My family called a one room shack with no indoor plumbing home for many years. We took baths in an above ground pool from K-Mart. I remember getting off the bus in first grade and hearing someone say "I bet you live in a big house back there!" I just smiled, hopped off and began walking down the long tree lined driveway thinking "If she only knew." My father a carpenters foreman received a better job and we left that one room shack and headed to Jackson, Ms. I thought we had moved into a mansion because I had never seen a trailer with stairs leading up to the kitchen. Those stairs in my childish eyes were magical. They lead us to the white sandy beaches of Florida into an elevator that lead us up to the 8th floor of a beach front condo with a swimming pool and balcony. I have come to realize that some people define themselves by collections or educational achievements, but for me it was zip codes and time zones.
My husband Tony and I met in the summer of 1989 in a small Georgia town. I can remember so clearly sitting on my Nanaw's living room floor brushing my hair when in walked the cutest boy I had ever seen. Later that day he decided to act as if his family needed to borrow a stick of butter just so he could talk to me. We went swimming that day and over the course of the summer we walked many miles up and down the dirt roads. I thought something was wrong with me because unlike other boys he did not try and touch me. I shared with him the real reason I was there for the summer was because I had tried to commit suicide and he shared with me the love of Jesus. I look back now and see that God had a plan for us far greater than our thirteen year old minds could imagine.
Seventeen years later God brought us back to that small Georgia town after traveling many miles across the country collecting many zip codes of our own. It was no longer just the two of us though, this time our son Austin was with us and almost a teen himself. I would like to say that we took God along during those years, but we didn't. We left him on that dirt road along with the forgotten conversations of our teenage years. It still amazes me that God brought us back where we started to show us that though we may have left him that he did not leave us.
There is so much more I could tell you about who I am, organizations I am involved in, and where I've been, but I must admit that most of those things are only who I think I am or have been at some point. I do know that I no longer look to stairs as a magical place that brings me up in the world or zip codes to define who I am. I am now a thirty four year old woman who is on a journey to find out who I really am. Deeper understanding of who God is that met me on that dirt road so long ago and then brought me back there again. My heart is open, my eyes wide, and my mind prepared to be stretched beyond imagination. Let the journey begin.....
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