October 2017 Newsletter

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I Am Priceless

A car pulled up to the front of our Samaritan Inn. Tammy awkwardly stepped out from the back seat with nothing more to carry than a single duffle bag and her cane. The front seat was occupied by her husband and his latest girlfriend. Tammy said, “I was abandoned like a bag of trash.” She was 50-years-old then and the mother of 10 children, yet very much alone. She was addicted to drugs and alcohol, a victim of domestic violence, and something worse – a common thread shared by most of our women clients, a victim of childhood sexual abuse. Its a pivotal point of orientation and can distort one’s identity. One woman here described it this way, “You cannot stop playing that out in your mind, so you try to numb it with drugs. You learn to use your body to control men. It attracts you to the wrong kind of men. You emotionally and mentally check out. You think what’s the use anyway, so you abuse alcohol, drugs, food. Life spirals, trying to find a numbing effect. Trust is gone. You need Jesus to heal those wounds. We have a heavenly, loving Father. When healed, there is forgiveness. Otherwise, your ‘man picker’ is broke. Let the Lord pick the next man (if there is to be one).”

Tammy was only 13-years-old when such a cruel fate was forced upon her, through no fault of her own by an immoral man. The world had changed her. No longer would she be the object of bullies. She pushed back, indeed she became a part of a different social group. She identified with rebellion, promiscuity, drugs, alcohol. She said, “I was in rebellion to authority figures. I thought foster parents didn’t love me.” She kept running away until at 16, she said, “I was dropped from being a ward of the court. Then I camped on people’s couches and had a job.” Tammy was still a child, yet set free in a world without parameters that wanted to consume her.

She met her first husband at a recovery meeting. Instead of being a support for one another, they were codependent. Fifteen years later, she said, “He abandoned me and the kids, and eventually I lost my kids to Child Protective Services. There was the generational cycle. Her father had been an alcoholic and passive; her mother had been addicted to pills and violent.

Then Tammy had a relationship with a partner that had the textbook behaviors of domestic violence. There was name-calling, isolation from family and friends, money control, limitation of leaving home, threats, physical harm, stalking, intimidation. His temper would flare up out of nowhere and always apologize with promises. She said, “I would walk away. He would drive his truck up on the sidewalk to get me in the truck. I had to hide from him.”

Then she met her second husband at another recovery meeting (not a dating service), and the cycle continued to the day he left her at Samaritan Inn. Jennifer (a staff member here) saw the scene unfold out front and greeted Tammy with what she would later describe as, “one of the best hugs I’ve ever had.” Here, she learned a Bible based recovery process that helped her to understand the reasons behind her behavior. She said, “I learned what God’s truth is about me. He says I am priceless. I have purpose and I’m an overcomer.” Its been more than two years since Tammy arrived here. She said, “This clean time (from drugs) is the longest ever in my life, and it is different because I am a new creation.” Now Tammy has a job in a grocery store and continues to serve others at Samaritan Inn.