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Who Is Buffy? Page1 Hello, my name is Becky and I live in
Florida.
I am married to a wonderful man and have one son
from a previous marriage.
I also have four stepchildren and six step
grandchildren. When
I sat down to write my testimony I was not sure what I
would write. Even
though I am an adult now, I feel my whole adult life has
been lived through my childhood.
My thoughts are filled with the thoughts of a
very scared little girl who had forgot the feeling of
love. I was
raised in a very dysfunctional family.
I do not say this for you to think that I blame
anything I did wrong as an adult on my parents.
I say this only so you may understand why I feel
my life never seemed to move beyond the scared little
girl I was, until I met the Lord one evening I was born in Tennessee. My parents moved to Arkansas when I was 3 months old. Our family seemed pretty normal at this time of my life. My father was away from home most of the time. He was a truck driver so I didn’t really know him. He was just the man that was going to come home in about two weeks to give me the spanking my mother had promised me. It was for the things I had done wrong while he was away. So you see, having him come home was not always a happy time for me. I would have much rather my mother had went ahead and spanked me rather than make me wait for my father to come home to do it. But I guess she had her reasons for this. Suddenly my mother was diagnosed with cancer and was not expected to live. She wanted to move to Florida to be with her mother and father before she died. I was 10 or11 years old at this time. So, off to Florida we went. It was a happy time for me because we had visited Florida once and it was full of beaches and lots of fun. Sadly, fun was not what we found. The picture at the top of this page depicts my life very well. This is why I chose it for my testimony page. My mother recovered from her cancer and did not die as we had all thought. Most of my mother’s family liked to go out drinking and dancing. Drinking was not new to me because my fathers parents were alcoholic’s. But you see my mother and father kept us away from them. Protected us from them. My father had practically disowned them because of their drinking problem. This was not the case with my mother’s family. The protective parents I once knew were joining in with the drinking in my mother’s family. They were always trying to find someone to sit with us so they could go out dancing and drinking with all my aunts and uncles. I didn’t know my parents anymore. The protective mother whom always, always was there if I became scared was never there for me anymore. I remember once when my father was very drunk. He was going to take his life by running in front of a train. Our house was across the street from the tracks. I was in the house alone and remember hearing my little sister and brother crying and screaming for daddy to come back. I ran out to see what was going on and there stood my father yelling back to my dear little sister and brother that no one loved him and he was going jump in front of the train and kill himself. I pulled him away from the tracks and said some awful things to him. I have to tell you, pulling him "away" from that train was not exactly what I wanted to do! But I knew that it was the right thing to do. I could not understand how he could not see what he was doing to my little brother and sister. I thought it was my place to take care of them since my parents seemed too busy with each other to care about them. They loved him no matter what he did. I used to wonder how they could do that. But you see they were too young to remember anything else. They did not have the memories of what it was like when he didn’t drink. This was the only daddy they knew. But I remembered, and hatred had grown in my heart for the man he had become. The memories I had of "my" father were before he started drinking. I didn't know this man! I didn’t know Jesus either but I knew He was there with me. The Lord has forgiven me for all the horrible thoughts I had about my father. You see, He knew that I did not hate my father. He was the only one I could trust with my true feelings. I could just be me with Him but for the rest I had to be tough at all times to survive. Life in Florida was not easy for a scared little girl from Arkansas. Besides being the shortest girl in school, my hillbilly accent that I thought was normal, turned out to be nothing but a joke at school in Florida. I became afraid to speak for fear of being laughed at. This succeeded in getting me an F on every oral book report at school. I never raised my hand even if I knew the answer to the question the teacher asked. It wasn’t long before I began to hate school. There were teachers who were as bad as my classmates. It’s strange when I look back on it now as an adult. I was so afraid of the teachers who would join in if someone made fun of the way I talked. Now I just feel pity for them and understand just how immature they really were. I sprouted legs in my tenth year of school but this did not make my life in Florida any more tolerable. I gave up school after finishing the tenth grade. I was making a horrible mistake quitting school but I could not see this at that time. My parents broke up several times but always found a way back to each other. I went through an unsuccessful marriage that ended in a divorce. I was alone with my son for nine years. I was the best parent I knew how to be. I drank and partied some but drinking never truly appealed to me. Never cared for the taste of alcohol and I was always afraid of ending up like my father. My life seemed to be going nowhere when I met my second husband. He showed me what love was all about between a man and woman. For the first time in my life I felt true love by another human being. I was happier than I had ever been and wanted nothing more than to have my parents be happy for me but they were still too sick to see anything beyond their own lives. Inside I was still the scared little girl I had always been. Wasn't sure why I still felt this away now that I had found a real love. My mother did not continue to drink as my dad did. She eventually gave up all drinking and the party life. Manic depression had now consumed her whole life. This was not the woman who had raised me in Arkansas. She was a stranger to me. Then she developed a massive tumor on her brain and died in July of 1989. She was only 57 years old, but before she died she was born again. She asked my father to promise her that he would make sure all the children got saved so we would join her in heaven one day. Shortly after her death my father got saved. My father had been diagnosed with cancer before my mother ever got sick but his was in remission. His soul mission in life was now to get his unsaved children saved. He nearly drove my sister, two brothers and I crazy talking about God. My older sister didn’t mind hearing him because she was already saved. I didn’t feel like an adult on the inside when my mother died, I still felt like that scared little girl who was afraid to be here without her mommy. My thoughts of my mother as she was in Arkansas had begun to fade from my mind. There were times I would struggle just to remember, the kind and gentle woman she was then. This bothered me deeply because it was the only good memories I had of her and was doing all I could to hang on to them. She had not made this easy for me to do. There was so much bitterness in my heart, good things seemed to be too deep to feel them. I had forgot what family love was. I felt bitterness most of my life for my father and all that he had put us through with his alcoholism. My mother was so sick with her illness that she would tell me how much she hated me one day, then call me back the next to say she loved me. So you see, I was very confused about what love really was. I felt like I was on a roller coaster with no end to it. At this time in my life, the only thing I was "Really" sure of, was the love my second husband had for me. Anyone who has lived with an alcoholic or manic depressive parent knows what I am talking about here. As a child, I kept to myself because I was ashamed of my father and the way we had to live as a result of his drinking. He was never physically abusive but very emotionally abusive. I did not have fond memories of him as a child or after I became an adult. I don’t think I have a clue what it would be like to be a child in a normal loving household setting. If my father ever told me he loved me before he got saved, I have no memory of it. I can remember hearing my mother say something like, “Now you know your father loves you.” She was always trying to assure us of his love but I never ever felt it from him. I am sure he did but was just unable to show his love to us. Alcoholic parents also raised him, so I feel sure he was never taught how to show his love for others. As time went by, my mother became so ill with
depression I was not even sure of her love for me. I always seemed to anger her no matter what I said or did.
The only time she would come to me was when she
was in a very deep and low state of depression. It was as if she was afraid to be alone with herself when she
would get so low. She
would always say something like, “If I ever want the
truth I can go to Becky, There were so many times she would be suicidal when she came to my house. I remember her coming to my home once before I remarried. She was in real bad shape and asked if she could spend the night with me. I knew it was going to be a rough night but I said she could stay. At this time, I had to get up for work every morning at 4:30 a.m. She cried a lot and said all she wanted to do was die. This was not unusual for her to want to die when she would get into the black hole depression can take you to. Most of the time she would not even know or care if I was listening to her. I could leave her sitting there talking to me and go take a shower and she would never even notice I had not been in the room with her.
This particular time at my home she talked non-stop.
I convinced her to go to bed around 1:30 a.m. When I awoke the next morning I found an empty prescription
pill bottle sitting on my dinning room table.
There was a suicide note beside it.
I was so mortified, I could not move or think
straight. She
was in the same room with my son and all I could think
of was how I was going to get him out of there without
him seeing her laying there dead.
I was almost too afraid to go into the room.
When I did get up the courage to go in, I left
the light off and approached the bed.
She was lying there very still.
It looked as if she was not breathing. I reached out to touch her and as I did she
sprang up cursing at me for scaring her to death. In reality she had scared me to death when she moved.
I think that was the only time I truly wanted to
hurt my mother physically.
I was so close to beating her up I had to leave
the room with her still screaming at me for scaring her.
I had forgot all about my son and went back in
and picked him up and took him to my bed where I assured
him that grandma was fine and explained I had just
scared her when I tried to wake her.
Times were very trying for me during these times.
Love was never simple in my family.
It was something that never seemed real to me.
Even though I thought, “they must love me,
I’m there child”. From my teen years to this time in my life I also suffered through many bouts of depression. I contemplated suicide many, many times. There was a place in my mind that would not allow me to see any way out once I had gone too deep into depression. These were the times I would fall into that deep dark hole that only those who have suffered severe depression know about. If I was asked today "what caused you to become so depressed?", I would have to say to them "WORRY." Looking back on it now I can say without a doubt it started with a little "worry" of some kind. I would take this little "worry" and dwell on it until it became so BIG, I could see no way to fix it. The worry would grow like a snowball does when it's rolling downhill. I would add things to it, the what if's and maybes, or could this happen or would that occur. By the time I had added all the what if's and the other things to my little worry it was a HUGE problem by then. Too big for me to handle for sure. So there was no way out. It was now too overwhelming for me. Down was the only way to go; down, down, down to that deep dark hole. Wow, how could I have been so self-destructive. Worry never fixed a thing for me. Worry only took away my days of joy and the sunshine in my life. How sad it was that I let something so foolish as worry take me to that place of darkness. If your reading this now and know this deep dark hole I am speaking of, come on out of that hole as I did because there is something far greater waiting for you. The Lord is waiting for you my friend. He will fill that hole and you will never return to it. I seek Him now and that takes me up, up, up, not down, down, down. Oh how He loves us, He does not want us to be sad and low, with Him I have a mansion waiting for me. A glorified body that will suffer no more. Reach Up, and out you will go from the darkness. The light will burn forever through Jesus Christ. He is our Savior, YOUR Savior if you will just go to Him as I did. Aren't you tired of carrying that burden? He's waiting on you. James 4:8, says "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you." It's all a process you see. You reach up to Him today, you go down tomorrow, do you continue going down? NO, you reach up again and again until you see that you have no need to go back down. Only He can show you the way my friend. One day it will be but a memory for you, as it is for me today. I pray you reach up and come out so you may be free. Free to live in peace, free to be happy! Jesus is the only way my friend!
You see my friend, I sat in that hole always wondering
why God would not come and get me out of there! I
used to lay in that hole and just cry for God to come
get me!!! I never once stood up and went to Him,
not one time. Just laid there and wallowed in my
self pity. All the time wondering why, why, why
won't you come get me Lord! I was certainly not
going to go to church, if God loved me like all those
Christians said He did, then let Him come down in this
hole and get me. Sound familiar to you??? Oh
how selfish I was, I wanted God to help me but I wasn't even willing to meet Him half way. I am not saying
you "have" to go to church before God will
help you but after all, it is His home. When you
want something from your neighbor do you not go over
there and peck on the door? It's the same with the
Lord my friend...ever knocked on His door? For
those who knock, the door will open. James
4:8, tells us that "we have to go to Him",
before He will come to us. We have to keep going
to Him too. Doing this sheds our old selfish
pride. Going to the Lord is not just a one time
thing like I thought before I got saved. Now God is drawing near to
me because I am being obedient by continuing to go to
Him with my burdens.
Praise God He waited for me to come out of that hole. Thank you Lord for
not giving up on me. I know I made you wait such a
long time for me to draw near to you and I am so
thankful you were still there, waiting for me. I
now know my time could have run out and I would have
ended up in the Lake of Fire, in hell to suffer
eternally. What a risk I was taking with my chance
for eternal life. Now on to page 2 for the "Rest of my Testimony" |
