“‘Come now, let’s settle this,’ says the LORD. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow’” (Isaiah 1:18, NLT).
When I was a sophomore in high school, I was forbidden to ride on a motorcycle. My friend, Kent, got a motorcycle. Kent always wanted me to go for a ride with him on his motorcycle. Without my parents’ knowledge, we took a trip to Kalispell on his motorcycle to visit one of our friends from middle school. I trusted Kent’s driving after that trip—apparently more than I trusted my parents’ (especially my dad’s) advice.
My dad was and is a very quiet man. I would have to say he just may be the quiet man. After all, he lived with his wife and three daughters. We probably talked more than he ever realized was humanly possible, especially after being raised with all brothers. He is patient, generous, and gentle. When I was a kid, he took me fishing every Saturday morning the fishing pond was open. I really loved watching for the bobber to go up and down—my signal that I’d caught one. I loved that time with him. He also took me hunting one time. My feet became so frozen that he put them inside his shirt, directly on his belly, to get them warm. We also hand-delivered his insurance calendars together on Christmas Eve day—without fail—for several years. I remember sitting together in the old suburban one particularly snowy Christmas Eve. I knew we were late getting home for the evening’s festivities, but I wanted those moments with the giant snowflakes falling to last with him.
It was hard to disappoint my dad. It was also hard to disappoint my mom. As my years in high school advanced, though, it seemed like I was becoming a master at it. My mom was sweet and quirky. All my high school friends liked my mom. We’d often come up to my house on the hill just to hang out with my mom. She’d tell funny stories and listen to ours. Then we’d gossip about high school stuff, and she’d fill us in on the daily soap opera scandals. Our house was cozy, cluttered, and welcoming. My mom contributed heavily to the welcoming part. I often found myself—even in high school—coming home and sitting on my mom’s lap to chat. She handled me with a great deal of patience. My sisters were another story, though.
Being twelve and fifteen years older than your baby sister must give a person a certain feeling of latitude. In fact, now that I am an adult, I realize that with age comes life skills and knowledge that I didn’t have as a teenager. As a teenager, I often felt that I had not one, but three mothers. It wasn’t wrong, just different. One sister had a lot of patience with me, and the other… not so much. I think they both felt I had too many privileges, and I took advantage of those privileges. It was probably (most likely) true.
* * *
I was given a monthly allowance. I drove a new car. I had a credit card for gas. I had my own cute little pink bathroom and a walk-in closet. What more could a girl ask for? Oh, no curfew—just the request to let my parents know where I was. I did hold up that end of the bargain. I dated whomever I wanted and wore pretty nice clothes. I had advanced out of the homemade category and actually made it on the fashion board at a local department store.
The fashion board not only gave me a discount on expensive labels, but also gave me a certain amount of high school prestige. The members of the teen fashion board were trained how to model, still-model, and pose, and we were given lessons on poise and manners. I remember having to put my poise into effect while still-modeling one Saturday afternoon in the mall.
I was part of a winter ski apparel scene. They had gone all-out and had snowmobiles and skis brought in. We wore ski attire, cool hats, gloves, and goggles, but we also had our faces painted with neon (it was the ‘80s!) sunblock. I sat on the snowmobile for my still-modeling part—perfectly posed and still. A little boy climbed up on the snowmobile and proceeded to stick his finger up my nose. With as much of a poised sixteen-year-old manner as I could muster, I gently and slowly turned my head to look at him. Instead of calmly alerting him to the fact that I was real, I in fact totally freaked him out and made him cry. His parents thought I was horrible, but at least his finger was out of my nose.
I was on the high school drill team, too. The drill team was at one time—when my sisters were in high school—quite an honor to be involved in. When I got to high school after years of looking forward to wearing those glittery, sequined uniforms and go-go boots, the drill team had started to lose its flavor, though. It wasn’t the prestigious group it once had been, and the strict requirements were starting to loosen a bit. Flying splits still had to be performed at try-outs, but gone were the days of hair being pulled back into tidy little buns. We performed at football games and in parades.
I remember when the zipper on one of my go-go boots broke during a football game. At one point, when kicking, my boot sailed off into the stands. I had two flags to take care of, though, and the show had to go on. I just kept marching with only one boot on. It wasn’t long after that event that my drill team days ended. I simply became too cool to be part of that dying entity.
* * *
Inside, I struggled with what I thought was normal teenage stuff. I wanted to be a good girl. I believed in God, but it seemed more and more like God was like a mystical version of Santa Claus. I felt like he was only there when I really, really needed Him. And always I felt him threatening to leave me if I didn’t behave. I had been told to follow many rules. I felt I was a rule-breaker by nature, and I believed my actions separated me from God on a daily basis. Feeling hopelessly defeated on the inside, I chose to tackle life on the outside in dangerous and daring ways.
At sixteen, I found myself on the back of Kent’s motorcycle again, but this time, he was driving way too fast, and I realized way too late that he’d had too much to drink. His driving wasn’t at all typical, and I just knew we were headed for trouble. We went off the road driving somewhere between 60 and 70 mph. Wearing Kent’s leather jacket, helmet, and my own Lawman jeans, I flew through the air, landing bottom-first. I cracked one vertebra and compressed another. The pain in my back was comparable to having a steel rod placed midway through your spine without pain medication. However, when the ambulance arrived, my only concern was that my dad would find out that I’d been on a motorcycle. I didn’t want to once again be the source of his disappointment. Even though he had never said I was, I had convinced myself that I was. I was a rule-breaker, and this proved once again how truly disappointing I could be.
As the paramedics strapped my head to the backboard, I begged them not to tell my parents. They politely ignored me. Coupled with that, I learned that the ER staff was actually considering cutting of my precious Lawman jeans! That nearly sent me over the edge—sadly, almost as much as the pain in my lower back. I hate to admit the shallow state of my mind, but it was true. I valued things as much as or more than the terrible wreck my body was in.
My parents arrived. Their general state was one of calm alarm. I believe they were disappointed and concerned. In the middle of all the pain I was in, I forgot to be afraid of getting into trouble. My parents never said they were disappointed—just relieved that it hadn’t been worse. More than anything, they looked sad. They must have decided I had enough natural consequences that I didn’t need a punishment, because I don’t recall being in trouble. Eventually—corset, cast, and all—I was sent home for a six-week rest. This actually proved to be a rather surprising adventure.
On the evening of the accident, I was supposed to have a date later that night with a guy I had recently met at a wedding reception—a really nice guy. It turns out that having a broken back can do wonders for your dating life! However, all dates were off for a while except with an old family friend who was also a pastor. This pastor-friend came bearing the gift: War and Peace. Really—a sixteen-year-old who hangs on Madonna’s recent quotes in Rolling Stone and sports a David Lee Roth poster in her bedroom closet is going to curl up with a thousand-page book called War and Peace? Maybe—but not me. I was barely coherent when he asked, “If you had died last night, would you have gone to heaven?” Absolutely not! my mind retaliated, but my mouth said, “Yes.” He patted me on the shoulder and left me feeling adrift once again.
The nice guy showed up on my doorstep sporting a college letterman’s jacket in the middle of my recovery. I had called him a few days after that first missed date to explain. My parents didn’t even flinch as he walked in, but my mom predicted later that this would be the man I’d someday marry; she said she knew it the moment he walked in. The nice guy’s name was Russ. I tried to feel and look as attractive as possible in my corset, back brace, and clumsy white wrist cast while sitting in my pajamas in my parents’ bed, worried that I hadn’t brushed my teeth and annoyed that my parents kept chiming in on our conversation from their recliners in the room next door. This was our first date. Russ just sat and visited with me and flashed his cute smile. It turns out that he would be the guy I married, but that story is for later. We couldn’t car date, but he came to visit often, and eventually my parents arrived at the notion that my homebound era was at an end. Dating resumed.
Russ and I went on all kinds of good, clean, fun dates. We met at the top of the hill and watched the fair fireworks together. We talked for hours after meeting on a nearby golf course at night to look out over the city lights. We watched movies. I really enjoyed his company. We were very attracted to each other, but Russ was uncomfortable with our age difference. He was in college, and I was still in high school. He was surprised at the fact that I had no curfew and stated as much. Eventually, as the summer wore on, Russ called things off. He felt it was wrong for us to date and told me to wait until I was in college. At the time we met, I was sixteen, and he was twenty. In my mind, it was just frustrating. I liked him so much that I felt it was possible and even right for us to date. He was adamant, showing the vast difference in our maturity levels.
Russ and I kept in touch over the next few months and then year. We remained good friends—always with an element of guarded attraction. Talking with Russ was like picking up with an old friend right where we had left off. I had always wanted an older brother, like my friend Janet had. I had always wanted someone to speak wisdom into my heart about life and guys. Russ served as a quasi-mentor/brother. I often took him store-bought cookies and sometimes groceries, as I was shocked at the lack of sustenance in his kitchen—nothing or just cans of soup! On these visits, I’d be reminded to enjoy my friends in high school and wait until college to date. Our conversations usually worked their way around to warning me about the guy I was dating and telling me to get rid of whoever it was. I did not listen.
I dated a lot: jocks, druggies, bad boys, good boys… no one stuck. As I got older, I met older guys. I wound up running into Russ at a party where I was to meet another guy—a college guy. It was awkward. Russ left. I continued seeing this guy and hanging out at his house, where we’d often watch movies or have parties with his roommates. I brought my friends, too. There was always beer, drinking, and a lot of girls filtering through. I don’t know why that didn’t send up a red flag—or maybe it did, but unfortunately it was more important to feel included and popular. College Guy was kind of aloof, but I thought he was really cute, smart, and athletic. He was also very interested in music, which was about all we really had in common. Once when we were hanging out at his place, the previous boyfriend who had helped me share my story about my cousin showed up. He wasn’t happy to see me hanging out there. I should have listened, but I just kept pursuing.
One night, there was a huge party at College Guy’s house. I got really tired and laid down in his bed, away from all the noise. I fell sound asleep. When I awoke, I discovered him having sex with me. Almost instantly, my mind concluded that my body and my brain—who I was essentially—were really only good for one thing. There was a physical part of me that felt dirty. It was so real that I felt I could have carved it out. I felt that I had somehow invited this, as I had never discouraged it. I had never said, “Oh, by the way, when I am sleeping and I am unaware of what’s going on, you cannot have sex with me.” I had not set many boundaries, if any. I assumed the men and women around me would be decent and respectable and follow the rules. Why I would assume that when I broke the rules continually myself, I do not know, but I hoped for it. I longed for it. I longed to be protected—cherished. I longed for the ultimate love affair—to feel clean and whole and be unafraid. Perhaps I was my own worst enemy.
* * *
Mean girls can make life miserable. I was plagued by a tribe of them after my involvement with College Guy. It was mainly due to the fact that he had begun dating me and called off his involvement with one girl in particular—the typical high-school-girl-scorned scenario. Although she was still in high school, she was older than me. It became a barely tolerable daily drama that persisted until a few months after I stopped going to his house, which was after that night. The damage had been done, though, and my reputation had been tainted—not that I had encouraged a great reputation. After this change in the social venue in high school, I did not make it on the varsity cheerleading squad. All my friends did. I was cast out of that inner circle. I was alone, and for the first time since middle school, unpopular.
I spent hours on my bathroom floor, staring at my wrists, wondering if I was brave enough to slit just one. I wasn’t. I wondered about the devastation it would cause my family. I felt selfish, and I was in that regard. I tried to talk things through with my mom or sisters. I didn’t feel like I had anyone to turn to. It was just too embarrassing to share the extent of what I viewed as my own failure. I felt I’d be judged as I had been by others—by my family. After all, my antics—parties, rude comments, failures to perform appropriately—were a continual source of jokes at family functions. Even though their remarks may not have been intentionally harmful, they drove a wedge between me and the rest of the family. On top of that, I keenly defined myself as the black sheep—the Prodigal Son. I had a visual image in my head of who I was and who my family was. No one else had apparently made the same mistakes I was prone to making. No one drank, no one had premarital sex, and no one rode motorcycles or even got parking tickets! I, on the other hand, had a particular gift for trouble. My family seemed to make light of it, teasing me for my wayward ways and bad hairdos. Yes, bad (‘80s) hair had carried over into another stage of my life. Unbeknownst to my family, I was boiling over on the inside. I may have looked the part of the belligerent, could-care-less teenager, but on the inside, I did care. I cared a lot. I wanted to be just as protected, loved, and valuable as my sisters apparently had been. But I didn’t feel I would ever measure up.
Determined to make the best of it, I turned to a new girlfriend who walked a bit on the wild side and a new high school—which led, unfortunately, to more drama. There were two high schools in my town. Although my parents wouldn’t let me attend the other high school, I began dating a guy and developing other relationships with kids from the other school. I stayed steady with my new friends and new boyfriend throughout my senior year—only to find out the next summer that my boyfriend had been cheating on me for most of our relationship. After that betrayal, I decided there weren’t a lot of guys—or people, really—who were trustworthy. I continued searching nevertheless. I closed a part of my heart.
I made another new friend—a girl who was also from the other high school. She went to a Catholic church. I started attending with her, enjoying the comfort in the strange rituals. I somehow felt better about myself after attending a service. Still, I knew I didn’t really fit in and felt a bit like an intruder—an outcast. When I was supposed to say things like, “Peace be with you,” I would say, “Amen.” I wondered when I would ever fit in, feel clean, or be wanted for who I was.
Heavenly Father,
Make a way for her. Make her path straight. Strengthen her, as her journey will be long.
Set the wolf free from his guilt and shame, O Lord. Show him your light, and set him free.
Strengthen the one you see will be hers. Amen.
Comfort
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, NIV).
Discussion Questions
1. What does the main character truly want? Is it even possible for her? Take a look at what the Bible says (2 Corinthians 5:17-19, Philippians 4:4-8, Hebrews10:19-23, Romans 8:26-27, Matthew 10:29-31, Romans 8:37-39). Can you name some things you want?
3. Who protected you in your upbringing? Who protects you now?
4. Why do some women demand justice while others remain silent regarding rape or trauma such as this?
5. Have you or anyone you have known experienced this kind of trauma? How did that person cope? How did it work out for him or her?
6. Can you give your feelings about your experiences to God and let Him take care of them? Can you pour out your feelings to God? Do you feel He listens/cares?