Autobiography-The Beginning

Pittsburgh, Pa-Where God Met Me

Tears rolled down my face.  Peace surrounded me as I stared into the sun on that April day in 2002.  The cars drove swiftly by on a Pittsburgh city street as I encountered God.  The drunken fog rolled back; peaceful love entered.  The drugs wormed out of my body; a Holy Man entered in. My abuser mocked and fled the scene; warmth enveloped me, I fall in love.  That day changed my life forever.  It marked me.  I wasn’t fully aware of the encounter I was having.  I just knew I never wanted it to leave; the peace, the contentment, how I hungered for it.  I began to realize that God was chasing me.  He was jealous for me.  He plucked me out of my sin-stain world; the one I had created, feigned for, lusted after. I never recognized that He was always there, gently whispering truth to me.  Now, I wanted Him and He wasn’t letting go.  Even days after this encounter, I found myself walking through my hometown, in awe that I was finally free.  While my friends bathed in darkness, demonic activity surrounding their thoughts, feelings, controlling their movements; I had been forced into the marvelous light.  And I wasn’t leaving.  I had been given a second chance.

This was my second chance.  Maybe it was my last.

I’ve heard it said that people get religious when they go to jail.  It’s not true.  God reveals Himself to them because he loves prisoners, drunks, and even haughty women like me.  He chases the lowest of the low and makes His home with them.  He did that for me when I had abandoned all that had to do with God.
 

I spent 2002, my first year sober, alone.  I walked the railroad tracks through my home town singing Amazing Grace.  I enjoyed the summer outdoors in Western Pennsylvania.  I went swimming.  I went tanning.  I went shopping.  I went to church.  I became a brand new person.  I finally had a new beginning.

2002 was also a year full of demons that had become my norm.  Since my radical decision to become conservative by choice, not environment nor naivety, I was haunted by many past lifestyle choices.   I craved the love of a man to the point of tears.  Instead of bottles of booze and hard drugs, I smoked weed and read the bible.  I woke up to demonic sexual encounters creating chilled nausea.

In the following pages, I retell my encounter with a real deity and the ten year journey He took me on in my twenties.  It’s a raw ten years filled of triumph, failing, and unconditional love.  This is OUR story and it’s not over yet.

 Oceanside, California, my birthplace

Chapter One

I loved to party.  It was my life and my identity.  Even now, looking back, I wonder how much I’ll be able to remember since the party took such a toll on my mind.  Where do I even begin?  I want to be real.  I want to be raw, but sometimes I sound so religiously fake, but that's not who my God is.  Do I start with the abortion?  Is that where it began?  Was it the years of having a dad in and out of my life because of meth addiction?  Was it the fake Christian stepfather that was in ministry and beating my mom and his son at the same time?  Where DOES this story begin?  Did You see me dancing on the beach in California when I was a little girl?  Did You see my freedom?  Did You see me singing on the Oceanside tables for all to hear?  Did You know the bondage my life would become?  You knew you’d rescue me, that I’m confident of.  You saw the end from the beginning and still, I walked through it.  I walked through the devastation.  I walked through the years of bullying harassment at school.  So where does my story begin?  I guess I’ll start at the beginning.