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1. 

   Comment by amy on October 16, 2009 at 11:37 am

   This is just a piece of my story, but it’s one of the most important ones.

   I hooked up with a friend from high school on Facebook several months ago, just in time to learn of our 20 year high school reunion. I went to Newfield High for the last 1/4 of 11th grade and all of my senior year. When I first learned of the reunion I didn’t want to go. My fear of attending the reunion didn’t have anything to do with the school or anyone who attended, or that I had a bad experience there. I didn’t want to go, because of the horrible things that I had done while I was there and I just didn’t want to face all of the people who knew me then. I changed my mind and went.

   I still remember the first day I saw my new school. Newfield Trojans… “Great”, I thought, “my new school is a giant condom advertisement.” I was not happy at the sight of this tiny school that wouldn’t let me eat my lunch off campus and compared to the school I was going to before, it seemed like a little prison. The school did not offer the advanced classes that I was in, so for the next year and a half I took classes that I had already taken. I slept through my entire senior year and graduated with a B average just by doing my home work and I couldn’t have cared less about my grades. I didn’t have many friends in high school and I didn’t really care either, I was angry at the world.

   I was extremely rebellious when I got to this little school. I got a lot of detentions, as a matter of fact, after our graduation ceremony I had to go back for 6 hours of detention before they would give me my diploma. I am probably most famous for putting crap in another girls locker, getting my school bus pulled over by the police and so on. I’m sure my fellow classmates thought I was extremely weird. I kept hearing “You’re so different” all of the time and I believe I was. Before I arrived to this little school………..

   I had spent approximately 4 years living deep within a canyon in C.O. with no running water and no electricity. It was kind of like those T.V. reality shows where they take a suburban family and catapult them back 100 years except for there was no whining and complaining. We lived off of the land. I could probably write for months about this experience. Life was extremely hard in the canyon. We could only bathe 2 maybe 3 times a week. Sometimes the 6 mile road home would be too muddy for travel or we would get stuck in the mud and have to walk home. We had an outhouse which I do not miss, animals to take care of, three thousand small pine trees that we planted and mulched that needed to be waterd using five gallon buckets which landed me in the hospital with a hernia. I had very abusive step father. Beatings were regular, so was verbal abuse and sexual abuse, he was angry at the world due to an accident at the age of 18 that burned 80% of his body and took it out on me, my mother and his own children as well. At the time I thought my life was a living hell. That life that I was living came to an abrupt screeching halt all in one day.

   On that day…… I knew something was wrong the minute I opened the door to the truck and saw his face at the bus stop. I knew something terrible was going to happen, I felt it in my bones. He said “Hi Amy” in a way that sent chills down my spine. I got in the truck and sat right next to him, funny thing was, my place was always next to the passenger door, but not today. The silence on the way home was eerie. When I got home I went to my room and I waited, I knew it wouldn’t be long. It didn’t take longer than five minutes before hell on earth began. I heard my mom screaming in the R.V. for help, I saw him come back out of the R.V. and into the addition that we built. He grabbed the fire poker and went back in side the R.V., the next thing I hear is lots of little things hitting the floor which I later learned were bullets . My mom screamed for me to go call the police, I could hear stuff hitting the walls, her being beaten. Normally I would use myself as a human shield when I could get in-between the both of them during her beatings, but this time I knew that I was not to go to her. We had a walkie talkie type of phone in the truck and I started to go through the living room to run to the phone, he parked the truck accross the meadow, I had to run fast and the only thing on my mind was to call someone before he killed her. He came out before I could get to the front door, pointed the pistol at my face and told me to pack my bags. I instantly felt my body go numb as I pissed all over my self. I turned around and went into my room. I looked around, I picked up my curling iron and a pair of socks. I was obviously in shock. The next thing I remember was seeing my mom on her knees out side. He had the gun pointed at her head. I stood there and watched as she begged him to spare her life. He let her up and ordered us to start walking. While we were walking he said “I’m going to walk you to the pearly gates of heaven”. I felt the gun pointed at my back, my head, I felt it every time it was pointed at me. I remember my exact thoughts, “Will the bullet go through my head? Maybe he’ll shoot me in the back, I hope its quick, I am ready to go, I am ready, he can’t hurt me anymore after this, I wish he would hurry up and get it over with, my head? my back?, my mom first? or me?, I hope he doesn’t shoot her first, I want to be the first to go.” We got to the property line, it was the longest walk of my life. Then he turned around and started heading back to the R.V. If he said anything I don’t remember what it was. I remember being angry at him that he didn’t finish what he started when he turned around, death was an invitation that I wanted to take. I was not impressed that he let us go, I wasn’t grateful in the least. We walked the six miles out of the canyon to someone’s house we knew and called the police. After that we were placed in a safe house for battered women, in a few short months on would be on a plane headed back home to N.Y.

   When I got back to N.Y. I tried to move on and pretend nothing horrific had happened, I did that for many years to come. I should have been placed in therapy, but I just went to school instead. I actually didn’t deal with all of this trauma until I was 26 and had a complete nervous breakdown. My mind just couldn’t take what my life had become as a result of my self worth being diminished that way. When I think of the way I acted in school, well, my behavior was awful, but I do forgive myself. I was just a young girl, traumatized, and in need of love and major therapy and of course Jesus.

   If you are wondering what I think of my step father, the honest truth is: I have no ill feelings for him at all. I called him 15 years later and told him that he hurt me and that I forgive him. What amazed me was how much he needed my forgiveness. I belive that when you do not forgive someone for trespassing against you IN ANY WAY, that it’s like wanting them to die while you drink the poison. This is something I know, as I drank the poison for many years. I also understand that “Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdomof God” (Acts 14:22). If I hadn’t experienced that trauma, I wouldn’t be the Amy that I am today, a talented artist, a deep thinker and lover, very forgiving and all of the other wonderful fruit that the Lord brought forth in my life.

   I am glad that I went to my reunion. I sure shocked a few of my classmates when they found out I was a Christian and I think that’s exactly they way God wanted it! When I see rebellious young children misbehaving and acting terribly, I say a prayer for them, you never know what’s going on in their home.