Chelsea, and Chosen

July 30th, 2017

My Heavenly Father chose me. Before the creation of the world, He chose me.  He knitted me together in my mothers womb, fearfully and wonderfully made by His, wonderful, works. Chelsea and Chosen. [Psalm 139: 13-14 / Ephesians 1:4]

                                       

When I entered the world, I was birthed from a trauma bearing, drug addicted mother who was only 20 years old. She was in an extremely toxic relationship with my birth father, being emotionally and physically tormented. She never had a mother of her own, and so she always wanted a baby girl. She dreamed of being the mother she never had. She gave birth to one son before me.

November 21, 1991

Back to me. I was her pride, her joy, her second chance, her light. But you see, she had been so burned and bruised, and the joy of me could never be enough to keep her afloat. Through carrying all of her traumas, she kept choosing drugs, and the drugs kept choosing her. Meth was the escape from her pain, and from her past. So there I was in the middle of the disfunction, hurt, helpless, and at times literally starving.

Me. Early 1990’s

But you see, I was about six years old and I unexplainably felt that I had some sort of protection over me. Even though I was being sexually abused by my older brother while my mother suffered in her escape, I felt a sense of safety from an unknown place. My mother had eventually lost, or relinquished custody of my two brothers and I for a time. As crazy as it sounds, at the very early age of six years, there was a day I heard my foster grandmother speak the name of Jesus. I remember a light bulb flicking on in my mind of "Oh. That's who that is."

My mom and I. Halloween early 1990's

Shortly after, I began to feel a sense of shame. I thought about what my brother was doing to me and humiliation took hold of me. I would pick up my favorite fuzzy pink blanket with a picture of Bambi the deer on it, and hide my fragile little body completely underneath it, every time my brother was finished with me. I had made up my mind that God could never see me under there.

During these years, a neighborhood bus picked me up and took me to my very first church. It was there that a Pastor told us kids that "God is with you wherever you go, where ever you are! You can never hide from God!" With all of his good intentions, I pictured my pink blanket and went home with my embarrassment. I was completely shocked, and so, so ashamed that God had been seeing what was happening to me all along. It sent me into deeper secrecy, and I was a little girl who blamed herself for taking part in something that she could not understand. I had learned that God was not for me, and I most certainly was not for God.

When I was seven, almost eight years old, we ended up homeless on the streets of Los Angeles. My mom, my two brothers and I all wrapped up under one blanket on the side of a brick wall to keep warm at night. One evening a set of headlights gleamed so brightly in front of us, and a man stepping out of an SUV offered to get us a motel room.  My mother attempted to lie about why we were outside, as he continued to express his concern for us. She reluctantly accepted the help and he would ask nothing in return. When we eventually left the motel, my mother painfully exclaimed that she could no longer take care of us. I can remember standing on a side walk with her just a few feet in front of me. She was weeping in anguish, screaming at me to walk to school and tell them that she couldn't take care of me anymore. I was crying back, confused, reaching my arm towards her in hopes she would grasp onto it. Such unimaginable heaviness. Eventually she decided to track down my birth father whom I had never really met. He  happened to live in Tennessee.

Leland Elementary School where I attended K-3.

The sidewalk pictured connects a few miles long to 

where my mom said she had to let us go. 

On my eighth birthday my older brother and I were sent out on an airplane to meet the man who would become another abuser in my life, and his wife. The wife and woman we met would become our mother in every way that she could, and we all endured years of cruelty from my dad together. I was verbally labeled an animal, worthless, a nothing. He called it "hard love". I was my dad's literal slave and he even called me "Chelsearella". I filled journals with words in all caps, hardly caring if they fit between the lines. These scattered words were me asking God "Why!" screaming through ink on the pages. I wrote poems about not wanting to live, but being too afraid to die. I would continue to cry out to this God, whom' d I hoped even after all of these years, that He just, might, be listening.

Early 2000's

All the while, I found joy in raising my siblings who came along the way. I tried to keep them safe and found some sort of purpose in the inappropriately aged responsibility. But my imprisonment continued. I would literally beg his wife, my mom, to help us run away, but to no avail. Every night for what seemed like an entire lifetime, I would sit at her bedroom door, waiting for her to come home from work and tell me she was ready to make our great escape. By the time I was a freshman in high school, that day finally came. Three police men were called to our house, and we gathered some of our things. We finally left, and I thought I knew true freedom. I began to let God into my heart, for surely He had heard my cries.

But, to be able to leave there were expectations. We had to come together as a team. I continued to help raise my younger siblings while my mom always worked. I was playing house and there was no room to be a child. I met a boy, and he was the perfect missing piece to this family I was trying to create in my mind. The family I had so much desired and never had. We fell in what we liked to call it as "love," and I had never noticed that the way he would manipulate me looked a lot like this "hard love" my dad had always talked about. Abuse was my comfort by this time. Abuse was my normality. Manipulation and "love" turned into being 15 years old with a baby growing inside of me. Panic sets in. My mom will be so disappointed and she wont want me anymore. She will send me away like my birth mom. This boy will be just like my dad to this child. I wont be enough. I am all alone. I am so scared. I am so, so scared. God?

I was back in California in an office like building, where they had me write down three definitive words; “It’s. My. Choice.” Overwhelming fear with ignorance would completely eclipse the magnitude, and murder in the phrase. I was placed in a space to sit in line with other young girls who silently waited. I was eventually led into what resembled a hospital room, with bare feet and a cold floor. Hands on my stomach, lay back in the stirrups, injection and count backwards from 20. I was woken up to blood and confusion. Pain, and an empty heart. I still felt God, but I still felt so ashamed.

Now back with my birth mom, she says that she's "in a better place" but the bruises from the man she lives with she can only hide for so long. A house full of drugs and disfunction, the man comes at me with his kiss, and his fist. More siblings being born to be concerned and protect. I'm 16 years old in the shower, and I cry back out to God. I plea, I beg. "Get me out of here and I will come back to you!!" They say not to make deals with God. Don't make promises. But the Lord heard my cries and He delivered me. I was on a plane back to Tennessee where a church found me, and I wept and prayed the prayer of salvation to Jesus. I would not fully understand the joy or comprehend the intricacies of this decision for many years.

 

16 years old being baptized at Crossroads Cowboy Church, Fairview TN

It was an encounter with conviction and compassion from God. But I can also remember that this moment did not just come with celebration and Holy Spirit "butterflies" as some people describe.  This moment came with a heavy load of suffering, but with a true Father who did enter my heart. He promised to be there through the emptying of this heavy load and replace it with His endless grace. To bring healing, to forgive me, to give me a newfound strength, to give me a new name, a purpose, and to have a plan for every single piece of adversity that I had endured.

Throughout the years after, I still sought satisfaction and wholeness from the world. Whether it be from having sex before marriage or unhealthy approval from someone that I looked up to, God had so much work in me (and still does). But the point is, he never let me go! That salvation never reversed! I was never separated from His love, and His love and grace is constantly changing me, for the good of me and for the glory of Him! Later on in my adulthood I had the opportunity to be water baptized for the second time, and I will never forget the overwhelming presence of the Lord that day. 

There are no words to describe.

           

I made the decision to be baptized again when I was in my twenties, because I had a greater 

understanding of God, the Gospel, and what Jesus did for me.

The Lord has placed so many people in my path with the same heart aches that I have had. Meeting and encouraging, and ministering to these people brings so much worth to the story of my past. I have regrets from my convictions, but I no longer spend a life full of what if's, carrying shame and desires to change the past. That is through God alone! He showed me true freedom. Not freedom in being exempt from hardship and adversity in life, but freedom in having the most wonderful grace giving love to depend on through each and every trial. Freedom in forgiveness! Freedom in His promises to make each wrong right! Freedom in learning that it is all for His glory. God showed me that what I went through would be used to speak into the hearts of other broken people. To tell them the beautiful name of JESUS, and that He redeems it all!

One of the greatest gifts God has given me through this sanctification process is an advocates heart. Through His Holy Spirit, He has given me a heart of understanding for each person who has caused me harm. He has allowed me to forgive them, and even advocate for them! This is Gods grace! That I can look upon those who have raised their fists and drawn their weapons against my whole life, and say what Joseph said in Genesis 50:20; "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done... the saving of many lives!" I can look them in their eyes, see their brokenness and tell them about the love of Jesus.

We all have that God shaped hole in us that only He can fit into. I am chosen and desperately wanted by a Father who loves without condition, and so are you. I am 26 years old and my birth mom is sober. She has began to ask me questions about Jesus, and she even exclaimed that she "prayed about something today." This is where my hope lies. That the world will come to know my perfect Father Jesus, and have Him as their own. That we would be able to change each other through true Christ love and spread it wide, so that His kingdom come and His will be done.

One of my favorite worship song lyrics to end just this one story of Jesus and me;

"I've been told, to pick up my sword and fight for love.....but little did I know, that love had won for me."

UPDATE:

It's the year 2020, and I am now 29 years old. God has brought revelation and glory through enduring hardships and embracing goodness in the 9 years (and counting) being married to my handsome husband Christopher. I am so in love with Jesus and more desperate than ever to keep pursuing Him and His ways. I have discovered that the Bible is in fact alive and an endless provision from the Lord Himself. I am trying to daily acknowledge that the Holy Spirit dwells and works in, and through me. Don’t let all of the fancy words fool you. I’m such an imperfect mess of a woman, always needing to look toward Christ. I still get emotional when I read that last line of lyric in my testimony. I mean, c'mon! Hallelujah Father God! Oh, and the best for last.... MY BIRTH MOM PRAYED AND LET JESUS INTO HER HEART AND LIFE LAST YEAR!! 🤎

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*I ask for grace in my writings that you may read, kindly remembering that I will be in the midst of my sanctification. I also ask that you always turn to Scripture yourself before taking my words for it.