I used to wonder what my testimony was. I was born into a strong Christian family, and I can't remember the day I first asked God into my heart. I was baptized when I was thirteen on a beautiful, sunny, August day in a favorite lake of ours near my home. But, I'd always loved Jesus. I used to think that my testimony, if I even had one, was extremely boring and uneventful. But one day it all dawned on me. My testimony was powerful. There was never one specific date when I asked Jesus into my heart, but instead through out my whole life there have been times that contributed; some more than others, and one time more than all the rest. It is a painful testimony and is hard to write about, but I feel it needs to be written. I hope others find comfort through it.
If you saw me today you would think of me as a happy, bubbly teenage girl who is always smiling and always laughing. I am. I have a totally amazing family. My parents have always had a strong and healthy marriage and that has lead to a strong and healthy family. We are definitely not a perfect family, but a happy one. I feel blessed to call one of the world's most beautiful places home. Montana. Home! I have fabulously awesome friends. Seriously, friends don't get much better. In my opinion if you have those things you have everything you need. My life isn't perfect, but it doesn't have to be to be beautiful. Deep down I have always been a happy person. But I've still had my struggles.
I was born on April 6, 1999 at 3:00a.m. My entrance into the world was not a pretty one. My parents had planned a home birth, but that didn't work too well. At some point I decided to put my fist under my chin, and thus I got stuck. My mother was going low on oxygen and suffocating; I was going into distress, so my mother was transferred to the hospital. She was in labor for 18 hours, and pushed for 4. The doctors tried suction on me twice, but my head was covered with too many black ringlets for that to work. In the end the forceps were they only tool of success. When I was finally born I had meconium. Because of this, the doctor didn't want me to breath until he had removed it. I had other plans. Immediately I started screaming bloody murder, and to keep me quiet the doctor stuck his finger down my throat. I have a funny memory about that, but I'm sure that comes from stories I was told as a child. For the first few days my parents weren't able to hold me much, because I had such terrible jaundice. I didn't wake up much, because of that for the first month. The next five months after that I would clench my head with my fists and screamed constantly. This is probably because I had headaches from the forceps. As well as headaches, I had bad colic. Because of my traumatic birth my teeth stopped making enamel, so my teeth, particularly my molars, have very powdery, soft enamel, known as Hypoplastic Enamel.
After my headaches and colic went away I was always happy. My parents, not for any particular reason, wanted to give me a Native American name. Since I was always giggling and my name is Brooke (like a creek), they named me Laughing Water. Apparently, the "water" part also came because I drooled a lot, which I find terribly funny.
I have always been a stubborn person, on some things more than others. All my grandparents were firstborns as wells as my parents. I have a lot of first born blood funneled into me, so maybe that is why I am so head strong. If anyone tried to help me with something I would say, "No! Brooke do it." Before I took to dolls I had a stuffed bunny that was my "baby". I insisted on being called "Bunny's Mommy", so much so that one of my Sabbath-school teachers once referred to me as "Bunny's Mommy" in front of the entire church. One of my largest pet peeves as a child was when people called my doll...a doll. She was a real baby, and if anyone said otherwise I was not happy. I licked my lips ALL THE TIME and because of that my lips were always very dry. My mom would explain to me again and again that licking my lips would make them even more dry, but my response was always, "Yes, well I understand that is the way it is with most people, but not me. (As I said, I was a stubborn thing. I still am.) I wore dresses all the time, and the fancier the better. I had this one red formal dress that I wore to the garden on more than one occasion.
I loved singing. I still do, but I don't do it as much. I would make up tunes and words as I went. The words always had to do with what I was seeing and feeling at that very moment. If I was in the car, I would sing about the man walking down the street, the bird on the telephone wire, the red car and the leafy tree all in one song. It was really amusing, and is one of my dad's favorite things to tell about me.
When I was three, shortly after my little brother was born, I started showing signs of abandonment issues. My mother recognized the symptoms and immediately sat me down and explained it to me. "Brooke," she said "I'm not sure you are old enough to understand anything I am telling you, but I want you to know that you had a very rough birth. Sometimes when that happens the baby can think it is being rejected and is not wanted. I want you to know I love you very much and I have always wanted you. Ok?" I don't remember anything about those symptoms or that talk, but apparently after that my symptoms went completely away.
I have always been a very odd combination of lighthearted and giggly, and intense and up-tight. I'm more of the former, but strongly the latter, as well. From the time that I was seven until the time that I was 12, I suffered from severe depression. I still had a happy personality throughout the entire time, but my smile was hard to find on some...many days. It is important to note that I wasn't depressed all the time, only a large percentage of the time. I still have many fantastic and wonderful memories that my depression didn't touch.
It started out as Seasonal Affect Disorder. This is fairly normal in places like Montana. We have beautiful springs, summers, and falls, but our winters are usually dark and long. I would get severely depressed during the winters. I've always enjoyed school...to a point, but at this time I couldn't get enough of it. It helped me keep my mind off of my depression. The first year I had it the winter was terrible, but that summer it was if I had never had it. I went about playing like a normal seven/eight year old. I was always happy. The next winter was worse. My parents bought me "happy" lamps with special light bulbs to help me get the light I needed. This helped a lot, but it didn't take it away. My mother took me to one of her doctors and he prescribed thyroid medication. This helped too, I think, but it didn't take it away. I took Sam-E, a kind of medication that was more natural, but still effective. This also helped, but it didn't take it away either. That year my depression held on longer than the previous. My summer wasn't as stress free as the summer before. The sun helped and took much of it away, but still it lingered. If my memory is correct that next winter was slightly worse than that summer, but no where near as bad as that past winter.
I was very sensitive about it. I didn't like my mom telling and talking about it to other people. I don't know why. I don't really like talking about it now, because I don't like being reminded about it, but I like it when people know about it.
I had the strangest triggers. I don't remember all of my triggers, and honestly I prefer not to. I felt guilty about everything. If I accidently bumped into someone and forgot to say excuse me or sorry, I would be tormented by guilt. USUALLY, it wasn't that bad. That was at it's worst. If I accidently thought about something I thought was bad, I would think that meant I was bad. It was weird. I didn't know how to talk about it, but if I didn't I couldn't go to sleep. Sometimes something would torture me for weeks, until I finally got so tired of not sleeping that I would force myself to tell my mom. I would often be terrified of telling her, because I was scared she would think there was something wrong with me and I was a bad person for thinking like that, but whenever I told her she never got worried. Looking back I can truly laugh. The things that tortured me for weeks were silly and ridiculous, but they didn't feel that way then. It was really never anything big or terrible. She would hug me, and help me understand that just because I accidently thought something didn't mean I believed it. When I talked with her it always made me feel better, and it would usually never bother me again.
There were, however, a couple triggers that always came back. One of them was the thought that my mom would lie and was lying to me. I never really thought that, but I couldn't tell the difference between having a thought cross my mind and believing that thought. My mother would never lie to me. She is one of the most honest people I know. By saying "one of" I mean that I know others as honest as her, but I don't know any more honest.
I didn't like watching adds for depression meds on T.V. because they showed it so accurately it hurt. I only remember the stress getting bad enough for me to loose my appetite once. I LOVE food, so it has got to be pretty bad for me to lose my appetite.
Then, for a while, my depression left. I was fine. I may have had trouble on occasion, but on general I was myself again. Then the summer I turned eleven it came back. Hard. While a lot of it, through out the years, was directed at my mom, this was even more. It was a very hard time for both of us. She could never do anything right. I mean, no matter what she did I would "think" something about it. Mr. Blueberry Eyes and I have always been treated equally. Always. But if she gave something to him and not me, I would think she was favoring him. Even if it was a small thing. If she gave something to me and not him, I would think she was favoring me, and I didn't like that. It was weird, and strange. I can't make sense of it now, and I couldn't make sense of it then. All I know is that it was hard on all of us and especially my mom and I.
Sometime, in the midst of this all, my parents bought us a puppy. She was an eight week old Yorkipoo, and goodness, was she cute. She still is. It took us all of one day to name her. This is surprising since every member of our family is strongly opinionated. We probably went through 300 names before one of us randomly put the letters N-I-K-A together. It stuck. She was a great comfort to me. I don't remember any pin-pointed time that she eased my gloom, but she was always brightening my days.
Both my parents were extremely worried about me. My mother was afraid I might have Bi-polar or some craziness like that. But when she researched it, my symptoms weren't that of Bi-polar, but terrible depression. Looking back, we should have treated it better with more effective meds. But since I wouldn't talk about it there wasn't much my parents could do. We still don't completely know what caused it. But we strongly believe it had to do with my birth. Since most of it was directed at my mom, it could very well have been my "abandonment" issues.
Sometime when I was twelve, it went away....completely. What made it leave I'm not sure. It may have been puberty, maybe the rest of me finally caught up with my overly mature brain, maybe it was the home school town classes that I began going to more (I had been going to some), and maybe it was a combination of all of the above. I don't know, all I know is that it left. Winter is still the roughest on me, but I don't get depression. Sometimes I get depressed, but I don't suffer from full blown depression.
It is hard to say I am thankful for that time in my life, but in a way I am. I feel that it has made me a stronger Christian and closer to our Lord Jesus. I could not have made it through that period of trial with out the promises God left us in the Bible. I remember one specific time around when I was 8 that I was reading my Bible and came across the verse of I Corinthians 10:13, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." Looking back I realize that this verse was dealing with temptation, and I wasn't, but I felt it was referring to trials, stresses, and troubles. The night I found that verse I remember was a very special night. I slept like a baby and felt at peace. Since then, that has been one of my favorite Bible verses. There was another time when I remember that I was very troubled. My mother had told me that I didn't have to tell her about EVERYTHING that was bothering me, God would also listen and help take it off my heart. Of course, I knew this, but one day I tried it with a little more fervor than before. I walked over to our sliding-glass door, sat down and told God all about it while I looked out over our back yard. And, once again, I was filled with true God-given peace.
Not only did that time make me closer to God, I feel that made me closer to my Mama, too. We have become very close. She is more than my mother; much more than my mother. She is my friend. She understands my quirks and celebrates them with me...and I celebrate hers. It is important to have a mom who you can trust and talk to about everything, and she is exactly that kind of mother. Those years were tough on us both, but I think it made us stronger in who we are today.
I also believe, that that time helped in shaping who I am. I've learned how to let the little things go. I've learned how to be happier. I've learned how to talk freely with God and my family. But, most of all, I have learned that God never forsakes us. NEVER! "There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with the: I will not fail thee nor forsake thee." Joshua 1:5 I still have a long way to go on learning all of the above plus more. I am human, and like everyone else, I am learning everyday how to be a better person and a truer Christian.
Footprints
One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand; one belonged to him, and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand; He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life.
This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it. "Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all he way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me."
The Lord replied, "My precious, precious child, I love and I would never leave you. during your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."
~Unknown
This is my all time favorite poem. It describes me so perfectly. There were times I felt God near and there were times I didn't. The times I didn't were always the times that I was going through something especially tough. I never thought he had forsaken me, but I didn't feel close to him. Looking back through my life, I can see that those were the times he was the nearest to me and the times he carried me. God NEVER forsakes his children. If there is anything I want you to learn from my story it is this. Not one time has God EVER abandoned his dearly beloved children. And, that is the reason I can smile in a world as torn, filthy, rotten, sinful, and detestable as ours is today.
~ Brooke
Great! :)
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