Saved from Hell

Well I told you all that I would be sharing my past, so lets go back to the beginning.  As you read (well based on my stats really most didn't) in the blog about my mothers death, I was adopted.  I was 5 years old and yet endured more then the the average adult.  Not that I like to be a downer, though lately with my emotions that does seem to be all that I am, but my memories of childhood before adoption are nothing but bad.  I do not have a single good memory from my childhood.  In my last foster home I do remember 2 people well kids at the time whom I know I loved as my own brother and sister, but I don't even know their full names.  Ryan was the younger boy who I cared for like a little brother and tried to protect, along with Alice who was not mentally all there and just never understood what was happening to her.  Weird how my longest foster home was the worst one, the one that the agency took the longest to remove me and the  other 2 girls and 2 boys from.
Some of the facts I share do not come from memories, but from facts I slowly learned as I grew up.  I was born to a drugged up mother and alcoholic father along with my sister, Mary, and brother, James.  I have no idea where I was really born.  There are two possible cities.  Well my biological parents were in no way able to care for children.  They had a 3 kids all under 3 and always getting stoned and drunk. Multiple times child protective agencies came out to check on us, always with a phone call ahead of time, which meant the house was straightened up and the children drugged for naps and all would look wonderful for the time being.  Since we were always napping, no way did we ever get examined, so all our bruises were not seen.  Our bloodshot eyes from being drugged where not visible, and our feet which became ash trays for our parents were snug under our blankets.  Not until a surprise visit did the truth come out that these people were not fit to be parents.  The three of us were left together and moved into a temp foster home.  My mother fought for us.  She believed she could care for us and she cleaned up her drug act, and her drinking.  The courts wanted to believe she could care for her own children, but had doubts based on her past and her mental state (being partially mentally handicapped), and so instead of giving her all her children back they granted her one, me.  As time went on they learned that she was not able to care for even one child, and so I was removed, with the plans to put me into the same home as my brother and sister, only to learn that it was full, and there is when we split.  Being separated might not have been such a big deal had our case worker been the same person through out our journey through foster care.  I guess being a case worker can be a stressful job, because our first one had a mental breakdown, and the second one killed himself, and so by the third worker my siblings and I were officially split up with no records keeping us together and so began my journey through hell.
My first foster home I don't have memories of, but my adopted mother somehow had the ability to pursue my past and negotiate facts from the case worker and filled m in a few things about my life.  This house was not bad when it comes to bad places, they were mean and somewhat abusive, but their abuse was mostly just a few face slaps and rough arm/body drags and then tons of verbal.  The next house had two other children.  Where again we were abused and used as free slaves.  We were many times denied meals as punishment for lacking the energy to finish our jobs.  There were a few other homes all with similar outcomes, but like I said since I was so young I have little to no memories of these events. At about 3.5 years I moved into my last ever foster home (remember I was adopted at 5).
This place was my hell.  It took me years to overcome the experiences I had here, and still to this day I have my share of struggles.  In this place not only was I beaten along with all the other children here, but I watched a man be murdered, and was molested and beaten for not responding correctly.  How is a child suppose to respond to that kind of stuff?  To this day I can close my eyes and still see the images of theses events.  As vivid as the day they happened.  For some reason the adults in this house were able to hide the truth about what they were doing from the case workers that bimonthly checked on us, but eventually they messed up and the truth became know.  Us children in about a blink of an eye it seems were rushed out of the house with only the cloths we had on and whatever he quickly grabbed, for me it was a teddy bear that I still have to this day.
At this point I was finally put up as a ward of the State and moved into a government provided housing with other children who were also wards of the state.  This meaning that because of abuse and lack of nutrition and a whole bunch of other garbage (needing to deal legally with my old foster parents).  Well once I became a ward of the state I guess that also meant my biological parents would never get me back for sure, and that I was now old and very few people adopted the older children.  Yet my mother was looking for a girl to adopt between the age of 3.5 and 5, well here I was at 5, what better sign did my mother need?  She met me once and instantly I became her girl and was then adopted by loving parents.  It was a struggle mind you, as I had endured a lot of pain and mistrust in my life.  It took me a long time to finally refer to my parents as mom and dad, and even when I finally did the feelings were not fully there.
My mother took me to church my first Sunday with them, and her and my brother sat with me in my room after church and explained Christ to me, as being a Father who would never change and never leave me, what more could I ask for.  I wanted that and so that was the day I expected Christ.  I can remember it very vividly, and just as clearly I can remember the day I realized I was really and truly a daughter and a sister in this family.  I was 8, almost 9 and had just had a good friend move away and I was very sad.  I came home and had the normal snack with my mother, but since I didn't really trust that my mother was my mother I was not sharing much, but of course she knew I was sad, she was, after all, my mother.  She sought me out later in my room and showed me that she cared for me and in that moment I knew.  God had finally brought me to my true mother.  My journey of pain and abandonment was done.  God had saved me with a wonderful family, the family I was born to be part of, my true family.
Not only did this all lead me to my true earthly family, but lead me to my Heavenly Father as well, and so for now I will be loved through all eternity.  My journey was rough, it continues to be a climb, but the end will be worth it.  God knows what He was doing and He created me in my biological mother's womb for this life.

"Psamls 139:
¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well."-NIV