Part 1 of God Revealed to Me

Where I Was Before “Invisible Illness”





    The best place to start this is when I met my current husband.  Around April of 1981 David and I were introduced to each by his sister, Mary Jane, thank you for that. He was so cute, even at 22 he had this innocent look to him.  His hair was blond and had the cutest curls, which I would bet he did not like.

David owned a motorcycle, Honda Goldwing, he would ride his motorcycle up to November, unless there was snow on the ground. He would ride for hours with no particular place in mind. He enjoyed having the wind blow the cobwebs out of his mind. Until it became a law in Indiana, he did not wear a helmet. 

We visited so many places on that bike: Smokey Mountains, Tennessee; Mammoth Cave, Kentucky; Madison County seeing the various covered bridges, so many other places I can't remember the names of the places. Smokey Mountains is/and always will be our favorite place to visit. Every time we went there we made the trek all the way up to the top of Clingmans Dome. One has to be in pretty physical shape to climb this.  But, the view makes the hike worth every step.

He was/still is a quite kinda guy, but when he speaks he either makes you laugh, think he's a smart ass, or you learn to ignore his comments.  He isn't really a distrusting sort of person, but he has a great sense of awareness regarding human nature.  He has these qualities about him that I took for granted up until now. He is a stable, humble, honest, hard working, dependable, stick-to-it-ness person (my made up word for always finishing what he starts).  He means more to me than he will every know, because the love and respect I have for him is so monumental to express.

May of 1982 we got married, in 1992 we renewed out vows.  Had a wonderful church wedding with our family and friends.  We rented a cabin for the weekend that slept 20 people.  The place had a 50 acre lake which was surrounded with tall magnificent tress.  Everyone had a great time, despite all the drinking taking place, there was no accidents and no drama.  Just a great time. 

In 1992 we adopted our daughter, Keera Lynn, who is now 21 and a mother of two. She was Gods great miracle for us, after trying for 10 years to have a child we had given up. In 1996 God blessed us with another miracle, DJ, currently 17.  We enjoyed and loved our kids very much, even at the roughest teenage years. We had a great time with the kids, we would go to the YMCA and swim and play  in the pool.  Many weekends we spend driving to various parks in Indiana, hiked their trails and taught our kids to love nature. 

We loved to hike and sometimes we would aimlessly walk through woods, fields and corn fields for hours. We loved to go camping, sitting by the fire doing nothing or roasting hot dogs and marsh mellows over the fire.  We were always find new places to camp and share with our family.

One day we were visiting Owen county in southern Indiana.  We had read about this realtor that was selling parcels of land for very low prices and on contract.  We went into his office and one of his sales people took us out to a 5 acre lot, we ended up buying two lots for a total of 10 acres.  It was at the end of a road, which actually was non-existent at this time, we had to trek up a muddy non graveled soon to be road to get to the land.  Immediately upon seeing this ground we knew it was meant for us, back at his office we wanted to purchase it.  But between the two of us only at ten dollars cash with us.  This guy took our ten dollars and wrote up the contract and held this ground for us until we returned with the required down payment. 

We spent 3 years living off the land or grid as some call it. We purchased a gently used 1 bedroom travel trailer, which became our home for the next three years.  There was no pasture here, just hills, hollers and deep forest.  So we spent a great deal of time clearing enough ground to raise animals on.  I learned quickly to only name the animals that we would not butcher.  Our land was full of life; milk goats, Hansel and Gretel; chickens and roosters galores; rabbits; pigs; turkeys and anything else we could find.  We purchased an old tractor since we had to go about 3 miles for water.  We had no phone and no electricity We purchased a well drilling machine, along with 2 other people, but gave up after about 200 feet. When it was warm and it rained we took showers under the gutters.  And what land would be complete without an outhouse.

I was into all sorts of crafts: knitting, crocheting and sewing, painting anything requiring creativity.  I made blankets,afghans, sweaters and loved to make the kids, what I thought were the cutest outfits. I learned to carve charactures from a block of wood and learned wood burning as well.  David and I took a Stained Glass class together we enjoyed it so much we opened up a stained glass shop.  We made windows, lamp shades and repaired lamp shades as well.  We purchased a kiln and learn the art of glass molting.  I loved going to antique shops and flea markets looking for items that could be restored. 

We also opened a daycare from our home. I researched what was required, who to contact and set the home up per state requirements.  We took care 18 children five days a week, we were considering turning it into a preschool. I researched into applying for a food voucher program out state had for licensed daycares.  This required creating 5 menus each quarter that we had to rotate for that 3 month period.  Each meal had certain required food that had to be included in at least one of the 5 menus.  We played with kids out side everyday, unless it was raining.  We had two pools, one small one for the littler kids and a large one for the older ones. 

I loved to roller-skate and ice-skate. Build snow men, make snow angles walk in freezing cold temperatures and feel the cold, enjoy the beauty of a fresh snow covering trees and the ground.  Enjoy returning home and warming ourselves with a hot cup of hot chocolate with mini marsh mellows.

I took belly dance lessons for 4 years. Claimed a room in the house as my own little studio.  Painted and decorated it with tapestry imitating what was used in Egypt, had incense burners.  Put in my own little stereo, purchased numerous Cd's to dance to. I purchased lightweight type of material to make my own dance outfits, I hand sew hundreds of sequence on them to create a glittery sparkle to the outfits..

I had more ambition and energy than one person could ever ask for.  I worked, attended college either full time or part time for 20 years. I loved learning, I always said if they would pay me to be a student, I would be one till I pass away.  I eventually earned my Bachelors degree in Elementary Education.  Sorry to say I never got a teaching position, I did however, remain a substitute teacher for 4 years and enjoyed it immensely.  After graduating with a Bachelors degree, I went on to enroll in a Master degree program in Networking Engineering. I was taking calculus level math classes and learning computer programing languages.  Kept an A average the whole time graduate cum laud in Bachelors program. I loved doing the research and writing papers 15-20 pages long, completing projects was a breeze. 

I was the high energy, peppy one in our family, who lived life to its fullest and enjoyed every moment of it. I always dreamed I could do whatever and be whatever I wanted to be.  Even when life threw me a curve ball, I was still happy and always saying how much I loved life. I was the one that had positive comments for any negative remarks about life. I also was fortunate in having the most faith in God in our family, scratch that, mom had the most.  I loved to read the Bible, always tried to hear God's message when disaster struck. No matter what was going on I was happy and could always honestly say I loved live.