people in holes of darkness completely alone, depleted of any interaction with another person for extended periods of time to break the spirit of humanity.

Being alone can be more dreadful more than death.

When I became a full-time author two years ago I was on the precipice my greatest dream coming true.  When I was six years old I began writing anything and everything coming to my heart a rapid pace I would grab my pencil to put into expression my conflicted painstaking experiences.  Through the darkness of my tormented and lonely childhood, God gave me a precious gift, and a means to navigate unthinkable situations.

 

Needless to say having the ability to publish two books in fourteen months is something that I am very proud of.  My memoir ‘The Return to Happiness’ hit bestseller lists on Amazon, ibooks and Barnes and Noble, and Kobo.  MORE importantly miraculously,  my words have helped thousands and thousands of women all over the world giving a voice to the devastating grief of pregnancy and infant loss.  God once again used my torrent of torture to flow vastly into the form of words, yet this time healing others, not just myself.  What a magnificent God we serve.

But it wasn’t all celebration cakes and congratulations on Facebook, I faced the darkest time in my adult life while birthing my dream.

The first six months of pursuing my most coveted aspiration came with a lofty price that has the ability to haunt me until I meet Jesus.  I (unknowingly at the time) sentenced myself the most horrid punishment of maltreatment…isolation.

For those of you who don’t know me personally, I am the infante definition of an extrovert and a complete and total spaz. I thrive off of people, I love (most) everything about God’s people. The joy or sorrow in their eyes is my goal to discover the reason of either.  Two is always greater than one in times of celebration or despair.

As you can see isolation isn’t beneficially for anyone, especially for a person like myself.  Alone, sheltered, and wrapped up in my own fictional and nonfictional world I fell into the darkest depression and dependence on alcohol and prescription medication that I ever had faced.  Anxiety and depression have always taunted me as I have dealt with abandonment, abuse of the worst kind, a son diagnosed with a chronic illness at four and two back to back second-trimester pregnancy losses.  In prefacing that I have dealt with some mental health issues goes without strong merit.

I’ll never forget my first glass of wine.  A magnificent feeling overtook my mind and body, but mostly the pivotal escape from inner darkness and the child that always felt left behind is what continued to call my name to the lies of the bottle.  The girl who saw too much, the forsaken and tormented version of my inner child was sedated and finally left numbed.  It was the most intensely wonderful thing that I had ever injected into my body.  And I didn’t care if it was wrong.  I simply loved that I could not feel.

Labels kill the over achiever as floods wipe out the innocent.  I never wanted to admit my poison because I wanted so desperately to be loved.

I never became a raging alcoholic in those years of young adulthood.  Thankfully I never received a DUI, or put my kids or myself in danger, or lost a job.  People drink and it is widely acceptable even marketed as a way to overcome a really bad day.  I was successful in many of my areas that in enabled me to somewhat cover up my guilt with my many outlandish accomplishments (yup I’m that selfish).  A definite result of my distorted childhood was the need to please and to receive love, therefore, I was 110% or nothing.  If I was triumphant than I was loveable.

In that, it is pertinent I add a few of the prodigious things I did in my life before I drop the biggest bombshell to you all that I’ve managed to keep hidden for two years:

  • I wrote an award-winning poem at 16 and was published and hit New York Times Best Selling List in her collection of poetry, thus becoming a New York Time Bestselling author without even knowing it at fifteen.
  • I am the National Prepared Public Speaking winner for the state of Nevada and competed at a national convention in St. Louis, MO.  I can still recall the energy in my body as the electricity jolted me on the stage to shout to the world my words and voice.
  • I was a gifted runner with Olympic potential until I had a career ending injury at 16.
  • I was selected for a national band and played for 30,000 people including President George Bush
  • I learned how to figure skate at the age of thirty advancing so quickly I skated in an ice show 9 months later being the first adult to land a jump higher than a waltz.  Then I went on to perform in seven other ice shows in front of thousands of people. 
  • I am a bestselling author of a memoir that will eventually be in the United Hospital System going home with grieving mothers who suffers miscarriage or stillbirth.
  •  I am the proud mother of six babies.  (Two in heaven) whose accomplishments mean more to me than an Olympic gold medal, and a husband who is my heart light.
  • I have a divorce that is healthy.  My ex-husband, his beautiful wife, her kids, and ours are blended.  We have Christmas, birthdays, and Easter, together.  We shield one another in the dark times and celebrate the joys in life.  They are my husband and my two children together godparents.  If anything happens to Alan and I, all my babies will be together in the best care I could ever imagine.

All of those things I didn’t accomplish on my own. I once had a deeply rooted relationship with Jesus and loved my Lord more than myself.  When I left Him I still continued to soar, yet slowly crumbled deeper than the sky could lift me up.On the cliff of greatness in 2014 looking off into the sunset of finally becoming a published author I knew this would top anything else I had done in my life.  Yet I was only touching the surface of my journey back to God, deeply I was falling vastly into depression and drinking.  I was alone.  Because I chose isolation.  From church  from God, from friends. I was too busy building my business, writing my books, and well for lack of better words trying to drown my sorrows.

 

I ended up drinking myself into a horrible mess, dipping deeper and darker into depression.  I called a suicide help line one night.  I felt so lost, my dad had left…again….my past was ruining me, haunting me, nightmares made my turmoil happen over and over every night so I’d stay up all night working and numbing myself into a place where my sleep wouldn’t hit the stage of dreams.  The police came to my house at three am to make sure I wasn’t going to hurt myself, waking my husband up to attest to the fact that I wouldn’t kill myself was one of my darkest moments.  The fear in his eyes was enough.  Enough to find the inner will to fight the greatest storm of my life.

A week after I called the suicide hotline I hit it.  The cement wall holding the ability to crack my skull open and leave misery-drenched in the form of red, fluid that holds the breath of death, with no hope of reconciliation.

I decided to quit drinking cold turkey soon after a dreaded night to my realization that I wouldn’t have reacted that way if I had been sober.  I mean really, me in a screaming match?  Nope,  not reality, not truth, not the grace God has instilled in me.

The whole next day, horribly hung over, I laid in my bed alone, I covered the windows with the darkest of blankets and cried.  I shook with withdrawal symptoms and when my older boys got home from school I instructed them to come up as I had to tell them something.

They entered my room sorrowful from the sheer greeting of a black room and a clearly sick mom.  They had no idea my drinking had gotten out of control as I was  the master of deception.  Remember, if I fail I’m not loved.  It’s what my parents taught me.  What else would I know?

I told my boys that I had an altercation with our neighbors and some changes were on the horizon.  My oldest son Caleb said, “Mom you need to get involved in church.  You need community, I’m worried about you because I know you and this isn’t you.”  Caleb looked around the dark sullen room and my listless body still in bed at 4 pm with compassion and concern.

My oldest son Caleb said, “Mom you need to get involved in church.  You need community, I’m worried about you because I know you and this isn’t you.”  He peered upon the dark sullen room and my listless body still in bed at 4 pm with compassion and concern.

Yet the only thing that was was in me was anger.

Church?

God!?

A God who only took from me, who wrecked me taking my two infant boys, Caleb’s health, my innocence, my father?   The love I yearned for but never received from my mother.  NO WAY would I ever serve Him again.  I was so faithful in my youth and He still gave me nothing but adult years of suffering.

 My children left heartbroken seeing their mother who was usually strong lying on a bed that had the stench of death.  The woman who they watched make dreams turn into reality was truly giving up.  I can’t even imagine the pain I placed on their young hearts.  

Twenty-four hours after my last drink I went into delirium tremens (DT’s) which is a possible, fatal condition caused by severe alcohol withdrawal.  I write in more detail in my upcoming book about how this felt, but I can paraphrase and say it was like a nightmarish light show that was evil instead of in celebration. Streamers fell from the sky in a brilliance of color, but it didn’t feel like the fourth of July it felt like the end of life. I reached up to grab what seemed real only to see it dissipate in the confines of my pale  hands.  Rock bottom never looked so colorful and felt so regretful.

The next morning being the hypochondriac I am, I googled ‘hallucinations after ceasing alcohol’.  Of course,  every site said get yourself to an emergency room because you could die

Deep inside me,  I knew I didn’t actually want to go to be with the Jesus yet, so I had my husband Alan take me to the local ER.  Staff became serious extremely fast as I was admitted,  and I was placed on a “seizure” watch in fear that I could seize and die.

My initial fleeting moment of wanting to die weeks earlier could become a reality and in the grips of such deafening possibility of truth I held on like I had never fought in my life before.

I saw Alan.

Caleb.

Cameron.  

Trasen.  

Lilia.

Mostly I saw me.

My potential.  What I meant to people.

My smile.

My love, soul, gifts, and deep torment that can be used to gift those going through the same.

I fought so hard I felt like my hero Rocky Balboa after his fight with the Russian.  Beaten, yet ultimately blanketed with a title belt around my waist.

The doctors at that point recommended rehab for dual diagnosis depression and alcoholism, with  my pride fighting to hold me back…I went.

Being in a facility akin to the darkest of places a person can go was a creation within my being I wasn’t accustomed to.  Giving in to failure, not clinging to my success. I heard stories much more tortuous than mine.  I saw heroin addicts, suicide attempts, schizophrenics, deeply depressed people and severe eating disorders.

And in that my chains were broken, for we are all at the throne.  We all struggle no matter our life path.

All of the unlovely sat at the table we ate our meals at and we loved one another, while Jesus sat at the head of the table I actually felt Him and knew through His stripes we were healed.

Eight painfully beneficial days later I left and something on the last day during one of our group meetings we were told that seventy percent of us will relapse.  \

Seventy percent of you will fail.

In essence, that means thirty percent win this battle.  And I’m really good at winning, my prideful self self-declared.

 

But instead of victory, this time,I became a statistic. One month later I was back.

I had become the seventy percent.

In the months that followed my second visit to Rogers Memorial Hospital, I rewrote both of my books that were crafted in a non-authentic clear-minded way.  I completely stopped drinking and went on this amazing adventure that a year later brought me back to my best friend, Jesus.

 

My son was insightful in giving me powerful words from the throne of God that we thrive when we have people rallying around us not trying to cope on our own. Two are always better than one.

 

We need each other to thrive, grow prosper, and be kept accountable.

 

In this increasingly hard time in my life with my Caleb going to college and feeling like a quarter of my heart is in Minneapolis for the first time in a while I’ve been struggling.  

 

God has called me to greatness, He has predestined me to write my story of addiction and childhood/adult abandonment and how I overcame impossible odds to find my destiny  Yet, first I have to arrive.

Again I stand at the brinks of a multitude of choices to deal with transition and the pulling question of which direction will I take?  Will I allow evil to spit the ugliness of sin on my face  or will I shower myself with the grace of a Savior filed with ultimate possibility?

In my young life abandonment meant if I wasn’t the picture of perfection I wasn’t loved.  In my mid-life my parents exude the same standard.  For I’ve been shown that if I mess up, or am less than righteous, love simply leaves.  It is gone, sometimes forever. That is why sharing this with you all is so hard for me.  For I am flawed, and so blessed to have you all hugging me and praying for me in a church that is anointed and blessed, yet if you know my darkness will you still offer me light?  This hasn’t been my history so it is hard to grasp that it could be my future.

 

And I do know that my bullet point of my greatest accomplishments mean nothing, yet I needed to state them for fear of loss.  Of love, fellowship, and YOU.  Each and everyone of you who meet my eyes on a weekly basis and pray with me when I leave the service to grab a tissue because I miss my oldest boy.  I love each and everyone of you.  And I pray you still love me, even though I’m flawed, gravitated toward forgetting, and a broken child of God.

 

My shame in the perils of escape through drugs and alcohol have defined me for many years.  Success that many will never see has also defined me for many years.  And the God in my soul says NO!  None of it matters, success or failure He accepts me and hugs me like the father I long for.

 

Jesus is the King and through it is well.  Simply put… it is well with my soul.

 

Friends, I will NEVER be perfect, but I will forever need love. In my life my idea of my perfections have been rewarded with love, and mistakes that are punished with the very worst form of torture;  isolation. And sadly, as this was done to me by my parents as a child and still as an adult, it was what I gave myself in 2014.

 

If I’m writing books or in rehab,  I’m flawed, ugly with shame and still have the ability to fall.  So many thanks to you to my new family at Journey Church. I even obtained the mentor I have been praying for through her testimony one Sunday at church, of her struggle of parental abandonment and addiction.  Since then we meet regularly, she keeps me accountable and Alan and I are attending our first life group with her on Thursday…

 That is community!!  The essence of where two or more are gathered greatness is imminent.  Isolation provokes death for your soul and body, yet communion invites prosperity and more joy than we can conjure up in our minds.
The chasm of greatness brings me to the soaring cliff of stamina where we all have the ability to jump to the other side of healing.  That we are forever free, falling into the hands of grace and eternal forgiveness.