My Testimony

Like most people, my testimony has changed over the years…many times.  Now at 40, I watch others sing praise songs with such fervor, and I often wonder if they have any way of really knowing what they are singing about.  I don’t mean that from a seat of judgment, more from a perspective of my own experience…how I thought, once upon a time, I knew that kind of faith.  That kind of faith, is not a gift that is just given to you, it is learned through tests and trials.

If you had asked the 15-year-old version of me for my testimony, you would have heard something like this…

I grew up in church, always knowing who God was and in church every time the doors were open.  My Mom was the church secretary and my Dad served as close to a Deacon as he could come (since my Mom was previously married).  We are Southern Baptists to the core…Ice Cream socials with homemade ice cream on the church grounds, no dancing, lunch after church on Sundays before choir practice but before Sunday night prayer meeting…Church on Wednesday night…you get the idea.  I could quote the Bible, I lead Bible studies, I went to church camps and I had been baptised when I was 6 years old after praying with the Pastor.  This was what I wanted everyone to see…while the real me was dying inside.  My home life was a wreck.  I had no control over that side of things, so I started locking myself in the bathroom at night with little things at first, like paperclips or sharp tweezers.  That first scratch was so freeing.  I could finally control something that was hurting me.  The more other things spiraled out of control, the deeper I scratched…until they really weren’t scratches anymore.  I started finding sharp metal nails, broken plastic, staples…I convinced myself that these were still “safe” everyday objects that didn’t seem “crazy”.  No one would find this weird.  I think I was 11 years old the first time I left a mark on my arm.  I was much younger when I started scratching at my legs.  At that age, I had no idea that this was an actual thing.  I had never heard of “cutting” or that there were other people out there dealing with these same feelings.  I honestly believed that I had invented this personal hell for myself.  I thought I was alone.  Once I had reached the point of drawing blood with the “safe” objects up and down both arms, and had not worn a short-sleeved shirt in months, I moved on to scissors and broken mirror pieces.  Part of me desperately wanted someone to catch a glimpse of the marks and at other times, having this secret with me was power when my world was chaos.  I could just touch my arms and the world somehow lost control over me because I knew what I was doing in that bathroom.  I wasn’t suicidal, I was self-destructive.  There is a difference.  I needed help, that is clear, but a different kind of help than someone who wants out.  I wanted back in.  I wanted to have my world put back together.  I needed the adults in my world to stop being in their world long enough to see my heartache.

But then, I went to one more camp and a new message spoke to me about faith.  The speaker asked us if we were living our own faith or simply repeating the religion we had been taught by our parents.  In that moment, I realized that I knew all of the right church answers, I had the attendance record, but I didn’t have the faith that He was with me and loved me through it all.  I needed Jesus!  I went up to the cross they had on stage and I put it all down…my home, my life, my cuts.  I learned to pray during those dark times instead of hurting myself.  Satan truly does come to steal, kill, and destroy and that was exactly what was happening in my life before Jesus.  So, at 15 years old, I thought this was an amazing testimony of strength and overcoming adversity.  I had moved beyond something in my past that traps so many without a voice.  Unfortunately, a lot of cutters become suicidal and will eventually take their own lives if they never receive help.  I never publicly gave my testimony, but I certainly learned to recognize some of the early warning signs and tried to be more sensitive to those in need of help.  I became more active in my youth group and became a leader of small groups and bible studies.

But God wasn’t finished with my story…

To Be Continued…

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You’re Welcome.

Dear Everyone in ANY form of Customer Service, Hospitality, or the General Service Industry:

I have personally worked in various degrees of service over my years; I have been a receptionist, a waitress, a massage therapist, a store clerk, a party planner/hostess, plus many more.  So please indulge me for a moment as I bend your ear with a few tidbits of advice.

  1. Waitress, if you are carrying a tray of Cokes out to my table and cannot remember which one was the Diet, please for the love of everything, DO NOT put your nose to the beverage and sniff it to try to determine which is which before playing Russian Roulette with my drink.
  2. Restaurant Staff, if you are trying to clean your area and my family is still eating in your section, please DO NOT proceed to sweep right next to us and then have the audacity to ask us to lift our feet so that you can sweep under our table.
  3. Hair Professionals, I completely understand that you are trained to recognize a split end from a mile away but I come to you to feel beautiful; I do not need you to tell me how bad my hair looks (that is why I’m sitting in your chair in the first place).  Since when are backhanded compliments socially acceptable AND you can charge for them?!?  I didn’t ask you to tell me how gray me hair is getting, my husband doesn’t want to hear about the genetics of thinning hair, and I don’t want to hear how damaged my hair looks.  I’m paying you to make me feel beautiful when I leave your salon.  Period.  Shampoo, cut, style.  Offer advice on types of shampoo, styling products and hair styles but that is all.
  4. As an addition to the previous statement…The High-Pressure Up-sell.  Lately I dread going to salons or any spa that sells products because I know that they are going to spend my entire “relaxing” service time trying to convince me that something is so terribly wrong with me and only their product can help me.  Lucky for me, they sell this miraculous product up front.  Usually it is a product that I could just as easily purchase myself at Sephora or Ulta for a lot less if I wanted to bother.  But that isn’t the point.  The point is that I don’t want to feel like I’m at a sleazy Time Share pitch when I’m at a spa.  I just want to relax and not be fending off wolves the whole time.  I expend so much energy trying to think up good enough excuses that will shut them down that I’m so stressed and exhausted and in need of a spa day.  I always want to give them the right answer to the first question so that they won’t ask another question…I haven’t found the right answer yet.  And we all know that a simple “No” doesn’t work because they don’t ask the questions that way.  So I vote for this to stop, let me relax and if I want to buy something I will.
  5. Spa employees can be just as bad with the insults as the hair stylists.  I’ve suffered my entire life with extremely dry skin.  When I was little, I was teased when the skin on my legs would crack and bleed.  It hurt so bad when I took a bath or a shower that I would scream bloody murder when the water hit my skin.  As I’ve grown up, it has gotten a lot better but I still have scars on my lower legs from those younger days; and my skin still gets very dry.  So, yesterday I went for a day of pampering and the girl tells me that I have very dry skin.  Oh really?  I hadn’t noticed.  Then she tells me that I should try putting lotion on my skin to moisturize it because lotion helps dry skin.  Holy cats girl!  Where were you years ago when I was tortured and teased?  You would’ve saved me so much pain if only my parents, doctors, or I would’ve thought to try putting lotion on my dry skin.  She is an absolute genius!  I’m so glad that I found her and her extensive training.
  6. My other favorite is a Customer Service Agent telling me that they didn’t do it…whatever “it” is at the moment.  If I have an issue with your company and you are in Customer Service, you represent whomever did “it” and you therefore better take care of “it” AND apologize for “it”.  Understand that whatever happened isn’t personal but it is your business when you work in Customer Service to take good care of the customer.  No one cares about you personally… all that matters is the customer and the business.  That is what you get paid for by the company; to take care of the company that serves the customer i.e. Customer Service.

So, as you can plainly see, we have a few issues to work on.  I realize that customers can be rude and unreasonable BUT I also have firsthand experience at completely turning the worst customer into the best.  Your attitude, work ethic, and character determine your outcome.  True you might not always be treated fairly or with the same respect and kindness that you are putting out there but you will walk away with your head held high knowing that you can be proud of the job that you did well and that you carried yourself respectably and with strong character.  All we can ever be in control of is ourselves…control yourself well because you influence so many every single day so make it count.

With Sincere Thanks,

Notorious Mom

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Are you serious???

Seriously???   I find myself asking this rhetorical question sometimes to myself, sometimes out loud in general and most commonly of those around me.  Like… Seriously?  You can’t spell school, yet are allowed to homeschool your child.  Seriously? You don’t want to work but want everything handed to you.  Seriously?  You think your child who bullies everyone at school has a heart for God and a future in missions.  Seriously?  Skinny jeans are an adjective not an adverb…you must be skinny BEFORE you put the jeans on; the jeans do NOT magically make you skinny by wearing them.  Seriously, whatever happened to manners?  Two things I see missing from these equations… Brains and manners. That is the conclusion I have come to in response to my own question. Although I might think these things all day every day, I would never dream of saying them out loud…unsolicited anyway.  Now that is not to say that my face does not betray me at times…but the point is that I try.  Here’s a good point…etiquette is knowing not to put your elbows on the dinner table while manners is not pointing it out in front of everyone when your neighbor is practically napping across the dinner table.  I am a southern girl who was raised to have good manners and as much etiquette as my mom could squeeze in in the brief 20 years I was blessed with her in my life…the rest I have had to pick up on my own.  Still, I find daily head shaking examples of mannerless people in the world.  Where did these folks come from?  They didn’t grow up around my Momma because I’m pretty sure she would’ve set them straight…manners only says that you don’t call people out in public, nothing says that you don’t “gently” inform them of the error of their ways.  My Momma liked to call it a “Comin’ to Jesus meetin'”.  You only had those for extreme offenses,but I think some of these school bullies I’ve had to deal with would’ve had an engraved invitation for sure!  Anyway, I hope that we can find a way to get back to some serious manners in our homes before it’s too late.  The rest of the battle involves common sense and integrity among other things…like modesty, can we talk about modesty for second??  My husband and I just got home from Las Vegas recently and since we don’t consider ourselves old, we were out hitting the local hot DJ scenes.  My eyes will never be the same as I am now scarred by the sites of total fashion massacre I was subjected to every night.  OK, seriously?!?  Let me just be the one to tell you (since your friends obviously don’t love you enough to) you probably don’t have the body for that dress, it’s ok; very few people actually do have a body worthy of spandex.  If you wear the spandex dress, you might want to consider full body spanx and for sure forego drinking so that you can concentrate on stomach control exercises and full dress control to avoid any embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions.  If you aren’t this committed to wearing the dress, please opt for a different outfit.  Girls please hear me when I say:  THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING SEXY ABOUT A TUMMY PONCH (food baby), in an ill fitting dress with parts of your body hanging out that shouldn’t be wearing it and you so uncomfortable that you can’t stop yanking on the dress.  Modest and classy is actually the most sexy of all.  A girl that gets along with his family and is confident is sexy.  A girl that he thinks about and has to wonder what she is like IS sexy.  I can tell you right now…the girls we saw out in those clubs in Vegas, no one had to wonder what they had, we ALL saw everything they had!  It wasn’t sexy, it was just gross and pathetic.  The guys weren’t flocking around them.  For the first time ever in Vegas, I couldn’t differentiate the clubbing girls from the “working” girls.  SAD!!!  Having a teenage son (and daughter for that matter) in this world is terrifying!  Seriously???   Pull it together people, have some self-respect and for crying out loud PLEASE teach your children what that even means anymore!!!  Thank you that is all. Seriously though, why should this even have to be a conversation?

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