JOURNEY TO A DREAM

BY: DEBI DOWLING

 

CHAPTER TWO – A VISION

 

 

Toni……

"So that is it, nothing more?”

“I had no idea that God had not given up on me.”

 

 

It seems to me I have this vision; I am trying to deliver it and I am so limited. There was a time I thought maybe the limitation was a lack of education. I believe, after analyzing my intelligence, rather than my limited education, I found that lack of education was the only limitation. So I took care of the education leaning on the strength of an IQ of 103.  My mother was the authority in our home. She believed women did not need an education. My desire was to go to college. She did everything possible to discourage that. My brother wanted to play football– absolutely not! In the home it was taught to us by my mother that the church believed as she did. In my observation of the church I heard ministers who supported her ideas, but I also heard the ministers who supported mine. I always appreciated the fact that people were allowed their own minds. I felt my oppression was due to decisions my parents were making.   

 

I got married at 17 years old to one of the guys in church. Really, we were forced to marry. It was found out that we had sex before marriage, a marriage that was doomed to fail. We were divorced eight months later. I was out of control. His little church girl was not his dream come true. We were divorced after 8-9 months. I was pregnant. I attempted suicide. I was deathly afraid of going home, but I did not have a clue as to how to deal with the real world. I did not feel I could go to the church for help, and the last place I wanted to go to was home.

 

I remarried when my first-born child was 6 months old.  Anyway, I met a guy through a girl at work. We lived together. I got pregnant. We got married, and three months later I left. He had brought another woman into our room to "you know what." I freaked and went home. The abuse was still very prominent. While working at the hospital I became anorexic and was hospitalized. No therapy, just several hours of IVs. I was very depressed, but I tried to show a lot of life so people around me would not feel the same way. I loved my job. I was continuously battling with how to fit in. I was angry with myself because I couldn't just "be happy." I often reflected on my inner happiness that was shrinking away to what I felt was nothing. True love was a fantasy; therefore, God became more and more a fantasy in my mind. By this time I was 22 years old with 2 baby girls. I went home again. There is a lot of misery to share, but I was really trying to grab a hold of something. Overall, I lived from one failure to another.    

 

In 1979 we went to Des Moines to Lloyd Goodwin's church, but that did not work out.  The most irritating thing to me about the church is nothing was clear-cut. The thing that made me vulnerable to Lloyd Goodwin was the fact that he got straight to the point. When my family attended his church he singled me out. He took me in the office and began preaching to me and using scriptures to show me I was called out of my family; that the Lord had delivered me from their rebellion. He was going on a trip and, with authority, he told me he expected me to be there when he got back. He caressed my face with his hand. I was very vulnerable to such forwardness. I needed a hero and he represented that to me. I was determined to stay in Des Moines. I felt I could make it there. A family there was very close to us even before our family came into the church in Houston. We came in just after the Tom Jolly incident. I was very young. Anyway, while we were visiting their home, the father in this family grabbed me and french kissed me as I was coming down the stairs. I was 22 years old at the time. I did not stay because of that.

 

I decided to work in a gentlemen's club; started out as a waitress; made enough money to finally make it on my own. Then I decided to be a dancer. I eventually moved to Austin, Texas. My motto: Never ask of someone else something you would not ask of yourself. I supported my oldest daughters as a dancer in a gentlemen's club.  I kept this from them for their protection. This occupation allowed me flexibility and the money necessary to provide food shelter and clothing for my children.  I felt equal to this environment. I felt this environment was more honest. I had no expectations of the people I associated with; they expected the worst of me. I was highly respected. In this realm I was considered an example to the other women. How ironic. I danced for six years. It is funny how people see women in this career. My sex life was null. My interest in sex was distant. I didn't want the abuse that came with the relationship. I had taken on a new identity. I became bold and brassy, but I felt very safe.  Later I got into drugs, which led to the needle. Now I really began to go downhill fast. My whole life became one crisis after another. When I think back, I am amazed that I survived. Suicide was a constant thought on my mind.    

 

I had become very independent. I took a new lover, he was 18 years old and I was 30 years old. The abuse was very bad. I became pregnant at 30 with his child. It was through my pregnancy that I began to want help. I went to everyone I could. I had no pride. I didn't care what people thought of me (I was a misfit, and I didn't want my unborn child to suffer for it). All of a sudden I became aware of the life I was living. I began looking at my beautiful daughters and my heart would break. They deserved so much more.

 

I was having a real struggle with kicking the drug addiction. I went to my brother for help, as I see him as the most stable in the family. It really hurt me to tell him that I was a drug addict, much less confess everything else. He took my girls. The idea was so I could pull myself together, but his love for them caused him to want to save them from me. This is where my determination kicked in. It was no longer about me; it was about my kids and my unborn child. I couldn't give up dancing, but I knew I had to in order to turn things around. Dancing allowed me to support my children without depending on a man. I only had to work one or two times a week in order to make the money necessary to provide for them. I had tried other jobs and was successful, such as with big oil companies and IBM, but I could not deal with my time apart from the girls. It became easy for me to justify myself at least to the point that I just knew I had to do what I had to do. I paid my rent three months in advance. As an old-timer at the club, I could come and go, as I pleased, no schedule. I closed myself in my apartment and took on the task of overcoming my drug addiction on my own. I loved my kids, and I was sick of feeling sorry for myself. I was disgusted with the whole thing called life. I had to give my kids something. There are no words to describe the illness I allowed to consume my body in order to be free of drugs. I have no conception of the time frame of how long it took. I stayed in my living room on the couch with no lights on. I only got up to bathe and take a rare occasion for food. I hallucinated; I sweated; I vomited. I did not know if I was going to live or die. I would think about calling someone, but I was too depressed to do so.    

 

A real turning point for me in all this was this hallucination. I have been called an artist. I draw pictures to express myself. There was a large picture of a harlot that I had drawn. She was done in colors from my makeup pallet. I always liked this particular drawing because I had used so much detail in her expression of a casual attitude toward life. I was lying on the couch, with very little energy. I began to look at this picture and talk to it, "...and who the hell are you anyway? Why do I have to be afraid of you? I’m not running anymore, so do to me what you will. I am not afraid to die.” Remember, I was in real bad shape. The picture took on a spirit form and became the fullness of the room. I could feel it coming toward me. I felt the fear and I began to scream, "I don't care if you kill me. I’d rather be dead than to live with this mysterious grief." As it came closer as though it were going to devour me. I felt it just pass. I remember the feeling I felt. I found myself saying, "So that is it, nothing more?” I knew then I would be okay, and I did make it. I've been drug-free ever since. I had no idea that God had not given up on me. I feel the gratitude swell in me that God did not desert me. I have already dealt with the issues of the church’s ideas. Compared to the real life, the place where God truly exists is not so much in the church or its doctrine. He exists in the soul of man. Jesus established the church and those who are willing to submit to the spirit of God will know His mystery. Although I was rebellious, full of fear, unholy in every sense of the imagination, He led me home. He took control of the situation. 

 

My daughter had a girlfriend that she was very close to. The little girlfriend was from a Christian family. I decided it would be good if the mother could baby-sit my daughters while I worked. Once the mother became aware of my occupation, the relationship between our daughters was ended with no explanation to my daughter. She was very hurt. This really hit home with me. I decided then I would take on a different occupation. This is after 6 years of doing this for a living.  I received a phone call from the welfare office about a week later. A woman was my caseworker and with her help I was able to take a new direction. This was only the beginning and I often thought while I was going through all this that this should be my church helping me.  But I really didn't have time to worry over all that.  Even after overcoming the drugs; which I spoke of earlier, I would still have flashbacks. I could feel the rush of the drug and then the "down" of not having the drug. By now I had moved into an apartment in Houston and had a job with a chiropractor.

 

Basically, this brought me into a meeting with the two counselors who had been working with me. They took me into a room to pray with me. I denied any thought that came into my head. I was encouraged in the spirit to come before the "Throne of God Boldly.” I pressed forward through all my fears. The Lord revealed to me the sins I had committed due to my anger and hurt. I felt true conviction and repented with a true heart. I was totally forgiven and felt life fill my being. I was so thankful that I stood as a proxy for my father and I prayed that God would forgive him for all the pain I had suffered under his control. I knew that he was forgiven. I know the forgiveness is there for my father. All he has to do is accept it. I do not need his confession. However he may need to confess, as the spirit of God becomes his reality. I will be ready. If he never confesses my heart will be sad for him because of his loss. So I continue to pray for my father and my mother and my family and myself. Even through all this there is still a lot of changes being made. God is not done yet. But He is definitely the ONE to trust.     

 

I have become very sensitive to any message over the pulpit. I am trying to hear what my parents heard. I am different than my parents. I have my share of problems; but I cope totally different than they did. I also know the reason why. Because of what I went through as a child; I trust no one with my life. My life includes all that I love including my children, my church and myself. So you can see how much I need the closeness of Jesus in my life. I am even grateful to have such a need. He makes me feel perfect, wanting nothing.    

 

The church took me in about six years ago. They paid for my apartment. I had 5 children and myself. I had two children, 16 and 17 years old. These kids had been through hell with me. Their fathers abandoned both of them. They were acting out. I was going to church 4 nights a week. I went to one of the ministers about it because I wanted help. I thought there would be counseling. I was told to put them out. I had no choice. Before I mustered up the courage to do this I prayed for them. I began cleaning my house and I was resenting the girls for not working with me. I was grumbling and praying. My 16 year old had a baby; my grandson was 3 years old. As I got to their bedroom, I felt the angels from heaven surrounding me. I heard the sweetness of the Lord say to me "Do Not Exclude, Include." As I approached an area of the room where my older daughter had her things, the Lord stopped me and showed me that He had created an empty place for Himself in my daughter. I was so blessed. I still had to kick them out to keep my residence but they were gone only a few days and I snuck them back in. I felt like a rebellious teenager all over again.   

 

While living in this apartment I decided; through the advice of one of the counselors at the welfare office, to open up and tell my girls what I was going through. Their hearts were broken. It has taken years of love, mercy and forgiveness to bring the healing between my children and myself. To come back to the church after fighting this battle and overcoming so much and to hear them say: “WE KNEW NOTHING,” is heart wrenching. I have already done the groundwork for myself. The message I have is what God has written on the tables of my heart. I know it is difficult to humble yourself before a group of people and say, we did the wrong thing, please forgive us, and then you cannot expect them to forgive you. Then you pray that God will bring the understanding of Himself into the congregation and the church will experience what my family has experienced.  The bitterness I have is more at myself for not going on what I knew God had given me.

 

I married a few months later. To a man I barely knew. I wanted out of the obligation with the church. I don't want to make that same mistake again. Serving God is everything to me. I believe the church is in just as much sin as the people in the topless bar. Even though that is not my lifestyle today, I am no better than them. I am a sinner who loves Jesus. If there be any good in me; it is Him. There is nothing I could ever do to prove Him. He is proof of Himself by the Father.   

 

If our Lord left his safe haven to bring us to His fullness, that His Father's will would be done in the Earth, why do we think it a sin to leave the place within ourselves that we claim as a safe haven and take on the suffering of the sinners amongst ourselves, including ourselves? What am I not seeing? What a joy to praise the almighty God for who He IS, rather than who we hope He IS? In my eyes, that is perfection. That is the place that we are called to be in Him. As we take on His reality, rather than our own, we have answered His call. Mortal man cannot reveal the story of the Savior I adore by admitting our sin. Exposing it completely and honestly does not deny anything but the flesh and empties out the death in our hearts that we may receive Him completely. If we empty half we receive half, resisting the fullness, whether through our innocence or deliberately. Today we can praise the almighty God for this opportunity to empty ourselves completely, fully trusting in Him. We are being asked to take on the shame of the sin whether it is by omission or submission. This is why my soul is leaping, for my soul can feel the nearness of Jesus. My soul has become aware, setting me back in my carnal thinking, bringing me into judgment that I may die in Christ. The nearness of Jesus can heal the leper or make the blind to see. My soul knows, for it is my soul that has partaken of the Tree of Life.     

 

Nothing has changed in God; He is still almighty. Pray for deliverance. I pray that we do not contribute to the destruction, for if we do, we are among the child molesters. This is not the desire of our hearts. The Lord will have His perfect work. I pray that we answer the calling that God has placed in our lives to give this Hope to the weak and defenseless. Any other hope is false hope. I believe in a God who is mighty and great. I believe in the works that He has done. I have felt the power of His Holy Spirit, and I believe, yes I believe in God's dear Son. Thank you Jesus. I thank you Jesus. I thank you Lord, for you have brought us from a mighty, mighty long way.    

 

All I know is each time I do this emptying out I feel deliverance. I can feel His glory all around me. Whoever I am is not important; He made me worthy of love acceptance. This is too much for me to take lightly. To be a servant puts us in a place of always feeling gratitude. Oh, my precious heavenly Father, I feel absolute gratitude to you.

 

CHAPTER THREE – CROSSROADS

PERSONAL STORIES