Danielle over at Sometimes Sweet has this little thing going where she posts a question and writes her response below it, and invites others to do the same. I'm new to her blog, and this is my first time doing this, but as one who loves to write and work out my life through my writing, this is totally my thing... so here goes.
Looking at all of the life you've lived so far, can you pinpoint one time frame or instance that you feel truly contributed to your growth as a person? This may be a turning point, a positive or negative experience, a moment or collection of moments that stand out in your mind...something that changed you as a whole.
I think we all have them... those moments when you look back and see real pinnacles of decision... where if you'd just done the one thing your gut was telling you to do, that one fiery, radical, insane thing that you knew you should do, that made complete sense and brought you total clarity, but that you just couldn't find all that you needed to find within yourself to make that move... and for the rest of your life, looked back upon with regret? Well, I have two of those.
And for those who may think I am merely a navel gazing, regretful human being. Actually, let me just add this disclaimer... I am in a place in my life right now of allowing myself to look backwards with a greater ability to accept myself for who I was then, and who I have become as a result. A huge part of this ability to accept myself has come from my relationship with Jesus, because of how much he has shown me his love and grace and mercy. I haven't received that love, grace and mercy IN SPITE of my past, no, he loves me completely and he doesn't even recall those past experiences at all when he thinks of me. There's more to how I came to know that for another time, but for now, know that I don't live in misery, but talking about it candidly is healing for me. So there... hee hee!
Okay so, here's a story for ya. Since I tend to be long winded, I will do my darndest to give you the Reader's Digest version.
When I was 17, I was as pure as can be. Barely ever kissed a guy, barely dated, you know, I was a sophomore (or junior?) in high school, and really naive and innocent. I was really into my church youth group and really into going to church. Most of my closest friends were there. Anyways... one Wednesday night in 1996 before the youth service, I walked into the youth room, and there was this guy... sitting on the back row, center aisle, chin length hair pulled back and wearing a red sweater, looking down... dear God, who was THAT!? I asked my friend April. She dared me to introduce myself, so I did... he looked up at me with these glass blue eyes and shook my hand like a girl, and said, "I'm John Patrick"... I walked away thinking he had a sissy hand shake, but dear God he was gorgeous... then went along my merry way.
This guy stuck around, and was such a "space cadet" as I called him from afar... and after a few weeks, the next thing I know, we're at Fazoli's late one Sunday night after church, and my buddy Roy shoves his number into my hand and says "y'all need to talk! call him!!"... so what did I do? Well, I called him.
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| me in late '97 |
That was the beginning of the end.
Fast forward two years. This was not a good or healthy relationship. John Patrick was not one that should have ever taken drugs. Though he was now sober, I was on his mental roller coaster with him. When he was low, I was low, trying to understand why he was low, and so on and so forth. We were "so in love", you know how that is. I don't mean to belittle it, but looking back you have more clarity. Anyway, my family eventually moved back to Atlanta where I am from, and John stayed back in Colorado Springs. After a few months of scheming, one day in May of 1998, I ran away from home. To Colorado. In my little red Honda Civic. Without telling my parents. While they were out of town and I was under someone else's care. Not cool! But I did it. I made it in 20 hours, on no sleep. And they were waiting for me when I got there... not my parents, but the youth pastor, his wife, and others. I was in trouble, as in trouble as a 18 year old girl can be... Basically, I was left to figure it out on my own, and that's what I proceeded to do. No one made me come home. Some wonderful people (who I later hurt by leaving abruptly) put me up in their basement. John Patrick and I proceeded to formulate all these unachievable, unrealistic dreams together, meanwhile destroying one another. It was just not good. Not healthy.
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| This is my graduation picture. Here's a side story for you - I had so many credits by the end of my junior year that I was able to finish my senior year by correspondence instead of having to go to class every day. We moved back to Atlanta in January 1998, mid way through my senior year. In May 1998 is when I ran away back to Colorado Springs. The family I was staying with also happened to be in my class at Liberty High School. I just so happened to go to the graduation rehearsal with him, and as I was sitting in the stands, watching them practice, and thinking I wouldn't be walking with my class, someone shouted at me that my name was on a chair and was I planning on walking? So, I walked with my class for graduation. But because I'd run away, no family attended my graduation. Pretty awful. Not to mention that when I ran away, I had already purchased a ticket to England for a visit (used to live there), and totally forfeited that, and had a big graduation party planned for me, which I also forfeited (poking self in eye). |
Fast forward a few months. Things have escalated and intensified. We determine we HAVE to get married, HAVE to go back to Florida to live with his mom. I quickly pack my things and my car, and we begin a two week road trip, him in his VW bus and my in my Honda following behind... sleeping in corn fields in the bus, writing bad checks all across America until we made it back to Atlanta... our false notion that I would go on to Florida with him and live with his Mom disintegrated, and we were separated once again. It was bad. The separation yet again led me to a place of depression and lack of a sense of my identity, where I eventually began to self-destruct, spending the next two years on drugs, isolated from my family, and eventually meeting Dakota's dad... and the rest is history. A hard, painful history to recount sometimes. Maybe I'll share that story with you one day.
But rewind to the very first day of our journey on the road... there was a moment... that moment that I'm talking about... it happened. We had just left the Springs. He was tired, but we were only on the plains of Colorado, headed towards Kansas. He wanted to pull over and take a nap... So we did. He passed out while I anxiously fidgeted, wondering how he could possibly sleep at an adrenaline filled moment like this - of running away yet again. About half an hour passed, the sun began to set on the mountainous horizon behind me...and then the clarity came.
I could get in my car, RIGHT NOW, and go back, or go forward... any which way I wanted, and get out of this insane, psychotic mess, and he would never know which way I went, he would never find me... and I could straighten my life out. And he would never know which direction I went!!
So many times, I have wondered... what would my life be like, if I had made that radical choice in that moment... but I didn't, the result of which has dramatically shaped who I am today...
There is another moment I want to share that is as equally as pronounced in my memory. In 1998, I'd been living really recklessly. I was staying with my mother at the time, and I am sure she earned wrinkles and gray hair among many other things during that season of my life (it pretty much disgusts her, so we don't talk about it). The drug situation was pretty bad, I was using all the time, and it was getting worse. I knew I wanted out from under her roof, so I started looking around. I found this trailer, in a trailer park (yes, I did), for $425 a month, near downtown Marietta. It was the cheapest place I could find to live where I could support my habit and still wait tables to pay rent. It most definitely was NOT in the best location, and that's putting it lightly. No one was happy about this arrangement. But in my stubbornness I just wanted out. All I could think about was the drug fueled parties I'd have there, without worrying about my mom worrying about me... I could just "live my life". Some life that was I guess, and even as I write this, I am thinking twice about posting so much detail about the drugs, but who knows, maybe one day it will help someone.
All I can say is, within days of giving the landlord the deposit on that place, I got a call from Glacier Park, Inc. offering me a job waiting tables (which is the MOST lucrative job you can have in the park) at the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn in Many Glacier Valley of Glacier National Park. Needless to say, my family scrambled to get me on a plane and the heck out of Georgia. It was a Spirit-led intervention, is all I can say, because it was not initiated by anyone. Somehow, at the right time, my name came up, and I got to move to Montana, live in Glacier National Park, and make great money that I couldn't spend anywhere. And there would be no drugs and no parties either which is exactly what I needed.
Upon my arrival there, I was absolutely and overwhelmingly overtaken by the beauty of Glacier. There is simply no more beautiful place on this planet, and I am sticking to it. All I could think about was how I could stay there, how I could live there, that I didn't want to go home... I just wanted to be absorbed by it, consumed by it, I was in love with Glacier Park.
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| this is me in front of Swiftcurrent Lake in Many Glacier Valley. To my left was Many Glacier Lodge, and I was standing on the road that leads to it. No words to describe the beauty here. I LIVED HERE! |
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| Appekunny Falls... my first hike in Many Glacier Valley. I just can't describe how much joy I had here. Total clarity. |
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| This was my pad, the cabin in the foreground (not my Jeep)... cabin E8. I lived there alone. |
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| Me at the halfway point of the Highline Trail descending into Swiftcurrent Valley (below) - a 14 mile hike starting in Logan Pass, passing the Granite Park Chalet and descending into Swiftcurrent Pass, where I lived. |
That beautiful, clear, sunny morning, I was riding in the car... and I had this insane revelation, taking me waaaay back to when I was that 16 year old girl with big dreams of going into missions, developing my giftings as a worship leader and songwriter, that there was a YWAM base near where we were driving... near Lakeside, Montana. I realized this, and my hair stood on end from head to toe... I felt a moment of purity, clarity, and certainty. I have $800 in my pocket... I could just have this girl take me to the base, I could tell them my story, then tell my family, and I was sure on faith that I could raise enough support to stay there and do a DTS (Discipleship Training School), and once again, turn my life around. Jenifer would never know what happened to me, but I'd be in the right place for once!....
That morning, I proceeded to the vegan restaurant, bags in hand, where I met my friend and we proceeded to travel from Northwest Montana, down through the state into Wyoming, and back again. I flew back to Atlanta several weeks later, and before the car ever left the parking lot, I had mescaline on my tongue.
Free will is the one thing we have, that executed strategically, will allow us to live this life with purpose, with joy, contentedly and relative ease. The stuff you can't control, well, that's just it... the stuff you can't control, and you're entitled to complain about it. But the stuff you can, that's your own path to pave out for yourself, and when you realize that your future IS the cumulative result of your choices, well, then you start to make better choices. This is a lesson I really only learned in my mid-twenties, thanks to a no-nonsense therapist, who helped me see that I could have the life I want, if I just decide that's what I want and have the where-with-all to make it happen. And knowing that Jesus loves me for real, eases the pain and makes me feel warm, and opens me up to the reality that actually, there was a lot going on behind the scenes in the spirit, that I see now with such clarity. And he has helped me to see the purpose of all that time, these stories I have to tell, and that everything I knew him to be before the crap hit the fan, well, he was that and more. And somehow I had to walk through my own fire to be able to really see him as he is. And so maybe it was all worth it, even if just for that one result.
Thanks for reading.
Brooke
PS: I am a little apprehensive about sharing lots of details about my past, and I may just pull this whole thing one day, but for now, I am just gonna go for it. I am a new person with a new life, and a confidence in who I am because my Creator adores me. Maybe it will help you to read about it. I hope so.
I wish you the best.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your journey.
Blessed be.