God As My Savior

During the four years of isolation, I can honestly say that I felt God's presence just as much as when I watched my mother slowly die for two months in the hospital.

I barely had anyone to turn to then ~ hiding the abuse from most of my immediate family ~ and finding every woman friend ~ except one who I am still friends with today ~ my friend Delia ~ slowly or quickly drift away when my situation grew worse.

There were times when I wish I could have called a relative to let me come over to stay the night, but the one time I felt I could pack up Lil' Red safely and get away, the relative turned me down for reasons I cannot remember.  Maybe he did not understand the gravity of the situation.  I do not really know.

My prison consisted of a home that was once very welcoming to me ~ with knotty pine walls and two woodstoves ~ a place that quickly became the most frightening place on earth to me.  It took over a year for him to convince me to move in with him.  I think I only did to keep the peace.  From the first month on, a repeating argument was his wanting me to live with him.  I think I still was holding on to my ideals of wanting to be married to the man I lived with or something along that line ~ but also hearing my domestic violence advocate telling me that once I moved in with him it would be very hard to leave.  She was right.

And so I left the tiny little studio I had found near the university in my first attempt to break free from him.  My dad had helped me move out the Ben Lomond apartment only 9 months earlier.  And I never told poor Dad that I had moved away.  Dad never visited me there, so I just had my mail forwarded and started up a voicemail service with a Santa Cruz number, so Dad would think I still lived there.  I had already changed my number twice in those 9 months in my futile attempt to end things completely with my abuser.

Life in Felton was a series of calls to the hotline while he was out in the driveway working on motorcycles.  My most vivid memory is looking out the window from the outside door to the master bedroom watching him work while I cried to the advocate on the other line ~ making sure he would not catch me seeking help.

Two years later, it was the same corner of my sick world that ended in the worse abuse ever ~ when I finally called 911 ~ but never managed to get to a hospital after having my head bashed into the wall three times.  The police called it a closed head injury.  No broken skin ~ no blood.  But pain that lasted for three days.  And a neck that could not turn for three days either.

I talked to God during these horrific times.  I would always say "God Help Me!"  He really was the only one who witnessed the abuse 24-7.  He listened to my tears.  My fears.  My hopes.  My dreams for a better day.  He was with me when my woman friends ~ from my domestic violence group or his A.A. program ~ turned their backs on me one by one.  I had not met Delia yet.  So before 2004, it was pretty much God and me.  I think back to those days and realize I did not even tell my sister the full story.  I was so isolated ~ tucked away in the Santa Cruz Mountains ~ that if it were not for working for the same university, I barely would have seen my sister.

So God and I spent many hours alone.  I prayed, and I asked for strength.  To get me through another day.  I looked out the window from the room I was mentally locked into from fear ~ saw the sunshine beating down on the pavement as he tinkered with the bikes ~ and asked God to help me leave this prison ~ help me free myself from my captor ~ from the man who really seemed to enjoy hurting me.

I never got mad at God for any of my troubles.  I knew he was with me even in the most desperate of times.  I knew he could not just wave a magic wand and make me wake up from this horrible dream ~ this horrible reality that I had found myself a part of day in and day out ~ no God could not fix my problem ~ but he led me to others who could help ~ and to better friends ~ who understood me and supported me where I was at in my situation.

I got close to God when my mother died and gave me the final gift of telling me who she was already seeing on the other side.  If I had ever doubted that God existed, my faith was sealed when Mama told me she saw Grandma Runyan in the doorway four nights before she died.  Yes, I knew that God was with us then along with her other relatives in Heaven.  And I knew my mother was with me now as I endured the daily torture of being with someone so unpredictable that I never knew what to expect from each minute of the day ~

"God Help Me, God Help Me!" I cried out loud each day.

And he did.

He protected me every minute of every day I spent with that man.

He allowed me to live.

"I will praise you in this storm."