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ife is a journey, that we are all living. Daily there are roads to take and plot twists to our life story that we didn’t see coming. Decisions to be made, choices by those around us that influence our life story. Some positive, some negative, but always interesting. We make our own plans, then suddenly life happens, and we find ourselves in a place we never mapped out. Every day we come up to crossroads and must decide which way to go, or what to do. If we delay our choices, life will decide for us. I have had twists and turns in my life. The first one would come when I was three weeks old. I was a newborn, a preemie, weighing four pounds. So I remained at the hospital until I could gain weight. The very day that I was to come home to the family, which should have been a celebration. A twist in life happened, that I had no choice about. My father, who had served in the Army, during the Korean War and WW2, was having mental health issues. He never got the help he needed. So he made the choice to commit suicide, on the day that I was to come home from the hospital! Instantly, my new life changed and the path of life went in a different direction. I would grow up fatherless, never knowing my father or the things that a father is supposed to teach his daughter. Of course, this affected my mother severely, now a young widow, who would have to raise my sister and I alone. This was not a path I would have selected for myself. Yet it was a road I had to learn to navigate. That one act my father did, would cause me to struggle with self-esteem, confidence, and security for most of my life. When I was sixteen years old, I came to an intersection of life, where I knew something was missing. My father had left a hole in my life that I didn’t know how to heal. One of our neighbor’s, a woman named Debi, had such
waiting for me. Debi also shared with me her strong faith in Christ and how much she loved Him and how He had changed her life. I started to feel a stirring in my heart that only Christ could handle. On a hot summer day in August, when I was sixteen years old, after a visit with Debi and her so sweetly sharing her faith. I made the choice to give my life to Christ. A twist in life, that I didn’t know I needed, until I did. My faith has changed my life by giving me the confidence, security and self esteem that I lacked. That one decision changed my eternal destination and gave my life purpose here and now. When I was twenty-three, and engaged to be married, I experienced a major plot twist in my life. A turn I never saw coming, while planning to get married and start a new life as a wife. Sometimes life hits hard, so while looking forward to getting married and eventually having children, I was diagnosed with a rare cancer. This put me on a path in life I didn’t expect nor did I want it. But the word cancer, will make you pay attention to what is important in life really quick. I spent about seven months seeking the help I needed. Many choices to make and medical advice to follow and decisions to choose not always knowing which choice was the best one. One choice I made that I didn’t know was wrong at the time, was to choose to go to a Planned Parenthood clinic in our neighborhood, because it was free and they were suppose to provide good medical care for women. I was wrong. They delayed my care by having three separate exams at their clinic from March to October with waiting for the lab results. That path I went down seeking their help, hindered getting to the hospital and seeing the experts who could give me the accurate and prompt medical attention I seriously needed.
concern and compassion for me that she would always have a kind word or a cold glass of sweet tea and good conversation
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