Trophies of Grace
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An Almighty GOD?Get Serious!/Trophies of GRACE
Chapter 1
The Absolute Truth
I grew up in a small country township in central Pennsylvania. Our neighborhood was only one block big with the streets named 1, 2, 3, and 4. My family lived on 4th Street, the only one that was paved. 1st Street was more of a path, making 4th Street technically a dead end into a cow pasture. We had no Post Office, and The Sister’s Inn was the only little store and gas station…located just out of the neighborhood, across the highway. The year was 1967, and I was nine years old.
I was hiding just around the corner of the kitchen wall as I listened to my mom talking to the doctor on the phone about taking me off my seizure medication. When I was just a few weeks old I was stung by a wasp on the soft spot of my head. I had a severe allergic reaction that was thought to have produced epilepsy. I was given phenobarbital, a highly addictive anticonvulsant drug.
Over the years, I had become dependent on this medicine. The doctor had determined that I had outgrown my epilepsy to a degree that I didn’t need to take it any longer. Back then everyone believed what the Preacher and Doctor told them. They were the chief sources of information, and whatever they said was considered to be the absolute TRUTH.
As I listened to their conversation, I began to panic. That doctor didn’t know how I felt! How could he determine what I needed? My mom hung up the phone and I followed stealthily behind her, watching through the partially closed bathroom door as she took my bottle out of the cabinet and hid it behind a stack of towels on the top shelf of the linen closet.
I wasn’t weaned off, and no one had talked to me about how I might feel without the medicine. Without it, I couldn’t sleep and would get nervous inside, jittery and very uncomfortable, my stomach would hurt, and sometimes I would throw up; I understand now that I was having withdrawal symptoms back then.
I sneaked into our linen closet, climbed up on the clothes basket, and retrieved the pills from behind the towels. I used them every day until they were gone. Then I took medicine from the cabinet above the bathroom sink, not knowing what any of it was. My mother had several prescription medications, creating an arbitrary smorgasbord of choices. I was a victim of circumstance. I didn’t ask for an addiction, it wasn’t a matter of juvenile rebellion; however, this situation created a residual effect for years to come.
When I was Kindergarten age, my brother, sister, and I were sitting at the kitchen table having egg salad sandwiches for lunch. Suddenly, my mom started to choke! Her face turned a dark purple and blood came running out of her mouth. We watched in horror as she grasped at her throat, unable to speak. My brother ran out the front door to the neighbor’s house screaming and crying that my mom was bleeding and to please come help us. Of course, they came running, called an ambulance, and got her to the hospital. Apparently, a large shard of glass had broken off the bottom of the mayonnaise jar and had gotten in the egg salad. She swallowed it and it cut her throat severely. She was rushed into surgery in critical condition. Over the course of a few days, she had gotten a sepsis infection and was not expected to live. My dad took my brother, sister, and me to the hospital where we were ushered down a dull green hall and into a small room to kiss our mother goodbye.
She lived through her ordeal, but when she came home, she was addicted to morphine. No one realized it for quite some time because she needed ongoing wound care for the infection in her neck. Her doctor kept her on pain medication for a very long time.
It’s funny how adults can overlook explaining things like, “Your mom is still sick but she’s not dying anymore.” No one ever thought to tell us she was no longer dying. A nurse would come to the house every day to change her bandages. Because of the heavy medication, sometimes my mother would fall asleep at the table during mealtime, and we would be told to go play in the basement because Mom needed to rest. This is why I thought she was still dying. It was a very long time and multiple surgeries before she fully recovered.
Over time, quite a bit of old, half-used medications had accumulated in our bathroom cabinet. It would turn out that the medicine I was taking from the cabinet were narcotics. When they ran out, I resorted to taking meds from other people’s cabinets.
Being a victim of circumstance, for me, started changing to willful drug use after a period of time. It wasn’t withdrawing that caused my inside jitters anymore, I had an emptiness, a sense of sadness, a lack of love. My lack was internal; there were these outside circumstances that contributed, but I had a dissatisfied spirit. By age eleven I was sniffing glue and trying other drugs that were showing up for sale at school. Had I known that such a thing existed, I would have said this was an empty hole in my spirit that I needed to fill.
Chapter 2
I Am a Sneak, Beware of Me!
When I was in the ninth grade, I had taken some barbiturates in school one day. It was Wednesday, Bible study and prayer meeting night at church. I didn’t want to go. I was already deciding that God wasn’t for me, but it was a rule in our house that everyone go to church, so there was no getting out of it. I decided that if I had to go, I would get high enough to last through the whole service. Just before it was time to leave the house, I sniffed some glue, then before we went out the door, I took another pill.
The members of the congregation were all settling down as the first hymn began to play. Afterwards, the preacher stood at the front and welcomed everyone to the service. When everyone sat down, I remained standing, mesmerized at the way his mouth was moving. It didn’t seem normal, and it struck me as funny. I let out a laugh that was immediately followed by a gasping for breath. My Sunday school teacher was within reach and grabbed me and pushed me through a classroom door that was right beside us. She quickly realized that I was completely high and called for my parents to come. No one knew what to do so they threw me in the back seat of our car and headed for the emergency room. My mother and I were in the back seat as my dad drove us to the hospital. She was mad and hurt. I will never forget the look on her face as her distress turned into her own nervous breakdown.
I was admitted to the hospital with a drug overdose. My stay in the hospital turned into a month of intervention because my mother was admitted to the upper floor in the psychiatric ward, diagnosed with mental and emotional distress disorder.
I knew that it was my fault that my mother was sick. On top of everything that she already had to deal with, my situation just pushed her over the edge.
When I was finally released from the hospital, I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle in Florida. My cousin Joann was just a year older than me and was expected to be a good influence. Of course, she was. She had what I thought was the perfect life. She was an only child, a vibrant teenager, completely involved in school and she had a boyfriend that was constantly teasing and tickling her. She had plenty of friends and since her dad, my uncle Smokey, was the pastor of the local Methodist church, she was the ideal preacher’s kid. My Aunt Peg and Uncle Smokey took me in like their own daughter. I completely enjoyed living with them and the special attention they gave my cousin and me. I really didn’t know how to attract different kinds of friends in school. I didn’t play sports or join any clubs. I still had the desire to use drugs and whenever the opportunity presented itself, I did. I also went to youth meetings with my cousin. One night there was an opportunity for people to get prayed for who wanted God to help them with their problems.
I didn’t want to be a bad person. I wanted God to like me, and this night I was willing to see if He would. When I went for prayer, someone called my uncle to come and get me. I was told that it was ridiculous to claim that I had a drug problem. I came from a good family who loved me, and I just needed to stop pretending to be a “hippy,” or whatever it was that I was associating myself with. They did everything they could to give me a stable environment to thrive in. What they didn’t know was that the emptiness in me was real, and all the hugs and cookies in the world weren’t going to fill my void.
After a few months, my parents came to Florida to bring me home and I started into the tenth grade. I wasn’t home very long before my parents found some drugs in my room. They immediately took me to see a counselor, who wanted to send me to a drug and alcohol treatment center.
The night before I was to be admitted, my mom and dad refused to allow me into my room. My mother had put a few articles of clothing in a small suitcase with some toiletries for me to take to the rehab. Two camping cots were set up in the living room for my dad and me to sleep on, so he could keep an eye on me throughout the night. I could see that my dad was disappointed and ashamed of me. At the time, there was no understanding by anyone about how this whole process of drug abuse may have gotten started. It was just chalked up to me being rebellious. I knew that everything was my fault, but I couldn’t seem to stop what was going on.
I was put in a drug and alcohol rehab with heroin addicts and alcoholics. There weren’t and had never been any other thirteen-year-olds in the program. To a degree, the other patients resented me and the attention I received because of my age. My being there also got special attention from the President Director of the rehab. He decided he would oversee my treatment personally. He often showed up in the common areas to interrogate me to the point of humiliation in front of the others. He would demand that I confess that I was a liar, a sneak, and a good for nothing person, just in case I thought I was special for any reason.
I had my fourteenth birthday during my sixty-day stay there. My mother didn’t know how to respond to me having my birthday in the rehab. She contacted one of the counselors asking if he could bring me a birthday cake.
When the President Director found out about it, he made me wear a sandwich sign that said, “I Am A Sneak, Beware Of Me!” Every hour I was required to stand on a chair and shout out this statement no matter where I was or what might be going on. If I didn’t shout loud enough, the other patients were free to insult me and demand that I do it again. I also had to wear an old lady dress from the handout closet and proclaim at every meal that I was not a princess! Failure to do so the very first time resulted in community humiliation and an assignment to talk to three other patients every day about how I was a “liar” and a “sneak.” After our chat they had to sign off on the back of my sandwich sign that I had spoken to them. I did not understand why the President Director thought I had done anything sneaky. I never talked to my mother, and I never got a birthday cake.
I may have been rebellious in my own life setting, but I did not fit in with these adult misfits. My level of sin and rebellion was far different from theirs. In this place, usually reserved for wayward adults, I was forced to grow up as I got a taste of these absurd adult consequences.
The language in the rehab community was always foul. I learned to cuss like a sailor, to roll cigarettes and smoke any time that I wanted to. The open rebellion at least made me feel like I was in control of something in my life!
What occasional interactions I had with the President Director were brief and confusing. He would often take notice of me when walking through a room. He would get really close, lock eyes for a moment, shake his head, and draw my name out: Karen… Karen…Karen... Then he would slightly shake his head and walk away. It made me uneasy, and afraid he might do something to turn the whole group against me again.
I wore the sandwich sign for two weeks. When I finally got it removed and was back to wearing my own clothes, I did my best not to draw any attention to myself. Whenever I entered a community room, I immediately scouted for an exit so I could slip out later on without being noticed. Most of all, I learned how to avoid the President Director.
When my sixty days were almost finished, I was approached by a counselor aid who told me they wanted to relocate me to a halfway house in town at the end of the week, instead of allowing me to return home. I didn’t think my parents were going to go for that!
On the morning of the sixty-first day, my parents did not come to get me. I was loaded into a car with my small suitcase and taken to a house about half an hour from the rehab center, just outside of town. It was a neglected two-story wooden duplex with chipping white paint, trimmed in green. The house was nothing to be impressed about. Overgrown weeds and bushes were overtaking the narrow gravel driveway, and there was no yard to speak of. Four other girls had already been relocated to the house from the program.
When I arrived with the counselor, no one was home. The furniture was sparse and looked like it had come from a secondhand store. Nothing really matched. The house was uncomfortably chilly, and I couldn’t help but notice the water-stained ceilings as I followed my escort upstairs. The bedroom was just one large room with five beds. I was directed to leave my suitcase on the bed the counselor said was mine, then I was shown the rest of the house.
I was expected to do my share of the chores, feed myself, and pay one-fifth of the household expenses. I had a two-week grace period to find a job so I could pay my way. I had never done anything to earn money before!
I could not find a regular job; I was only fourteen, and I looked it! I arranged to clean the house of an older lady in the program, and I offered to wash hard to reach windows for neighbors as well.
One weekend my brother Rick bought some chickens for me at a livestock auction. He got me a whole crate of live chickens thinking that I could sell them since I couldn’t get a job! He put them on our back closed-in porch, with their feet tied together so they couldn’t get away. The plan was for me to get up early in the morning and get rid of them by knocking on doors. This was a 16-year-old boy’s bright idea of how I could get some money! I had never had to work for money before, so I supposed it was better than nothing.
The next morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table having coffee with the other girls. The oldest girl, Lisa, who had a rough disposition to begin with, said in a disgusted tone, “What the heck is that noise?”
Everybody listened but no one understood what she was talking about, so we all dismissed it. “There it is again!” she said. “Listen!” Peck peck peck peck peck. Something was tapping on the window between the porch and the kitchen! It suddenly dawned on me that I had completely forgotten about the chickens on the porch!
I jumped up and ran to the porch, confessing and apologizing while my new roommates were hollering at me and laughing as they all joined in trying to catch them! The chickens had gotten their feet untied and had pooped everywhere!
All dozen chickens had gotten loose, and one of them was up on the ledge pecking on the window.
Yvonne shouted out as she wrangled one of the chickens under her arm, “What the heck were you thinking, girl? What do you plan to do with these things?”
“My brother Rick got them at a livestock auction so that I could sell them to get my share of the rent.”
Yvonne shouted back, “Sell them? In case you haven’t noticed, these are not Girl Scout cookies! Where in the heck do you expect to sell them?”
Everyone had a good laugh and wondered just what it would look like for me to be carrying a crate of live chickens door-to-door to see who wanted to buy one!
To save face, I did in fact take the crate and go try to sell the chickens. What else was I going to do? I sold them for a dollar a piece to a sympathetic farmer down the road. He got me off the hook and bought the whole crate!
Needless to say, I never tried that entrepreneurial endeavor again! I went back to washing windows, cars, and cleaning houses.