Misdirected

I knew of God…

Growing up, we didn’t talk about God or Jesus very much. We observed Christmas and Easter, but I don’t recall anyone ever sharing the importance of those two events. Christmas was about Santa and gifts; Easter was about the Easter Bunny and egg hunts. We attended a Baptist church infrequently. When religion came up at home, my Nanna focused more on me going to hell if I wasn’t baptized, and, at twelve-years-old, I didn’t want to be baptized until I understood what it meant and why I should do it. I said as much to Nanna one day, and, instead of trying to explain it to me, she said I would never understand.

I saw a glimpse of Jesus when I attended Vacation Bible School in the second grade. That’s where I met Bob, a grandfatherly sort of man who cared very much about the children entrusted to him for class that week. He taught me the verse “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10 NIV). That verse is still with me after all these years.

But I didn’t know God.

In 1988, I started high school, and my self-destructive behaviors intensified. I had always been extremely boy-crazy, and, when a guy showed any interest in me, I thought it meant something. I gave myself away over and over in the hopes of having a real relationship, someone who loved me. Of course, it didn’t work. High school guys have a lot going on, but they often have one thing that drives them when it comes to girls. Eventually, I had steady boyfriends that I regularly had sex with – mistakenly believing that lust and sex was love. And I got hurt over and over again.

I dated a “pothead” that year. These days that doesn’t really mean much, but, back then, it made him a “bad boy.” The first time we broke up, he called me and said he’d been drinking and popping some pills. That sounded pretty serious; I talked to Mother, and she agreed with my fifteen-year-old assessment that I should probably get back together with him if it would help him.

A couple of weeks later, we broke up again. This time, he came to my window to “tell [me] good-bye.” I dragged him into our house and called his mother. She came to get him and asked if I would stay the night with them to keep an eye on him. So, I did, and we got back together.

When we broke up the third time, I was determined not to go back to him. He called me that night and said that an ambulance was in his driveway waiting to take him to the hospital. I assumed it was another ploy to get me back, and I blew him off. We were finished.

I was in a good mood when I went to school the next day… until I went into the student center. I saw a mutual friend of my ex-boyfriend and asked how he was doing. He looked at me with disgust and said, “He tried to kill himself last night. He’s in the hospital in the psychiatric ward.” Shocked, I stepped away. I was filled with self-recrimination. The incident stirred up animosity towards me, and I had to watch my back. [I visited him in the hospital, and, after treatment, he recovered and agreed that I’d made the right choice because we weren’t good for each other.]

Later that school year, I met Tracy. We became best friends, and she introduced me to her older brother who was twenty-two. Despite our seven-year age gap, we got along well, and I felt like I must be something special if a guy that much older liked me. He had two sons, two-years-old and six-months-old. We spent every moment we could together that summer and, by the time school started that fall, I thought we were going to last. I turned sixteen and got my first job; I felt so grown up with my job and “my” little family. We broke up when he went back to his sons’ mother.

The next year passed in a blur. I fell in with the wrong crowd; I drank too much and had a short fuse, and I attracted the wrong kind of guys — drinkers and abusers.

Then, I met Jesus.

I first met Jesus when I was seventeen. I was in a turbulent relationship with a guy whose grandmother insisted that he attend the Spanish service at her Baptist church. He took me with him a couple of times. With my ears, I couldn’t understand a word the pastor said; with my heart, though, it’s hard to describe. I felt God… or Jesus… or the Holy Spirit… move within me, and I felt different. That same pastor baptized me on August 11, 1991, but I wasn’t transformed. I didn’t know I was supposed to be “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV). There was no one to follow up with me, nothing to help me build the foundation I needed to change my life. Sadly, much stayed the same for me.

In case you missed it, you can read the prelude to my story here and the previous excerpt here.