I want to share a little history about me…through the telling of my story maybe I will find someone out there who needs this.
My mother was 16 when I was born, she wasn’t married and the man, my father, never stayed around long enough for me to know who he was. My mother was a prostitute and a drug addict. Three years after I was born the State stepped in and removed me from my mother’s life. I was then placed into foster care. When I was five years old I was sexually abused by a man whom to this day I don’t know. The abuse lasted for a year and somehow made me a magnate for more. Before my 7th birthday I was moved to 9 different homes. I was then placed in an orphanage for boys, where I lived for three and half years. The orphanage was populated by 200+ children and a number of Catholic nuns and counselors. The ages of the children ranged from 6 to 15. When I turned 8 a big 13 year old bully took an interest in me and the ensuing sexual abuse lasted for two years. Once a month couples would come, looking to adopt a young boy. I was called often to the dean’s office for interviews, always hoping that I could get away from that place, from him. I don’t know if the numerous rejections in those interviews broke my heart or if it was already shattered when I was stripped of my mother. All I know is that after that place I was changed, different. I spent the next 7 years in 3 foster homes and two group homes for boys. When I was 15 a counselor at one of the group homes came up to me and gave me a comic book. I looked at it, then at him and laughed. I took it and later tossed it in a corner of my room. Over a period of a week I would pick it up and read through the colorful pages, “King of kings” it read on the cover. The more I read it the more I felt something, deep inside, something like a faint light in a deep cave or a whisper maybe. One day I was sitting alone, just me and that comic book. I picked it up and read it, and after a time of reading I began to realize how much I needed the King in those pages. I sat up in my bed, looked at the floor and said, “Jesus if you are the King and you are real, show me. I want you here inside of me”. As if in an instant the faint light wasn’t there in the distance anymore, it was all around me. The whisper became a voice and it began to speak boldly deep inside me. I felt so alive! Every nerve in my body was awake and pulsed. Tears poured down my cheeks and I cried and cried. I felt something in the room like someone huge standing next to me. I can’t put all of into words, but I know my heart changed that day. All the abuse and pain I carried just didn’t go away, but I realized something, I wasn’t carrying it anymore, He was.
My life isn’t perfect or complete; God is still undoing what was done. But I have hope, and I know I am not alone and never will be. Sometimes there are moments of regret, guilt and bitterness, but Jesus is teaching me to let Him carry those too. The hate is gone and the fire of bitterness is dieing and smoldering. When I look to Him I forget where I am and where I was, He takes my hand and says to me, never again.
My mother was 16 when I was born, she wasn’t married and the man, my father, never stayed around long enough for me to know who he was. My mother was a prostitute and a drug addict. Three years after I was born the State stepped in and removed me from my mother’s life. I was then placed into foster care. When I was five years old I was sexually abused by a man whom to this day I don’t know. The abuse lasted for a year and somehow made me a magnate for more. Before my 7th birthday I was moved to 9 different homes. I was then placed in an orphanage for boys, where I lived for three and half years. The orphanage was populated by 200+ children and a number of Catholic nuns and counselors. The ages of the children ranged from 6 to 15. When I turned 8 a big 13 year old bully took an interest in me and the ensuing sexual abuse lasted for two years. Once a month couples would come, looking to adopt a young boy. I was called often to the dean’s office for interviews, always hoping that I could get away from that place, from him. I don’t know if the numerous rejections in those interviews broke my heart or if it was already shattered when I was stripped of my mother. All I know is that after that place I was changed, different. I spent the next 7 years in 3 foster homes and two group homes for boys. When I was 15 a counselor at one of the group homes came up to me and gave me a comic book. I looked at it, then at him and laughed. I took it and later tossed it in a corner of my room. Over a period of a week I would pick it up and read through the colorful pages, “King of kings” it read on the cover. The more I read it the more I felt something, deep inside, something like a faint light in a deep cave or a whisper maybe. One day I was sitting alone, just me and that comic book. I picked it up and read it, and after a time of reading I began to realize how much I needed the King in those pages. I sat up in my bed, looked at the floor and said, “Jesus if you are the King and you are real, show me. I want you here inside of me”. As if in an instant the faint light wasn’t there in the distance anymore, it was all around me. The whisper became a voice and it began to speak boldly deep inside me. I felt so alive! Every nerve in my body was awake and pulsed. Tears poured down my cheeks and I cried and cried. I felt something in the room like someone huge standing next to me. I can’t put all of into words, but I know my heart changed that day. All the abuse and pain I carried just didn’t go away, but I realized something, I wasn’t carrying it anymore, He was.
My life isn’t perfect or complete; God is still undoing what was done. But I have hope, and I know I am not alone and never will be. Sometimes there are moments of regret, guilt and bitterness, but Jesus is teaching me to let Him carry those too. The hate is gone and the fire of bitterness is dieing and smoldering. When I look to Him I forget where I am and where I was, He takes my hand and says to me, never again.
