testimony

I guess you could call this a partial testimony...I have been thru a lot of junk. When I was about 16 or so, I started going out with my first actual boyfriend (we'll call him Fred) ever. He taught me lots of things...what I was looking for in a potential husband, what I wasn't looking for...he drank a lot and I kinda joined in...thus I was a full-blown alcholic for like 2 years...either late 17 or early 18...I broke up with Fred because I thought I had found what I wanted...someone who looked better (let's just say this will be Jack). Anyways, I went through about 3 meaningless relationships in the meantime...if only to fill unoccupied time while I worked on my goal...then it happened, and he asked me out...we became a couple and the first week he asked me to move in with him. I did after a few days consideration...and lived with him almost 4.5 months...then I decided to move in with him. I obviously must have seen something that has now become quite invisible. Anyhow, I lived with Jack, ank the first week and 1/2 (I had just moved in with him), he asked me to sleep with him. I turned him down, but then he just rubbed it in that "everyone knows you've already slept with Fred, so no one else is going to want you know. You're used material." I have since re-thought this over, and I feel so rotten for it. Jack had roped me in by playing on my insecurity that I've always been afraid of...the very fact that I've always thought I'd never have anyone who really cares for me. My first boyfriend was sending me notes through my brother (this one I can say...his name is Daniel :)), saying that "I know our love is strong and we'll be together again soon, but waiting hurts so bad." When I find this note now, I want to cry. Back then, my heart was obviously hardened...and Satan was doing his thing through me. I was crushing lives. Satan was loving it and throwing many hellish parties in celebration, I'm sure. Boy is it all about to rain down on him...the truth of God, that is :D. I slept with this supposed 'fine' guy because he had scared me into believing that no one else would ever want me. Actually, I slept with him every night...and sometimes when he got off work for lunch-break. I quickly got addicted and became a low-scale nymphomaniac. Jack complained constantly about my drinking, and constantly made sure I felt I was nothing, so I would continue to make him feel important. He really wanted me to feel he was all I needed in life, as well as all I would ever have the chance to experience in this life. My last exit to ecstacy? I think not.

Ok...this is long, but I'm still not through. After severe bouts with depression (caused mainly by the unknowing Jack and his attitude toward me), and several suicide attempts I made early on in my mid to late teenage years; I began to realize that Jack was not the only outlet to or chance of ever finding happiness. That was becoming more and more apparent to me. Going on the leadings of this new conclusion I had found, I told Jack I wanted to call it off between us, move in with his cousin (who was in fact one of my good friends at the time), and I told him that I really was getting tired of having him badmouth me with every other mutter of ecstacy in order to assure my acceptance of him in my arms every night. If you're really looking for a way to crush a girl and genuinely hurt her feelings...here's your answer (please note I'm being totally sarcastic here...there are enuff of these men already in the world today, I know because all of my ex-boyfriends have turned out to act in this way). Just let her throw it all out on the table, and tell you exactly what is wrong with you, and what you need to fix, even though you are loosing her now...then look away and shrug your shoulders and go "ok...whatever."

It really hurt for him to show me how much he really cared. After moving in with Jack's cousin...I slept on the couch with another of Jack's cousins, and we walked to the nearest quick stop at about 2 am to sit and snack until about 5 am every morning. A week later, I went home to wash clothes and borrow mom's car <1993 Black Mustang LX> to go take care of a few errands. She let me use the car, only on the condition I brought my sister (This one's safe to reveal, too...Stephanie). I did...we were attempting to drive to the Drug Store to get hair dye, and in the small town of Crystal Springs, Mississippi...there is nothing really better to do than just 'ride the strip' from Front Street to Sonic repeatedly. Of course, we were teenagers, so that's exactly what we did. Then I saw a car that looked like another of my friend's cars...and I attempted to follow him home. I don't remember a thing about this trip...all info included has come from my sister's remembrances and what little my mom knows about what happened. Steph said it was getting dark, it was starting to rain, I was driving a little too fast, I was tired, and I didn't seem to be paying much attention to where I was going.

Needless to say, I swerved off the road and hit a telephone pole...actually, I guess you could say I 'hit and halfed' a telephone pole. Only half of it still stood standing. We impacted, I believe, from the front left corner of the car; because we weren't wearing seatbelts, I first was tossed to the right far enuff to throw my sister from the car and onto the grass to safety. However, I was trapped between the driver's seat and the steering wheel. A lady nearby had heard the impact, and looked out her window. When she saw the car, she called the ambulance first, then she ran out to see if anyone was still alive. When the ambulance arrived, they first questioned my sister while loading her onto the ambulance. In the meantime, there was a crew working on the process of cutting me from the car.

We were first taken to Hardy Wilson Memorial Hospital in Hazlehurst. They treated my sister there, as all she had acquired were a few cuts and bruises. This experience must have been much more traumatic for her, as she still remembers it all and has had nightmares about it before, and I have never been able to remember anything concerning that day of my life, even...much less the wreck. I haven' been able to even remember many dreams at all since the wreck. I was still unconcious, so they flew me in a helicopter to University hospital in Jackson (I often joke "you would know the one time I finally get the chance to ride in a helicopter, and I'm not even conscious!).

At the hospital, the details are all really shady here. I don't remember a single thing at all of any of this, again this is only what my mother has filled me in on, and what my scars tell me. My pelvis was broken in several parts, and I still have two metal plates in my pelvis, placed there to assist the bones in reconstructing. I have a metal plate in my left arm, I assume where my arm was thrust out a window by the impact of the car hitting the telephone pole. I was in a coma from the moment I first arrived for another 2 weeks. Yep...dead to the world I was, I'm sure. Therefore, I remember nothing from this time. However, I have had a shunt (a channel or passage, natural or artificial, by which fluid passes between two natural channels by which fluid passes between two natural channels) used to drain excess fluid from the area surrounding my brain. A feeding tube was inserted right alongside my belly button (which left quite a cute scar, I assure you :)) during my frist two weeks when I was way too out of it to even realize I was still alive, much less make an effort to eat.

While in the hospital, many close friends came to visit (including Clark Beasley, one of my closest friends since the first grade). I'm sure a few got their feelings hurt when they realized I didn't remember that they had come, but I just hope they do realize I had just been diagnosed as having a 'head-on injury' and really wasn't expected to make it past my first night in the Intensive Care Unit...and if I ever did make it, there was an almost assured assumption I would be a vegetable for the rest of my life here on earth. I had so many different doctors here at the hospital...I don't know all the technical names, but that's probably why I'm not a doctor :) I had brain doctors, bone doctors, muscle doctors, and teachers and physical therapists in Children's Rehabilitation. :D This is where I stop to thank the Lord that this I did not in fact become a vegetable as expected!

Well, I was in the hospital (combining ICQ, several doctors offices, classrooms, physical/occupational rehab rooms, etc) for about 4 and 1/2 months (My wreck happened on Aug 16, 1996...I got out of the hospital in December of 1996, just in time for Christmas!). I was in a wheelchair for about 6 months total, including my time in the hospital. This was truly one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Most of you will never know how real to life I am getting here. I was pitiful, and almost like a baby all over again. I had to relearn everything...and could do nothing on my own. My mom showered and fed her 18 year old daughter. I couldn't even brush my own hair on my own without being shown how to.

After getting back home, I stayed there until I got out of my wheelchair and could walk on my own. Then, I decided to move in with Jack again, because I felt so close to him...he had come to visit me almost every day while I was in the hospital. Mom had never known I had broken up with him earlier that year. To leave out all the unimportant details (here, every moment of the next 2 months I spent with Jack). Needless to say, I broke up with him again after only putting up with 2 months of his similar treatment this time. My tolerance level had definitely gotten much shorter. I have gone out with two guys since Jack, both were short term relationships, about 3 months apiece, but I still learned important things through them, and now I am just sitting back and waiting for the one God has for me, unless he urges me to seriously date others again. Right now I think I'm more scared than anything else that I will get hurt again, or even worse, that I may hurt someone in the process.

My mom encouraged college...and I went after much resistance. I had the best time of my life there! I first discovered Clark Beasley was also going to Copiah-Lincoln Community College. I still went home every weekend, and at first I went out drinking every weekend. About the third week of school, Clark invited me to BSU at Co-Lin, and I went...mostly out of curiosity, and to see how they would accept me. Wow...I was blown away! I had one of the most moving nights of my life that night. Clark lead worship, which made me feel so much closer to the words we were singing; that was one night when God began speaking to me...or at least I began listening to Him. Not instantly, but eventually I have become me through Co-Lin BSU and friends I made and bonded with there.

I sustained from drinking, doing light drugs, cussing like a sailor, and even sex. Some of these addictions were a little more serious than others. Many took years to break, but I thank the Lord that I have a much better hold on my life now. I know I am not perfect, though I have had people tell me all Christians are perfect. This is not true. Christians stumble often...we just know when we are convicted and turn around to change things up a little and fix what we've messed up about outselves. Oftentimes, as sad as it may sound, I know that I don't turn. I think about it, but I never see it happen. I just want to drown myself in my own comfort zone and not tend to the needs of others. However, I know it is the spirit of God in me, that makes me desire to help everyone, no matter where they are in their faith in Christ. Many don't really even trust in anything but science, some in their own strength, some in other gods, some in money...the list could go on and on. No matter what they chose to place their trust and beliefs in, it is in my heart to help them in any way I can...within certain measures, I'm sure!