The Tipping Point!

I just had an epiphany!  For years I wondered what that moment in time was that turned me away from being a "good girl" into a wild thing that didn't care who, what, when or where. That moment that changed my life happened a day or two after my high school graduation.

You realize, of course, that I am 62 years old and quite frankly I would have thought I would have figured this out many years ago. BUT, I didn't. BUT, now I have. 
 
That moment I have remembered so vividly for 44 years never clarified itself until this moment. All through school nothing I ever did was good enough.  I got A's and B's but even when I got an A, it should have been an A+.  All through high school I took courses that groomed me for that glorious day when I would FINALLY walk out of that misery and into college and a new life.  I had struggled to keep my nose and everything else clean and would finally go to college and begin a new life.

A day or 2 after graduation, my mother and my step-father came out to the front yard where I was working on something and they wanted to talk to me.

And here is what he said, "Your mother and I don't have the money to send you to college..." and he paused.  In that pause, however brief it may have been, I thought about the College that had accepted my application and would get me a job to help me pay for tuition.  I wasn't stupid.  I knew they had no means to pay my college tuition.

Before I could speak, he continued, "We thought you'd get pregnant and drop out. We just never thought you'd graduate."

I have told that much of the story before, but somehow had never realized what they had done to me, or rather what I allowed that moment in time to do to me.  I was speechless.  My whole life was suddenly a lie.  The dirt under my fingernails was suddenly worth more than this piece of flesh called, Pam.

It was that moment that told me that every time my mother told me I could do better, she really didn't mean it.  She had never believed it.   It was just something she said because mothers were supposed to say that.  I suddenly became even more worthless than moments before.  The dreams I had of going to college ruptured and bled out on the sidewalk like a huge brain aneurism.

My last hope was to join the Navy and settle for what I could get.  Three months later I went for my physical and had to spend the night in a hotel.  I was raped in the hotel.  My first intimate encounter and it just had to be that way.  I was too ashamed to tell anyone and I thought I deserved it.  
 
During the physical the next morning, the doctor saw it and called the female recruiter to show her.  I got dressed and she told me that the Navy was not the right place for me and I was rejected.  The why was never mentioned.  No one wanted to ask me what had happened.  I put my High School diploma and my Beta Club certificate in my suitcase and left.
 
That was the tipping point.  I was worthless to everyone and I might as well get used to it.  Anyone could do anything to me and it was okay.  I could be used, abused and thrown away and no one cared, not even me.

It took me almost 25 years, 2 psychiatrists, 3 counselors, a psychologist, years of therapy and lots of crappy living to realize one solid thing.  I never needed my mother nor my step-father nor anyone else to lift me up.

What I needed was THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!  Then my life fell into place.   It made sense.   I was worthwhile to GOD ALMIGHTY and what the rest of the world and everyone in it thought didn't matter a whit!  As long as I please GOD, the rest of the world can jolly well dance.

Shalom!  Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem! 
 
:-)

The tipping point?