“You’d kill me for Gilligan’s Island?”/2006-2013

I was still burning my arms with cigarette butts, until the skin was black, and then would blister. I could feel that my prayers were having no affect.

During which time my little sister Mia married Brandon Chennault on December 3, 2005. They were both 20, and she met him at cooking school, which she later dropped out of. This was the sword that pierced my heart. All of my brothers and sisters had married, and now my baby sister Mia was getting married.

One night, Emma took a knife and held it to my throat. She told me she was going to kill me if I didn’t give her Gilligan’s Island DVD’s.

I said, “You’d kill me for Gilligan’s Island?”

To which she replied with narrowed eerie child eyes, "Yes, I would. "

Thanks Be to God it wasn’t a very big knife, as I didn’t like knives in the apartment. It was the knife I used to cut her Ohi’s, little potatoes, with sour cream and Colby cheese and egg. It was my own special recipe. I named them Ohi’s, when Bugs Bunny told Elmer Fudd, “Because it’s round in the end and high in the middle, Ohi-O a scene from the Bugs Bunny episode “What’s Up Doc.” The name for my new recipe just came to me.

I had her hospitalized, and she spent a week in Ventura Hospital. It was the loneliest and most excruciating week of my life. We had never been separated so long. I cannot begin to describe how devastated I was. I couldn’t visit her since Ventura was 300 miles away. I called her every day, and cherished her little voice over the phone.

I cried out to The Lord, and wept at His Feet. I could not get the words stuck in my heart out, like little pieces of shard, squeezing drops of blood.

Immediately upon her return the social workers threatened to take her away again and put her in a group home.

It was anguish, as I cried out to Jesus for wisdom concerning this big decision. All of the professionals, Gabe, the ladies from Families First that had been coming to the apartment now for nearly 2 years, Dr. Borchardt and others said I should put her into a group home.

Not once but more than once. I cried out and lifted my voice to The Lord. “I can’t give her up. Please keep us together. But let it be Your Will.” It seems more often than not my face was always plastered to the floor. I didn’t understand. But, I knew that God’s thoughts, were not our thoughts, nor were His Ways our ways, for as high as The Heavens were above the earth, so were His thoughts higher than our thoughts, and His Ways than our ways.

Trying to go to the Lutheran church was of no avail. After I finished my six week membership courses with the Pastor, I knew I could not join them. They too espoused to the man-made doctrine you can lose your Salvation. I told Pastor Young I could not go up to the altar, and say I agreed to the doctrine when it was a lie. He told me just to go up, anyway, and say that I affirmed their beliefs. I told him I was sorry, but I am not going to lie in front of my Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus promised me in His Word, He would never leave nor forsake me. I soon begin to realize there weren’t many who knew The Father. In His Word God gave me so many passages to affirm to me that once I was His, I was His. There would be bruisings to crush the sin from me, but there would be no abandonment of His daughter. Gary left Emma, "My daughter do you believe I would ever do the same to you and Emma?

I AM YOUR FATHER FOREVER. And I smiled secure In His Love for me.

I had been in prayer for Emma, the more I prayed, the more weary, I seemed to grow. The wrestling in prayer seemed to pull me deeper into union with The Lord Jesus He became more real to me. I began speaking in tongues more frequently in prayers and praise. But that isn’t the reason I felt connected to the Person of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit continually just seemed to Be.

I prayed and prayed, but prayers to The Lord grew increasingly harder, as I began to sense my prayer was not going to be answered.

Mia and Brandon had been living with me during that time. Brandon was lovely, Mia my sister I suspected of being a borderline like myself, only without the self-mutilation, with all of the mood swings. When I was in therapy with Scott he had told me to kick them out of my apartment, but I couldn’t.

The Lord Jesus helped me through this time. Living with Mia and Brandon became impossible. I knew they didn’t have any place to go. Momma only had one bedroom, and I had two. They had just gotten kicked out of Mia’s in-laws. They had no money. But, Mia loathed me. I don’t know what it was, but she was always so rude to me. This was especially hard since I took care of her since she was an infant. We had spent so many years together, and at times it seemed she didn’t remember. She was like a daughter to me I was the maid of honor at her wedding to Brandon. Her lack of feeling for me crushed me. Living with Mia and Brandon became increasingly difficult.

But I began Praising Jesus with my headphones on. I sang whole Praise CD’s, and this brought me into deeper intimacy with God. The Holy Spirit drew me into Praise, and I felt in those times such liberation, freer than I ever felt, more joyful, and it was then I knew that Praise was more for me, than for Our Lord. Even though it was meant for Him, the Gift of Praise gave me a deep sense of abiding with Him. This trial drew me nearer To Him, To The Almighty.

“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty;

I will say of the Lord He is my Refuge

and my fortress;

My God, in Him I will trust.”

(Psalm 91: 1-2)

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“Therefore, brethren having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus,

By a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil that is His flesh

and having a high Priest over the house of

God,

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled

From an evil conscience and our bodies washed

with pure water.

(Hebrews 10:19-22)