Sounds of Hope

I’m waiting for a copy of my divorce decree.  Now, before you get upset, I’m still happily married to my husband of 33 years.  Divorce just isn’t an option for me.  It actually never has been.  Yet, I am waiting for a copy of my decree from 33 years ago. Last time I asked for a copy of it I was pursuing back child support payments from the father of my three oldest children.  I still haven’t gotten all the back child support but I’ve not let that go.  I won’t let that go.  Sooner or later justice and fairness have to prevail.  I’ve never made any bones about receiving welfare or feeding my children with food stamps.  I had no choice.  The state of Missouri has been reimbursed from the absent father for all the money they gave me when he neglected his responsibilities.  Now it is my turn to be reimbursed. At the request of someone else, I contact the Boone County court house for a copy of the divorce decree.  They said they n...

When I started this “mini-series” leading up to Bethany’s birth, I had no idea I would cover such emotionally charged ground. Since I do plan to write a book, it is probably wise that I stop telling the story at some point. Before I stop let me share a few highlights. Bethany came home just in time to join me at a shower that the church had for me. I remember the woman who hosted it, and where she lived. I can’t remember her name. I remember Jane took us in her white Cadillac. I wanted to breastfeed Bethany. I tried to express milk to bring to the hospital. I had little luck. One day I went in and they told me they had just given her some of my milk. I didn’t have any milk there. Whose milk it was, I have no idea. Nevertheless, it didn’t harm her.  After weeks of struggling with nursing, in the middle of the night I uttered a simple prayer. I asked God, if you want me to nurse this child you’ll going to have to help me. Literally, from that moment on, she and I figured out breast...

I don’t know why I stayed. I supposed it was because I had nowhere to go. There were no domestic violence shelters in 1974. I still believed in miracles. I wanted one. I prayed desperately for one. Ultimately, I would understand that a miracle of deliverance did come. It just didn’t come like I expected it to. We had never gone back to Columbia First Assembly after Alvin returned from the Army. We had become quite worldly. My mother was going to Christian Chapel so we went there too. Lacking the strong leadership of Brother Parker and perhaps never really having a relationship with God, just rules, Alvin never connected there. I stayed at Christian Chapel during our first divorce. Now it was viewed as my church and First Assembly still seemed out of the question. We ended up at the new Highland Park Assembly on West Worley near Nowell’s Grocery Store. They met in the garage of the Pastor’s home, Brother Cooper. All I clearly remember about Brother Cooper is that he always wore a bow-...

I was living in a four-plex on Weymeyer Drive northeast of Columbia. Ironically, his cousin, on his father’s side, owned it. A cousin he barely knew. Now married again, he moved in with me. Nathan had started kindergarten. As a harbinger of things to come, Nathan had spent his first day of kindergarten with the principal. This is the actually apartment, second floor. Many were the exploits of Nathan. He had been thrown out of Sunday School because he would climb in the windows and bark like a dog. Nathan was just like his mother. He learned even more quickly than I, that attention comes by acting out. He also had tremendous energy and creativity. He had the nerve to do the things he thought about. Considering all the trips to the ER, it is a wonder he lived. I had gotten a job, a real job. I worked for what is now Shelter Insurance, then call MFA Insurance. I would descend to the bowels of the building on West Broadway to file thousand of little papers in hundreds of five drawer fil...

Being a veteran and older, Alvin was now credit worthy. Alvin was ready to get a business loan and be an entrepreneur. He started with a used tractor, mower, rake and baler. Soon he moved up to a brand new blue Ford tractor. It didn’t have a cab but the summer heat of Missouri was not a problem for him. I drove the red and white Rambler station wagon. He had a blue Chevy pick-up. With the boys in the car, I would travel the gravel roads to find the field where he was mowing. I would have a jug of tea, some sandwiches or left over fried chicken. Often I would get lost, as directions were always vague. Attempting to turn around, I'd end up in a ditch. Somehow I always got out. Then he found the baler. It was meant for the flat fields of Kansas, not the hills of Central Missouri. It was a novelty. We drove to St. Louis together. He returned driving this monster through St. Louis rush hour traffic with me dutifully following behind. We picked up a few employees. I think all of them...

Alvin had finished high school just before we married. He was a year older and a year ahead of me. As my class, Hickman 1969, donned their caps and gowns, I was preparing for yet another move. Having passed the test for his exhorter's credentials with the Assemblies of God, we packed our belongings for our first major move to Neosho Missouri, the flower box city 242 miles away. Neosho was to be the home of the new Ozark Bible Institute. Neosho, only 76 miles from the international headquarters of the Assemblies of God, was at odds with its denomination. Worldliness had crept in to the Assemblies in the form of lipstick, eye shadow, television, short hair, short sleeves, mixed bathing, and all manner of sinful behavior. Their quarrel was not doctrine. It's quarrel were standards. Alvin was to be in the first class at OBI. As David confronting Goliath, OBI would be a challenge to the backslidden Evangel College and Central Bible Institute (now Evangel University and Centra...

I don’t know how many places we lived after Rainbow Village. Always moving because of unpaid rent or just because he thought he'd found a better deal. One of the places we moved to was his mother's trailer in Lindbergh . Living next door to my mother-in-law guaranteed vermin and constant verbal abuse. I did my best to avoid her and going into her house. This of course led to more accusations of laziness and uppityness. Estella had decided to raise rabbits for research labs. She had read somewhere this was a get-rich-quick scheme. The Med Center in Columbia was always doing research. It was perfect. She'd be rich. The rabbit's cages were all over the house; their droppings fell to the carpet. They made the house smell. She could never understand why I would clutch Nathan so tightly when we would be at their house. They would tell me to make a pallet (folded blanket) and put him on the floor. I couldn’t. I wouldn't.  One day we were summoned for Sunday dinner with ...

My mother-in-law Estella thought I should go to work. She said she had always worked. She had no sympathy for our lack of food in the house. It didn’t matter to her that we went without. She felt I should work. I tried. I had several jobs during those first few months I was married. My mother had only one job during my years growing up. It lasted one month. To me, married women didn’t work. Married women were to be like the role models Donna Reed, June Cleaver or even the young wife, Samantha Stephens. I wasn’t lazy. I told someone recently that I still hear the tape of my mother-in-law. She is still telling me I am lazy. So powerful was her influence. At times I still believe her. Getting a job at 16 was not easy. I had no clerical skills. I didn’t know how to type or take steno. I knew neither Gregg nor Pitt stenography. Most of the summer jobs were given to people who knew people, children of a friend. I eventually landed a job at a drug store on Broadway, the main business street...

I like to watch Grey’s Anatomy. I get frustrated with it because it doesn’t have enough new episodes. This weeks episode was new to me. Grey’s Anatomy is a sophisticated prime time soap opera. One of the lead characters, Dr. McSteamy aka Mark Sloan has an 18-year-old pregnant daughter named Sloan suddenly come into his life. For good drama, in spite of this being a first pregnancy, she has an emergency delivery of her son in his apartment. One of the main themes for the rest of the show is that she is still a child. At 18, she is still a child herself and too young to care for her infant son. It wouldn’t be fair to her child to keep him. Ultimately, the son is handed over to strangers who are more ready for this responsibility. It was sad. I disagree. She should have kept her child. That episode made me wonder. I wonder if anyone thought that about me when they bought wedding presents for me in 1968. Times were different one might argue. Nevertheless, I was a child. I h...

I have reconnected with people from every stage of my life. From people who knew me as a child in Brooklyn to people where I now reside, in South Dakota. My facebook friends range through all the years of my life and many of them are reading this blog. Many of these friends knew me when all these events were going on. For countless reasons, they never knew.  Any one has the chance to know now. If you are reading, I'd love to know. Comments are welcomed! Shortly before our wedding, we had also purchased our first home. We had rented a small house and cleaned it spotless. I remember the discussion with my mother of whether hands and knees scrub-brush or a mop with lots of water was better. I, always wanting to be the martyr, wanted to get on my hands and knees. She and Alvin both agreed a mop with lots of water best. Other than the day we spent their cleaning and my adventure of trying to pee in the shower since the toilet didn’t work, I don’t remember much of the details of this sh...

July 2, 1968 wearing a white satin princess cut dress with bows on the shoulders attached to a six-foot long white train, I walked down the aisle at First Assembly of God in Columbia Missouri.  So long ago, I almost can’t remember the details of the day. I am sure much of the memories of those hopes, dreams and anticipation has been erased by the pain and abuse that followed. I have five daughters. I have looked at them when they passed through their 16 th year and wondered how my mother could have ever allowed me to get married at 16. She had to give permission. It was the law. Even the law knew that a 16 year old shouldn’t be making such decisions on their own. In fairness to her, I am sure she thought she was doing what I wanted. Alvin was a good church going guy at the time. We believed in a theology of redemption and individualism. His parents, his upbringing, even past sins could not stop the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in one’s life.  I spent time in...

It is tempting to go on with just the story of the molestation. To tell you how eventually, many years later, I began to experience healing. It was important for you to understand my comments about the effects of being molested as I tell my story. The rest of that story, will wait for another time. Now is the time to finish the story I started. I thought I was in love. I assume he did too. We were children really. Children who thought we were old enough to assume adult life and responsibilities. Obviously, we were not. His background and childhood was equally marred. I give him no excuses for the pain and abuse he ultimately inflicted. Nevertheless, his childhood shaped him into the person he became. He was living in an apartment near the campus. He was still in high school. Rules were lacks. He managed to get an apartment, live on his own and go to High School at the age of 17. I don’t remember the first time I visited his mother. She lived 10 miles away in the unincorporated “to...

I don’t remember what I wore that day. I am sure it was a dress of some sort. We still were required to wear dresses in public school in those days. The church was very conservative and pants were never allowed anywhere. When moving to Missouri, we had started at First Assembly. It was the logical choice. We had always been Pentecostal and strict. No make-up, no movies, no card playing, were standards of my upbringing. Even a simple game of “Go Fish” or “War,” played with "devil cards" were unacceptable. I’ve written before about not being able to see Sleeping Beauty . One of the arguments was, even if the movie is okay, would you want to be watching a movie when Jesus came back? Heaven forbid - your rapture readiness would disappear in the twinkling of an eye. This church added no pants, no short sleeves dresses and no mixed bathing (swimming in the presence of the opposite sex). Television was frowned upon with long hair preferred for girls. I guess my parents thought...