More of My Story

I grew up in Great Bend, a farming town smack-dab in the middle of Kansas where the Arkansas River coming from the west bends and heads southeast making its way into Arkansas. At the height of its glory in the mid-1980’s, it packed about sixteen thousand people into its boarders.

The town boasted a Kmart, TG&Y, Dillon’s Grocery Store, Food-4-Less, True Value, and multiple farm stores. There was enough churches in town for everyone to go to church three times a week. Gibson’s, where I would buy cassette tapes and wander around looking at the store’s odd assortment of merchandise, was a frequent visit.

With all of that shopping power it drew in people from the surrounding areas who came to the “big city” to get what they needed at the farm store. Next stop was to stock up on groceries you either allowed someone else to bag for you at Dillon’s if you were rich, or stock up on groceries you bagged yourself from Food-4-Less if you weren’t. If time allowed, a stop by Kmart for some jeans without holes (holes weren’t cool yet), shirts, and school supplies was a must.

This went on for years until Walmart moved-in promising to play nice with the others stores. I’m sure you know what happened next to the smaller stores.

My parents were never rich, in fact, we probably vacillated between middle class and poor depending on the year...

Dad had a few different jobs during my childhood days like selling cars or working for the local tire company. And sometimes he didn’t have a job at all. Mom stayed home to care for my siblings. She made sure that the house was clean, the laundry was done, and the groceries were properly rationed. To help with the family finances, she taught piano lessons from home every day after school. Some kids had talent and some should have taken up a sport or some other hobby in lieu of music.

As a Kid…

The neighborhood I called home for most of my childhood and teenage years was called Country Acres. One street after another was named for various species of trees like Aspen, Hemlock, and Rosewood. Ranch style, brick houses of various colors were perfectly plotted down the tree-lined and tree-named streets. All of them were some variation of three-bedroom, one bath homes with either an attached carport or garage. Each house sat on a lot that what would be considered over-sized compared to today’s typical patch of grass that passes for a yard.

It was a different time…

Kids played outside from the time it was respectable to knock on someone’s door in the morning until the street lights turned on at night. In those days, play had no business being scheduled. It was your duty as a God-fearing kid to do your homework, watch an episode of Scooby-Doo with your after-school snack, and then go outside to play with the neighbor kids until you were called for dinner. On the table was a plate of food and Kool-Aid served in a purple Kool-Aid man shaped cup.

I climbed the messy, bee-magnet fruit trees in our backyard and secretly played in the mud behind the rusted, wasp-laden, old shed in the far corner of the yard. During the afternoons, I climbed over fences and roller-skated in the street. On lazy weekends, I built forts in the grassy easement between my house and the neighbor’s house behind me.

In those days, riding your bike without a helmet or supervision was the norm. I put some serious mileage on my pink Huffy bike with its extra-large banana seat.

Although I was probably only supposed to ride around the block in my younger years, I typically ventured past this limit. Eventually, the pink Huffy bike was upgraded to a blue ten-speed, when I got older. That bike felt like the equivalent of a BMW and the rides got more adventurous. I can’t disclose how far outside of the “permissible ride zone” I went because my parents might read this. You can use your imagination though and figure it out.

The Early School Years…

My neighborhood was only six blocks from Lincoln Elementary. The school butted up against a wheat field that extended all the way to the highway. Students got a front row seat to the science lessons of watching tiny seeds become golden stalks that waved every time the wind blew. Since it was Kansas, the wind blew all the time.

I swung upside down on the monkey bars and played baseball on dusty diamonds lacking lines that should have led you from base to base. Jumping rope while reciting cute little poems and playing Red Rover during PE was a regular recess. If you aren’t familiar with Red Rover it was a school sanctioned game where you got to clothes-line your classmates. More than one hard lesson about how mean kids could be was learned on that playground.

**Speaking of siblings, I have three: two sisters and a lucky little brother…**

I say lucky because I was the sister that looked out for him and not the sister that dressed him up in plastic tiaras and gave him rosy cheeks with makeup she shouldn’t have been into. There is a sizeable age-gap between myself and this cast of characters. Somehow we all squeezed into a three bed/1 bath home. With close quarters and a big age gap, we didn’t always play together or get along for that matter. I suppose that is part of growing up. Although I am still somewhat bitter with the sister that cut the hair off of my Strawberry Shortcake doll and later my Barbie dolls (you know who you are).

An Early Faith…

Church was a five-minute drive, maybe six if traffic was “crazy.” I was a faithful Southern Baptist girl who attended Sunday School and “big church” every week. Vacation Bible School in the summer provided early memories of learning about Jesus. As I got older, Youth Group and Wednesday night choir rehearsal became the norm. Monday night visitation, potlucks, and other random offerings throughout the week were a staple too. I went to children’s camp and then youth camp in the summers.

My mom played the piano and later directed the choir. Dad was a Deacon, Trustee, and a Sunday School teacher for as long as I can remember. Church was a big part of our lives. My paternal grandfather actually started the church we attended long before I was born. I guess the call to tell people about Jesus ran through my veins long before I realized.

My friends all went to my church…

Seeing them every week was something I looked forward to and secretly hoped would lead to an afternoon at their house to hang out. For years, my family would meet my grandparents at the Holiday Inn for Sunday lunch. The owner would bring me a scoop of vanilla ice cream and give me a pack of Juicy Fruit gum just because he and my grandpa went way back.

When I hit the teen years, I was super active in the youth group that met every Sunday night. It was the highlight and sometimes the “saving grace” of my brutal junior high and early high school years.

My Grandparents…

My maternal grandparents were a staple in my life. They came to my birthday parties, hosted backyard BBQ’s, and supplied me with endless ice cream treats since my grandad owned a dairy distributorship. He provided me with constant hugs and smiles, and filled me with chocolate malts while my mom was out running errands. Grandpa played checkers with me and Grandma made the best cinnamon toast ever known to man.

I loved running errands to the post office to check the post office box with my grandpa. Often he would take me by the church he helped build, so that he could sign the checks and the church’s bills could be mailed. Making a hamburger and onion rings run to the Mr. Burger was always a treat too.

Models of Love…

Unplanned stops by my granddad’s business meant getting to see my grandma’s smile behind the front desk. When I walked into my grandpa’s office, he would turn his chair, put his arms out, and invite me into a hug that swallowed me up and made me giggle. Those visits always ended in a trip to the enormous, walk-in freezers where all of the ice creams treats were stored before being delivered to stores and restaurants. I could pick anything out to take home.

As I got older, my grandpa taught me how to swing a hammer, paint a fence, and cut wood with various saws. He also showed me how to unflood a carburetor in a car that wouldn’t start. Most importantly, my grandad modeled unconditional love, integrity, wisdom, safety, patience, trust and respect. And my grandmother was a model of that same love and safety, but also, unwavering optimism and gratitude that couldn’t be shaken circumstances.

While there was good in my story, there was also bad…

Behind the closed doors of that house on the tree-named street were secrets that caused wounds. Those unhealed wounds festered and infected all the days that would be laid out in front of me for the next thirty years.

As an adult, I spent years trying to hold my life, my marriage, and my family together and it wasn’t working. Ways of coping that worked as a kid or when I was in my twenty’s, strangled me in my thirty’s and forty’s. Tightening my grip on the illusion of control I thought I had in my life, proved to be an exercise in futility. The harder I tried, the more unhappy I got. Holding everything together wasn’t working – only adding to my pain and frustration.

My secrets-and-all story consists of abuse, betrayal, and a failed marriage. I had more faulty coping mechanisms than I can count. A lost sense of self, scars from wounds of the past, and a distorted sense of God was wreaking havoc in my life.

Life wasn’t what I thought it would be like…

My childhood years were over, but now I know they followed me into my adult years like a relentless shadow I couldn’t escape. Disappointment followed me like a dark shadow. I wondered if this was all life was ever going to be…painful, messy, and hard. An unexpected and painful divorce in my mid-twenties upended my life – making me rethink everything I thought my life would be and leaving me a single-parent.

A few years later I found love again and remarried – and eventually added two more kids. Three amazing kids – the absolute joys of my life. My husband struggled (and continues to struggle) with anxiety and depression. Those issues took a heavy toll on our marriage and family. At the time, we’d been married for about fifteen years and all of those years were marred with mental health issues. I was worn out from the ups and downs and from trying to hold our family together.

My Healing Journey Begins…

In the summer of 2015, I was at a low point in my life, sitting in a church service listening to the morning announcements about upcoming events and classes. One class stood out as it claimed to know the fix. That summer had been especially hard. I was worn down to what felt like faded threads. I lacked any more ideas on how to fix myself, my husband, or my family.

As I sat through the church service, I couldn’t stop thinking about this class that offered the holy grail of hope. Since I was fresh out of hope, this group felt like something that couldn’t hurt. After going through the orientation and listening to the misery back guarantee, I signed up for the five-month journey. Once the class started, I gave my everything to the process that promised help and healing.

I didn’t miss a class…

I did all of the homework and then some. Whatever was asked of me, I did to the best of my ability. What I didn’t know that morning, is that the decision to go on this journey would change me and everything in my life.

Getting honest about what had happened to me and carefully dissecting the especially painful events of my life brought healing and breathed life into me. Unlearning everything that I thought I knew about God and what it means to really live overhauled my life.

What God Did…

Over the course of that five-months, God did a work in me that can only be classified as a miracle. I started the journey with a feeling of empty and barely enough hope to walk through the doors each week. God took my efforts and combined it with His love. He brought healing and began stitching up old wounds in ways that only He can.

Jesus poured His love into all those empty places and gave me His hope to move me closer and closer to Him. The more work I did and the more honest I was, the better I felt emotionally. As I got more vulnerable, as I cried more tears, and as I talked to Jesus, the freer I got.

Every week, with every lesson, I walked lighter than I had in years and in some ways ever.

Help For My Marriage…

God is so good that He convinced my husband to go on the same journey (with different people) at the same time. He discovered truths about himself, and saw God work in ways he never dreamed possible. When we started our individual journey’s, our marriage was in a rough place. I wasn’t sure if it would survive. Working on ourselves individually proved to be the help and healing that our marriage needed.

What was destroying our relationship was the mess that each of us brought into it. Our individual messes hadn’t been dealt with or healed and we brought that mess into our marriage. God unraveled our mess and transformed our broken marriage. Knowing where we started and where we are today almost leaves me speechless.

Each of us working on our “me”, overhauled our “we”. So many of the issues that cause problems in a marriage are directly related to the unhealed wounds and unmet needs that we bring into the relationship. Once those are dealt with, the relationship improves.

What I Learned…

God has continued to reveal and heal wounds over the years since that class ended. The knowledge and understanding that He has given me to know Him, the real Him, deeper has reshaped my life in the sweetest of ways. He is no longer a distant, perpetually disappointed, and punishing father. I’ve come to know Him as a loving, approving, close, protective, and gentle Heavenly Father. As I got to know Him, He has taught me who I am as His beloved daughter: chosen, forgiven, and purposed.

The weapons we used to deal with our pain in one season of life may not work in another season of life. We have to move up into a different level of weaponry to take what belongs to us: freedom. Jesus died to unravel us from everything that holds us down and holds us back. He defeated the Enemy, but that doesn’t stop the Enemy from making a whole lot of noise to make us think he is winning.

I let the Enemy kick me around and hold me hostage for over thirty years. Now, I recognize when the Enemy is waging war and I fight back. When the war is above my paygrade, I stand still and let God do my fighting. He always wins.

A New Purpose…

After completing the class that I committed myself to, I found my purpose in teaching others what I learned. Studying anger, shame, guilt, fear, pride, abuse, and sexual immorality became my new norm. I taught classes, led groups, and worked one-on-one with women. After a period of time, I coached leaders on how to help and lead others to freedom. After five years of helping others, God prompted my heart to write Unravel.

It is my hearts desire that healing and help be unleashed on the hurting. I want people to know who they are in Christ and to get to know their Heavenly Father. My prayer is that Unravel does just that.

I know that God can and will bring a miracle into your life if you persevere through Unravel and allow Him access to your wounded and hurting places. If you are ready to get started, read about Unravel and purchase the book.

Before you start, I praise Him in advance for the healing you are about to receive! God is good!

Melissa

When wounds are healed by love, the scars are beautiful. ~ David Bowles