I like to write here, more than with pen and paper. I'm not sure exactly why that is, but it just seems to be easier for me. So, with that in mind I need to document some important truths and lessons I have learned. I want the world to know that these miracles are because I have a Heavenly Father that loves me enough to teach me the things I need to know, patiently and lovingly teach, so that I can be the person He always intended me to be.
Okay, so some time ago I was talking to my visiting teachers and I asked them if they were happy. I wanted to tell them that they NEVER seem happy, I always see them frowning and grumpy, but instead I merely asked them if they were happy. Sometimes I look around and it seems as though no one around me is happy. Anyway, they assured me that they were and then turned it around on me. For some reason I chose this particular time to vent and disclose a lot of personal stuff about myself. Karen literally slapped me aside of my head and told me that Satan had come for me at an early age. Okay, instead of getting into a very long story here, let me just say...it all began with that conversation. I have been praying for a long time to be healed of my emotional baggage. At times, fervently and at other times always as one of my standard pleas. And sometimes I would feel healed and then it would all close back in on me, the clouds and darkness would come and I would be enveloped in a cold and lonely place. One day quite a while after this experience with my visiting teachers I told the Lord that I couldn't afford to get a therapist and I needed His help, please, pleased I begged Him, help me get over this garbage. It seemed like not long after that, the windows of heaven opened up and huge miracles of knowledge started pouring down on me. Caitlyn was a big part of answering some of these prayers along with my other children specifically Kaleb and Megan, Drew and Ben and Steve. They all have said just the right thing to help me and support me so many times. I testify that today, I am healed of much of the emotional baggage I have carried most of my life. So here is a list of the amazing things I have learned. Each one is a miracle of truth to me!
1) I am NOT a failure. I have succeeded in many areas of my life.
2) Ray was not worthy when I married him. All those red flags I felt were the spirit trying to tell me to get out of that relationship. Even though the Patriarch, in a blessing, told Ray that he had asked Heavenly Father to be with me in this life, I now realize that he was never worthy of the love I gave him.
* I found this as a draft that I never finished. I think it is worthy of publishing although I am sad that I do not remember the other things I intended to include on this list. And I do not know the original date of this writing.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Enough Said!
Several of my children have asked me to write about my life. I'm not so sure I have anything valuable to say or impart to my posterity, to be honest. But I have lived a good life and maybe that is worth sharing. I am entitling this work of writing, "Enough Said!" I think when all is done, that sums it up pretty well.
Onto my life...
So let's start at the beginning. Yeah, well, I don't know anything about that. Ha! My mother never told me any stories about my birth or babyhood. She did tell me that I was named after a bathtub toy duck. On the bottom it said it was made by Pam Co. and so my sister insisted that I be called Pam. Now I can see that that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. She was only three years old and so she couldn't have read that info on the duck and she says she doesn't know anything about that story. So maybe they called the duck Pam because of the info on it and then she decided my name should be Pam. I'll never know. I always thought it was kind of a cute story.
My parents built this lovely house on a river in Rochester, MI. It was a really lovely home. There was a large patio that ran along the backside of the house overlooking the river. It was not a large river but if my memory is correct it made lots of bubbly and gurgling sounds and ran rather quickly on its way. I had my birthday party on that patio and have some pictures of that. I remember that well. The house, I am guessing was my mother's dream house. She had a large kitchen and she had designed it to have a brick floor. There were several fireplaces, one in the kitchen and one in the living room, both were large. In the living/family room I remember huge picture windows going the length of the house so that you could look out on the patio below and river beyond. It was beautiful. I also remember sitting in the living room and watching a little black and white tv. We'd sit on the floor and watch "Howdy Doody." It was in that house that I burned my hand when I was three and fell out of my high chair and broke my collar bone all in the same year. I also have a picture of me with the mumps and all of my sisters and I in the bathtub with chicken pox. We all looked so miserable! So funny...
Oh, and one more thing my mother claimed I did in my babyhood. She said she came in to get me after a nap, from my crib. I had taken the poo out of my diaper and painted it all over the wall. Ha! I would never do that OR was that the first hint of my artistic talent???
You drove from the road down to the house and so there was a big hill in front of the house and mom had terraced it making a rock garden. One time when we were about to go somewhere, we found a tortoise on top of the hill. In my memory it was huge! Like I could have ridden it around, which was what I was imagining. We left and when we got home it was gone. I was so disappointed.
Candy hit me with a tin shovel in our sandbox, again, when I was about three. (Man, that was a tough year!) And at the end of the yard there was a sumac jungle. Those plants grew so tall that we loved to play in it. The tops of the sumac were a canopy over our heads. It was like our own wild jungle. We had paths throughout it and would play all kinds of things out there. I think Candy would have her friends over and try to lose me out there. So one day I was playing there and I came upon a blue racer snake. It terrified me. I ran for all might back to the house. I was sure it was called a blue racer because it could run faster than any human alive. I believed that that was his purpose to overrun me and overtake me and bite me. My mother asked me to take her to where the snake was and so I did. When we got there he was still coiled up in the exact same spot, dead.
There are so many things I wish I had asked my mother about. One of them was the story of burning my hand. Oh, I have pondered that experience so many times, desiring to know what really happened. Not so much the accident, but what happened afterward. Here is what happened to me from the viewpoint of a three old child.
Mom was in the laundry room, just off the kitchen. She was using her Mangle ironer to iron some clothes. The phone rang and she rose to go answer it. I asked her if I could iron some things and she said yes. She rushed out the door and I bent down to pick up a washcloth out of the clothes basket. I had watched her use this ironer many times, fascinated with the process. I put the washcloth into the machine and it began to take the washcloth down between the rollers. My left hand went down with it and got stuck in it. I don't remember how long I was there or what happened next. I don't remember any pain. I remember my mother taking my right hand and place it around the wrist of my injured hand and telling me to just hold it. (She was so smart!!!!!) Judy was a baby, maybe about one and she bundled us up and into the car. I can't remember if Candy was there or not. Mom had me sit in the front seat right next to her and I just sat there holding my hand and staring at it. The only other thing I remember about that was being cold and alone in the hospital. It was dark and I was very afraid and I cried, probably a lot. They wheeled me down to some room with tiles on the wall and scrubbed and scrubbed my hand. I remember that hurting and crying and being so scared. I don't remember any comfort or being held. I must have been, but I don't remember any caring nurses or anything like that. I don't know how much my parents were actually there. Dad had to work and mom had two young children at home. I wish I had asked my parents some of these questions.
The doctors had to do a skin grafting, because the burn was so severe. They took skin from my buttocks (always wanted to use that word), but my hand rejected it or something went wrong so they had to do it again. This time they took skin from my abdomen. It was successful. But then my fingers started growing together so they put my hand in a brace. Then I remember having to squeeze a ball and I began to do exercises at home. I think that the prognosis was not good that I would ever have use of my hand. Thankfully, it was my left hand and I was right handed. Eventually, my mother forced me to take piano lessons and that most probably saved my hand. Later when I was in my teens, I returned to those doctors to see if I needed to have surgery again. They were amazed and said that no further operation was necessary. That was a great day!!!!! I was so relieved and happy!
I think it was November of my first grade year in school that we moved from that house to a big old house on the main street of my father's home town of Hillsdale, MI. He had bought a Pontiac - Cadillac dealership and this small town became the bulk of my childhood memories.
Several of my children have asked me to write about my life. I'm not so sure I have anything valuable to say or impart to my posterity, to be honest. But I have lived a good life and maybe that is worth sharing. I am entitling this work of writing, "Enough Said!" I think when all is done, that sums it up pretty well.
Onto my life...
So let's start at the beginning. Yeah, well, I don't know anything about that. Ha! My mother never told me any stories about my birth or babyhood. She did tell me that I was named after a bathtub toy duck. On the bottom it said it was made by Pam Co. and so my sister insisted that I be called Pam. Now I can see that that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. She was only three years old and so she couldn't have read that info on the duck and she says she doesn't know anything about that story. So maybe they called the duck Pam because of the info on it and then she decided my name should be Pam. I'll never know. I always thought it was kind of a cute story.
My parents built this lovely house on a river in Rochester, MI. It was a really lovely home. There was a large patio that ran along the backside of the house overlooking the river. It was not a large river but if my memory is correct it made lots of bubbly and gurgling sounds and ran rather quickly on its way. I had my birthday party on that patio and have some pictures of that. I remember that well. The house, I am guessing was my mother's dream house. She had a large kitchen and she had designed it to have a brick floor. There were several fireplaces, one in the kitchen and one in the living room, both were large. In the living/family room I remember huge picture windows going the length of the house so that you could look out on the patio below and river beyond. It was beautiful. I also remember sitting in the living room and watching a little black and white tv. We'd sit on the floor and watch "Howdy Doody." It was in that house that I burned my hand when I was three and fell out of my high chair and broke my collar bone all in the same year. I also have a picture of me with the mumps and all of my sisters and I in the bathtub with chicken pox. We all looked so miserable! So funny...
Oh, and one more thing my mother claimed I did in my babyhood. She said she came in to get me after a nap, from my crib. I had taken the poo out of my diaper and painted it all over the wall. Ha! I would never do that OR was that the first hint of my artistic talent???
You drove from the road down to the house and so there was a big hill in front of the house and mom had terraced it making a rock garden. One time when we were about to go somewhere, we found a tortoise on top of the hill. In my memory it was huge! Like I could have ridden it around, which was what I was imagining. We left and when we got home it was gone. I was so disappointed.
Candy hit me with a tin shovel in our sandbox, again, when I was about three. (Man, that was a tough year!) And at the end of the yard there was a sumac jungle. Those plants grew so tall that we loved to play in it. The tops of the sumac were a canopy over our heads. It was like our own wild jungle. We had paths throughout it and would play all kinds of things out there. I think Candy would have her friends over and try to lose me out there. So one day I was playing there and I came upon a blue racer snake. It terrified me. I ran for all might back to the house. I was sure it was called a blue racer because it could run faster than any human alive. I believed that that was his purpose to overrun me and overtake me and bite me. My mother asked me to take her to where the snake was and so I did. When we got there he was still coiled up in the exact same spot, dead.
There are so many things I wish I had asked my mother about. One of them was the story of burning my hand. Oh, I have pondered that experience so many times, desiring to know what really happened. Not so much the accident, but what happened afterward. Here is what happened to me from the viewpoint of a three old child.
Mom was in the laundry room, just off the kitchen. She was using her Mangle ironer to iron some clothes. The phone rang and she rose to go answer it. I asked her if I could iron some things and she said yes. She rushed out the door and I bent down to pick up a washcloth out of the clothes basket. I had watched her use this ironer many times, fascinated with the process. I put the washcloth into the machine and it began to take the washcloth down between the rollers. My left hand went down with it and got stuck in it. I don't remember how long I was there or what happened next. I don't remember any pain. I remember my mother taking my right hand and place it around the wrist of my injured hand and telling me to just hold it. (She was so smart!!!!!) Judy was a baby, maybe about one and she bundled us up and into the car. I can't remember if Candy was there or not. Mom had me sit in the front seat right next to her and I just sat there holding my hand and staring at it. The only other thing I remember about that was being cold and alone in the hospital. It was dark and I was very afraid and I cried, probably a lot. They wheeled me down to some room with tiles on the wall and scrubbed and scrubbed my hand. I remember that hurting and crying and being so scared. I don't remember any comfort or being held. I must have been, but I don't remember any caring nurses or anything like that. I don't know how much my parents were actually there. Dad had to work and mom had two young children at home. I wish I had asked my parents some of these questions.
The doctors had to do a skin grafting, because the burn was so severe. They took skin from my buttocks (always wanted to use that word), but my hand rejected it or something went wrong so they had to do it again. This time they took skin from my abdomen. It was successful. But then my fingers started growing together so they put my hand in a brace. Then I remember having to squeeze a ball and I began to do exercises at home. I think that the prognosis was not good that I would ever have use of my hand. Thankfully, it was my left hand and I was right handed. Eventually, my mother forced me to take piano lessons and that most probably saved my hand. Later when I was in my teens, I returned to those doctors to see if I needed to have surgery again. They were amazed and said that no further operation was necessary. That was a great day!!!!! I was so relieved and happy!
I think it was November of my first grade year in school that we moved from that house to a big old house on the main street of my father's home town of Hillsdale, MI. He had bought a Pontiac - Cadillac dealership and this small town became the bulk of my childhood memories.
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