Extraordinary Miracles

Prologue I’m not sure how I got started thinking about this. I had mixed emotions when an Aunt of mine said to me, “RaeLynn, you could write a book. And it would sell!” Thanks, I think. Up until that point, the thought had never crossed my mind. I have had this nagging feeling that what I’ve learned could help someone else. Perhaps sharing my story would be the way to do that. If I could help one person, it would be worth it. I did motivational speaking for kids several years ago. The reason I wanted to do that was to help other kids that were in the same position as my kids were. I couldn’t protect my kids from the negative influences around them so I decided I needed to teach them how to protect themselves. I wrote an introduction, kind of a ‘come see me’ invitation when I was just getting started. I stated ‘by the time I knew I was a victim, I was already a survivor. But it wasn’t so easy for my kids.” And that was the honest to goodness truth. I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea what I had been through. I guess I wasn’t worried about me – I was worried about my kids. And it was my Mother who first saw that there was a problem. My Dad called one day and in passing stated that Mom was crying in church that day. WHY?? No one makes my Mom cry and gets away with it! You can only imagine how I felt when I was informed it was because of me! She could see the difference in me that I didn’t even know was there. You can’t go through what we went through and not be affected by it. Unfortunately, you have to get past it to see it – if that makes any sense. And it was a good day probably not even a year later when Mom was crying in church again. According to my Dad, it was because I was back. She said, “we have our RaeLynn back.” Only a Mother understands those kinds of tears! And perhaps a caring Dad. And do not misunderstand me – I know that what I went through and what my kids went through is nothing compared to what some women and kids go through. Nor do I believe that any amount of abuse is okay. Zero tolerance. Enough said.

One day, several years later, my youngest son, Brady, was home from college. His step-mom informed me he was taking some religion class that compared all of the religions, to determine which one was the true religion. Really? My curiosity was piqued so I asked him about it. The way that he explained it to me was that it was a group of kids that got together to discuss the various religions, focusing on the evolution of man. I thought, okay, let him investigate. I’ve had years of experience of having people around me jamming religion down my throat – it didn’t work for me and I’m not going to do it to someone else. I looked at him for a moment, my baby, 6’ 2”, tall and skinny, smart as a whip and not always as confident as he was standing there in front of me. I had to smile, my first thought, as I looked at him was, ‘boy have we come a long way.’ I remembered sleeping, sitting on the floor with my head on the couch he slept on, a sick little boy. I told him that he and he alone would be enough for me to believe in miracles; to believe in the power of answered prayer; to believe that God never gives us more than we can handle and that everything happens for a reason. And I have had plenty of other influences. I‘ve had several doors slammed in my face, and sometimes that window that was left open was kinda small for me to squeeze through, but I made it.

As I thought about where I want to go, and what I hope to accomplish, the details of my marriage and the abuse against my children were subjects I struggled with whether or not to include. As I read over my notes from when I did the motivational speaking for kids, I was reminded of a story that I included about Chuck Norris. Once when they were shooting ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ on location, Chuck went into a local establishment there. He was just sitting there, minding his own business when one of the locals walked in. After a while, this guy walked up to Chuck and told him he was sitting in his seat, so Chuck got up and moved. Time went on and the guy went up to him a second time and said that this, too was his chair, so Chuck got up and moved a second time. This local guy was talking to some buddies and again, after some time, this guy walked up to Chuck and said “You’re Chuck Norris, aren’t you?” Chuck nods. All this guy could do was shake his head and he said “You could have kicked me from here to Kingdom come, Mr. Norris, why didn’t you?” Chuck just looked at him and asked him “What would that have proved?” So that was when I decided not to include the details. My ex-husband has worked very hard to get to where he is today. What goes around, comes around and I am no longer interested in ‘making him pay’ all these years later. You’ll find out later in the book my exact thoughts on that.

During this journey of writing this book, I met a couple new friends, pretty close to my age, who lived through very abusive childhoods. It started to make me wonder what I was whining about. I guess you could say I had it good, a normal childhood. But did I? Yes, I had it good, but who am I to say my childhood was the normal one? At that point, I started second guessing myself and wondered just exactly what could I possibly have to share that would help people, after meeting these people? My parents have been married for 57 years – they are no longer the rule, but the exception. That is something I will never see! And even though I may have grown up with the Cleavers, we are no longer the rule but the exception. I would like to think that when I reacted to the abuse against my children, I prevented them from being part of the rule and gave them the opportunity to become the exception. That really put things into perspective for me. I don’t need to be ashamed of my sheltered childhood. It is not important to know where I came from to understand how I got here. We all may come from different backgrounds, different roads may have been travelled. What is important to me to share is how I got here. If there is someone out there who doesn’t know how to get here, I can help with that. Sometimes when you experience a miracle, it is very clear and very obvious. Other times, they don’t become clear until much later. I also believe that angels, in form of people, who are placed in our lives, no matter how brief, can alter the course of it.

Finally, for the sake of my children, I believe that there are things that they don’t need to know. We, too, have worked very hard to get to where we are and I want that to be the focus of this book. It will do no good to rehash what we went through. Would it boost sales of the book? Maybe, maybe not, but I think I’ll take that chance. The fact of the matter is the details are really irrelevant. The extent of the abuse can vary, but the road to healing is basically the same. The steps to healing are what’s important here and that is what I would like to concentrate on. My oldest son, Brandon and I have talked and Brady and I will talk if he wants to. And I think I will leave it at that.