God brought me the Love of my life

Second part of my story...
(Picture to the right is of me and my love just days after I gave my heart to him)
My life started to become predictable. The same things kept happening. So I decided to change it up. I actually met a lady that lived across the street from me. She was a young girl, pregnant with two little boys already. My heart took to her and her boys immediately. I did not know that she would be the one to lead me to the man that God had for me.
I was finally able to let go of this sick relationship I was in. I finally had the courage to really let it be over. I had a new mission. It was no longer to fix the man I was with, but it was to help a family in need. So after just meeting this young girl and her two little boys, ages 2 and 4. I decided to have them move in with me. My heart hurt when I had seen the way they had to live. They were less fortunate for sure.
My children loved them all so much. It was a great decision at the time. I realize now that it was just another way to fill the void in my life. I was still running from God and still searching for the answer. I felt so alone and so unworthy of God's grace and love.
I realized after I had met her, that years before I had met her grandma at a nursing home I worked in. I had taken care of a lady her grandma cared for. Then a year or so later I met another woman who was being abused by her boyfriend. I found out that, that woman was this girls mother. So here I met this young girl I never knew, and I had already in the past met her grandma, and her mom. I got to know both of them pretty good. Then after moving her in with me, she had decided to tell her x boyfriend about me and told him he should come over and meet me. She at the time was really just wanting to get him around her and her children again. She had brought him to my house a time or two and had introduced him to me. I was really not interested in this 20 year old kid at all. After all I was 32 myself. So he was so young and not my type.
Sometimes when you pray for something God sends you something else that does not even look like the answer you were praying for. God brought to me the man that I know I was suppose to be with. He did not come in a complete package of goodies. He came to me as a young man, with none of the same interests as me. He came to me with addictions to alcohol, drugs and a few other things. My first impression was "Excuse me"...He had brought beer into my home. I am a NON DRINKER. I am the extreme opposite of an alcoholic. In fact, I was so against it, I was as bad as an alcoholic only in the opposite way. I was an extremist in this department. So I told him to get that beer out of my house and never bring that stuff in it again. He was there with my room mate and I was livid.
Well, that did it. He was infatuated with me and did not give up on me. I did not even know there was anything in his mind. I just knew I did not like him.
Well, again...God had other plans.
As weeks went on we had seen each other a time or two. It had come time for us to pack and move into a bigger house, now that I had my room mate and her two children living with me. So I had asked Bj (the young man) to help me. It was that night when I saw how hard of a worker he was that I gave him a chance to talk to me and visit with me. God did something to me that night. I did not see this kid anymore as a kid. I saw a man in him. One that I knew was good. I saw a great big heart. A wonderful person. I know longer cared that he was a kid and that he was not what I had prayed for. I prayed for a man. A Godly man. I prayed for God to put the RIGHT ONE in my life. Well, that night I found him. I was shocked and I was in disbelief. But this was the one. This was the man God had brought to me. That night he stole my heart.
It was not long after that, that I had decided to move him in with us. Remember, I was still living in rebellion towards Christ. I was back on the right track, but I did not want to surrender it all yet...Bj was living with his twin brother at the time. The was a lot of partying going on at their place. So I told him he could live with us, so that I could make sure and get him out of that lifestyle. I could not bare the idea of him living like that. I saw something different in him. He was not like that at all in my eyes...
In this period of my life, I went from an unhealthy relationship and sick twisted kind of love, to a really good communication, and friendly, fun and happy kind of love. But I was not married to him and we lived together. Something I did not believe in nor would I ever condone it. I was living a life I did not believe in.
This ruined my credibility with my children. My oldest became very defiant. My youngest became angrier then ever. And my sweet son, moved in with his daddy, because he did not want to leave his school. (the school that later broke his heart)
The night I moved Bj in, my children had to start sleeping in their own rooms and could not enter mine without knocking. Something they have never had to do before. They had rules now. Bj came into our home and put structure there. Something the kids never had before. I loved them so much I did not know how to discipline or even how to have structure. I was always on the go. We never were able to just have a normal way of life. We were always on a mission to travel. This was not good for them and then when Bj came along, we slowed down. I had a full time job at the hospital. Ironically working in the Psych dept. as a psych tech...LOL I had insurance..Life was good.
But there were rules. The children soon learned the word NO really meant NO, with Bj...They would ask me something and I would say no and they would keep asking until I finally said yes. Well they soon found out that if they asked Bj, and his answer was no, it would NEVER change...NO is NO..
This kind of life change caused so much hurt and confusion to my children. They  were use to telling me what to do and where to go, and when to do it. I did what they wanted me to do. I was not in a good way and just wanted to do anything to make them happy.
But now not only am I happy for real for the first time in what seemed like forever, but I am also going to a new church. An awesome Baptist church in Springfield. Bj started going to church with me faithfully. I never had to bed. He just dove in and really started to serve the Lord. We would have many conversations about God. I began to witness to him and grow closer to him and the Lord.
I moved him in with me about two days after I knew he was the one. We became official as a couple on Sept 4th, 2001. In December of 2001 I became pregnant with his baby. I felt so bad that we were not married and that this had happened. All that I had taught my children had went out the window at this point. How could I tell them one thing and then do something different. What a hypocrite.
I told Bj we were going to have a baby and he seemed happy and scared. I was scared to death. He was not ready to get married. Even though he had told me how we would have such an awesome wedding and we had discussed marriage and knew it was in our future. He was not ready, and neither was I.
December 31, 2001, I had a miscarriage. I was devastated. I was already in love with our baby. I had already told my mom and my family. I wanted this so bad. But God knew where we were at this time in our lives. Now when I look back I understand. That February of 2002 on Valentines day, Bj took me to Teatro's. A beautiful Italian restaurant. We got dressed up and he was stunning. He kept getting up out of his seat and going to the bathroom. Finally at the end of our dinner, the waiter brought out our desert, and inside a beautiful strawberry, cut like a rose, was an engagement ring. My sweetie, got on one knee and took my hand with tears in his eyes and told me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and would I marry him. I was the happiest woman ever. I said yes of course I will. And it was the beginning of our journey that God had given us.
This whole meeting with my husband was orchestrated by God. 
A tid bit to those that do not know us...Bj and I went to Niangua High School. When I was a Sr. in High School, he was just in kindergarten. We are both in my Sr. yearbook...him in Kindergarten and me a Senior. Crazy, right? Well not when God has His hands on your lives...

To be continued.................

I HAVE YET TO ARRIVE!

This is an on going blog about life in my shoes. I have lived life with struggles and have made bad choices along the way that have affected my adult children, even in their lives today. I have been forgiven by God and by most of my children. And God has turned my life into a living testimony. I am forever grateful for the life I have now. I am blessed with 5 beautiful children and one grandson and the most amazing man ever. My husband is my best friend. God truly has blessed me with my life.
 Now through my blog I am praying that  healing and complete forgiveness can take place with my children and everyone else involved.

WARNING: I AM VERY REAL IN THIS AND YOU MAY NOT WANT TO READ IT.

 "I have yet to arrive"

 comes from the scripture,  

Philippians 1:6 "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.


Family is suppose to be like penguins. You are not suppose to leave your post once you have children. You are suppose to completely protect them at all costs and wait patiently for the storm to pass.

I was married for almost 10 years to my first husband. My high school sweet heart. We had 3 of the most beautiful children ever. Those children were my whole life.  Kaila, Kolten and Karlee. We spent almost half our marriage in the military. Then we moved back to Missouri, where everything just fell apart.

I was very much against drinking. My husband at the time was not. I had dealt with the drinking for almost 11 years and had decided I was done with it. I grew up with alcohol in my life and I was not going to stand for it being in my children's life.

I am explaining all this because I am serving the Lord now. Had I been the faithful Christian I am now, I may not have been so easily tempted to give up on my family situation or even judge my x-husband as harshly as I did. But it amazes me how God even turns the worst of things into good.

My children had to see a lot of arguing. More then they should ever have had to see. But it still was not the most horrible life they could live. Between me and my friends and family and my own children, I had convinced myself it was the worst life anyone should ever have to live. Don't get me wrong, it was the best, but is sure was not the worst. Nothing that God could not handle. 

So as I was going to church each week and trying to figure out what to do with my non Christian husband who did not believe the way I did and did not live the life I wanted him to live, I was tempted and tried. I gave in and failed. I was lured (by satan of course, and my own desires) into a relationship with a man who would become my boyfriend for almost 4 years.

In that 4 years I chose him over my children. I became this pathetic mother who could not breathe without this man. I became obsessive over this relationship, determined to make it work at any cost. The relationship was never meant to work. In fact it should have NEVER happened. I was still married when it started and even though I had left my husband already, I was not divorced and this was not of God. I knew this and he knew this. The relationship was equally dangerous for both of us and we both knew it. But suffered through it for almost 4 years.

My divorce took place within two months of me seeing this other man. It was a quick divorce. I never took time to even mourn the loss of my family being together. I was to involved in making sure this other man never left me. It wasn't until years later that I mourned the loss of my children's daddy being out of the picture and hurting him so badly. 

In the meantime, I had 3 precious babies that at that time were the  (ages 12, 11 and 5) that had to see there mommy lay in bed for days, weeks, months and wait for the phone to ring or wait for him to just come over and see her.  I was a sick puppy, that is for sure. I ate very little and became very much under weight. I became very co-dependent and very weak.

I would leave them home to tend to each other so that I could go and be with my boyfriend. And when we would break up, which  would happen often, I would grab the kids and go on a road trip to my sisters in Wisconsin or my friends in Illinois. I would just up and leave. No warning, we would just get in the car and go. The kids liked that part of my illness. But I was creating great big wounds that one day would come back to haunt me.

I am not proud of what I did. In fact as I write this it still hurts that I was that selfish to have put this man before my children, my God and even my own life. I was very sick. I was living a lie. I was living in a make believe world. One that did not exist. I did not do drugs or drink or hang out with bad people. But I was an addict. I was addicted to this sick relationship I was in. I was to blame for this. I became this very weak, sick individual that could not live without validation from this man. I blamed him for my misery for years. My children hated him and blamed him as well. They watched me wither to nearly nothing due to the extreme depression I slipped into. They became my friends and I became their child. Mostly my oldest daughter. She was my go to person. I would beg her to tell me what to do. I needed her to help me out of this. Not knowing that I was destroying her very being.

I did not understand at the time what I was doing to my children. I was creating such an insecurity in them. They still slept in bed with me until they were the ages of 13,12, and 7. This was the ages of my children when I finally got a clue and started to get better...This is when God truly shook me and woke me up. I was not seeing right for years. Suddenly, I could see again.......

WATCH FOR THE REST OF THE STORY...IT GETS BETTER...I PROMISE...