Robbed AND Redeemed

             My mom would be 53 today.  I feel robbed!  She should be here today letting me cook her a birthday dinner and enjoying her grandkids.  She would be making them laugh with her silly energy.  I’d be asking her opinions on paint colors for my new home and she’d be interjecting advice on random topics. I’d be updating her on every important and trivial aspect of my life.  But this isn’t the case.  No birthday dessert.  My children do not remember her if they ever met her at all.  I have pictures and memories.  Who robbed me?  The toxic soup that gives rise to cancer?  Damned genetics?  Certainly not God!  That I know.  I know that he doesn’t owe me a single day, nor did he owe my mom the more than the 40 years and change she had. 

        She did so much right as a parent.  SO MUCH!  She put me in good programs like Big Brothers and Sisters.  She put me in swim lessons, dance, and threw me happy birthday parties.  My early childhood had all the excitement, fun and innocence any child could dream off.  We were ‘poor’, living in low income housing and I would have never known it.  She provided the best world for me.  A world with endless playing, hugs, snuggles, laughter and love.

        My mom worked so hard making my good the center of her efforts and focus.  She was STRESSED out most the time.  Going to college and working as a single mom…STRESS.  Getting her first home in a ‘bad’ area of Spokane, working full time, side jobs, mortgage, renters in the basement…STRESS.

        She also did some things as a parent she would later regret and ‘man!’ did she pay the price.  She was too liberal in her parenting (no political reference inferred).  As the tween years emerged, I was allowed a steady diet of filth that grew in proportion and began to shape my soul and aspirations.  Gangster rap:  I aspired to be the criminal living on the fringe, mocking police and using drugs unscathed (at least in the messaging, not in reality).  Beautiful and Sexy R & B singer with explicit lyrics:  my value was my sensuality, my looks, my makeup, and undeterred sex was the only pure bliss in the human experience.  Movies, and TV I watched, and the bad company I often kept, further reinforced these twisted values.  Although my dad was a wonderful father most of my childhood, he was largely absent during this critical period - which exasperated my coming downward spiral.

       Back to the STRESS.  Me. 6^th-9^th grade.  Reckless, selfish, insecure, smoking weed and cigarettes, hanging out with drug dealers, criminals and gangbangers.  Me.  Shoplifting, sneaking out, stealing from random people, driving around the city late at night accompanied only by other minors who didn't know how to drive, walking the streets late at night, smoking drugs unknowingly laced - that I feared would kill me.  Me.  Abusive towards those that loved me, lying, drinking hard liquor, being used, using, and planning my own disaster.  Talking to men online- men in their 20’s.  “I’ll run away”, I thought.   Hating my mother.  Hitting my mother.  Cursing and screaming at my mother.  She prayed.

        She prayed as it was the only thing she knew to do.  God was distant.  God was a mean guy in the sky that was mad at her.  But she prayed nonetheless.

        How I escaped those years without long term consequences, like a criminal record (thanks to community service), drug addiction or being ‘perma-fried’, as some of my friends were, without being victimized in the presence of VERY bad men in numerous highly vulnerable situations, is nothing short of the intervention of God, in his mercy.  At the age of 12, I was driven down a dirt road, in the blackest darkness, to the edge of the Spokane river, by a 24 year old criminal from California.  I thought he was going to victimize me and leave me for dead.  I felt the dread as we drove.  God had a different plan.   I’m thankful my mom, and numerous family members and friends prayed.

And then…things started shifting.  I starting yearning for truth, for answers to the deep questions of life.  I starting seeking, listening, looking. I was angry.  I was frustrated.  I was obstinate towards God, if he existed.  And then…

        I met HIM!  The ‘him’ that gave me value a part from this superficial, temporal body.  The HIM that sought me out, wanted me to have an abundant life, wanted me to have peace, wanted to stop the train wreck of where my life was heading.  The HIM that died for me and wanted my life, so I could trade it for life forever, and enjoy a new path on earth, the workings of a new heart he would give me, a soul he would mend and transform.  HIM!  Second semester of my Sophomore year of High school marked a new beginning for me.  I prayed.

         My mother and I enjoyed a good relationship throughout the remainder of my high school years.  She worked herself ragged so I could enjoy luxuries she never had.  She put me in a private choir and took on extra side jobs and attended countless annoying fundraisers, to send me to England and Scotland on tour.  She was so proud of my achievements and marveled at the 'good girl' I had become.  I was graced to be discipled by the best of the best; by true Christ followers who lived the Christian life with passion, and were expectant of adventure. Leaders who were committed to scriptural integrity, and who passed on a model of faith and works - meaning your faith doesn’t take a break when you walk out of church on Sunday.  I drank in the grace of God and devoured the Bible with curiosity and joy.  My life was filled with wonder as living water of a supernatural realm washed my mind, my heart, and radically changed my perspective and my outlook.  I graduated with honors.  After High School when I was 18, I scribbled the words “Move powerfully in my mother’s life!” in a prayer notebook.  She was about to attend an event that would change her forever. I prayed.

         At a conference fittingly titled ‘Extravagant Grace’, my mother encountered HIM.  In a prayer room, laden with guilt, heavy and burdened…she finally saw the truth!  The truth that her sin was paid for.  She didn’t need to hold on to it!  She didn’t need to fear Hell.  She later described, ‘A white blanket covered me, every part of me.  I cried as I felt the love of God encompass the room, and rest on every side of me.’   She accepted the free gift of God’s grace through the work of Jesus Christ to forgive her completely.  More prayers answered.

       I have been robbed. But she is somewhere where the thieves of death and disease cannot exist.  I grieve today missing her, wanting her here, but she is somewhere where there is no tears or heartache.  My loss is temporary.  My sadness temporary.  Because of HIM.  He prays.

^“Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”  Romans 8:34 (NIV)

From my baby book.  I love you mom!

Me on the right, age 13 (My cousin Joelle on the left).  Don't let the smile fool you.  I was trouble!

In the thick of it with my mother's mother.  My beloved grandma, Jeanette Enzler.  She mailed me notes on a regular basis, for years, encouraging me to choose a better path. My grandpa would sometimes argue with her about whether or not to bring me on trips with them as I was so disrespectful. I don't blame him, but they kept taking me.  They prayed.

High School Graduation June 2000, Spokane

My mom holding my precious firstborn, Sienna, 2004.  She was ecstatic to be a grandma!  I remember her kneeling down to Sienna in the late Spring of 2006. By then she was an adorable toddler. She knew she was losing the fight.  She looked at Sienna with the saddest eyes and said, "I love you SO much.  So SOOOO MUCH."

Final days- summer 2006, in the company of her faithful parents and brother Jeff.  She was blessed beyond measure with many loving siblings, amazing family and friends who supported her valiantly until the bitter end.  This was in our backyard in our Spokane Valley home.  After she died, I sold it, as I couldn't bare the thought of being there without her.  I miss you mom!