Like I said, youth group just didn’t seem to be the place for me anymore. From outward appearance things seemed about the same. Maybe it was me. Okay it was me. I was getting tired of being ‘one of the kids’, not only treated by the kids that way, but by the leadership. Hardcore Worship had doubled the size of the youth group and all those kids were coming to my house the next night anyway. As excited as I was, hanging out with all the kids in the beginning, the games and preachy sermons were getting old. Real old. I figured if I was just there to be another kid, and to play games, then I would rather be playing Scrabble or Chess, thank you, not these Musical Chair rip offs.

I would sit there trying to focus but couldn’t keep my mind off the laundry piling up and other things at home that just seemed more important at that moment. Deandra and Marine were living with me and I had already been told, in no uncertain terms that NO ONE ELSE was allowed to move into my home. I didn’t think that was any of their business and since it was our house and the church wasn’t giving us any financial remuneration I thought it was a little over the top for them to say anything, but I was tired of making waves. I was getting a reputation for being difficult and it was the first time in my life that anyone had said that about me. I was trying to do some damage control.

At the end of January 1997, I told the youth pastor that I was ‘stepping down’. He took that like he already knew it was coming. Was I that transparent? I told him that I would continue with Hardcore Worship on Saturdays and as usual, he was welcome to come, even though he had already told me a year before that he didn’t ‘feel welcome’. I never figured out how welcome he had wanted me to make him feel in my home. I treated him better than anyone else when he was there, and that is saying a lot, and even gave him a big hug and kiss on the cheek the first and only time he ever came. I told him how glad I was that he had come and hoped he would come more often. If that wasn’t enough, I didn’t know what else to do.

The band was picking up steam. Sometimes the kids missed youth group if they had a gig on Friday night. After a while it became every Friday night and since they were popular kids, their absence was sorely missed.

My husband, the ‘let’s keep the peace’ guy suggested that I go to the local print shop in town and have business cards made up. Neither of us had any idea how much of a stir this would cause. The idea was thrilling to me. Business cards! We’ll be respectable! I wondered about the cost but found out that for a small price I could get 500 really nice looking cards. I did it. I had the name on there with ‘youth-led worship’ printed directly underneath. I was a newbie on the computer and didn’t even have my own e-mail address so I put Juniors in the bottom left hand corner. The only other connection to me that was on the card was my phone number in the bottom right corner. I passed a little pile of cards out to each of the band members and gave some to each of the ‘groupies’ who came along to gigs. Don’t tell them that I called them groupies. I always included myself in that group, but they still got huffy about the term. The cards ended up all over town and beyond.

The youth pastor became aware of the band. It had been going on for a year and a half but now he knew about it because we had real gigs and real business cards. It had not occurred to me to ask him if we could do the band…at first it was just a few kids coming over and jamming in my living room. The first year didn’t even have REAL gigs, just some house parties, so it wasn’t really a big deal.

He approached the sax player. Asked for a meeting. Arrggghh, another meeting! He told the leader of the band and the sax player that he wanted the band to ‘come under the headship of the church”. The sax player, a real quiet guy, similar to my husband, not one to make waves, said, as nicely as he could that the band was not interested. The leader, the one who had been told what to do by his inconsistant parents all his life, and the church through his parents for a couple of years, was not as nice. He said NO, in no uncertain terms. They didn’t tell me about the meeting. Guess they figured that I didn’t need to know anymore than I did. They should have told me. Forewarned is forearmed.

I got a phone call. It was the second time the Senior Pastor had ever called me, the first being the 7:30am call about the boy. He wanted to talk about something unrelated but also brought up the subject of the band. He was being very reasonable, even nice, and I was swiftly letting my guard down. He told me that the church would like the band to ‘come under the headship of the church’. Having no knowledge of the previous meeting, and not having the different doctrine about church structure that I do now, I told him that I thought that might be a good idea. I told him that as far as the gigs were concerned I was sure the kids would appreciate having a ‘reference person’ to contact if a church or coffeehouse owner wanted to check our credentials. I told him that I would talk to the guys about it and get back to him. He said he would be waiting for my answer. He seemed so sweet, so helpful.

I called around. To a man, well, and one woman, I got NO, CHURCH! Even the quietest, most respectful, most peace loving in the group said FORGET IT! Alrighty then, that was okay with me. I didn’t care one way or the other. I didn’t know this was the second time they had asked. While I didn’t like the idea of having to account to the youth pastor for all the comings and goings of the band, I figured having the pastors to turn to for a character reference, for me and for the kids, would be a good thing and I could deal with the rest of it as it came up.

I went to my stationary box and found a little box of Christian note cards I keep on hand. The one I picked had a little dancing bear on the front of it, with a bubble saying, ‘Rejoice in the Lord’. The sight of that card would come to haunt me when, at a later meeting, it fell out of a large file the Pastor was keeping on me. I sent it to the Senior Pastor telling him that I had talked to the boys about the situation and that they were not interested in the headship thing but that I appreciated his willingness to be involved and would like to stay in touch with him about it if that was alright. I told him, that as usual, “ I am neutral on this whole issue”.

The last sentence was my big mistake. That was verbatim what I said. Those are my exact words. That’s what did it. It was all over now. The band wasn’t over, they couldn’t really stop that. That would end on it’s own at the end of the guys senior year. But my ‘position’, my reputation, any hope I had of ever being involved in any ‘formal ministry’ in this church, this town, would be over. Never to return….. all because of that note. The one with the corny dancing bear proclaiming that we should rejoice in the Lord.

The day after he received the note he put the Associate Pastor on the case. He knew that the AP and I had a more personal relationship. Not much, but I had shared with him during some hard times in my family and I knew him the most of anyone else in leadership in the church. He was a very kind, gentle man. When I heard his voice on the phone I was happy. I had no idea what was coming.

“Connie, the Pastors and Elders would like you and your husband to come to the next Elders Meeting on Monday”

RATS! Another STOOPID meeting! I HATE these meetings! When is someone just gonna call me and invite me to dinner….. without any rules or agendas? Say, ‘Gee, Con, you seem to be real influential with all these kids and I’d like to get to know you better. I’d like to ask you about your life, your heart, your dreams.” I’d go for that. I’d listen to theirs too. If that isn’t the way of Christian ministry then I don’t want it. I’ll just take Christ and my common little housewife life, thanks. I know a good deal when I see one.

”A meeting? About what?”

He didn’t want to tell me. I kept pressing it.

“Pastor, pleeease tell me what this is about.”

“We just want to talk to you about some of the ministry that you are involved with outside the church.”

“What ministry? What are you talking about? The youth pastor already knows about the prayer meeting…….ahhhhhhh, (the light bulb went on) are … you … talking … about … the…band?”

“Yes, Connie, the band.”

His quiet voice took on a lower, almost whispering tone. Like he was giving away a secret.

I wasn’t mad about this meeting anymore, I was terrified. I had never been asked to come to an Elders Meeting and the very thought of it pertrified me. Literally made me feel sick. I went to bed. Fear will do that to you. Well, at least to me. Deandra and Marine were living with us. Life was hectic. But I went to bed anyway. I couldn’t handle it. My head was spinning.

It was the Thursday before Good Friday when I got the call, and the meeting wasn’t until Monday. How was I going to get through the next three days? The worry was eating at me. I wasn’t really sick by a doctors standards but I couldn’t deal with the fear. My big fat Bible was laid open on my bed and I spent my time either reading, crying, praying, or trying to sleep so I could forget about it for a while.

All my fears were up in my face. Every single fear I had ever struggled with about myself and my life…. my insignificant, imperfect, meaningless little life.

I had given up trying to please my parents years ago. I loved them, but after I gave my heart to the Lord I knew that I would never be all that they wanted me to be. I focused on pleasing God. The problem, for me any way, was that pleasing God meant pleasing my husband and the church. My husband is pretty easy to please. After all these years in intimate relationship, I had that one down. The church is the ‘family of God’ though, amen? I had translated my desire to please my family to a desire to please the family of God. I admit that even after all those years of walking with the Lord, I equated pleasing God, with pleasing the Pastor. This had never been an issue when I was a little nobody in town, staying home taking care of my husband and kids. This was the biggest issue of my life now.

My quiet husband knew what was happening but didn’t have any suggestions for how to handle it other than go to the meeting and make nice. I knew, I just KNEW, it wasn’t going to be that simple. It was Easter weekend and my husband wanted me to come to church with the family. My eyes were puffy, my fair complexion mottled from crying, and besides I just didn’t feel like it. I could see him pleading with his eyes….so I went. I felt horrible, I looked horrible, even after trying to cover it all up with makeup. The praise music started. That’ll always do it to me anyway. Worshipping God always gets me crying even when things are going good. After the second song I could feel myself crumbling and if I didn’t get out of there I was going to make an absolute fool out of myself. I whispered that I was going home and slipped out the back door.

As I walked across the parking lot I heard a voice call my name. I turned around to see one of the well-known prophetic people in the church coming toward me. He asked me why I was leaving. I said I didn’t feel well. He said,

“It isn’t because they have shut down the microphones for the prophets?” I was considered prophetic so he thought that was my problem. I hadn’t even paid attention to the mics. I said no. I told him I had bigger problems with the church than whether they had turned the microphones down or not.

He said, “You know what your problem is, don’t you?”

I stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn’t believe he said that to me. He didn’t know me at all and didn’t know anything about my situation, unless of course the Lord filled him in.

“What?”

“You are Joseph.”

“What?”

“You are Joseph, and your brothers don’t like your coat”

“What?”

“You are Joseph, and your brothers would rather throw you down the well, than look at your coat.”

“What coat?”

“Your coat of joy. The coat your Father gave you.”

I just stared at him. The Lord was opening my eyes that very minute and I saw something I had not seen before. Something that would change me, and my perception of myself, and my life, and my problems with the church, for the rest of my life. No one can take away from me what God spoke to me that day.

He said, “You are always so worried about the coat everyone else is wearing and thinking that yours isn’t as good. You should stop looking at everyone else’s coat, stop comparing yourself to everyone else, and look at your own coat. You have a coat of joy”

All this from a man who knew nothing else about me than that I came to church every Sunday, was beginning to move in the prophetic, and had a gift with teenagers. He knew nothing of my fears, my inferiority complexes, my fixer personality that wanted everyone to be happy, ‘be all better’ and to love me.

I thanked him and went home. I stood in front of my mirror and just stared at myself. I looked sooo bad. My eyes and face were all puffed out and even the makeup couldn’t hide the circles and weary countenance. I’ve always looked younger than my years, even when I was in high school people told me I looked like I was in fifth grade, but right then I looked so tired, so old. I FELT even older. I felt like I had aged ten years in three days.

The Lord repeated those words to me Himself while I stood staring at myself. You are always so worried about everyone else’s coat. Your brothers want to throw you down the well. You have a coat of joy.

I threw myself on my bed and sobbed. Big, heaving sobs. No one was home and I just let loose. I cried so hard that I broke blood vessels in my face. After a while there were no more tears. I groaned in the Spirit. I felt like my spirit was coming up and out of me somehow. It was Easter Sunday 1997. Tomorrow was the meeting. I wasn’t sure how I would make it through the night, let alone the next day, but suddenly I felt the presence of the Lord in a way that I had not felt it before.

It wasn’t the whoo-hoo, dancing in the aisles, kind of presence. It was a feeling of....sadness....mixed with joy.....pain.....combined with peace....fear....overshadowed by the most love I had ever felt in my whole life.

I don’t know for sure, but I think it was the fellowship of His suffering. Not that I could compare my piddly little fears and tears with what He had gone through for me. I mean, He sweat blood for me. He died the most horrible, drawn out kind of death known to mankind…..for me.

But I knew...somehow...in some part of my spirit that had not been tapped to this point...that I was with Him...in Him...and Him in me...and that I WASN’T just a pawn on a huge chess board. I was His very own, and He was my very own, and that I would never be the same again.

Hardcore Worship continued after Christmas but sometime in January I got frustrated with Friday Night Youth Group. I went one night, did the same old stuff, sat there with the kids, played the games, listened to the youth pastor, but somehow it wasn’t the same.

I knew I was a big part of the group even though the youth pastor had already told me that he wasn’t going to use me to speak to the kids on Friday nights or do anything else that involved leadership. He said I spent enough time with the kids and he wanted other people to have the spotlight. I actually understood that and didn’t mind not having a more active role.

I knew the kids loved me. They thought of me as a cross between the cool mom, spiritual mentor, confidante and, as one person told me, ‘conduit to God’. Of course, only Jesus is the true conduit but sometimes when one is young in the Lord they need someone to show them the way even to Him. That was me. The conduit. I think the class clown was wrapped up in there somewhere. I had never been the class clown. I had always been the quiet good girl, looking out the window, checking out the cardinals and bluejays, when I was in class. I was not, had never been, considered a disturbance in any setting. Well, maybe at the Bible Study but that was not about being funny, that was about having too much to contribute about the Word.

Now I had girls passing me notes, boys kicking me under the seat, whacks on the arm from the kid next to me, sidelong smirks and glances from this one and that one to let me know what they were thinking without saying a word. I’m distractible enough just in my own head. With all this, it was almost impossible. With forty kids in a circle around the pastor as he spoke, standing in the middle, it was hard for him to see everything and I tried, the best I could, to keep the commotion contained. He had never spoken to me about it or gave me any indication he even noticed or cared.

This one night he was doing a sermon on… something… well… I don’t remember. All I do remember is that in the middle of the talk he started using John G. Lake as an example of a man that was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. My spiritual antenna went up. I looked straight at him, locked in on him, so to speak, and started nodding to everything he was saying. My spirit was jumping around inside of me. It was like the precursor to the Rod Parsley days when I would finally get truly free….. and interactive. I could feel myself getting excited about what he was talking about. Really excited. It is what I had wanted someone to do for me when I had given that first sermon at youth group. Someone to get what I was saying and show some excitement about it. I got what he was saying, but it seemed like he didn’t want me to.

I was nodding, saying yeah and amen under my breath, and I could feel my face flushing red as he described miracles that happened in John Lake's ministry.

Suddenly he turns to me and says, “Connie!” He might as well have been a grade school teacher calling me, “Constance!,” for the tone he used.

The room went pin drop quiet. The kids just stared, first at him and then at me, then at him, then at me. I didn’t say a word. I just stared at him with my mouth hanging open.

He said, “if you have something to say, just SAY it, and let’s move on!”

I was totally humiliated. What was he talking about? I was just agreeing with him! I didn’t know what to say,

“I…uh…um…er….I…was….just…agreeing with you.”

He realized in that moment, I think anyway, that he had made a mistake. Misjudged my cues. But it was too late. He kept going, never said anything about it later, and okay, I know I’m overly sensitive already, but…. I felt crushed. Like my spirit had been crushed.

I remember thinking,

“This is how kids feel when they are shamed in front of the class”.

In a sense I didn’t want to forget that feeling so that I would not do it to someone else. The Kirk Cameron saxophone player stared at me and saw my glasses fogging up. I had just begun wearing reading glasses at 43 years old and had never worn them enough to have them fog up. I had to take them off and wipe them. I put them away. I tried to be inconspicuous but I felt like the night had taken a bad turn. At least for me. The kids were looking down at their feet now. The sax player just kept staring at me. I kept my eyes in my lap. I knew he felt bad. I felt bad that he felt bad. I felt bad that they all felt bad for me. What a mess. When it was time to leave he sidled up next to me and asked me if I was alright. I told him I was. He knew though, he knew.

It was around that time that the band started. The sax player, and four other trained musicians in classical and jazz instrumentals got together and formed a group. He had already had another band that played a mixture of music and I was a well-known member of the audience at gigs. I realized early on that I needed to get there at the very beginning of the show because if I came in, even ten minutes after they started, they would suddenly stop playing and loudly introduce me from the mic.

“Entering the room…..” Clapping…..whooping…….

They didn’t do that with other people, why were they picking on me? I knew it was a gesture of familiarity and I should have been honored, I guess, but I never seemed ready for it. Like I said, this pseudo-celebrity thing was definitely NOT for me.

The new band was strictly worship. They asked if they could use the house on Sunday afternoons for practice. They had to be kidding. You want to jam at my house? I’ll make you dinner! Between the five of them they played about ten instruments. Guitar, bass guitar, electric guitar, alto and soprano sax, trombone, trumpet, oboe, drums, keyboard. Okay, that’s nine. There was a tambourine/harmonica player for a while too, who was really good, I LOVED the harmonica, but he left. I found out quick that musicians are temperamental. That’s why bands break up all the time, get back together and break up again.

All of the gigs in the beginning were just what you would call “house parties”. My husbands and my 25 wedding anniversary and Juniors graduation in 1997, other parties where they were invited and just played because the kids were friends. It was fun. It didn’t feel like just one more thing to do for me, it felt easy and free and fun. Yeah, my living room was a mess every Sunday afternoon, but who cared? Isn’t this what abundant life is about? Making a mess in order to make something that is worth something? We had live music in the house, got free demo tapes, and I got to be part of something that I would never have been able to any other way. I was having a blast..

Somewhere along the way the saxophone player dropped the ball. He wasn’t a natural leader anyway and he had just gotten the part of Bernardo in the school version of West Side Story. Keeping the group together was getting to be too much. The trombone/keyboard/acoustic guitar player picked up the leadership and ran with it. He took over. The sax player was still involved but the other guy was the one that did all the planning, calling and music related work. He made me the manager/promoter of the band. However, just as I had had an issue with the term ‘youth leader’, begging off that I was just a mother, I didn’t like being referred to as the manager either. That is pretty much the role I filled although I remember at one gig an old guy coming up to me and asking if I was “the band mom”. Yep, that’s me. I liked that designation much better than manager. It was comfortable and I’m all about those comfort zones.

I am good at talking to people and good at bragging about people. I didn’t know it until after I started, but I was a natural at it. They did all the musical preparations and I got the gigs. And boy, did we have gigs! They played everywhere from the local Open Door Mission and the Urban Center in the city, to every Christian coffee house in the area that I could find. I only had to sell people on the band once. They were so good that after every gig, the owners would be coming to me to rebook them. It was a blast, as much or more fun than Hardcore Worship.

I’ve posted a picture in my gallery, taken outside of the very first church coffee house they played at. They humored me by standing in front of the sign. I wasn’t expecting the church to have a sign and as I drove my blue van into the driveway I went nuts.

“You guys!!, Look, LOOK! There is the name, YOUR name, your band, OUR band!”

I couldn’t contain my blubbering excitement. A few people in town who had heard about the name questioned why they would use the word ‘Utopia’ since it is a secular humanist word, taken from a book about the world coming into a perfect utopian society apart from God. I understood their question and quickly told them that we were seeking the presence of God, the only perfection I know of, through worship and that the band only played worship music. I think they were okay about it after that. The first part of the night went pretty slow and most of the few people there were older, like me. The kids seemed a little skittish and didn’t seem to have the flow going yet.

There were two teenage guys who were there because they were made to come by their foster mother who was part of the church. She was a friendly, good hearted lady but I could tell they didn’t care about that. I’ve been in the same place as her so I was feeling for her. Suddenly the band started playing an original song one of the guys had written. It was called Redemption, about sin, and how God loved them in spite of their sin. It is a powerful song and the kids in youth group loved it. This was a first for these two guys and the combination of the lyrics with the rock beat drew these guys in. I could see it in their faces. They had been smirking, almost downright sneering before, and all of a sudden…..what was it?……oh yeah……conviction…..was coming on them.. Gotta love that Holy Spirit conviction! After the song was over the band played a slow worship song. That hit the spot. I went over to the boys and sat down next to one of them as the band played on.

I said, “Whattaya think of the band?”

One of them turned to me and said, “Well, I liked those last two songs.”

Uh-huh.

I made some more small talk and then I said, “have you guys ever accepted Christ?”

“No.”

“You want to right now?”

“Maybe. I don’t know how.”

Whoooo-hoooo, right up my alley. Let’s GO PRAY!!!!!

We went out on the front steps leading to the sanctuary and I told them what Christ had done for them. They both prayed, right then and there, and committed their lives to the Lord. That was a great night. Even driving home in the blinding fog wasn’t enough to dampen my excitement. This band thing? This was gonna be GREAT!!!

Well, okay, now I have to add that the kid who took over the band, the one that made me the promoter, was the same one whose parents had such an issue with me earlier and had brought the pastor to my house. While they were nice to my face, they never did take a liking to me. I told the boy not to tell me anything they said behind my back anymore, because everytime he did I had to get over it all over again. He still called me frequently but when his parents would harass him about it, instead of just arguing with them, he would e-mail me. E-mail was new to me then, if not to him, and that became the communication of choice whenever the parents felt he was spending too much time on the phone. They knew I was involved with the band but didn’t want to stop it because it was pretty clear that without my vehicle, my gas money, my patience in letting them practice at my house, and me getting the gigs, there might not be a band. They WERE very proud of their son’s incredible, innate musical ability and they knew, deep in their hearts, that he wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for me keeping all the strong personalities together and doing the behind the scenes footwork.

I knew the parents were still in communication with the pastor though and we tried to keep on their good side.

At one point before he graduated from high school, his parents took him aside for a talk. He lived in the next town over, about 5 miles away, but had decided to go to the Bible College in my town and would be living on campus since freshman are required to. My house is approximately two blocks from the school. Walking distance. His parents were concerned about the proximity. They made the comment to him that they did NOT want him coming over to my house all the time, if at all. He was 18 now though and it had been just over two years that he and I had been friends. He was frustrated with being treated like a child and being ordered around. He blew his stack and told them that when he went to college he could do whatever he darn well pleased and they couldn’t stop him.

He was so proud of himself for standing up to them. When he told me what he had said, though, I just shrank inside myself. I knew he shouldn’t have done that. I am not a kid. I am a parent. God has given me an ability to see things through a teenagers eyes. It’s like an anointing. But first I am a parent. Parents DON’T like that. Even if they aren’t controlling like his were.

Suddenly there was another meeting. Man, these meetings are such a pain! Nobody even wants to talk to you, socialize with you, anymore. All they do is have meetings to talk about what they think you are doing wrong. It's enough to make a person very defensive and even a little paranoid. Like getting to know you and finding out what your heart is, is too much work.

This meeting did not involve me coming to it, however, it was still about me. The parents had called the church office, again!, and asked to have the associate pastor come to the house to talk to their son. The conversation, at least as it was relayed to me through the son went something like this,

“We have a problem with your relationship with Conne”

“Why would that be?”

“Well, we don’t think that male/female relationships between youth leaders and kids are good”

“Oh, so you are saying that male Youth Pastors, who are 99% of all youth pastors, shouldn’t be friends with any of the GIRLS in their youth group?”

Okay, this kid could be a little smart-alecky when he wanted to be.

“We didn’t say that. We are concerned specifically about you and Connie. Not about other situations.”

“What are you worried about?”

“That there might be some…..um….inappropriate feelings…….”

“What?!?”

“You know, some sexu……”

“NO! No WAY!!! Connie is my friend, she is there for me when I need someone to talk to, she gives me advice, she listens to me, she lets me talk about how my day went, she doesn’t lie to me, she is honest and tells me the truth, and she speaks into my life… NO…………..I’m not interested in her THAT way!

She is OOOOOOLLLLLD.......and.......FAAAAAAAT!”

I could just hear the indignation in his voice.

If anyone had bothered to get to know this kid they would have known what he needed. And it wasn't an almost 50 year old girlfriend. (can anyone say eeeewwwww?). He needed a foster parent. He found one. And he wasn't letting go just because people thought it was something else.

A couple of years ago the Senior Pastor told me that the only problem he EVER had with me was my relationship with this kid. I looked him in his eye and told him that this kid needed a foster home and furthermore HE knew it, and God had spared his 'upstanding, religious' parents the humiliation of the county taking him away and putting him in a foster home. He had nothing more to say about that.

I have told and retold and laughed over that story for the last eight years. Good thing I’ve never had age issues, and got over my weight fetish YEARS ago!

Ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaa.

Christmas day was very fun. My oldest daughter had come home from Grad school to spend her vacation with us. In her new found excitement in the Lord she was decorating coffee cans and putting slips of paper and small pencils in them. She wrote ‘Prayer Requests’ on the front of the cans and put them all over the house, even in the bathrooms. When the Hardcore kids would come over they would slip requests in there, usually without their names, and we would find them later. Curly redhead was in college too and the two of them were forging a bond that had never been that close growing up. They were very different personalities, one the all-out star athlete, the other more content to help me with the foster kids and take sewing classes. Although the older was the pre-law major she had decided not to go to law school and was getting her masters in secondary ed./history. Alrighty then! Both my girls were going to be teachers! Kinda vindicated leaving it behind years ago for me. Two for the price of one, or something like that.

I was liking my life too much right then to care whether I ever saw the inside of a school building again in my life anyway. Deandra had taken a room in the basement. The one without the window. She didn’t seem to care. It felt cozy to her and I think it made her feel safer NOT to have a window and to have a lock on her door too. Security wise, she loved it. My husband, who is not only the Geek Squad, but Mr. Fixit (I always told him that home improvement was his real calling) built two rooms down there a number of years ago. Only one has a window, a nice large one, so we were able to use it for foster kids, but the other didn’t. The basement being walkout we knew we were firesafe either way. Fire safety is a huge issue in one’s home with the county and they check for fire extinguishers and smoke alarms regularly.

The three foster kids were excited about the day, the food, the festivity. This was their second Christmas with us (1996) and they were milking it for all it was worth. The day went well and by evening Marine wanted to phone home to see what was going on and whether his stepfather was there. He called and his mom answered. They were arguing. He didn’t want to go home if the stepfather was there. She said he was gone for a while.

He asked me, for the first time, if he could spend the night. We had one bed left in the house (believe it or not). Junior had bunk beds in his room. I drove him over to his house to get some things, and he asked me to go in with him. I didn’t want to but got out anyway. The submissive mom was standing there dull faced and subordinate. The stepfather WAS there. Had he just gotten there or was he there all along and the mom had not been honest? We knew he was there before we went in the house. His car was in the driveway. Marine thought the latter was the reason. I had no opinion. I just sat down at the kitchen table, kept my mouth shut and waited for Marine to get some clothes for the night.

The yelling started. It was loud and it was mean. I don’t remember what was said but I remembered being terrified of this man. Marine kept looking at me and had tears in his eyes. My big tough guy. Tears. I was getting angry now. The mother lion claws were coming out. Maybe his own mother couldn’t stand up for him, but I could, and I was MAD. I told Marine to get his things and let’s go.

The stepfather turned on me and yelled at me, right in my face. Made innuendos, snide remarks. This man that didn’t even know me. Had never seen me or met me before. I felt like I was facing a demon wrapped in skin. His words are gone now, but the scene is fresh in my mind. Whatever he said really got to me. I slammed the palm of my hand down on the table with a force I didn’t know was in me.

I stood up, and said to him, “HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT!”

He just smirked. He had gotten my goat and he knew it. Demons just love to see you get all flustered.

I was shaking as I told Marine that he was welcome to move in with us and hurry up, I’ll be waiting in the car. I never planned on him moving in with us. I hadn’t even checked with my husband. I always check first.

As I walked out the door, the mom, lifting her voice from her normal quiet to just a slightly louder voice, probably her equivalent of yelling, said to me,

“You think you are so much better than me, don’t you? A better mom than me. Just because you are a Christian.”

I turned and I looked her straight in the eye. I felt so sorry for her right then. I wanted to hug her and tell her I wasn’t better than her, and I would help her, and……. I just couldn’t say what I was thinking right then. That evil man was staring at me, smirking at me, sizing me up to see just what I was made of, waiting for me to crack under the pressure. I just shook my head, turned around and walked out the door.

I got in my van. I was trembling. Ohhhhhhhh, I was so mad, so hurt to see those tears in the eyes of such an otherwise tough guy, so frustrated with the mom for not being able to see her way clear of her own need and pain and see what she was doing to her kids. I wanted her to peck her way out of this shell she had grown around herself and break free. Not only of this guy, but of her own self-hatred.

I started the car and turned the worship music up really loud. I started praying in tongues and in English. Marine came out with a garbage bag full of clothes. Yep, that’s how foster kids always come, isn’t it? With a garbage bag full of clothes. Not even a toothbrush. Technically, Marine and Deandra weren’t foster kids but now that they were both living in my house, free of charge, as far as the county was concerned, they didn’t even need a caseworker, did they? I was told later that the case had been closed and they would not reopen it unless I made the kids go back home. Nice. Real nice. I could feel myself getting to the point that I didn’t even want to deal with the county anymore. Jerks. Except for the babies…..I can’t quit now….if my babies come back, the one’s that left in 1995 come back, I have to be here. I have to stay certified. Ooooooo, I was so mad.

Okay, so now I’ve got SEVEN kids living at home. I put everything else out of my head and focused on one day at at time. Don’t make waves. With the county, with the church. Life was getting more hectic. A woman from the next town over, she and her husband, both were older Bible College students, called me. They had a (beautiful, redhaired, model-looking) fifteen year old who was causing them grief.

“Have I met you before?” I asked her on the phone.

“No.” she said, “but I’ve heard you take in troubled teenagers and my husband and I were wondering if you would take in ours.”

Ooooooooo……..Looooorrrrrrd……Jeeeeesuuuuuus. What is going on here? What is happening? Things are spinning out of control, Lord.

I told the woman as sweetly as I could that I really didn’t have another bed and that I usually only take kids through the foster care system, and that this other situation was very unusual, and that………. She was quiet at first and then she spoke. This was her stepdaughter and she was sick of her nonsense, and she wanted her OUT of the house.

I said, “Look, I really can’t take her into the house right now, but if you want to bring her to Hardcore Worship on Saturday nights, we can get to know each other. I don’t have a lot of time after school or on weekends but…..how ‘bout this…..if she gets to know me, and she likes me (I don’t do the force myself on teenagers thing), she can tell me when her study halls are, and you can write an excuse and I will pick her up a couple days a week and take her for hot chocolate for an hour. How ‘bout that? Is that okay?”

I heard a big breath on the other end of the phone. No, that wasn’t good enough. She really needed her out, O-U-T, and if I couldn’t take her they would have to look somewhere else.

All I could think of was……….your Bible schooling is more important to you than your very own husbands daughter. Why don’t you and/or him quit school for a while and focus on first things first? You will have all the training you need to bring others to Christ, but you will have lost your own flesh and blood.

I didn’t say that. Maybe I should have but I just didn’t think she would hear that right then. It’s that way with lot’s of people in ministry. They want to go to school to learn about the scriptures, get the ‘job’ in the church, the position, the recognition, Rev. or Pastor or Father in front of their name, but when it comes to applying it to real life……that is the hard part. That’s the humbling, breaking, putting someone else before yourself, part. That’s the part that can’t be memorized. That’s the part you can’t take a test for. That’s the part that takes intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit to figure out.
Book learning is always easier. But real life, now, THAT is where the REAL education is.

I called the county. They put me in contact with the worker on the case. She said she would come out and meet with us. When she got to the house both of us were waiting at the dining room table. Deandra didn’t seem like she wanted to have this meeting at all and I was already upset that nothing had been done.

We talked and I got the distinct feeling that this caseworker had already made up her mind and was not planning on doing one thing about the situation. She spoke in slow, measured syllables, almost like I was a child and I might not understand what she was saying. If she felt forced to repeat herself this became more of an issue. “Youuu, reeeealiiizzze, Mrs…….” Arghhhh! This woman was driving me nuts!

My normally hyperkinetic speech patterns, made worse over the years by other women I was friends with who had the same problem, didn’t help the situation. I think she saw me as one of those manic-emotional basket case types and I was not liking the feeling I was getting from that. I intentionally slowed my speech and metered my words more slowly. It didn’t help. The damage was already done and I was not changing her opinion. Maybe there was no opinion to start with. Maybe she didn’t think all I thought she did, but just treated everyone this way. All I know is I was getting very upset but there was no where for the fury to go. I held it all inside.

One thing I can’t stand is being patronized or condescended to. I HATE THAT. I concede that it is possible I bring some of it on myself by my innate openness and the fact that I allow others to speak into my life if they want. It probably makes me vulnerable to people being that way toward me.

I also know that my hatred of it comes from my country club going, dance class attending, charm school, private school education, and Ivy League graduating parental background. I do not begrudge any of that. I think it serves me well, especially in public, so that in spite of my very middle class lifestyle, I have the ability to communicate effectively with all types of people. At the same time I have discovered, that the arrogance and self- involvement is something I can do without for the rest of my life. Yuck. I hope I treat everyone with the respect that I would like to be treated with, even people that others snub their nose at and even a bunch of wild and crazy teenagers. All I expect back in return is to be treated like I am an adult. Not some five year old who needs to be talked down to….or at. That is how this woman made me feel, or at least tried to, and I was miffed.

After she left I just blew out like a balloon that is blown up, and just before it is tied the air comes out. Whoooosh. I asked Deandra what this was all about and she told me that this woman had been coming over for MONTHS and had been told all this information and nothing had happened. She had nothing good to say about this woman and I was beginning to agree. I had gotten the clear indication that she was going to continue putting this on the back burner. People complain all the time that kids are taken too QUICKLY into foster care. Usually that is the people from whom the kids have been removed. It has been my experience that they are not removed quickly enough. Let’s face it, it costs money to have a child in foster care and that money comes from taxes. Believe it or not, the government IS trying to save money. Maybe in the wrong areas but they are.

I was not to be denied. I called the Senior Caseworker, a woman with similar speech patterns to mine (tee-hee) who I knew I could communicate with. She basically backed up her worker and I was beginning to get really frustrated. I had one more recourse, the top guy in charge. He is a soft-spoken, very caring man and I felt I might be able to get through to him. No such luck. I couldn’t believe this. I hit a brick wall at every turn. Was the issue that they didn’t believe the girl? Was the problem that they had no proof? That usually doesn’t matter in cases like this because abuse of this nature doesn’t leave bruises. They just get the kid out. Was it the fact that, although the family definitely had financial problems they were still just a touch too middle class to bother with? Is this why most of my foster kids come from other more rural and poor towns in my county and not mine?

Did they consider my town to be so ‘well-to-do’ compared with some of the other, even more obscure communities that dotted our large county area that they felt they had bigger fish to fry? Possibly all of those… or maybe none of those. I don’t know. All I know is that this was one screwed up girl and I wanted… no… I needed help.

Help was not to come. At least not in the way I wanted it to. When a child goes into foster care there are two big things that are perks for the child. One is a clothing allowance. This is money that must be accounted for by the foster parent to the state. There had been much abuse over this back in the early days of foster care, just after children were starting to move out from orphanages into private homes. This lasted for several decades even into the forties and fifties. Some unscrupulous foster parents were receiving money and using it to buy clothes for their own kids while the ‘fosters’ as they were called then, ran around in handmedowns, or they were using it for groceries for the family when the money was specifically set aside for clothing and there was a separate boarding payment anyway. For this reason, they tightened the rules around the 1970’s and we were required to keep receipts and logs of what we spent and how we spent it, as far as county money goes. While I understand the reason for this and completely agree with it, I found the paperwork tedious and a strain on my patience. Just give me the kid! Red tape bogs me down! Finally, my in house Geek Squad (he actually smiles at that distinction lest one think I am calling him names) took over the task and all I had to do was hand paperwork over as it came in the door. Phew. Deandra did not have decent clothes and she could have used this assistance in a big way. It was not forthcoming.

The other issue is counseling. Every child that comes into foster care is set up to receive some sort of counseling through one of the local mental health centers or through private doctors who were willing to accept the low Medicaid payments. Even though I have some horrendous ‘counseling stories’ I do think that most kids benefit from it. Without a case worker backing me up and forcing the child to make the mandatory meetings (caseworkers always hold more leverage because they are seen as the big fat boss and the foster mom is seen as the easily manipulated patsy who believes everything that comes out of the po’ baby’s mouth), it is almost impossible to get a child to face their issues. It’s hard, man. All that introspective stuff. Who wants to face that? Bringing up all the garbage, reliving it all over again, having to tattle, usually on ones own parents, not knowing how to deal with it, and not understanding the complexities of it….. like I said, it’s hard, man.

Deandra moved in. What could I do? What could I say? My heart would allow nothing less, but like I said, I needed another kid in the house like I needed a hole in the head. My second daughter was in college but living at home, Junior was still in high school and we had the older three foster kids (Nanny Girl, Senior Girl, and Farm Boy for those of you keeping track) who were 10 and 8 at the time who had some major behavioral issues that we dealt with on a daily basis.

She was a very quiet child but had a very rebellious side that was not apparent at youth group or camp. She was sneaky. I know most teenagers are to some extent but it is one of those things that just drives me nuts. I’m so open, almost to a fault, and so clear about explaining expectations and boundaries, that when I find out someone is sneaking around, deliberately disobeying, I have a hard time with that. I truly believe that not only did she need a safe place, she wanted a safe place. Yet she didn’t really know all that that entailed. The problem for her was that I am pretty eagle eyed. I keep a firm hand on everybody’s comings and goings.

Even though Deandra loved the security of the old-fashioned two parent, mother stays home and makes dinner, household, she was also used to having way too much time to roam around town, hang out with the wrong people and get herself into trouble. Yes, she had accepted Christ through the youth group and was coming to church, but she was not strong in her faith and needed much guidance which was not forthcoming from her mom and stepfather. She loved the security of our home but it was like coming into Fort Knox after being out on the pioneer prairie with no visible law and order.

Even though I knew that, but there was nothing I could do about it. I had already broken my rule about taking in older kids than my youngest, again. Junior was older than her but I never forgot that the three younger ones were my first responsibility and I couldn’t let her undo all the effort I had put into them.

School dances are a particular bugaboo with me. I don’t like them. I went to a couple when I was a teenager and didn’t like them then either. I let my oldest daughter go to them and didn’t like them then either. I just think they are a breeding ground for fighting, drugs, and other stuff that I’m just not interested in dealing with. I’ll let them go to a Christmas semi-formal if they have a date for that and we are dealing with the prom this year for Senior Girl which I’m not crazy about but we told her that she can go with the boy we have known for three years, and we will set some boundaries.

Deandra was big on school dances. She begged and pleaded and finally I gave in. I don’t know what she did but that night she got two guys fighting over her. She acted all scared and upset about it but it was evident that she was enjoying the attention and the self-esteem boost. That was it. Never again. School as a whole was becoming a problem. She was failing everything, hanging with the wrong kids, the guidance counselor was calling. Man, wasn’t five kids enough? What was I ever thinking that I could ever handle this?

Deandra had an older brother. He was in high school and coming to Hardcore Worship. After she moved in, he began coming over for dinner every night. That was a very fun and funny time. He was a big, tough guy, the one that went into the Marines that I talked about in an earlier post, but he had a soft side too. After Deandra moved out of their house he was left with only a younger step-sister at home with the Mom and Stepfather. Since the step-sister was the stepfathers daughter she didn’t take any of the abuse. All of it was falling on the Marine now since Deandra had moved out.

It was October when Deandra moved in and by Christmas my schedule was full. I was taking two evening classes at the Bible School on Thursday night, Youth Group on Friday night, Hardcore Worship on Saturday, morning and evening services at church on Sunday. By Monday I would run around cleaning up from the weekend and spend the rest of the day on the couch reading and with worship music going to calm my spirit and renew my mind. On top of all the phone calling from the teens and the cooking and laundry, I was at the end of me.

I did like dinner time though. Junior and Marine were hysterical every night. With dinner being the highlight of every day I spent more time cooking in anticipation of it. Deandra and her brother weren’t used to dinner at the table with candles and china so they were eating it up (pun intended). It didn’t matter what I made, they never complained and told everyone what a wonderful cook I was even though I am quite average. Not having had many friends over the years Junior was in his glory with all the commotion. The boys next door couldn’t believe all the ruckus and were saying things on the bus to Junior. The verse, “He set a table before you in the presence of your enemies” came to my mind.

It was obvious that the Mom had given up on her two oldest kids and they were now my responsibility. Even though Marine wasn’t living here, he was here every night for dinner and a lot of the weekend. When Christmas rolled around I wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. I told my husband that I felt we should spend the same on Deandra that we did on all of our other children. I was waiting for the wince but he agreed. Then I found out that Marine was going to be here for Christmas day too. Uh-oh. I took a deep breath and asked again. This time I caught a tiny wince but it was okay. I really don’t enjoy shopping and I did a lot that year. The cashier at Wal-Mart learned my name! I had gone to JC Penneys and bought both Junior and Marine new dress outfits for church. Khaki pants, a leather belt, a chamois shirt, dress socks and a tie. I knew my son had dress docksiders but Marine had nothing but his old scruffy sneakers. I was out of money. I had spent $150. on each child and it was all gone.

I heard the Lord. I don’t care what anyone says about how you can’t hear the Lord. I heard the Lord. I had prayed about getting Marine some shoes. I was in Wal-Mart, doing my last bit of shopping and I heard the Lord tell me to go to the manager of the shoe department. Tell him I work with teenagers and that I have one that needs new shoes. As usual I told the Lord all the reasons that I could not do that. Of course it was all fear.

I asked the Lord if there was some other way He could provide. No answer.

"But God"….no answer.

"OKAY THEN, I’ll go up and ask him!"

"Good girl”

He is a stubborn One.

I could feel my heart banging against my chest. I saw this guy and didn’t know if he was the manager of the shoe department or not but he had a name tag on that said Lee. I took a deep breath and without missing a beat, in my fastest speaking voice that can still be audibly understood, I put my hand out, introduced myself, told him my story and stopped.

I felt like such a dumb fool.

He looked straight at me and said, “Pick out whatever pair you want and when you get to the register tell them not to charge you. Tell them Lee told you that.”

I could feel my breath starting to come back but I could hardly speak. Flustered, I put my hand out and thanked him again.

“Thank you soooo much. You are such a blessing!” I said.

He nodded. “So are you”, he mumbled as he walked away.

He told me I could pick out any pair. I settled on what would be considered expensive for Wal-Mart, but cheap for a shoe store, shoe. I really liked them. It was pseudo suede looking, with shoelaces. Nice.

I went up to the register, paid for my other purchases and handed her the shoe box. I told her what Lee had told me. A cross look flashed across her face. I don’t run into too many of those at Wal-Mart. She questioned my integrity. So much for the honest face I was always told I had! I told her that Lee would explain it to her….she said yes, indeed, he would. She called back to the shoe department. Lee came up front and told her to ring them up at no cost. It was at that point that I began to wonder whether Wal-Mart was eating the cost or he was.

I could hardly contain myself when I got home. I had to be careful to tell only my husband and older daughter so that it wouldn’t get out. I was so happy. Not only that I got the shoes but that the Lord had told me to do it and I obeyed Him. I was learning. I’m still learning.

In the process of looking for a few youth group pictures in my scrapbook I found an old Hardcore Worship flyer that I made after that name started to be used. On the flyer I had written this quote from Corrie Ten Boom.

"If God sends us on stoney paths, He provides strong shoes"

I really liked that then and now. I thought it fit well with the story.

Hopefully the YG pictures will be in my gallery by this evening. I need help from the Geek Squad for that.