For the past five years of her life, all Princess could think about was turning 18 and leaving her mother’s house. That day had finally come and Princess really didn’t have a plan. She had been working for a few months and purchased a couple of items such as Tupperware, pots and pans, a color TV and lots and lots of clothes. Her savings was in name only; it offered nothing that would get her past dinner at a so, so restaurant. She needed money for an apartment and she didn’t want to spend another night at her mother’s house. They had done nothing but argue and fight over money from the time she started working. So like most people who do not have a plan, she came up with one without really looking at the big picture or the long term. She moved in with the guy she had been seeing. This was the beginning of many poor decisions to come.
At first Princess liked being “A Little Bit Married” but her boyfriend didn’t. It seems he agreed to let her move in not because he loved her, but because he felt sorry for her and all the problems she was having with her mother. And the agreement was that it was temporary until she saved enough to get her own apartment. The only financial responsibility she had was to buy food; he paid all the other bills. So what was she doing with her money? Buying more clothes, and fixing up his apartment. You know adding a woman’s touch. Needless to say this ended badly for Princess and he all but put her out!
This was all her mother’s fault. How? Because if she had been a better mother and not trying to take all her money and still expecting her to be a maid then she could have stayed home (like most of her friends who didn’t go to college) and prepared properly to leave and have her own place. But also there was a great sadness in her heart from his rejection of her; it just added fuel to the fire of “You are worthless!”
Thus began the spiral of one poor decision after another. Princess borrowed money from her credit union to get an apartment and furnish it. As you are beginning to see she did not know how to handle money. Once she secured her own place and felt truly free to do what she wanted, when she wanted, she became a party girl. Hanging out all hours of the night at clubs, dibbing and dabbing in drugs and lots of drinking became her lifestyle. On the outside many envied her, because she had learned to fake it. She dressed well, had a nice apartment, went out with some really wealthy men, and this led her peers to think she had it going on. But little did they know that with each passing “poor decision” she died a little more inside.
Psychologists have a theory that girls who are sexually abused become promiscuous. Princess seems to think in her case there was some truth to that, in which seeds had been planted that using your body was a way to gain intimacy. And intimacy is something that we are all looking for. In fact it is a need that God put in us, but the key to this is that only Jesus can fill that need. And until Princess came to the conclusion that there had to be something better than what she was doing, she continued looking for love in all the wrong places and too many faces.
One day Princess felt she just could not go on any longer and tried to take her own life. She shares that she remembered praying to God and asking Him to forgive her. As a child she had been introduced to Jesus. She came up in a time where your parents sent you to the neighborhood church for Sunday school, even if they didn’t go. She attended Vacation Bible School each summer and during elementary school her classes were started each day with prayer. So, a God who created heaven, earth and her was not totally foreign to her. When her suicide attempt failed she took the world’s route for help, which consisted of weekly visits to a psychologist and meds for depression. But this really did not help her in the way that she thought it would and so she once again began the facade of “I’m okay!”
During these hard years, Princess was not able to get the type of support she needed from her family, because as with most families who are not serving the Lord, they all had their own messes they were trying to deal with. Her mother was still the same hateful, demanding, belittling, compassionless person she had always been. So what else is a girl to do, but learn how to “not to cry out loud and hide your feelings” and that is exactly what Princess did. But by now, she had so much baggage she carried with her, she didn’t stand a chance at true happiness because she was so wounded and riddled with unforgiveness and the “woe is me” syndrome. As far as she was concerned, life really sucked! Why hadn’t her suicide attempt years before been successful? Why had she ever been born? Why was she chosen to live such a hellish and unloving life? Why did God hate her? He must hate her or why else would He create such a person that no one else wanted. Why God why?!!!
Princess changed jobs and started working with a man who loved the Lord. He and his wife befriended her. Their relationship grew to the point that he was the brother she never had. She started visiting their church and even joined, but the pastor of the church had a spirit of lust about him and though married and supposedly a man of God he propositioned her. That was the end for Princess, she had had enough! So, back she went to drinking every day to numb the pain of her sad life. But this short stint in church had brought her to a point of praying and often she would cry out to Jesus, “Please help me!”
One Sunday she was invited to attend a service with someone she knew. She fell in love with the music the first time she went and feel in love with the preaching the next time she went. But she didn’t stay, because she was very leery of the Pastor. Not because of anything he had done, but she was tired of men who lied and automatically put him in that category. There was no way he was for real. But as God would have it….he was for real! Weeks later after spending her usual Saturday of drinking all day into the wee hours of the night, Princess was awaken (she knows now it was the Holy Spirit) bright and early with a clear head. No hangover, but a clear head. And felt she needed to get up and go back to that church.
Princess was 36 years old when she joined this church and began the process of falling in love with the one who loved her (Jesus), which means she had been on her own for 18 years. It had been 18 years of more hell from the day she left her mother’s house, and in those 18 years every poor decision or bad thing that happened to her, she blamed her childhood, her mother and God. And though she was at the point that Jesus had to be better than what she had had all these years, she wasn’t so sure about God.
The “blame game” has been with us since the beginning of sin. Eve blamed the serpent, and Adam blamed God for giving him Eve. And like Adam and Eve, it is much easier to blame someone else versus look at the role we’ve played in life gone wrong. Princess was no exception to this rule and blamed her failed relationships, unhappy miserable life on her mother and God. She took no responsibility for her poor choices. That is up until now……
Yes, you will have to stay tuned for more on letting go. I can’t say that the next blog will be the end because I really don’t know. I will continue to write as the Holy Spirit leads me. But my prayer is that Princess’ life is helping some of you to look at the possibility that maybe some of the hardships in your life just might be because of a poor decision or two that you’ve made. Which will help you to begin the process of letting go.
Be blessed,
Pat
I will return on Saturday, April 17th.
Monday's Blog: Sharon will be back with her pearls on "Financial Wisdom" for us"
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