Hi there,

Today, I am sharing a part of me that not a lot of people know, its been on a heart for a while, but I have been too scared to talk about it or share it. However, this past week I went to the Pursuit 31 Conference and my heart and soul have been restored, so today I am sharing. Everything.

For a while now I never felt like I had a story. I often feel guilty when I hear heart wrenching stories of drug abuse and dark paths, wives who feel like their husbands don’t love them or stories of depression and brokenness simply because I have not been exposed to any of those situations or feelings, and I thank God every day for it. God is so good to bless me with a husband who adores me and would literally climb 100 mountains to get me the moon if he could, a family who supports me, a business that has become successful fairly quickly in the few years since I have been opened.

But, I haven’t always been excited about waking up everyday. I have pushed painful memories deep within me that they didn’t even resonate that they could be my “baggage” that everyone seems to have.

Until recently I didn’t think I even had a testimony to share, especially nothing to stop anyone in their tracks or bring tears to anyone’s eyes like other testimonies have done to me.

My story is very different.

I grew up in a Christian home with parents who loved me fully and wanted to give me everything they possibly could. It was a home where I learned discipline and independence and how to be a lady. A home where I was told I could be anything I wanted to be as long as I worked hard for it, and my best was always enough. We were active in church and I loved my youth group.

When I was finally high-school age, the summer before my freshmen year I met a boy, his name was Kason, and I instantly felt a connection to him and knew that he would be taking care of me for a long time.

A few months later on the night of November 30, 2001 we were both at the Christmas parade for school when he was called home immediately. A little time later a group of friends drove me home and when we drove down the dead end road, where my home and and just one other was located, the entire front yard was covered with police cars and other vehicles that I did not recognize.

I knew deep down in my soul what had happened but it wasn’t until Kason- that 17 year-old senior boy- with a look in his eyes I will never forget appeared at my front door, opened it, and started walking toward me as I walked, then ran towards him. The reality came crashing down all around me as I ran through my house screaming for my mom.

My loving daddy had committed suicide.

My daddy who would pull out pictures of me from his wallet to show complete strangers, my daddy who played barbies with me in the middle of the floor, who gave me my first hammer and nails and taught me how to build things, decided he could no longer live on this earth.

You see what I left out of story so far was that my dad suffered manic depression and schizophrenia. The doctors said it would cause him to slowly deteriorate, and it slowly took him from us when he just could not battle it any longer.

People always joke about mental hospitals and the crazy people that are there, but my mom and I actually celebrated many holidays there visiting my dad through my childhood while he was seeking treatment at the Rusk State Hospital in Rusk, Texas.

There was one point that he actually had a plan to take my mom’s and my life because he truly believed that we all needed to be in Heaven together and that God was telling him so.

My daddy loved God. He loved going to church and he loved teaching me about Jesus. I still have my children’s Bible that he always read to me from, and I still smile when I read Psalm 23 as he read that to me every night before bed when I got too old for my children’s Bible, but not too old to be read to.

Like I mentioned earlier, I haven’t really thought I had testimony because I never this part of my life define me. I thought I had healed from all this pain of watching my daddy struggle with reality and what the demons in his mind were trying to make him believe.

I now know this is my testimony. Through all this pain and brokenness God made me strong, He made me a fighter, and gave me strength to never give up no matter what. I see His beauty in that pain because He gave me strength to go on and to not turn from Him, which in some sense “should” have happened since my daddy’s death was at such a pivotal time. I never felt compelled to rebel, sneak out, party, or get mixed up with things that are deemed “normal” in our culture for teens to take part in.

I truly believe it is because God put Kason into my life just a few months before the most painful day of my life. He had already planned that Kason would still be comforting me all these years later when I miss my sweet daddy.

In Georgia this past week all those memories came rushing back, and I realized that I hadn’t really surrendered it to God. This is the real reason that I am so fearful of becoming a mom, but more on that next week. On Thursday night after the last speaker finished she wanted us to sit and be still and let the Holy Spirit work within us.

When the music began to play I was totally fine, but I bowed my head and just started praying. Before I knew it tears were streaming down my face and I felt God tell me to go to the altar and just be with Him and lay all of this pain and truly surrender it at His feet. I remember standing up, grabbing my small group leader’s hand (I love you Elizabeth!) and literally breaking down on the steps. I do not remember actually walking up there. It was the craziest and most awesome thing I have ever experienced, and I am so so grateful for the ugliest cry that I have had in a long time.

On my hands and knees at the altar God heard my cry and my heart, it was all in His time that I finally let it go.

Whew, so there it is. My story, my testimony of how great God is and how He always provides for us.

God never promised us a life of rainbows and unicorns, but He does promise to always provide for our needs and His grace, sweet grace.

Psalm 30:2
“O Lord my God, I cried to You and You have healed me”

xoxo, Tamara