I never know how to start things like this so this is a bit of the ever expanding story of the stuff God is doing in my life and how I became a Christian. It talks about how incredible God was even before I became a Christian and how he is and continually shaping me to become the person He wants me to be. All Glory to him.
I decided to start with my learning Difficulties (most of this is gathered from stories my parents have told me as I have very little memories until secondary school)
After reception my teachers and parents had conversations about how it is a possibility that I have dyslexia. She suggested to my mum that I had the official test. My mum refused (something I am so thankful off) she did not want a label to be placed around my neck. At the time I would be separated from my class mates and be excluded from most of the lessons. I had already been beaten up at school once and by being labelled as ‘special’ was something my parents didn’t want me to have to go through. They insisted I would grow out of it.
My parents had more meetings with my teachers about possibly putting me down a year. Apparently if I wasn’t put down a year statistics said I would have very little chance at even reaching my GCSE’s and apparently even with extra tuition and specialised help I had next to nothing chance of going to university.
My mum again refused and alongside a very determined teacher I was given extra work. I spent 2 hours on it after school a night
The rest until secondary school remains a huge blur really.
Gradually as I got older my parents worked more and more at there business we went on some very extravagant holidays and were richly blessed by some amazing opportunities. However I can not remember during this time ever having them pick me up from school or having a family meal or a day out.
By the time I reached Secondary School my learning problems had sort of dissolved into just working hard still even now I have to reread things and it takes twice as long to learn things than anything else.
As I reached Secondary school, and my parents were no longer around so much due to the business a member of my family started to attack me.
They would try wrestling moves on me, or see how far they could push me to annoy me. The second I tried to fight back the worse it got.
They had games with baseball bats, chairs and knifes.
One of there favourite was sitting on my back and pulling my head back. ( a famous wrestling move called the crippler)
Another example of what it was like is that one night in the early hours they snuck into my room and climbed on top of me threatening me, I can remember them slapping me saying how worthless I was and that how they was going to kill me and no one would care. They wouldn’t get off of me they just kept yelling at me how fat and ugly I was and how no one could ever love me. I tried to get them off of me and this angered them more they grasped my bedside lamp ( that had been on for about 5 hours) and put it against my skin.
My skin then melted and got stuck to the lamp. When the lamp was taken off. It ripped my skin off with it as well.
(Sorry I know it’s horrific. It makes me incredibly uncomfortable to write this down and it scares me a lot to talk about it, and its petrifying trying to work out what must be going through your head now.)
I spent years avoiding home, when I was there, I was scared, alone and practically helpless.
They used to try to do other stuff too, and I felt dirty and wrong and ashamed. My body is covered in scars even my breasts. I was hospitalised many times for cuts and bruises. I had stitches. False teeth all sorts.
But the stuff that affects me most is the psychological junk I was left with. they told lies to me that I still to this day, believe (I am working on it.) they told me I was useless and that no one would ever like me let alone love me. That no one cares about me and no one will ever love me for who I am.
I was seen as worthless and that I was never going to be good enough so I covered my life up with lies and exaggerations that eventually became part of who I am.
I put up Barriers around my heart not letting anyone get to close encase they find the real me and don’t like it.
My parents knew but didn’t realise the extent because they weren’t around much.
Unfortunately the way my parents are reconfirmed the lies I was told. My parent’s have a very strong work ethic. They are always wanting me to do more and expecting more of me which is a good thing. They always wanted me to be the best that I could be. I can remember the specific occasions they have said well done or that they are proud of me just because it was a rarity.
My parents are incredibly strong and I have never heard them say sorry nor give sympathy. Goodness I make them sounds awful. They are not it was just there up bringing.
When I spoke to my dad about my Teenage years his response was that it didn’t happen “He wouldn’t let that happen”
This continued on and on for many years.
Just after my parent’s 25th wedding anniversary.
My grandpa developed myeloma (a type of cancer of the blood) this devastated my family. My mum bottled everything up and became a machine.
So secondary school sucked majorly. I was getting bullied at school, my Grandpa became sicker and sicker, I was getting bullied at home and the tension in my house could be cut by a knife.
I then met Helen. The first time I met her we sat down and had a conversation at whose life sucked more. Amazingly I could be honest with her. She is the closest person at breaking down the barriers in my heart as to date. But the conversation with her just seemed so natural. Something which still remains a complete miracle in my eyes.
Helen was different she had this spark that when she walked into the room everyone noticed. She was a real girl, always in a skirt getting all the boys she wanted and had a confidence to speak. Helen liked to be the centre of attention whereas I was the opposite. Hiding in the corner, goofy.
As our friendship developed she took me to meet some of her church friends; I was so scared so nervous. We went to the cinema and this day still remains one of the highlights of my life. One girl, half rugby tackled me to the ground due to hugging me. I never really hugged anyone before this day. To me this was so weird; here I had a girl hugging me a complete stranger. She was hugging me.
We went to the cinema and I completely loved it, this people were so different it was like they loved me straight away I didn’t have to say anything or do anything they just cared. I never had that before the feeling that someone cared.
I stayed over Helen’s house that night and it was crazy. There were 6 kids and her mum was heavily pregnant with the next one. It was chaotic and so full of life and love, the older ones were helping the younger ones, and the younger ones wanted hugs and attention from the older ones. Helen had told me about the fights they had but what I could see was the opposite of my family and I loved it.
So I went to church for the first time. it came as a shock the fact there wasn’t any pews or hymn type songs. Didn’t pay any attention at all to the talks. I liked Joe so I kept going to church. It was a great excuse to see more of these amazing infectious people.
I still felt like I didn’t belong. I always hide the fact that I wasn’t a Christian. I was so scared that if these people knew the truth. My new friends would abandon me and I wanted to prove myself. So I put on an act pretended that I was just like them, hoping just to belong.
After time I realised that I still had this hole in my heart and I needed more. I started hanging out with a different group of friends at school and got myself a boyfriend called Geoff.
Geoff and I were close, we got on so well and he was so sweet and funny. I made friends with his friends and got close to a group of blokes from different background. I felt weird like I had put on a mask and I was part of a group.
I wasn’t an outsider which to be honest I had always felt like at church. Everyone else had grown up there or had a relative there Joe was one of the Georges. Helen was a Sare, me I was alone. In this group it wasn’t like that I wasn’t just one of Helens friends I was counted, I was one of them. I and Geoff got closer and closer.
I still occasionally went to Gap, or Church but to be honest the connection and fun wasn’t there anymore. I had to cause tension with my mum or depend on the Sare’s to get me there and back and I hated that.
I told my friends that it was the fact I had to work but it wasn’t. It was that when I was there it was like looking in to somebody else’s life through a closed door. Whenever I was there I felt like everyone else had something that just I didn’t have.
So I sank further and further into my new friends who would fight for me and more than occasionally did.
On the 21st of April 2004 My Grandpa died.
We knew he was going to die, On the Friday I had of school and he was still walking around fighting the agonising pain in his bones still pretending there was nothing wrong, trying to protect us I guess.
On the Saturday his 104 year old mum came to visit him. He was so weak she had to climb out of her wheel chair in order to hug him.
On the Sunday I went to work. He asked for me and I wasn’t there. It was the first day in his entire life that he had never gotten out of bed.
Monday morning at about 5 am we got a phone call and went over to my grandparents house. At 7.05 he was dead; we all sat around his bed. I hid in the door way behind my brother.
(I am going to apologise for the next few paragraphs I am hoping that by trying to describe how it felt to you. You might give me some small justification for the things I did next.)
I watched someone take there last breath I saw him draw in air and seeing it never come out again. I watched his hair fall out slowly and I watched this incredible person I loved so much turn slowly yellow as his liver packed in. I dealt with fainting, fits, hospital trips, throwing up blood, and wheel chairs. Last dances, promises being broken and watched my family fall apart. I watched someone die. You see people die in films and it’s never realistic. It is never like that.
We all spent some time with his body alone, when it came round to my turn I lost it!!!!! I had been going to church, been praying, and learning bits of the bible and for what. He had died anyway.
Why should I live my life without getting drunk? Without having sex with Geoff? Without trying drugs? Why not when the people I love get hurt anyway.
The individual who is remaining nameless got more violent taking his anger and pain out on me, while I got into drugs (cannabis, poppers and snorted some coke but only did that a couple of times) drinking and having fun. I got into fist fights outside of my home life just trying to find something that would release some of the anger and pain that I experienced.
Geoff and my group of lads became a little group. All of us had somehow become excluded from what seemed like everyone else’s world. So we stuck together. We did stupid stuff from starting fights, to drugs. Luckily I never had sex with Geoff, I loved him and he loved me but we always stopped ourselves. I needed him; and with the joy of hindsight I can see that he was the only real thing I had. Everything else sped by at what felt like double speed. Geoff was real when I got annoyed or upset or lost my temper he knew exactly what to do.
I knuckled down for my GCSE’s. Geoff helped. He was hospitalised due to s pretty awlful football match and we grew closer and closer
I passed all 10. Grade C and above. Not bad for someone who apparently didn’t stand a chance at it?
The Prom this was like torture. The gang had spilt. One of the girls had slept with about 3 of the boys causing a huge rift within the group. At that point I left, Geoff came too as did several of the others.
I still see Geoff and Chris but I don’t see the others.
I decided I wanted to become a Christian somewhere between July and the end of August. I was waiting for a bus to go to Huntingdon in my village and there was this tree and it was one of those idyllic days sun was shinning and it was just good.
I later told Helen about my decision later on in our legendary trip to America. I can’t remember any massive change or effect. I just grew up.
At the end of the summer, Geoff and I broke up. The reasons for I have no idea I just didn’t feel it any more. With the joys of hindsight I wonder now if things would be any different if we stayed together. God gave me Geoff to keep me sane and stop me from doing anything to stupid once I was out of that place that relationship was no longer needed
we went to do our A Levels and still remain friends to this day. I built my relationships up again with my friends at church and I belonged.
The Older generation still didn’t pay me a great deal of attention. My the individual had backed off as with my new found confidence. I could fight back and this time not with my fists. I could do it with my words. The abuse at that point then stopped.
I gradually realised that it was all right to cry and he healed me for the pain I was feeling.
With my new found faith stuff with my parents got worse. My Parents aren't Christians so because I got a lot more outspoken about it. My parents didn’t react well to it as I was learning so much and getting more and more excited about Jesus as my walk continued. My parents just saw it as a load of rubbish. I got a lot of the ‘Your brainwashed' stuff and it broke my heart. I felt distant from them and like I had to choose either my faith or them. it felt like my choice had distanced us even more.
The Second time at Soul Survivor God gave me forgiveness for the person who bullied me for so many years and gave me peace about our relationship. I also decided to take a gap year. I had gotten into 7 different universitys something that the 'professionals' said was impossible. The Gap year was such‘Godism’ (something God does) I knew that it would tear my family apart more and it did. The consequences of this were awful.
They refused fully to have anything to do with church. The fights were horrific. I had very little support I was being attacked from ever direction by the devil. One member of my family offered me a substantial amount of money not to do it.
Although I was going through so much difficulty at home, God blessed me richly during this year I started helping out at the youth persons club where I met these incredibly special kids. I completely fell in love. I felt great about the stuff I was doing with these kids. He put me a support system in place and my faith grew largely this year as well as my knowledge. I learnt a lot about perseverance.
Helen and I had a huge row and our friendship faltered for 3 months which was a huge blow. With all this pressure and the fights with my parents I battled with a lot of suicidal thought.
On one Sunday I had planned to run myself into a tree. I wrote notes to my parents, planned it out perfectly. I even handed Helen my diary so hopefully she would understand why I did what I did. So I left for church.
After the service Cassie (a girl from RNA) told me that she loved me. I changed my mind as soon as she walked away. I imagined Steph trying to explain to them what I did and why?
Then when I came back, Helen was on my doorstep. We made up much to my resentment. She was sorry and so was I. our time apart taught me that I didn’t need Helen but I wanted her. I only need God.
I gradually became part of the church and started to feel at home there. now as I am writing this I can't imagine being anywhere else.
Soul Survivor is an amazing place. the following year God took me through all the stuff again about what happened.
For the first time that I can remember I was a child, I sat there crying my eyes out, going through all the torment and fear my family brought into my life. This time though I was crying. this time I was letting it out, this time I showed my emotions.
I was curled up begging God to protect me. I curled up into a little ball and cried my eyes out. I kept crying 2 things in particular first were begging him not to let him near me over and over again. I said I kind of went through it all again in mind but it was weird I couldn’t see it all I could see were these eyes that petrified me and just the feeling of fear and the only few words that kept continually going through my mind were don’t let him near me, don’t let him touch me please god don’t let him near me. I knew I was at soul survivor I know I was in that tent with so many people but the fear was so real. It felt so real. I was so scared I am getting Goosebumps even now thinking about it I was petrified. It was making me cry even more.
A lady from the enabling team came over and she was praying and she just knew instantly she knew all the details and was telling me stuff about my life. She encouraged me to tell someone. God told me that he would protect me and slowly but surely God is working through my issues with me. the following year a similar thing happened he allowed me to realise more of the pain and promised me that I would never be haunted by this stuff again.
and It is true this year has been amazing. I’m discovering who I am and who God wants me to be, My insecurities are slowly but surely being removed and who I am in him. Im free to be myself and Im trying to embrace that. hek I went out in a skirt the other day because I felt like it.
Every day I am doing more and more and learning more and more about who I am in God. Who would of thought that a shy, little girl could preach Gods word.
I used to beg God not to send me home after stuff like Soul Survivor but I was given Mark 5 and the story of Legion. He also begged to stay with him but Jesus sent him out to go and preach, to go and make Him Known. To go and make disciples, to go and give God glory. That is the aim for my life to bring my lord Glory.
God brought me through so much and so many stories and I could write pages at how incredible God has been to me. I hope this might inspire you to sing his praises.
I was Beaten, Bullied, Broken and Bruised but in him I was made whole.
