WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME? By Lori A Alicea (Part 2 of 3)

Discovering those beautiful diamonds of God’s goodness and faithfulness while mining my rejection!

PART 2 OF 3

WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME? By Lori A Alicea (Part 1 of 3)

I questioned my mother’s love for me…

Mother didn’t drive for many years when we were young and with dad working around the clock, mom walked us to a country church we attended one block away from home.

Behind our mother we ducklings followed single file behind her to our neighborhood lighthouse for Christ.

There was a season years later when mother stopped going to church, yet our love for God kept us walking.

Mother’s six kids all walked an isle of salvation following in water baptisms, and passing on a passion for Jesus to their families.

SEEING THINGS MORE CLEARLY (excerpt)
By Lori A Alicea

As an adult looking back on my life, I wish I had “seen things more clearly” while growing up with my four sisters and brother.

Surrounded in a house with five other siblings, there were many opportunities to be selfish.  Children tend to see their cup half full, but now as an adult I know my cup had always overflowed, realizing I had more of everything money couldn’t buy, and that was having each other.

If only our eyes could naturally magnify the treasures of life.  If only our naked eye could see the “little things that matter”.  Too bad life doesn’t issue a pair of glasses that allows us to “see things more clearly”.

I think back then and smile remembering those late night talks with the two sisters I shared a room with, while trying to get the attention of the other two down the hall.  Or the times our brother conned us into doing his chores, promising his allowance, though never paying like he said.  I guess we girls just loved to make our only brother happy.

Then there were our countless meals around the table, always sitting in the same exact seat.  It was this sacred time spent together where the memories we now tell our own children were made.

SEEING THINGS MORE CLEARLY (excerpt end)

For years, mother sent her children to church camp to experience Jesus and outdoor cabin living.

One summer in 1973, and even though I always loved God, I finally surrendered my life to Him at camp with the scripture:

“That if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Romans 10:9 AMP

Summer Camp – 1973
(I am standing on the top row, last on the right)

Looking at this younger version of myself back at summer camp, I wish I could talk to her and warn her with flashing lights of things to come. With eyes visibly shut, I want so bad to sound the alarm and awaken her spirit, because in four short years, a teenager’s journey is about to take a dangerous turn.

Her parents will divorce and six months after that, an innocent sixteen year old is startled from a deep sleep and jolted to a horrific nightmare of attempted rape by her mother’s second husband.

A horror flick in black and white without sound and not a soul able to hear my screams; I was too terrified and frozen in fear to cry out.

Why Lord? Why?

The scriptures remind…

In the world ye shall have tribulation;
But be of good cheer; for I have overcome the world.
John 16:33 KJV

In days, weeks and years to come, I was comforted in a Father’s promise…

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted…
Psalm 34:18 ESV

The Lord indeed was near and intervened in my rescue before the nightmare played out its final scene of terror.

A few days later my sister and I found refuge at our newly married sister’s house with our younger sister living now with dad, closing the door of home behind three young girls forever as our mother asked us to leave.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?

THE SIGHTS OF MARRIAGE…

After eleven years of marriage, I found myself a devastated single mother raising a baby girl and little boy in a two bedroom apartment located in a government housing community.  I never wanted to be divorced.

I was on my own for the very first time in my young life of twenty-eight years.

My family helped me unpack and put everything away on moving day; albeit I didn’t have much.

After the last family member left for home following the move, the sound of prison doors shut in my heart.

A few hours prior, I left behind the peace and tranquility of life in the country; and now my new residence in the city was deafening to my ears with the fire station nearby.

A glimmer kept me hopeful though as my initial lease allowed the contract to be broken without reason before the first thirty days expired.

Surely my husband would return for his wife, baby girl and little boy when the silence echoed in every room of the house from our absence.

Yet, the showers of a broken heart flooded my soul after our thirtieth day in the apartment lapsed.  He never came back for us.

This government apartment would become our new address for the next five years.

It’s time to get off the bus now for a moment and stretch our legs.

This part of the tour is complete and you might be wondering why we stopped here in this town recently devastated by a Kentucky tornado; in particular, this house whose roof was relocated somewhere else in the neighborhood.

Feeling like I lost everything; my home, my marriage, my self-worth; I needed to be reminded when Jesus is all you have left, you come to realize Jesus is all you need.

Seated at his piano following this Kentucky tornado, a man named Jordan Baize comforts himself after losing his earthly possessions by playing the song,

There’s Just Something About That Name.

Let’s gather around the piano with him and sing…

THERE’S JUST SOMETHING ABOUT THAT NAME

By Bill and Gloria Gaither

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus;
There’s just something about that name.
Master, Savior, Jesus, like the fragrance after the rain.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let all Heaven and earth proclaim
Kings and kingdoms will all pass away,
But there’s something about that name.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?  

BE ENCOURAGED, THE VICTORY LAP IS ABOUT TO BEGIN.

Part 3 TO BE CONTINUED…