Our History – The Woodworking Witch

My grandmother raised me, and she taught me over the years how to love unconditionally. However, over the years, she aged, and during the last ten years of her life, she turned me over to my uncles and my dad, to be taken care of. They decided that the way my grandmother was training me was wrong and made them look terrible, so I ended up marrying my first wife.

I loved her despite everything she had done in her past, but I decided to cover things up, not recognize them, and love her anyway. Everything went great until her family, and my family got involved in our marriage. I went to my father for some advice on an apartment we were living in, and I did not drink at this particular time, even though I was taught to drink when I was a young guy.

During conversations over weeks and months, things got even worse at the apartment we were living in, and I took on two jobs to fix that situation, still receiving counseling from my uncles and my dad. I didn’t realize that my dad and uncles were jealous of me at that time because I was a loving individual, and they were dogs towards women and gave our family name a bad reputation.

One day my uncle, whom I loved very much, decided to take me for a ride in his pick-up truck. We decided to stop and buy a case of beer and a pint of Canadian Mist. Then we drove to Chicago, Il, to my aunt’s house, who was in Pill Hill, close to Stoney Island. She invited us in to her house.

She was a bartender and also had her own in house bar. Drinks started to pour freely, and that was the point the reprogramming of my mind started. However, because I was loving and kind and loved them so much, I never noticed what they were trying to do.

After that evening was over, my uncle drove me back to my grandmother’s house, and he watched me get into my car and drive home. Needless to say, because I was drunk, even though I made it home safe, my wife knew I had been drinking. She began to cry, but I was too drunk and just went to bed.

As weeks and months passed, I started spending more time with my uncles and my dad, even though I was still taken care of business at home and treated my wife with love and kindness, I slowly became my own worst nightmare. My dad started to supply the alcohol for my uncle and me, and after about six months of drinking with them, my dad made a statement to me that caught my attention. He told me the way I treated my wife, made them look bad because their idea of loving a woman is the 3 F’s – find them – F..k them and forget them.

What I did not know was that at the same time, my wife was also being reprogrammed. Even though her mother was a missionary at church, and my dad was an ordained minister, this is the kind of mindset those people had.

While this was going on, I still maintained two jobs and had to make two moves with my family and found out that the second move I made would be the last with my wife. My drinking became excessive, even though I never was violent, but because of the interference from both sides of our families, my wife and I finally grew apart. To hold our family together, I decided to take a job at a factory as a maintenance man.

Still fighting the alcohol demon and all the bullshit that accompanies it, and still trying to maintain a church life and follow the teachings of my pastors, I slowly watched my grandmother’s health deteriorate. I watched my dad, and my uncle takes command of a sinking ship. My grandmother passed away before I went to Heartland, a Christian Rehabilitation Center. I spend the following year alone and depressed, even though I was still married. In 1995, because of family influence, my first wife and I separated.

I ended up living with my father, which in turn decided that he would call the police and have me removed from his house. I ended up staying in several rooming houses, getting deeper and deeper involved in alcohol and drugs.
After a few years on the streets constantly dealing with fly by night jobs because of my skill set, I was invited to a Thanksgiving party thrown by my sister. At that time, my biological mother was still alive, and my son was present at that party too, along with my two daughters. They told me about a place called Heartland, and my son told me that there were forgiving people and would help me with my alcohol and drug-disease. I told my son that I could not go there, because I grew up with Christians, and I thought they were phonies for the most part and not true to their own God.

After the party was over, I went to a shelter and spent the night there. The next few days went by, and I ended up at my sister’s house again. When I walked through the door, she smelled alcohol on my breath again, and I admitted to drinking, so she told me I could stay at her house for 35.- USD. I gave her the money, and she led me to the guest bedroom (may I mention that she is a Christian and Evangelist herself). I noticed that I had a quart of wine in my pocket, emptied the bottle and threw it in the trash can with the rest of the garbage in a way that could not be detected. Somewhere between the time I was there and midnight, she woke me up out of a dead sleep and asked me if it was my wine bottle because it was not hers. I explained that I emptied it and put it in a garbage can. She told me to get up and threw me out without giving me my money, even though I asked for it.

When she closed the front door, you could feel the heat leaving me, and at this particular time, I was dressed lightly and had no gloves. The temperatures were freezing, and I walked to a store to buy myself a pint of whiskey and asked one of the locals where there was the nearest shelter to get warm. They explained that the nearest shelter was a few miles down the road, and I started to drink my whiskey on the way there to keep warm. I arrived at the shelter, but it was closed. There was a White Castle Hamburger joint across the street, and I went there to warm up. I stayed for about an hour and a half, but the people behind the counter asked me to leave. I went back across the street to the shelter and sat down on the sidewalk by a pole and went to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, I could not move. I started to cry, I was in pain and hurting and thinking about everything I had been through in my life, and asked the Lord for help. I told him I could not do this anymore by myself and needed his help. Somehow or another, I managed to get up on my feet, which were frozen along with my hands, but I dragged myself to the street. An ambulance was passing by, pulled over, and took me with them. They wrapped a blanket around me and took me to the hospital. The emergency doctors took me in but did not want to treat me since I had no insurance, but there was a doctor who made a different call and told them they had to treat me.

I spent two weeks in the hospital and finally got well enough to figure out where I was. I was taken down to the rehabilitation room, where I was given a walker with the remark that I would never walk again, but they would reach me how to use this walker. The only next of kin I had at that time, that may have wanted anything to do with me, was my sister. After a few days, she finally came to the hospital and told me that she could not take care of me and would put me in a nursing home. I called my son in Heartland, and he told me that he would take it from there. I told my sister about my situation, and she bought me a handicapped ticket and gave me to one of my younger brothers, who took me to the Union Station, explained to someone in the information booth, that I had to get on the train and just left me there.

I took the train to Quincey, Il, where my son picked me up at the train station, and from there, I went to a place called Lebelle Mo. What I did not know was that I would be here for the next ten years. This is where Heartland, the Christian Recovery Center, is.

I learned to love the people there with all their mistakes and shortcomings and learned, that organized religion and Christianity was not for me, but sobriety and Jesus Christ were.

After ten years of being in Heartland, I married a minister, who also claimed to be a counselor and a teacher. So I decided to give Christianity and its followers one more shot. I pulled out some old plans I had in my head for a long time and started to put them together. During the ten years, I stayed in Heartland, I was able to build a workshop for myself, bought a nice pick-up truck, and create a decent income. Throughout my second marriage, my wife, who was supposed to be a Christian and ordained minister, came to me one day after coming off the road and explained to me that Missouri law claims that all she had to do was to stay married to me for five years. I would have to take care of her for the rest of her life.

Previously, before this conversation came up, she talked me into trusting and loving her, which she said, that I did not and that I had to let my past die. So I let my guards down after deciding to trust her and started a joint bank account. She introduced me to people from a different church, who showed me love and affection, even though I felt uneasy about that. Later on, I would find out that my first inclination was correct: She was a phony along with everyone she hung around.

After five years of what I thought was a loving relationship, she suddenly turned on me and left me out in the cold. After a bitter court battle, the courts figured out that she was fabricating the story after lengthy investigations and conversations with me. I ended up having to pay her off with half of my business, which I built in Heartland, and we went our separate ways.

When I got back into my Semi, I started to think that I have been in church and around Christians since I was a child. I broke off fights in church, solved evil situations, and even had an affair with an evangelist at 17 years old who was married and my bible teacher to one of the musicians in the choir.

Sitting in Tennessee one night in my truck, I decided that it was time for a change. I still wanted to be a Christian without following their rules because I knew what that would lead to. I sat on the side of the street. I thought of pastor Charlie, who was the founder of Heartland Rehabilitation Center, their rise and fall, their rise and fall in the Church of Christ, as I observed it, the rise and fall of the church, my sister sent me to, and all the Christians claiming to know Jesus but did not seem to.

I played with my laptop and discovered another way to live for the Lord in a solitary atmosphere. I started to do research and started to rebuild my workshop, and I came across a group of solitary believers, that teach you how to serve the Lord, and not have to deal with all the chaos of organized religion.

As I went along on my journey, and everyone I know needs someone. We all need companionship. I was getting tired of dealing with self-proclaimed female Christians and ministers, as well as the male versions of those. I prayed and asked the Lord to send me a female who was a non-church goer, but god-fearing with Christian beliefs.

So over the next few months, the Lord finally introduced me to one, and even though the relationship we have would be strange to many people, I believe in the miraculous wonders of the Lord. At the moment, we share our lives 8000 miles apart and on FaceTime, but we believe that the good Lord will put us together soon. We already made our vows and committed to each other for life.

To all of the Christians out there, who have a relationship with their husbands/wives, let me explain to you how this works: When you marry as a Christian in the name of the Lord, the ring you wear stands for something. When you make that vow before the Lord, that is a two-way street. You are committing yourself to each other for life, but most people take that for granted. Most Christians do not even know who they serve. They go to church on Sundays and going out to dinner, thinking they served the Lord. Christianity is a way of life and is not to take lightly.

Therefore, I never want to go through the same crap again, so I decided to step out of the traditional way of doing things and marry someone true to her faith. Even though her religion is different, it is exactly that way of believing that I felt drawn to ever since I was a child.

Christians say they love unconditionally, but it always seems to come with conditions when you get right down to it. I do not want to get further into it, because it would take too long to explain, but in brief, I found a female who shares the same beliefs I have.

For the first time in my life, I can honestly say we are twin flames and two hearts that beat as one. Life may be a little difficult now for both of us, and instead of running away from our problems, we work together to solve them, while most of the Christians I know don’t do that. It is not a put-down in any way to any Christian belief, or anywhere in life, it is just an observation I made during my life.

Because of the feelings I have, I cannot be dishonest any longer. I will probably be a solitary Christian for the rest of my life, only sharing my faith with the one I love. If the Lord says the same, we will run our businesses together and dedicate our services to rehabilitate the homeless, the forgotten, and the people Christians don’t believe they deserve to have a chance to live. Thank you for your time, and have a blessed day.

As told by the woodworking witch R.B.