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I Hear You

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I Hear You

So where do I begin? Well, I guess the beginning to the best of my recollection would be best. But first I want to assure you that I am no better than you. I have done inexcusable, totally unacceptable out-right horrible things in my lifetime.? However, I believe in the power of change through hope and by choosing to do the next right thing in life.

When you say, ??No one loves me.?? I hear you! To be honest, I do not believe this to be true for you. You may not believe in God and His Son Jesus Christ but I do and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt God and His Son love you very, very much. I actually love you too.

??How can you love me??? you ask. Well, because I have most likely been in your shoes at some point in my life and I feel great compassion, empathy and love for those hurting. If you don??t believe my life parallels yours in any way that would justify being a reason for me to love you I can, also say I love you because my God commands that I do? and I do what He commands as to the best of my ability.

When you say, ??I am worthless.?? I hear you! You are not worthless. You are of great worth to God who sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross so that you may have everlasting life. You are of great value even if to just one person on earth so you are worth something and when you start allowing yourself to believe in your worth feeling worthless will be merely a lie you ignore.

When you say, ??There is no way I can forgive those who have hurt me. And there is no way I could expect others to forgive even what I have done to throughout my life.?? I hear you!? Forgiveness will set you free from your bondage of anger, resentment and self-destruction. God forgives you of your wrong doings even when others may not. You must learn to forgive yourself so that you can move on. And forgiving others may come hard as it did for me but the joy your life experiences once you do forgive is so unexplainably amazing.

In letting you know that I hear you and I know where you are coming from when you lay alone at night stuck in your own mind I will begin with my childhood.

At four years old this man enters my life and buys me an etch-o-sketch. A cool drawing toy if you have not ever heard of such. I remember clearly playing with this etch-o-sketch and liking this man who bought me a new toy.? This toy was the opportunity in which a life of abuse is opened. Very early into this man entering my life he would place me at the edge of the bed in the little apartment mom and I lived in and he began to do things to me that were odd. At the age of four this overwhelming sense of this not being right consumed me especially when he says not to tell mommy.

Mom married this man and even made me take on his last name when I was 12 which is when I first started recognizing what feelings of hate were. Now being called step-dad he continued to do things to me throughout the years that in my opinion he should have been severely tortured and killed for.

Finally, at age 14, I told. I told a friend at church camp what my step-dad had been doing. The next thing I know, I??m being hauled off to the police station to be questioned while mom and step-dad are on their way to the church camp as my mother insisted I be confronted on the matter directly in front of the man who had violated my innocence for so many years. More hate and now resentment plants a seed.

Once, I was safely returned back to church camp I was so confused, yet grateful not to have to see my mom or step-dad. I was embarrassed as I??m assumed everyone at camp was talking about the situation and I wondered why I even told my friend. I guess I told so I would not feel alone in knowing what I was going through not realizing what telling would cause in exposing the family??s dirty little secret.

You would think that after telling I should have felt relief. But the truth is I questioned myself, ??Oh no. What have I done? Who is going to be my daddy now??? ?And for the first time, God actually appeared to me and He brought me peace.

The question kept consuming my mind over and over, ??Who is going to be my daddy now??? and as the day??s events had winded down and the campers were all joined together I stood at the camp??s church altar in prayer when the most amazing, white robed, glowing like arms surrounded me as if coming from behind me wrapping completely around me with the most beautiful and gentle voice saying, ??I??m the only Father you will ever need.?? Now, you would think that a 14 year old girl seeing a vision of such is absurd but think what you will this was very real for me.

Now, life growing up after step-dad is no longer in the home did not make life instantly better as it surely was not. I won??t go into what I mean but I will tell you it was not a happy childhood and resentments grew deep in the making as adulthood approached. After experiencing such a great and awesome vision you might wonder how my life could have ever gotten to the point in which I will now describe.

So, I married very young, at 18 and by age of 40 married to husband number five.? How does this happen?? Well, I always blamed the reason for entering into unhealthy relationships on not having a healthy relationship with my father and step-dad. How am I supposed to know how to love a man when I never had a healthy father figure to have a loving relationship with? The real question should have been how was I to ever have a healthy relationship with anyone as long as I did not love myself?
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he majority of my 20??s and my early 30??s I spent demanding attention from men expecting them to make me happy. I fell in love with cocaine, demanding it to make me happy. I gave birth to the most amazingly beautiful human beings this earth has ever seen and demanded them to make me happy. I expected everyone and everything to make me happy.

From the age of 18 until 34 I was in one abusive relationship after another resulting in? broken bones, bruises, multiple trips to the hospital and felt for every one of those situations I deserved it. It??s as though I didn??t feel like my life was normal if I wasn??t getting beat up on.

And for the relationships with men who did not lay a finger on me I would manipulate a way to ruin the relationship. I chose cocaine over my children. I chose cocaine over everything. Cocaine was the one thing from the time I was 24 until I was 33 that made me feel any peace. The truth in finding my perception of peace from cocaine was it did not last.

I lost everything by the time I was 30 and that wasn??t even enough to make me change for any length of time. I would go months even years without using then all of the sudden some person, memory or thought would come into my life and the party was on. The party to hell and back with more consequences to live through once the smoke had cleared the dance floor.

How does a 14 year old girl who experienced such an awesome vision from God and who loved Jesus so much turn into a self-destructive woman? Let me tell you how. I believed the scars from my childhood tarnished me into used goods that no one would love. I believed letting go of all the hurt would be letting go of what made me who I am.

One thing that I still struggle to let go of today is the insecurity I have in my appearance. A memory of my step-dad used to continually play over in my head as he used to look at?porn magazines and he'd tell me when I grew up I was going to look like the women in this magazine he was displaying in front of me.

Growing up I kept expecting to look like these women in the magazine. All my life I have obsessed that I was supposed to look like them and because I don??t look like them I believe I am ugly. The worst part about this memory consuming my life for so long was and is I have held onto the words of a sick pervert telling me how I would look through his perversion above believing the truth coming directly from God in a vision just for me in my time of need. I completely rejected God.? I believed getting high was the best way to escape the noise in my head for just a moment which always lead to nights on end and I even obsessed over death and wanting to die just to end the noise in my head.? Bottom line is I simply believed and held onto lies.

My life is not perfect but today I am not getting high and have not used cocaine since November of 2003. Today, I love me.?I am learning to forgive myself and others. I do not expect others to make me happy any longer.

In 1996 a friend, I made in rehab, once told me, ??Expectations are resentments in the making.?? I have not gone into great detail about every situation in my life because from beginning to end it is just too overwhelming for me. But what I have shared with you is just enough in which I hope you understand me when I say, ??I hear you!??? I have been there. I have been hurt. I have hurt others. I have taken things that were not mine to have. I have lied. I have hated. I have been a manipulator. I have held onto unforgiveness.

The entire reason for my writing this is so that whoever reads it knows there is hope. My hope is through Christ even though my walk with Him has just become more secure in the past year as I have felt an urgent conviction to share with others that if I can change so can you.

If I can forgive so can you. If I can love myself so can you love yourself. Again, you may be someone who does not believe in God and His Son Jesus Christ and I pass no judgment upon you I simply love and I want you to live a drug free?life in peace forgiving yourself and others. If you want to know Christ as your Savior say the prayer below and seek out all you can about Him in order to know Him and His will for your life. ?

Dear God, I ask that you come into my life and forgive me of my sins. Help me to have a heart of forgiveness for myself and others. Help me to understand who You are and why You are so important for me to have in my life. God, I want to be the woman You desire for me to be. I need help in understanding so many things about You and my heart is open to receive all that it is You would desire for me to know so that I can live a life according to Your will for my life. Thank You Lord.? Amen!

(I am not a counselor, psychologist, or expert on anything I am just a woman who wants you to know healing, forgiveness and peace for your life.)



Partners for Hope raise critical funds on behalf Partnership to End Addiction – the nation’s leading organization dedicated to addiction prevention, treatment and recovery. Every dollar raised on behalf of the Partnership* will help ensure free, personalized family support resources, including our national helpline, peer-to-peer parent coaching, customized online tools and community education programs, can reach those who need them most. Please consider donating to this fundraiser and sharing this page.

*Donations made to Partnership to End Addiction are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. All contributions are fully tax-deductible, as no goods or services are provided in consideration in whole, or in part, of any contribution to this nonprofit organization.  EIN: 52-1736502

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1. Julie
Thank you for sharing your story with us, FeFe. Congratulations to you on your recovery. Wishing you all the best.