I’m fourteen, almost fifteen. I’ve been through an awful lot for a fifteen-year-old. Let me start at the beginning. I was born December 29, 1988, in Omaha, Nebraska, to my VERY young parents, Ron and Shelley. Dad drank—heavily, and chewed tobacco. He worked all the time, and was rarely home when my older sister Amanda and I were awake, so Dad was like some mythical being Mom told us about.

I became more aware of Dad as I grew older. He was my Superman—in my young eyes, Dad could do anything. He was perfect. If he got mad, it was my fault. Then, as I grew even older, I realized that he really wasn’t perfect. He came home mad almost all the time, and I hadn’t been there to make him angry; and he smelled funny. At that point, I didn’t know it was alcohol that I smelled, I just knew it wasn’t normal. My “Superman” was turning into a monster. Mom would send us to our room when he pulled up at night, so she could decide if it would be okay that night or not. I can remember huddling on the bed with my little siblings, hiding under the covers with the lights out, listening to Dad yell and curse at Mom on a bad night.

We had our good family times with Dad when he wasn’t drunk. I cherish those memories of running to him to be lifted up to touch the ceiling from his shoulders, being swung around in circles by my hands, sitting on his lap while he read to us, playing tag out in the backyard, and eating burnt hotdogs out on the porch together. But we still waited anxiously under the covers most nights.

We moved out of Omaha when I was seven, Amanda was eight, brother Ronnie was six, and sisters Holly and Rebecca were four and three. Dad still worked in Omaha, and the drinking got worse. With an hour’s drive, he could drain a six pack on the way home. Our relationship continued to decline with the drinking. Now I knew that drinking was wrong. I had been noticing Dad drinking something from a bottle in the truck out of the corner of my eye when I rode with him. Once I asked him why he had beer in the back of the truck. He didn’t answer my question, but he made me promise not to tell Mom. Although I’m sure she already knew, Satan twisted my young mind into thinking I had this big, huge, horrible secret that I could never, ever breathe a word about. Out of fear, I avoided talking to my mom.

To add to family stress, I felt a keen rivalry with Ronnie. I felt that he was a threat to me in vying for Dad’s attention and praise. So I got him in trouble as quietly and as often as possible. By the time I was ten or eleven, we had a sad love-hate relationship: one day we could play together and have a grand time, the next we were constantly at each other’s throats like rabid dogs.

Around age eleven, I began struggling with suicidal thoughts. Honestly, it scared me. I’d never felt like that before. I’ve always had a strong will to live, and all of a sudden, I was thinking about killing myself. I didn’t know what was happening to me.

About that same time, Mom somehow discovered Charity tapes. She began listening to them practically all the time. I hated the Godly Home Series. Mom started to spank us, when before she had just yelled or something like that. She quit arguing with Dad all the time, which just made him angrier. He only listened to one tape, and then he didn’t listen to another for a very long time. Mom began covering her head. Mom and Dad decided we were not going to wear pants anymore. (Dad was keeping up the Christian outside, because it was good for him. He worked in a "Christian" mill shop.) That threw a big loop in my life. I was convinced that whoever Brother Denny Kenaston was, he was dead evil, my greatest enemy, and definitely not my "brother". "He"’ made my life positively miserable. I’d always been too peer-dependant, and always wanted to be accepted in the "cool" circles. No one in those circles wanted to be with a weirdo, and so I became a cynical, bitter, proud outcast at a young age. I dreamed about how I would show the world who I really was when I grew up; I was going to be a rock star, a movie star, or a CIA agent. Then, later that same year: “You girls are going to start wearing a covering like your mom’s.”

I was so mad at that Denny Kenaston in Pennsylvania! But when Dad asked us if we had any objections, I said "No." I’d learned years ago that objecting would just make matters worse, so I kept quiet and just rebelled in my heart. I started to express myself in my clothes. We were allowed to wear skirts, so I wore the shortest, most form-fitting skirts and shirts I could get away with. I made the “white thing” look like a pure fashion statement—several girls told me they liked my “hat.” I think it was at this point that I quit trying to make Dad love me as much as it seemed he loved Ronnie, but still remained at odds with both of them.

The Council Bluffs Library had a self-serve check out counter, and I used it to check out many books my parents would most definitely not have approved of. But I had my own list, and never had a late book so Mom would never need to look at that list. I read ghost stories, teen romance novels, murder mysteries, etc., and scores of them, too. I snuck some of Dad’s forbidden war novels, as well as J. R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Ring” series (pure witchcraft, by the way!) This deceit just deepened the chasm between my parents and I and destroyed my conscience. I didn’t care what I read, as long as no one found out. I should have cared—my life was wide open for demonic activity.

I grew up with "Christian" music: Michael W. Smith, Ray Boltz, Sandi Patti, Point of Grace, Sierra, etc. I listened to the radio almost nonstop—it was the only way I could escape from the reality of my life and not think. I could sing to my favorite song and just be happy, and all the stress would go away. When I woke up, I turned it on—a "Christian" radio station, of course—and when I went to bed, I turned it off.

I was afraid of silence, especially at night. All my life, I’ve been tormented with horrific nightmares. Always, I’ve been afraid of the dark. I saw dark, shapeless blotches on my walls out of the corner of my eye, whipping away out of sight whenever I looked directly. I was forever gripped by a sense of evil, gloom, and fear.

I was a mistress of disguise. No one could ever tell if I was upset if I didn’t want them to. I didn’t want anyone to find out just how awful my life was. I thought my friends would desert me if they knew my dad was an alcoholic, that he’d actually left my mom at one point for another woman, and him, the preacher of our little home church! It was enough that I didn’t wear "normal" clothes. They’d managed to look past that and we were all pretty close, but the other stuff in my life? I was scared to death to tell them about that.

So I bottled it all up and shoved the cork in as tight as it would go. I became prone to acid reflux and easily cried or got angry. Usually, I just crawled into my nice, thick shell and didn’t come out until I was either alone or with my girlfriends. But at church I wore the right clothes, wore the headcovering, said “yes, sir” and obeyed, didn’t talk back, went to church every single Sunday unless I was sick, smiled and said, “Oh, I’m doing great!” if anyone asked how I was. I had good grades, made friends easily, and all that. And everyone that I knew was totally fooled. They believed I was a perfectly happy 13-year-old girl with a fantastic life. Or maybe I just deceived myself into thinking they were fooled; I don’t know.

Then Dad started trying to be my friend and Mom tried to be one of my girlfriends. Amanda got really weird on me—she started preaching to me whenever I complained about my life, Ronnie started to cry when before he’d just fought back, and all of that made me feel like a really mean individual. Dad said it was because he’d gotten "saved." He had quit drinking. I knew that, but I didn’t think it would hold out too long. I never once believed a word of what he called his "testimony," that God had taken away his very desire to drink and had given him a love for his family. I still loved him, but I just couldn’t trust him. I didn’t believe him—at all. He had "quit" before and not even a week after the vow, he’d be at it again, and worse than before.

Brother Denny became a bigger threat to life as I knew it—Dad had listened to a tape (wonder of wonders) on family devotions. Dad started holding devotions at night—pure torture for me. I usually just spaced out while looking enthralled, but if anyone had asked me what devotions were about the night before, I would’ve said something like “Umm....” I could hardly wait for bedtime to hurry up and come so he’d shut up. Then just this past year, things got worse in my life. Mom had been trying to get me to change my style of dress for a long time, and had made me several Amish-type cape dresses. And I wore them—outside in the garden.

It’s somewhat blurred in my mind, but one morning, I got mad at Mom. She wanted to talk to me after I’d yelled at her and said my piece, but I said no. I took the stairs two at a time to my room and slammed the door behind me. Turning on a tape and sky-rocketing the volume, I jumped into my bed and steamed.

Lying there, listening to my tape halfheartedly and feeling angry and sorry for myself, I decided I just couldn’t and wouldn’t take it any more. I was going to leave. So I jumped out of bed and hurriedly dressed, brushed my hair back into a ponytail, and threw my headcovering on the floor. Turning up the volume on my stereo even more, I pulled open my door. Stealthily, I opened a window that was missing the screen, and crawled out onto the porch roof. I abandoned the window and ran around the corner of the house. I shimmied down to the edge of the roof, and looked dizzyingly downward. Taking a deep breath, I made the drop. My knees buckled and slammed into my chin, and my glasses fell off, but I didn’t feel a thing. I dashed to the woodpile, hoping no one would look out the living room window and see me, and I took off behind the barn and into a cornfield.

I ran crying, terrified of what I was doing, wanting to go back but seemingly unable to. I was being driven by a force stronger than my own, with the thought pulsing in my head, coming out in a frenzied jumble in my own voice, repeating over and over “You’ve got to go, you’ve got to get away, run, run, run!” I was running like that until I came to a dirt road that lies about a quarter mile from our driveway. I climbed the fence and jumped down, sliding a bit in the mud, and started walking.

I walked for a half hour on the gravel, a little more calm and in control—yet not in control. I ducked into the ditch whenever I heard a vehicle approaching. I heard someone call my name once, but I pushed relentlessly on.

After a while, I reached the highway. I decided to go towards Oakland, rather than back to Omaha, because I knew Dad would be on his way home if Mom had called him at work—which I was sure she had. I was walking for about two hours on that highway. Once I thought about calling home and telling them not to even dare looking for me, because I didn’t want to come home, but I was too scared to stop at a stranger’s house to use the phone. And by the time Dad and Ronnie found me, I did want to go home.

That was just in the spring. By the middle of July, I was more than ready to leave again. After I’d run away once, Mom and Dad took away almost all of my privileges: telephone, unless someone called me, and then only for five minutes, computer time, time alone with my friends, time in my room, and Dad confiscated my stereo. I was so mad; not only at myself for saying I’d wanted to come home, but at my parents for taking my "life" away from me. In pure rebellion, I decided that if Christian music wasn’t good enough for them I’d listen to the other stuff. So I used my radio alarm clock, and tuned in to secular rock, punk, pop, and rap music. To my disillusioned mind, it served them right. I was only proving that we lived in America and I could do what I wanted.

One day, Mom and I had a big fight over what I was wearing that day. It was very worldly for being a skirt—I could’ve walked into the mall or a public school and looked right at home. That was exactly the look I wanted, and exactly what Mom and Dad didn’t want—which was why I did want it. When Dad got home, Mom told him about it. He sat me down and said I needed to take a big black trash bag and put all my separates into it and then take it out to the truck to be disposed of. I almost cried, but immediately set my jaw and marched to get the bag. I marched up the steps, threw open my top drawer, and commenced to yank out all the sweaters, turtlenecks, T-shirts, and button-downs and throw them on the floor with reckless abandonment. Shoving those in the bag, I marched it downstairs, out to the truck, came back in, grabbed another sack, and repeated the process with the other drawers and then the closet. When I finally went to bed that night, I realized something in my room was missing. It took just a second to figure it out—Dad had taken all my CDs and tapes; somewhere near twenty-five or thirty of them—and my alarm clock. I asked loudly where my music was. Dad very calmly told me that he had taken them. I immediately suspected another of Brother Denny’s tapes. So it was Dad’s and Denny’s fault that all I had to listen to were the horrid congregational singing tapes. I hated them with a passion.

I was seriously making plans to run away again. My nightmares were regularly waking me up at night, and I decided I would just keep a pair of leggings and a turtleneck ready to go, and if Mom and Dad were sleeping and it was early enough in the night to get a good head start, I’d just slip outside, change, and disappear. A greater Head had a better idea.

In October, Amanda got an acceptance letter to the Ephrata Bible School. My reaction was “Oh, great. Bible School. Now her bedtime sermons will be more enriched.” I absolutely did NOT want to go. Not only was it PENNSYLVANIA, but it was a 30-hour drive and we’d be taking two other youth—both boys. It was Bible School, and on top of all that, Dad expected me to sit in on most of the sermons. I looked at it as a horrible waste of a week. Besides that, I’d heard stories about this Bible School and what happened to people who went there. I didn’t want to get “saved.” I was just fine. I didn’t want to change. So for the whole month I tried to weasel my way out of it. Friends (mine) offered for me to stay with them. Dad only considered one offer—two sisters had asked if I could stay with their family. They were my age and Dad knew them and their parents pretty well—a good, Christian family, we both knew. I thought I had a chance at skipping out, but their father decided it would be better for me to spend the time with my family. I almost cried.

So I didn’t have a choice.

I decided that I was going to be a total stick in the mud. I was going to scowl and crab the entire drive and just see how Dad took that. I was going to absolutely abhor our host family, I was NOT going to make any friends at the Bible School, I was not going to take notes—just doodle in my notebook and space out, and I would NOT listen to the messages at all.

I kept vow #1 easily. How hard is it to have an awful time with 30 hours in the car? I just jammed my headphones on and ignored everyone the best I could. Vow #2 was quickly thrown out the window. Our host family had an adorable baby, and two daughters close to my age that followed me around everywhere. But I decided that my host family didn’t matter. I just wouldn’t make any friends, take notes, or pay attention. So Monday night, Dad said we had to all come to the meeting. When we got there, Amanda drug me around, introducing me to all these girls I’d never seen before in my entire life. They were all pretty sweet, and I immediately liked them. But I promised myself that I wouldn’t make any more friends, take notes, or listen to the sermon. I didn’t make any more friends, or take notes, but the last one?

David Cooper was speaking. He’s a very passionate, descriptive, expressive speaker. The title of his message was, “To See the Living God.” His love and passion for God just radiated through his words. One of the first things he said captured my heart and pricked my benumbed conscience.

“I want to thank all of you visitors, thank you for coming. Thank all of you for caring enough about God to come and spend a week and seek God.” I felt like the lowest worm on earth. “Some of you are struggling with the world and the flesh. My prayer for you is that God would grant you a victory over the world and the flesh. Some of you are bound by the devil”—I grasped my rebellious spirit in desperation and thought to myself, some of us are both—”And my prayer for you is that you would be delivered in the name of Jesus. Some of you are unbelieving”—and some of us are all three—and defiled just like 1 Corinthians says—“And I pray that the mercy of God would be with you tonight; I pray the mercy of the living God would rest on you tonight. If you are unbelieving and defiled here, God be merciful to you.” I was momentarily floored, but shrugged it off as he spoke again. “And then there are some of you that are defiant,”—and some of us are all four— “some of you are actually in defiance against the living God. And my prayer for you is that God would open up your eyes, and your ears, that you may become wise, and kiss the Son.”

I was shocked, positively shaken. How could he? Why would he feel so much for someone who had turned their back, made their choice, and burned their bridges behind them? I melted just a little. I couldn’t help myself—I soaked in every word he said like the thirsty earth. In spite of everything, my wounded heart was sliding out of the protective shell I’d created.

Near the end of his message, he spoke about the conscience being like a cake pan. He said we are like the one washing the pan. A good girl will scrub until she thinks it’s clean, and then hold it up to her mother’s inspection, and if Mamma thinks it needs to be scrubbed more, she willingly scrubs some more. He then said that a bad girl will scrub a little bit until she thinks it’s good enough, and then shove it in the back of the cupboard, hoping no one asks to see her work. I was really wishing he had used a boy.

“Are you afraid tonight to hold up your life like that? Can you open up your heart to God right now? When your pan is in the cupboard, you know it. Are you holding your heart up to the light, to the eyes of the all-seeing God? Can you say honestly to God, ‘Lord, is there anything in my life that I’m saying "no" to, that I’m hiding from you?’ You know it if you are.”

I was smitten in my hard, rebellious heart. My seared, blackened conscience came up into the light that night. I knew I hadn’t even tried to scrub, I hadn’t even half-heartedly wiped. I was scared, desperate; yet still holding back. How I hoped there wouldn’t be an altar call! I just knew I could hold out longer than Monday night, after everything! All these thoughts were churning in my mind when he said, “Is there someone in this room who is ashamed to do business with God? Are you ashamed to do business with God? When you think of coming up here, and confessing that you are a needy soul, does that cause you shame? In light of who God is, in light of the living God, who longs for you, and wants to make you clean, don’t be ashamed.”

“I love you all. I pray that God will open your hearts; open your hearts to everything.” I wished with everything within me that David Cooper would stop praying! I didn’t want to go up and admit defeat. I was too proud, too stubborn. I made it through three verses of “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling.”

“Can you hear an earnest, tender call?”—Hear it? I could feel it! My heart was beating twice its normal rate, and that down in my stomach. I felt positively ill; sick in my very soul. “If you’re sitting in your seat—and I know some of you are—you are sitting in your seat saying, ‘I just can’t do that,’ may I add to the plea of Jesus Christ: don’t wait, please.”

I remained sitting, as if glued there. I just couldn’t do it. We sang the last verse. He directed those who had responded to the prayer rooms, and gave one last invitation. “If you are sitting in your seat, and you know you have business to do with God, I encourage you to get up, and to go to the back rooms there, and find help. This week will be all the more blessed for you if you do.” He waited a moment, then he started to say “God bless you counselors,” then stopped. If you listen carefully to the tape, you hear rustling noises. A young girl had gotten up, and was making her way to the front of the auditorium.

I didn’t break through my chains that night. We came out of the prayer rooms, and someone was being sung for. I felt like an alien in a strange land. I wanted that joy so much! The pain was excruciating. We went back to our temporary home that night, and I crawled under the covers and cried out to God to show Himself to me. Praise God, He did! I found my counselors the next afternoon, and we prayed through together. I repented and renounced, forgave and was forgiven. Hallelujah! My heart is still overflowing.

The rest of that week was just incredible. I learned so much! I felt just like the sponge Paul Hershberger used as an example that week, totally submerged in something completely alien to me, and soaking it all in. (I took notes.) I was so dry, I don’t think anything ran off, though I’m still digesting everything. The youth testimonies really blessed me, especially that of a young man named Titus Kauffman. He said that he’d gone to Bible School last year and been converted. He’d been in bondage to all the types of music like I was. The end of Bible School had come, and he’d gone home. He said that he went up to his room and got all of his music and trashed it, and smashed his stereo in. He knew that if he had a radio in his room, he’d eventually break, and fall back into that sin. I knew I had some music—stuff I’d hidden from Dad—that absolutely had to go the way of Titus Kauffman’s.

When we got home, the parents of the boys that had ridden with us were there, as well as an unsaved friend of mine and her godly parents from church. I went up to my room and got the music out of my closet, but on the way out, my big bookcase caught my newly cleared eyes. They had all kinds of abominable books on them—I think Dad had been afraid to confront my books and I. But I knew right then, that they were just as bad as rock music. So I set the CDs and tapes down, went out to the porch, and grabbed a box. It took two—two good-sized boxes to fit all of that stuff in—and I actually went back up to my closet and carried out some clothes that I’d also hidden. We had a glorious singing around a big bonfire that night.

Every day, I’m more blessed by the change God has wrought in me. He has turned my heart toward home. Daddy and I can talk together (we love to talk together,) and I’m not crying, yelling, or totally ignoring him. There’s been reconciliation between my brother and I. We are able to tell each other, “I love you.” Just a short while ago, we were up for an extra hour talking together! Amanda and I can talk together about the more important things in life. God has given me a love for His Word, and He’s teaching me to pray. I no longer want to be accepted into those circles of lost youth, but I long for true friends, sisters and brothers in Christ. By God’s grace, I am going to be a keeper at home! Mom has been teaching me to sew, and I am enjoying it immensely. I get great joy from singing with the congregational singing tapes. I have had only one nightmare since that week, and it was because I had let a book cloud my heaven. I repented of that, burned the book, and have since slept soundly in Jesus’ arms!

My prayer, as I’ve been writing this, has been that if there is anyone reading this who has not found peace, who feels that there is no hope for them, that they would be given hope through my own seemingly hopeless situation. I pray that the way becomes clear to clouded eyes. The only way to peace is death to sin and self, and life only in Christ Jesus!

“Oh, come to the Light, ‘tis shining for thee!”