Laurie Morgan

Laurie's Testimony Continued. . .

Five unhappy years passed, during which Chris and I got our own apartment, fought violently, cheated on one another, and then eventually broke up. I moved into an apartment with a newly found old girlfriend in the fall of 1993. That was the year I met John. I had been drowning my sorrows in one night stands, beer, and dancing at my favorite night club, when we were introduced by Chris's new friends. I was instantly attracted to John and hit on him shamelessly for a few weekends before he finally asked me out. It wasn't much of a date, dinner and sex really, but the first night we were together, as he held me tenderly in the darkness, I knew I was in love.

My life up to this point had been dotted with what I would strongly hesitate to call religious experiences. My parents were raised Presbyterian or Protestant, I can't remember which. Some kind of Christian, anyhow. My Father, I have heard, was at one time a minister. I remember being taken pretty regularly to church as a small child, probably the same church where my mother taught choir. Whenever I visited my grandparents out of town we would attend church with them. The same was true for visits with my Father once he moved out of town.

For as long as I can remember I hated church, and I was always taken against my will. I remember praying fervently in church services for God to save me from the "evil church people", who I instinctually knew were out to hurt and brainwash me. As far as I know now, all of the people who were in any place to give me any spiritual guidance as I was growing up were attending church only to go through the motions. I never gained any real spiritual guidance from either of my parents, except to notice my mother slowly rejecting the Christian church, and the hypocrisy of my father forcing me to attend church for my own good, all the while reserving a strong fondness for pornography.

One of the main things I was burdened with as a result of my upbringing was a very weak spirituality. If I was ever brave enough to think about how that felt, I was confronted with a profoundly painful sense of being lost. The main lesson I had learned as a child about faith is to doubt it. Doubt ate at everything I wanted to feel strongly about, to the point of obsessive compulsivity. Doubt caused me to attempt perfection at every goal I had, but always kept my goals at a distance. I couldn't ever enjoy life for long because I was sure to be unsure about it soon. The only thing I ever felt confident about were my values with respect to parenting. Somehow I have always known my feelings were "right" in this area.

I wished fervently that I could say the same for my faith in God. The only rule I had been taught in this area as I grew up was, "question everything". So, question was what I did best. I didn't wish I had been taught to blindly believe in a religion, because no one around me believed anything strongly enough to have taught me with confidence that I could trust. In addition, I didn't believe in religion enough to wish I had been taught it. I always felt that the truth must be known to be the truth, rather than accepted first. I had to see something for myself in order to believe it.

Occasionally I would obtain a grasp on my beliefs and have a rudimentary faith in God being "love." Yet in moments of my greatest need I was left with no faith at all. I could tell that deep in my heart I was unable to create my own spirituality to save myself from depression. For many years when I was desperate, I tried to deal with the situation alone. As an adult I learned to reach out to God after failing on my own, but I was depressed to find that I lost faith very quickly. I always re-examined my faith when I was hurt.

Amazingly, underneath all my hurt I was full of pride. Full of pride because I had been trying to take care of myself for such a long time that I couldn't fathom doing it any other way. I was terrified of trusting any God or person to take care of me, because I was sure I would be hurt again, and I had never seen an example of someone who trusted in God and wasn't hurt.

Worry, fear and doubt dominated my life because I had been taught to give them consideration and respect in the hopes of selectively gaining direction from them. Instead I was plagued with low confidence, indescisiveness, wobbly will power, and damaged self esteem. I was mired in the feeling that all my hurt, guilt, and anger were reality and therefore important considerations.

In simplistic terms I am now learning to avoid negativity. Something I read helped me greatly. That is, we should all be gatekeepers of our own minds. This means being ever watchful of defeating thoughts in all their guises, and casting these thoughts and feelings out, IMMEDIATELY and INDISCRIMINATELY.

I once thought such action to be naieve and foolish. I have since come to understand that playing host to these thoughts is like playing Russian Roulette with your heart. (I've got the emotional wounds to prove it.) Lessons can be learned from suffering and pain, but the wisdom of God is experienced best when you are at peace, and I longed to live that way for a long time. Instead I had allowed worry, fear, and doubt to destroy my will, my confidence and my self esteem. Now I believe that that was too heavy price to pay spiritually, for that type of wisdom. A price I would later decide was not worth the knowledge I gained.

Scepticism and cynicysm were false havens to me at one time. I saw that for some people faith came easily, but thought that those people were all just naive. Never mind if any of them were right, I was only concerned with how intelligent someone with faith appeared on the surface. Because of this mindset I was isolated both emotionally and physically. I learned to pretend outwardly (to parents and friends) that I was always OK. Without a doubt, I had encountered many people with toxic faiths, but I went so far as to discount all forms of Christianity just to appear wise.

It was just a few short weeks after my first date with John that I heard God's audible voice for the first time in my life. After twenty years of having my head full of my own chit chat and banter and examination of feelings, I heard a voice I knew without a doubt was telling me the truth. That voice said, "If John asks you to marry him, you will say yes." Over and over it repeated. There was nothing more, no more revelation, but for the first time in my life I knew something. I had no doubts and no fears about this word that I heard, I just knew it was true. I never forgot what that voice said, but it would be a long time before I would hear God so clearly again.

In reality the whole idea was ridiculous. John was a Born Again Christian and I would never marry one of "those" of all things! Me, a self proclaimed Agnostic. After all, I had tried hard to believe as a child, but caved in to disillusionment. I saw people who had faith as weak and spiritually shallow. I thought I understood the deeper things of life. The reality was that I had had glimpses of deeper things, but had become so confused and frightened by what I saw, that I could not gain any wisdom or peace from them, but I wasn't anywhere near ready to see that yet.

John and I "dated" some more and fell deeply in love quickly. There was a peace in my heart about this relationship that I had never felt in any aspect of my life before. But there was a glitch. John, who was in the Air Force at the time, had just received a transfer back to his home state of Michigan, and when the Airforce sends you somewhere, you go. So one night in the apartment I shared with my friend from highschool, John and I did something silly. We each had something very important to tell each other, but we couldn't decide who should go first. It was almost like some sitcom routine, only this was real life, and we were very sincere. So, we decided that we would write down what we needed to say to each other on little sheets of paper and then we would trade so that we could read each other's notes at the same time.

Giggly and filled with excitement and love for each other we opened those notes. Mine said, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you!" I watched John's face as he read, and the sheer joy spreading across his face brought a rush of relief to me. Then I read his note. "I want you to move to Michigan with me." I was shocked. Honestly I had been sure that this was going to be a proposal, and my heart was suddenly crushed. But I smiled, and as sweetly as I possibly could, I said I would love to go with him.

The separation was awful. I was deeply in love with John, but broken hearted. To top it off, a one night stand from the past had been stalking me throughout my courtship with John, and I had never disclosed this to him. I had simply not yet come to terms with the reality of the situation. I originally trusted the offender, so I tried to rationalize his bizarre behavior for a long time. The whole situation created frightening parallels in the long distance relationship with John. When I began to withdraw from my hurt, John naturally became concerned, and I would misread his concern as obsessive behavior, so in turn I would withdraw even more out of fear.

Through the grace of God, I still really wanted to be with John. It helped that I was looking forward to a new start. Moving to a new town nearly every year of my life had prepared me well for this big step. Plus, I had begun to hate my job. What I had started out truly enjoying, my sexist bigot of a boss turned into a chore for me by deciding that I was better suited to be a maid than the "handyman" that he had hired me to be. So I quit my job, put the larger of my belongings in storage to be retrieved in the future, packed as much of my things as I could fit into the little Ford Festiva my Mother amazingly and graciously bought for me, and drove to Michigan.

My first meeting with John after two months of separation was ecstatic. The same night I arrived in town, the fourth of July, we conceived our first child, Christiana. Over the next year we would alternate between fighting violently, to coming together to make passionate love. All the while trying sincerely to sort through the tangle of our emotions. The first few months we lived together with John's Grandmother, a sweet, humble, gracious woman with a heart as big as all outdoors. She didn't have much, but that woman eagerly gave us all that she had. A room in her two bedroom trailer home, food and drink, and all the love we could consume.

It wasn't two weeks before John had a good job outside his military duty, and we started looking for an apartment. It was while I was half-heartedly looking for a job that I found out I was "with child". I had been having some symptoms and so, went to a free clinic to get the test. To reveal the big news, I invited John out for coffee after work. Without a hint of trepidation I announced that we were pregnant. Even though the past few months had been an incredible roller coaster, the moment I saw the same joy I was feeling spread over John's face, I knew that this was indeed wonderful.

This story, the story of my finding happiness, really begins at that point, when I was 22 years old. One day in the living room of our small apartment, in a fit of depression and desperation I got down on my knees and asked Jesus Christ to come in to my life. I was finally so tired of my roller coaster life that I was ready to accept help in whatever form it would come in. Don't get me wrong, this was not the first time I had called His precious name, but it was the first time I wasn't daring God to show himself to me, this time I was begging, "Lord if you are real, help me!"

I guess it was when we had just been married and had our own apartment that I started watching Minister Joyce Meyers on TV too. Being the "people pleaser" that I was at the time, when I was in a good mood, I would humor John by watching televangelists. As a way to get brownie points with him, I suppose, I would listen carefully for any nugget of information I could agree with and would proudly report what I had watched when John got home at night. Funny how God speaks to you however He can.

One of the first breakthroughs I experienced was on a long trip from Illinois to Michigan. I was driving at the time, and about eight months pregnant. I was tolerating this Christian music John had insisted we listen to, when a certain song came on. The lyrics went, "I need you to hold me...(referring to God) Like my Daddy never could..." I burst uncontrollably into tears that continued through the entire length of the song. "and I need you to show me...how resting in your arms can be so good...Oh hold me hold me Father..Never let me go...Hold me tight, hold me closer still...'cause you've been only kind to me, and in your arms...is where...I need to be."

It was embarrassing crying so openly and out of the blue in front of John. Not so much because I wasn't used to expressing my feelings to him, but more out of a sense of being humbled for all the arrogant Agnostic beliefs I had spouted my whole adult life, in the face of the suddenly very real presence of God. I suddenly had a knowing that there is somebody out there, big enough to heal my infinite hurts. I suddenly knew that there was a loving God that would and could hold me the way no earthly person ever would, and He had been there all along just waiting for me to accept Him.

You see, I had prayed fervently and desperately to God before. But as I said, my prayer life had up until this point only ever consisted of a challenge or demand. I wanted God to show me His face. Show me He was real first, and then I would believe in Him. I wanted to see God perform tricks at my whim before I would believe in Him. How terribly arrogant of me. How egotistical. Not egotistical to assume that God cared that much for me, but to believe that I could think of a better plan for my happiness than the Creator. How silly really.

But I was a mere babe in Christ and God was gentle with me. Slowly I had more opportunities to watch Joyce Meyers. The more I watched the more I began to understand the language that Charismatic Christians use. There were terms that I automatically rejected at first because of my liberal feminist upbringing, like submission. Thankfully I convinced myself that "these Christians" could be wrong about some stuff and still be right about other things, so that I could comfortably continue to listen. I had no idea then how right it all really was!

Slowly, I made a descision to start believing what I was hearing so that I could hope to see happiness in the future. I had been depressed for so long that I didn't care anymore whether what I was believing appeared logical. In fact, I started to resent the fact that I had spent so much energy and time worrying about everybody else's feelings but my own. I had been caring more about whether I could explain my beliefs to other people than about my own happiness. Suddenly I felt really, really free!

Everything in my life didn't fall into place all at once. I had twenty -two years of negative self talk to overcome, and that took time. But I could definitely feel the difference on a daily basis. I was increasingly coming out of the fog of depression and it was exhilarating! On days that I would revert to my old self, the guilt and self hatred had less and less of a grip on me, until I eventually began to be uplifted during hard times by memories of past resolutions.

Because I was pregnant and knew that breastfeeding was the best food for my yet unborn child, I started to attend local La Leche League meetings. From the LLL library I gained some real life problem solving skills through two terrific books for specific ways to deal gently with kids, How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk, and it's companion book, Siblings Without Rivalry. Surprisingly, the information in those books was applicable to all types of communication difficulties including dealing with spouses and people outside of the family too. I also found good ideas in my La Leche League New Leaders Handbook.

The essential component to my personal revival was the realization that I do not have to fix my life. I have a savior who is perfect for me, and I am free to grow with the perfect guidance of an inner voice from God. I also learned how to hear that voice and how to distinguish it from all the other harmful thoughts that occaisionally pop into my head. I learned that I do not have to consider every negative thought that occurs to me, and I don't have to feel every bad feeling. I no longer have to feel tossed and turned by other people's wrong behavior, and the endless frustration of trying to control what other people do. Through God who strengthens me, I can change how I feel and act in every single situation in life. I can feel good no matter what happens to me. And best of all, I don't care anymore what anyone else thinks about that. As long as I am happy, that's all that matters to me.

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