The teen years are a time of rebellion, questioning authority...questioning anything that you feel is relevant/irrelevant...and question is what I did. In reality my true search for God began in my teens.
I knew that there had to be some rhyme and reason for why I had been through so much in my life, so much bad, with so much lonliness and rejection. And I had had enough people offer their opinion. God was testing me...God was refining me....God was standing there, watching the abuse, weeping with me...watching. I grew to hate most of these concepts of God. And because I hadn't had any real father figure in my life, my concept of God was twisted by my childhood.
I had such difficulty adjusting to my new life in my step-mother's house. New rules, new routines, and just the living in her house. New siblings. It was so scary and I was determined not to let it show. I was not allowed to get close to my father, my step-mother stood in the way. She had some crazy notion that I would come between the two of them. I don't know why. If she made him happy, then that was great.
My mother and my step-mother had been best friends in junior high school...until one of them married my father, divorced my father and then the other one married my father. It made for tense dynamics. I had heard horror stories about my step-mother all of my life. And now I was living in her house. And, in retribution or something, I was now told all the horror stories about my mother. If you ever find yourself in this situation, choose to protect the child from the stories. They'll thank you later.
I had difficulty with relationships with guys. They seemed to be aliens in my life. I still find that to be true. They don't think the way I do nor do I think the way they do...it would be so much easier if we could find some common ground!!! I often ask God why...if He meant for men and women to marry...why it seems He made us so different!!! I haven't gotten an answer yet. If I do, I promise to publish it on the web!
I never planned to marry, having seen such destruction in relationships, but I always planned to have children. My hope chest was full of small booties, soft receiving blankets and baby onesies. At sixteen I wrote in my journal that when I grew up I wanted to have four children, two daughters and then two sons. My reasoning was that I wanted my daughters to have a sister, as I had always wanted one...and my sons to have a brother as my brother had always wanted one of those.
In essence, as a teen I could not trust and I trusted too much. I trusted people too much and God not at all. I had this concept of God trying to hurt me or just standing by and letting me be hurt. Not a good or loving concept. I hadn't read the Bible much, and I hadn't been to church much. I'd never been to a worship service. And then I went to a Billy Graham Crusade.
Billy Graham painted a picture of a life of order, where people knew what was expected of them, and I wanted that. My life had been chaos...he offered order. My life had been troubled...he offered peace. I went forward, prayed, received a Bible and some study materials and I have been interested in the God of the Bible since that day. No matter how good I have been or how bad I have been or how far I have fallen, God has fascinated me. I have been searching and longing to be closer to God most of my life...and yet afraid that for Him, too, I would never be good enough. It is a quandary I have not yet worked through.
At the age of 18, my step-mother decided she had had enough of me and was going to send me back to my mother. By this time, I had enough knowledge of life to know that where I had been with my mother was definately not where I wanted to be...so I ran away from home. I ran to my boyfriends house and within a month we were married...he was 17. Neither of us was a bit ready for marriage. It lasted two years and of that two years we lived together only six months. Six emotionally and sexually abusive months. But during this marriage I moved out of my teens and into...Adulthood...
I stumbled through my teen years not knowing what to do. Wanting to please my father and to have my friends love and accept me. I had so much self-doubt that it led me to a time of promiscuity. The search for self-esteem and God seemed to run a collision course!
