I was born Dec 19th 1952.  As a child I lived on a farm.  I had a half brother, a brother, 4 sisters and a brother.  The last brother died at birth.  I didn't have many friends in school.  And I believe this made me shy.  I also believe it affected my grades.  I didn't want to bring attention to myself so I wouldn't answer questions from teachers.  I daydreamed often.  In gradeschool it didn't seem to matter as much, but when I began junior and senior high it mattered.  I started hanging out with a crowd that accepted me, but they didn't have great values.  I guess it got worse in junior and senior high because my dad died when I was just over 11.  My sister started having me babysit for her every friday while she and her husband went out.  I stayed with her all weekend and went home after school on mondays.  I liked staying with her and spending time with the kids, but I didn't like how she and her husband fought all the time.  He use to hit her around quite a bit.  I didn't date until my senior year.  I started dating him in October, but he broke up with me in January because I would not sleep with him.  My best girlfriend started dating him and that hurt.  A friend of his was interested in me, but I was hung up on the boy, so I didn't go out with him.  I almost quit school.  My high school vice principal tried to reason with me, and although I didn't do it for him, I did finish highschool.  One week before I graduated, my mom's house burned to the ground.  We lost everything, including a dog that I had. 

 

Shortly after I graduated I was hanging out with a girlfriend and she had a date that she didn't want to be alone with, so I went along for the ride.  They were drinking and I was not, so I asked if I could drive.  He said no it wasn't his car.  We ended up going over an embankment and rolling.  I was knocked out immediately and when I woke up I was in the drivers seat.  We didn't wear seat belts back then.  We got out and everyone was ok, but we had to climb up the hill to the road.  I couldn't make it over a fence and ended up getting two barb wire cuts in my leg.  By the time we got to the top of the hill I was bleeding all over.  No cars were coming by, and this was back when we didn't have cell phones.  We ended up walking back to town and I would have to say it was at least 15 miles before we got to a house and got help.

 

The vehicle sat at a service station for a week after and everyone that saw it kept saying everyone in the car had died.  About this time I met up with another friend and started drinking a fifth of slo gin without mixing it with anything.  I didn't drink every night, just wasn't fun like I thought it would be.

My first boyfriend broke up with my best friend and asked me out again, but we only went out once and he never contacted me again.  That's when I gave up.  I literally gave up.  I told a new girlfriend I needed to sleep with a guy and get it over with.  My mistake.  She found someone and he didn't let me stop when I wanted to.  Oh and the kicker, he was getting married the next day.  Now I was sinking even deeper in depression.  I looked for ways that I might be able to kill myself.  A friend and I got an apartment together and it was on the 4th floor.  I often sat at the window and contemplated if I could jump and kill myself.   I was scared to even try.  We went cruising the gut, but we were getting low on funds so we stopped to panhandle.  We asked a vehicle that was parked watching the cars go around the gut if he had any spare change.  He gave us what he had.  (This was soon to become my husband).  Maybe it was a good thing that we decided about this time to move to another apartment because if I kept contemplating jumping, I may have gotten up the nerve to try it.  We started to move our stuff from the apartment and my friends asked this guy (my husband) to help us move.  They actually told him if he help I would sleep with him.  After we were all moved they told me what they had told him.  I didn't care anymore so I agreed.  This guy was so sweet and we have been together ever since.  After my husband and I had been living together for 3 months his dad couldn't take it anymore and told him that he needed to marry, and offered to pay for the ceremony. 

 

My husband smoked marijuana and I tried it but I didn't like it much, although I would smoke it whenever he had some.  I was very insecure.  I didn't trust him and I didn't like myself.  My husband worked in a fish plant, and a papermill.  He was injured several times in the papermill.  After one of these injuries he was in the hospital and a pastor came to visit him.  My husband told him because he came to visit him, he would come visit his church.  We received Jesus at that service.  We served Jesus faithfully for 3 years.  However, my husband got a job in retail and after a year he was transferred to another location.  At this new location I became pregnant and my husband quit going to church.  After our third child was born, my husband had a vasectomy, but he ended up in the hospital because he was bleeding.  He again started going to church for a couple years.  We ended up moving again and I tried a couple churches but he wouldn't go so I soon quit going too.  My husband stayed in retail until our children were grown.  After they were grown he said he had always wanted to be a truck driver, so he went to school and got his cdl license. He went long haul and asked me to go with him.  We went for 7 months.  But I didn't want to continue going because I didn't like the truck stop food, and I didn't have anything to do on the truck so I started sleeping all the time.  After I went home, my husband got a semi-local job.  He was gone 3 days, home one and gone 3.  I started going to church, and when he came home I told him if he wanted to spend time with me he had to go to church with me.  About this time the Lord was speaking to him on the road and he went to a church and rededicated himself to the Lord.  That was 8 years ago and we have been faithful to the Lord since.