When I was small, I think maybe 3 or 4 my dad had a stroke. He was 48 when I was born, retired from the Air Force and he and my mom had two teen boys and then SURPRISE—baby girl. In his early 50s he had a stroke and was advised by the doctors to resign. We were poor from then on—I mean poor. Life got harder and harder for my dad and he turned more and more to alcohol for comfort.
We stopped going to church then too but I still loved God and prayed. I remember being very young and asking my mom whom I would marry. She said she didn’t know but God did so I prayed and asked him and he told me I would marry a man from far away.
Life got harder at home and my parents got louder and sometimes more violent. I remember running out of the house one day and hiding in the backyard. It occurred to me that I could sneak one of my dad’s beers and then maybe I wouldn’t care about anything anymore either but suddenly God spoke to my heart that He had some great plans for me if I would just hold on. And He began to tell me a love story…mine. He told me things about my future husband. He would be an artist. He would be troubled and would walk away from all that to be with me.
By age 17 I decided all that was just my imagination. I stopped praying for my dad to get better and I decided to find love for myself. So I dated a guy for about a month…the wrong guy. In thirty days I had a broken heart and a new resolve. I told God I would stop looking for love, and that I would devote myself to Him and that’s what I did. I was in church. I was reading my Bible and praying like never before, coming to love my Jesus. Then without looking I met a guy.
He was from the country of Laos. We were supposed to go out one night but his parents wouldn’t let him so he snuck away and brought me something. It was a picture he had drawn of an Asian guy holding a blond girl and they held a rose. So this guy was an artist. It wasn’t until much later he told me he had been in a gang and had gotten in trouble…big trouble. He said he was in a store one day, about to take something and it occurred to him that if I knew he did stuff like that, I’d have nothing to do with him. So he stopped and decided to start going to church with me and came to love my God too. And did I mention that he had a picture hanging in his room he drew before he met me and it looked just like me???? Cool huh?
So that’s my love story and how two princes came to rescue me. Only one could save me, but the other is so much like my savior and my savior/prince sent him and rescued him too. And it’s from this place I write my stories. That’s why I don’t just write about falling in love with a plain old human. And why stories have a sense of rescue and meant-to-be. That’s all I know.
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