A little about where I come from;

I am currently 59 years old. I am married with one child;

I come from the time of the 60’s, 70’s and forward, obviously forward or I wouldn’t be writing.  I love to us sarcastic type humor still because it served as a great survival tool when I was a victim. Some will argue the humor part and that’s okay.

Basic facts about my life that made me a victim at first, but have now turned me into a Survivor Forever. I do not share this to garner any pity, sympathy, empathy or the like. I do this to help others and to;

“Shatter the Silence and Shine A Light Into the Shadows;”

My dad died when I was 2 years old.
My family life would have to be classified as dysfunctional.
We grew up in the church my parents attended before getting married
and then got married in.
We were not raised to see people by color even though in those years there were
still plenty of actual signs designating colored and white areas.
When I was around 9 years old the Director of Music and Christian Education started
grooming me for the many years of Sexual Abuse and Rape to follow.
I have come with-in a razor’s edge of suicide on a least 4 different occasions. That does
not include life choices I made in those years that could and most likely should
have killed me.
I have been a victim of being bullied by my own brother and in school.
I have been a victim of what I can only call racist attacks during my middle and
high school years.
I lived in that “Silence and Darkness” until my 40’s. My carefully wound up secrets started
escaping from the walled off compartment in my brain.
It took a while but I forgave my abuser. That was my best gift to myself from God.
After a dramatic injury with 4 1/2 years of recovery, I started my own Landscape Co.
During this time I was married and had a beautiful daughter.
My business was doing great at around 28 years in business.
One morning I was hit from behind while at a dead stop by a car doing 40 mph.
The resulting injuries caused me to have to close my business.
Around 3 years later I went into a 21-day pain rehab program out-of-state to get off of as much
of the pain and other medications I was on and to find a new baseline in my new life and to let
go of the idea of ever being who I once was physically and mentally.
At about 10 months out of rehab, I feel like I have finally settled into an understanding of what my limits
in my life were and an understanding of what life was going to limit me to without all the medications I had gotten off of.
A few weeks later, I was hit in a parking lot at an off angle accident almost head on.
I lost all my progress and developed additional physical and psychological issues.
The first accident was in November of 2007. My commercial insurance carrier has yet to pay a single dime of the uninsured
motorist coverage I carried that they sell saying it is to protect us as individuals. So you can use your imagination through all this
and figure out what this has done to us financially.
There is a lot more that I could tell, but that’s enough to let you know it’s been a little tough at time;

It hasn’t been all bad.
There have been good days as everyone will have at some point in their lives.
There have also been plenty of God’s Grace and Blessings as well.
These are the stories that really matter.
I have been asked so many times “how can you believe in a God that did all that to you?” and
“If you could go bake and change your life, what would you change?”
Another question is “why would you ever give that man your forgiveness?”
So many experiences. Like what happened when I was re-baptized on the Sunday morning that was also the day of the “Epiphany.”
So many answers and stories to tell.
Want to hear them?
Feel free to get in touch and I will share all that has happened that God has delivered me through;

Only By The Grace Of God;