I Serve You Notice

Contents

In the Beginning9

This New House19

Where Do We Go from Here?28

Expectant New Life54

Tanisha77

The City of Brotherly Love95

Healing Time118

Saved, Saved, Saved133

I Serve You Notice137

My New Personal Journey145

I dedicate I Serve You Notice to my Lord and Savior first because He is the One Who gave me new life. I also dedicate this book to my children Tanisha, Jose Jr., Zyra, and Kyleeka. They are my loves! I have two of the most adorable grandchildren Josias and Benaiah who I find precious. One more person I dedicate this book to is my dear friend and sister in Christ Cynthia Saffo who I love very dearly. She stood by my side through some of my toughest days.

I decided to write this book because it was a mandate from the Lord to send out a message to many, who want to give up. I also want to see many hearts get healed from the many pains we face today. There is unbelief running rampant in our society. With all the scholars and different opinions, horoscopes, and other gods that are in the world, they make it difficult to know what to believe and it leaves no hope for our future. How would you even know if I am telling the truth? I would like to comfort you in saying that I, for sure, know that the Bible is truth to every letter. God is real. He also is a loving God, Who wants to see us living in peace. I will share my love and testimony so that you can understand the Lord in many ways. He is using me to share my deepest and darkest places I went and was sent to; so that I can prove to you that our Lord loves us more than we know or allow Him to express. Most of what I went through is what some of you are going through and don’t know how to come out from. Some of you have already went through some very dark places and struggling to come out as I speak.

The devil is real, also, and I am here to prove that, also. Most people write about their life story and even write it about a loved one, or write about romance and other dreams they may have. This book is solely for the devil. He has taken what God has given us and turned it around for his glory. So grab your favorite drink and snack, go into your quiet place, and walk with me through my life journey. I am not a perfect person. As a matter fact, I am in my lowest time now. I believe in God to bring me out to the highest, and succeed me where He wants me to be. As you go through your tough time and pain, believe when I say, I am with you step by step. It is time to stop letting the devil take us where he wants and believe truly what the Bible says. As you read, leave the doubt out on the doorsteps. It is time to shift your thinking and believe. If it does not work the first time, read again until it takes hold of you. You deserve this treat to be free.

In the Beginning

You know how the Bible begins with In the beginning? Well, I am starting my book off with the beginning. My life was pretty much a dark life, even in my Christianity. I was angry with me and definitely angry with God. I looked at Him as my archenemy. See, that is what the devil wanted me to believe for years. From youth to adult, I had believed I was a dud. Not worth anything but for people to use and spit on. In the beginning, I remember when I was in the bed laying with my mother, Sugar. She sat up in the bed and looked me in the eyes, whispering. It was strange to hear her whisper at me but it came with an odd look I had never seen before. I strained to hear her as she asked me a question. The question was, Where is mom? I know that I had a strange look on my face because, at nine years old, I didn’t understand why she would be asking such a question. She was asking about my grandmother and I was trying to contemplate why she was whispering. I finally answered, She is over at her house. My mother gave me the frustrated look like she always did when I couldn’t understand her. She laid back down and stared at the ceiling, and she repeated what I had said a few times, She’s over at her house. She’s over at her house. The room was filled with an eerie feeling. The radio on the end table was playing a song. The song was American Pie. I didn’t understand the song, but I did hear the words, This will be the day that I die. Those lyrics stuck with me as I ran downstairs to check on my sisters. My sister, Sue Ann, was next in age to me, then came Teree. We had a little sister, Sugar, who was in the crib in the room where my mother was. I did not understand why my mother was not up yelling and finding something that she did not like around the house. See, my mother was not kind. Matter of fact, I thought she was one of the meanest moms around. She made it very hard for me to love her. I tried so hard to get her attention but she didn’t see me. Her attention went to Sugar. She always sent me to school with the most beautiful curls in my hair. Appearance was everything to her. My sisters and I always looked good. Our home was unpredictable when it came to love. There were times when my mother would break out the record player, play Aretha Franklin, and we would dance. She would allow me to put my feet on hers as she guided me through some fast stepping. I would smile and laugh, and enjoy the moment.

My mother put a lot of responsibility on me, like babysit my sisters all the time. I rarely went out to play because my mother hung in bars all the time. After her time of drinking, she would come home and find something wrong in the house. I had to cook, clean, change diapers, and many other things. I was nine at this time but I started my adulthood at six years old. When things got out of place or I broke a dish, I would get beat by my mother. When I say beat, I mean she would beat me so bad that I felt that one day she was going to kill me. I counted on taking my last breath in every beating she gave me. To keep me still, she would sit on my face and beat me with a switch or anything that she felt that she needed to beat me with. I remember the smothering vividly, as though it just happened. My grandmother used to tell her if she kept beating me like that, she was going to kill me. Everyone was on a first name basis except Grandmom. My mother was Sugar. She was brown-skinned and short. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I used to sit on the floor and watch our thirteen-inch black and white television. Every woman that would appear on the screen that was pretty, I would tell my mother that that was her. All the women were white women, but at that age, color was something I had not noticed. She would have a sly smile and continue on what she was doing. She really did not know how wonderful I thought she was. I admired her, and she didn’t recognize I was even there some of the times. I never thought about life, I just tried to enjoy living. I wanted to be free but I was not. The house we lived in was a two-story home. It was in a poor neighborhood and it always seemed dark, where there was no happiness or light there. I rarely saw our house full of laughter. Tears of unhappiness woke me up every day. At that age, life should have been grand, but instead, I carried an adult life. I had no clue to what being a child was. I remember wanting to be loved. I loved everyone and expressed it daily, just for it to be stumped upon. God is so good to have filled me with love no matter what happened in my life. I did not understand why that love was not put back into me from my mother. She was cold and unloving to me; always yelling about what I did wrong around the house. Hurt was very familiar and I looked forward to it every day.

How could a mother hate her own child this way? She never expressed those feelings towards my sisters. This was the question I asked myself all the time.

Going to school was the best thing for me because I was around other boys and girls who seemed to like me a lot. I was very quiet and standoffish but smiled at everything. Yes, life was grand in school. I had a crush on a little light-skinned boy. I don’t remember his name but he was real cute and I tried to get his attention all the time. Other girls liked him, too. When we would play musical chairs, I would want him to always sit in a chair next to me when the music would stop. There was another game called duck, duck goose. Everyone would form a circle and one person would be on the outside of the circle touching each person, and keep saying, Duck, duck, duck … and so on until they would say, Goose. The one that was called Goose had to chase the person around the circle until tagged. Then that next person would do the same thing. I would pick that little light-skinned boy all the time. It was obvious that I had a crush on him. All the kids would tease me about liking this boy.

Beverly, NJ, was a small town where everyone knew everyone. There was one bar, one church, and a bunch of old houses. No beauty about this place. It was like living in a ghost town. It felt black. There were two schools. The kindergarten to first grade was above a police station. It had about four classrooms total. It was nice because the police would come upstairs every now and then, and talk to all the children. Police were highly respected back then. We knew that they were there to protect and to serve. Beverly was mixed race but fairly blacks. Everyone always gossiped, but at the end of the day, poverty was the only language they understood and spoke, and partied at the only bar in town. I would smell crabs cooking from that bar every Friday night. Great smell. I loved all kinds of seafood and wished I was at the bar eating crabs.

Faithfully, my mother would leave me at home to watch my little sisters. She would not come home sometimes, or she would get in after the bar closed around two o’clock in the morning. The second school I had attended was second grade to high school. I thought I was a big person when I entered into the second grade. There was a girl named Kelly Steele, and she was big and really dark. She looked black to me. She hated me and my big beautiful curls on my head. She was a bully and would come after me for my milk money all the time. Five cents were a lot of money in those days. My mother did not always have it to give to me. Free lunch was not available to kids back then. I would give her my money anyway and it still was not enough. She wanted my toys and coloring books. Trying to sneak those things out of the house was very hard every morning. I actually went outside and put my coloring book and crayons on the steps outside before my mother could notice so that when it was time to leave out to school, they would already be out there.

My mother would walk me to the front door and watch me leave down the street. This particular day, I walked off and waited until she closed the door. I hurried back, grabbed the coloring book, and ran off to school. When I was greeted by Kelly and her mean looks, I handed her the book. I thought she would be happy but she was not. I forgot the crayons. She told me she was going to beat me up after school and that left me scared all day. I sat wondering what I could do to stay away from her fist. The teacher just so happened to ask, Anyone want to stay after school to clap erasers and clean the chalk board? I smiled and raised my hands. She smiled and was happy to allow me the job. I was so happy inside because I had just escaped a beating from the big Kelly Steele. Her name was even big and strong. When class let out, that bell was the greatest thing I had ever heard. School was out. I then took my time and got the erasers the teacher used all day, and went outside and pounded the erasers together, watching the white powder from the chalk form a cloud in the air. I was buying some time and I took as long as I could. I then went in the classroom, took a wet cloth and washed the blackboard. When I was done, I looked for other duties I could do for the teacher. She did not have anything else for me to do so she sent me on my way. This is too soon, I thought, but then I just knew Kelly was long gone by now. I then took my time and started to admire nature. Flowers were blossoming and the sun was bright and gorgeous. The air was light and warm against my face. I enjoyed that moment so much because there were so many colors around me on that spring day. I loved to sing and I was humming a tune with a smile on my face. I touched a few branches on the trees, with buds and flowers on them. The smell of honeysuckle was in the air, and I searched for them because I would pull one of those beautiful flowers, pinch off the bottom, pull that thin string out, and catch the drop of nectar in my mouth. What a wonderful taste! Who would ever think that something so small would spring out a big burst of sweetness in my mouth? I was happy. As I approached the street I was to cross, my cousin, Happy, was there to see me cross. He was the crossing guard there. He was an older man in his forties, about medium build, and about average height. He was my mother’s cousin and his name was Happy. I don’t know if it was his real name, but it fit him well. He smiled and laughed all the time. Keeping a smile on everyone’s face was his call, I believe.

I was ready to smile and say hello when I heard running behind me. I turned around and Kelly looked like a big bull charging after me. I ran as fast as I could without waiting on Cousin Happy to help me cross. He was so angry and yelling at me as I ran full force across the street as Kelly was on my tail. I was close to home. I ripped around the corner in full speed and noticed my mother across the street in my grandmother’s yard. She was standing and my grandmother was sitting on her steps of her home. I slowed down and started to walk as I saw my mother’s face of anguish. Kelly had noticed, too, and she quickly turned around and left. As I approached my mother, she asked me why I was running like that. I tried to make up a quick lie and she wouldn’t give me the satisfaction of lying. She told me to turn around and go back to find Kelly and fight her. She said, if I didn’t go back, she would beat me: and if I lost, she would beat me. I stood there weighing out my options. Kelly would beat me bad, but my mother’s beating almost kills me. I was scared, but I had a made up mind to find this girl and beat her butt. As I strolled off with a lot of thoughts in my mind how this was going to turn out, I just had no clue. When I found Kelly, I just decided to leap on her. Everyone stood around in amazement that I beat this big girl, who bullied not only me but many other girls and boys in our school. Fear can put you in a position to do some crazy things. I don’t remember how the fight ended but I was a hero that day. I was admired by other kids, and most of all, my mother did not have to beat me that day. She even smiled at me. That only came once in a while and I would eat it up as much as I could. Victory feels good! That was the first time I started understanding winning. Fear had rampaged me like a flood for the time at school and when I got home. I never knew what was going to come my way. Getting beat all the time at home, and then facing Kelly, who would threaten to beat me up every day if I didn’t come up with her demands.

The greatest part of life then was, I would think about going to the penny candy store. The store was downstairs under Cousin Happy’s apartment. It was the only store where people were in and out every day, all day. Cousin Happy would always give me money to buy ice cream or fill up on candy. Those were times when I had fun and didn’t think about life as being hard. Nothing mattered but laughter and fun. I never thought about drastic things happening, until one day, that turned my day into a nightmare.

It was January and close to my sister, Teree’s, birthday. My mother had bought her cake and it was on the kitchen table. Sugar, my mother, was in the bed that day and she barely moved. Sugar, my little sister, was in the crib next to my mother’s bed. The house was silent upstairs and downstairs was loud, with Sue Ann and Teree playing loudly. I knew there was something wrong in the house and could not figure out what was going on. I went upstairs and entered the bedroom facing my mother, staring at me with an odd look. When she asked where is mom, it shocked me because she never called my grand-mom, mom. I sat next to her and looked her in the eyes, trying to make sense of what she was asking because