My story. Part 4: The slippery slope.

You don't always get what you want.

In my case, the very thing that I dreaded for six years happened. From the time the second tumor was found and the time my dad passed away was very short. Only a matter of a few months. The tumor metastasized into something that was beyond treatment. It spread through his brain and spine like peanut butter. That's what the doctors referred it to...peanut butter.

What an awful reference.

During the few months he had left I found myself so bitter and angry at God.  In my head, I couldn't justify why this had to happen to such a good man.  I would pray (not sure that you could really call it a prayer) that God would chose someone else for this horrible ending.  I could never move past the fact that there are murderers, child abusers, rapists, drug dealers out in this world living without consequence.   But this good, Godly man was going to die such a cruel death?  It just didn't make any sense.  And if I am being honest, it still doesn't. 

I would give God ultimatums. 

"If you let this happen, then I will..."
"If you love me, then you will..."
"I will never love you, if you..."

Those thick walls around my heart now became steel reinforced.  With heavy chains and padlocks.  My heart was in LOCKDOWN.  No one was allowed in.  Not the youth life leader, not the friends, not the pastor, not my mom.  No one.  I became bitter and angry and vengeful towards the truth.

I made the choice to walk away from my faith.  Everything I believed in failed me.

Just three months after my dad died, I moved to Texas so I could be at the same college as Skip.  At this point, we knew we were heading towards marriage and I wanted to be as far away from B-town and all the suffocating sadness as possible.  The summer of '93, I moved on campus at Texas Christian University.  Which is ironic.  I turned my back on Christianity and here I was smack dab in the middle of a christian college.

I was finally free.  Free from the sadness and darkness of a hateful disease.  Free from the small town that held nothing but pain.  Free from the looks of pity from the church people.  Free from the memories.  Free from a cruel God and a religion that confused and abandoned me.

FREEDOM!!

Except for Skip, no one knew my past at TCU.  I didn't look at people and see disappointment or shame or sorrow.  I saw a way that I could recreate myself.  And that I did.  I spent the next year and a half as a wild, party girl.  That girl was never sad.  That girl was never hurt, or down, or lonely.  That girl was fun and happy.

In reality, that girl was drunk most of the time.  That girl was on academic probation.  That girl nearly lost the boy of her dreams.   That girl laughed in the face of anyone that believed in God. That girl was hungover during many of her religion classes. 

That girl was on the verge of losing everything.

One night, after a wild party, I got really sick.  My roommate had a friend in town from North Dakota and I really did not like this girl.  NOT AT ALL.  She drove a wedge between my roommate and I.  Maybe I was out to get her, or maybe I was just drunk out of my mind and didn't know the difference. I vomited all over the side of her cutesy red sports car.  She hated me for that.  My roommate hated me for that.  But most of all, I hated myself for what I had become.

I hated the drinking.

I hated the lying.

I hated the look on Skip's face when he talked to me.

I hated lifestyle that I was living.

I hated feeling ashamed.

I knew enough about God to know that He was my only hope.   I knew in my heart that He was the only one that could save me from myself.  I had hit rock bottom, but was I willing to forgive Him for taking my dad?

Later that night, tears just poured out.  Tears that had dried up after my dad died.  Tears that I tried to suppress with all the drinking and "fun living".  Sobbing came from a place so deep inside me.  A place so deep that my whole body shook violently.

Gasping for breath in between the choking sobs, I prayed.

"I'm sorry."



Links:
Why am I writing this?
Part 1: The phone call
Part 2: The horror
Part 3: In the meantime