A Memory of Ambers

The healing of a childhood memory.

When I think of child hood, I think of laughter, I think of fun, games, toys and play mates. I think of running to your parents when you skin your knee, or catching a Frisbee at the park, I think of the ice cream truck coming around in the summer and the smell of snow cones. But that wasn’t true for the life of a girl at the age of six.
Her name was Amber. Times were hard and money was tight .She grew up with a mother who had hardships of a childhood herself, She had to work long hours to make ends meet, and that wasn’t even enough. Although her mother made the decisions she thought was best at the time, raising four children was a task. There were many chores for the kids to do to play a part in helping their mother during her long hours of work. Her memories of a young child before the age of six were very bleak.
Amber’s earliest memory was the spring of 1976, when she was in her room on the second floor of a low income apartment building where she had lived with her family. She woke to the sound of a child’s laughter she decided to sneak down to look over the banister and saw a very tall man playing with her little brother. She saw her mother sitting next to him, months later the man she saw soon became her Stepfather and that when the memories began.
At first life was great, her and her brothers got a lot of attention from their step dad. He also worked long hours for the city they lived in. Soon they were able to move a few blocks away into a house. The house was small, Amber and her brothers had to share a bedroom, they had there own yard to play in and now a new family to share new memories with.
Ambers new dad had two sisters, one of them took a great liking to her and loved her deeply, but soon the memories that she thought she was going be proud of started to become sour. Her step dad Charlie started spending a lot of time home alone at night because Ambers mom started working during the overnight hours.
Amber assumed her dad must have started feeling lonely because he soon began to wake her up at nights while her mother was gone.
At first it was just to watch TV with him and talk about whatever he wanted to talk about. Then it began to get more affectionate. Charlie soon wanted Amber to sit on his lap a lot, and started to hug and kiss her more often.
She really didn’t mind because she never had that kind of affection before and it made her feel loved. She felt like the most loved little girl in the world, but that didn’t last long either. Soon the affection became more personal. There was a lot of kissing and touching in places that made her feel a great amount of fear. It was a secret between her and her dad so for many years she never told, she was determined to make her dad proud by keeping his secrets.
There were times she thought she had to tell because the affection was now making her cry. Things were done too her that hurt physically and emotionally, there were many, many times that she was forced to do things she didn’t want to do,　but by this time Charlie had already warned her if she ever told then he would have to hurt her mother and Amber knew Charlie to be telling the truth, cause you see soon after the sexual abuse began so did the many beatings begin on her mother.
Her life started to fill up with a lot of physical and forced sexual abuse. Amber soon began having nightmares of the things that were being done to her and her mother. She recalls the memories of a beating her mother took one winter night. When Amber and her baby brother came to the kitchen .It had already looked like a horror film, blood was splattered from one end of the kitchen to the other. Her mother grabbed the kids and drove herself to the hospital.
Amber now knew Charlie’s threats were real, but as she sat in the emergency room of the local hospital, she thought, what difference would it make if she told? Because Charlie was going to kill her mom anyways.
So one day as Charlie was working, Amber sat down with her mom and began to tell of the years of sexual abuse she had endured, and the way Charlie had forced her to perform things on him. Shocked and horrified at the gory details her mother called the police. They filed a report and Charlie was arrested. The following day Amber was taken to social services by her mother to testify what happened to her. After Amber gave her testimony she sat in a room with her mom until they told them it was ok to leave.
Her mother did what she thought would be the safest thing to do and took Amber to her Grandmothers house a few miles away, a week went by and the phone call from social services came in. Amber remembers seeing the tears in her mothers face. A few minutes later her mother came to her, as she sat on the couch in the living room, An began to tell amber that she has to tell children’s services that she lied about all the abuse, when amber questioned her mother about it, her mother said if she didn’t lie then children’s services were going to take her away.
You see, although all the abuse done to amber was forced and horrific, Amber had refused to let authorities look at her private parts, there was no way with what she had been through that she was going let anyone else touch her there. So, there was no physical evidence that the abuse had occurred. So no charges could stick on Charlie. It was her word against his. So Amber agreed to say she lied and nothing legal became of it.
Days later Charlie was released, and went and picked Amber and her family up from her Grandmothers house. Well because the Police had heard of the abuse, Charlie decided to play it safe and he never touched Amber again. As a matter of fact he rarely spoke to her for days at a time. But the devastating memories didn’t stop there.
Although the sexual abuse on Amber had stopped the physical abuse on her mother just got worse. Amber never understood how her mother could even go back to this man knowing what he had done.
About six months after the abuse had stopped, they moved into a nice two story house without Charlie. Mom had left and filed for Divorce. By this time Amber was about 9 ½ years old. One night Amber was upstairs with a girlfriend and heard a loud noise and a scream, when Amber and her friend decided to sneak downstairs as they approached the stairway they saw Charlie holding a gun to her mother. Afraid for her mother she went upstairs and called the police, minutes later Charlie was arrested.
Soon after, a new life had begun for Amber and her family. They moved to a neighboring city in a nice apartment building with a pool. Amber just new her life was about to change for the better. About a year had gone bye and Amber was going to go swimming at the pool. As she approached the door to the outside her Mother was standing out there talking to a man in a beat up truck.
Amber started down the street when her Mother called her to the truck and introduced her to this man named John. Amber said hi and proceeded on her way to the pool when her mother called her back to the truck and told her that this man John was her real Dad. Amber not too thrilled about the news was a little shy and maybe frightened because of her experience with her step dad. Ambers mother proceeded to tell her that they where all going to go to the movies together. So that night Amber and her little brother went to the drive-in with her mom and John. All she remembered about that night was her mother and John getting very affectionate with each other in front of her and her brother. When the movie was over Amber was told she was spending the night with this John guy that claimed to be her dad.
She remembers walking up a narrow set of stairs into a small hallway with a bedroom on the right and a bedroom in front of her. On her left was the living room with a red couch a tan chair and a fish tank and a tv. On the left of the living room was a tiny little kitchen with a lot of junk on the table and the kitchen was pretty dirty. As her memory recalls, her and John sat on the couch together and talked, they talked about silly things she thought, until John began telling her that her mother had told him what had happened to her, John told her if he ever saw this guy he would kill him. Amber not thinking anything of it just sat there and listened with a blank stare.
Minutes later, out of the blue John says...Do you know what your step dad made you do to him, Amber responded by saying yes. John then says I want you to do the same to me, Amber responded with telling him, "no". John sat back and smoked a cigarette and said well you’re going to. That night many things were being done to her that she had already gone through. Soon after he was done assaulting her, he passed out on the couch.
Amber then began to stare at the rain out the window crying uncontrollably. The next thing she remembered was waking up in a big bed to a pair of black dress shoes and　scrambled egg breakfast, Forgetting he was even there, she looked over and saw her baby brother standing at the doorway. At that time she had realized her brother had witnessed the whole sexual attack the night before. She began to cry and told John she didn’t want to eat, nor did she want the shoes. He told her if she didn’t eat he would beat her with the large leather belt he had. So as the tears fell in her food she began to eat, soon after that her and her brother was dropped off at their front door.
Amber had already decided she was not going to keep this a secret and told her mom what had happened as soon as she walked in the door. Amber never saw this man John again and never wanted too. The sexual abuse in Ambers life　would be over for many years, but now she became a very insecure and unfriendly little girl who never smiled. After all, why would these kinds of things happen over and over again to a child? As she started her teenage years Amber found herself having many difficulties in school. She couldn’t concentrate on much of anything but memories of a childhood she never understood.
Soon Amber began to think that she must have done something for this to happen, not once but twice. Was it the way she dressed? or the way she walked? Or maybe it was something she said, but she couldn’t remember what she had done so wrong to have to endure all the things she did. All she knew was, she was never going to allow another person to hurt her. So she chose to shut herself out of many things, she became very withdrawn and rebellious. She started to develop a deep hatred for her mom. After all, what mother would let her child be put through such a devastating childhood? That’s the question Amber asked herself. So to get her Mother back, Amber would physically abuse herself and tell others her mom did it, but it was never proven. She would spend many days scratching her face, beating her head into walls, taking sharp objects to herself. Amber decided since she couldn’t physically take the anger out on her mom, whom she believed allowed this to happen to her, or the ones who hurt her, then she would take the anger upon herself, she felt that was the only place the anger could go.
As she got up there in her teenage years, Amber would get very promiscuous with all the boys, she would tease them with sexual innuendos, but as soon as a boy would get excited and want to touch her she would start to fight. For many years she would flirt with the boys, but never let them close to her. When Amber turned eighteen she met a guy eight years older then her. This guy treated her like a queen. He wasn’t a lot to look at but boy did he love her. So she thought. By the time she was nineteen she had a little baby of her own.
Although her boyfriend loved her, he wasn’t very responsible with his actions as a father, even accusing the baby of not being his. You see Ambers boyfriend had also grown up with a rocky childhood, and I guess you can say he never knew exactly how to re-act as a father. Well by now Amber was 19, over weight with a baby, and already being very insecure, she thought she would just deal with it, because who would want her anyways.
As soon as her baby began to turn a year old, she moved to her very 1st apartment, it was an upstairs apartment, not the nicest, but not the worst. Most important it was hers. She went on public welfare and stayed home with her baby. Not too long after she moved in, her boyfriend came to see her, as he always did, trying to get her back after one of their many break-ups, she was in the bathroom bathing their baby. When she came out of the bathroom, she set the baby in the living room in the high chair with a snack, Jerry (her boyfriend) started touching her in a way where she knew what he wanted, she instantly got mad and yelled at him to get off of her, As he started his assault she instantly beginning to have flash backs of her childhood, she got as mad as she could and threw him off of her and into a wall. Jerry got angry and left. Although Amber’s older brother took steps to protect her, Amber thought well maybe she did something to lead him on and she took him back, just knowing she didn’t deserve better then that.
A couple years later, already having three kids, giving one child, whom she loved greatly up for adoption to her mother. Amber decided she was just going to marry him. The marriage did not last too long. Four years and five children total, Amber decided she had enough and filed for divorce. Although before the divorce was final, Amber had already started an affair with a married man, whose wife was her friend. A year later Amber and her boyfriend moved to the south and married, within a year she was already having an affair with another married man, whose wife was her friend.
Amber was living a vicious cycle in her life and breaking up family’s ,so she decided to　 move back north where she was from, soon after her move north she found out the man she was having an affair with was being investigated for child molestation of his own daughter. Amber afraid for the safety of her children had already given her life to Christ as a teenager (but not living it) decided she had no where else to go but to God.
So three days before Christmas of that year, as she sat in the bathroom of a friends house, Amber cried out to God saying "Father forgive me for the sins I have committed over the years", and began to name her sins, She then says to God if you restore my marriage in a way you want it to be, I promise to give my heart and life back to you and live for you forever, Three days later on Christmas day her husband arrived at the front door. She knew from that moment that if no one ever loved her enough, God did, and she began to live out the word of God. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Now although God had restored her marriage and God had forgiven her for her sins, Amber still had a lot of reaping to do for all the bad sowing she had done over the years.
Living for Christ is probably the hardest thing in life she’s ever done. But as Amber states, God has a plan for each and every one of us. You see Amber always thought that what happened to her was allowed by God or he would have stopped it from happening, but God allows us to make our own choices and what happened to Amber was the direct result of bad choices and circumstance her mother put in her life. If her mother had known ahead of time what was going to happen, then of course she would have chosen a different rout. Although both men who sexually assaulted her as a child were brought into her life by her mother, she knew in her heart that her mother would have never brought that on had she of known ahead of time what was about to take place. Although she knew that, it did not stop her from making terrible choices of her own for along time to come. So from there Amber continued bringing those kinds of men into her life with her first husband. It was all she knew. But when she turned to God and chose to live for Him, He took her out of that lifestyle and brought her into His arms. From then on she knew she had to live a life of forgiveness. Matthew 6:14 says: If you forgive those who sinned against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
So Amber had chosen to forgive, it was not the easiest thing she had ever done. As a matter of fact it was very emotional and hurtful, but through the grace of God, so Amber was able to forgive without feeling guilty as if she was at fault. Romans 8:1 says: There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. She went from making the memories of an abused child to making memories of a new life with Christ. She now makes her memories with her Family and Friends. A lot of times in life we make bad choices and run from our situations because we don’t know how to face them.
We all make bad choices and most if not all of our choices affect the lives of others. So even if you’re a mother who made bad choices and you feel like you have ruined things in your life or the lives around you, just remember God’s love and His grace and forgiveness is never ending. Through Christ you can begin to make brand new choices. The choices Amber makes are all the ones she never thought that as a child she would ever have.
Recently God laid it on the heart of Amber to write to her Father, who is in prison serving a life sentence for the sexual abuse of many other children, so she obeyed what she felt God was leading her to do, she wrote to him a letter of forgiveness and love. Gods love. Not only does it give her heart more room to heal, but maybe her father needed to feel forgiven.
That’s what salvation is about. You see, all we have to do is make the decision to give our hearts to God and ask Jesus to live in us. John3:3　says: Unless a man is born again, he shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. From there we need to get into the word of God so we can know and understand what God wants out of us. Proverbs 2:6 says: For the lord gives wisdom and out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
Through out this story, you may have felt this was a letter of hurt and anger, you, yourself may have even felt anger or cried for her, but the miracle is, this is the story of a woman who has experienced every step of this first hand. Yet when she tells of her story, she talks as if it was the story of someone else. Because the truth is, it is the story of someone else. It may have been the same person in a physical sense, but a totally different person in the spiritual. Where every area of resentment is gone, no anger, no frustration and no regrets. When we accept Christ as our Savior and Father and Healer and develop a personal relationship with Him, we allow God to bring true healing and forgiveness, then and only then do we become a new creation in Him. If her misfortunes wasn’t what they were in life, then she wouldn’t have the experience and the heart to pour out to others.
You see everyone has a story to be told. Some with more devastating back grounds then others. Whether you’re a　teenager who has yourself been sexually abused, or maybe you grew up in a house of physical abuse, maybe there was no abuse and you just grew up without being told how loved you really were. Or maybe you grew up in a nice home but never had the chance to meet Jesus. Maybe your no longer a teenager, but you have lived a lifetime of anger and hostility.
Well now is your chance, because God gives us a free will to make our own decisions.　 So, are we going to dwell on our past and remain unforgiving to those who have hurt us? Are we going to remain angry and hard hearted to the world for what was done to us? Or knowing what you know now about the love Christ has to offer and what Jesus wants to do with your life, are you going to choose to live for him?
If God can take the heart of Amber, a sexually and physically abused little girl, too a woman with a heart of God, A woman who’s devastating past has become a distant memory because of the healing she has allowed God to do in her heart and mind. Her life is now with a loving husband, five beautiful children and a life she would have never dreamed to have gotten on her own. Then what do you think God wants to do with your life? Our sole purpose for being on this earth is to worship Him, and through your worship comes healing. Worship brings so many opportunities to draw close to the one who has given His life for you.
We have choices to make positive decisions in our lives and the lives of others. There is so much love in the family of Christ. Healing and forgiveness sheds so much love upon us as people. Amber is now victorious, because she chose to allow God to not just bring healing, but to show her how to love in a way that she never knew she could ever love.
She’s able to see people in a different light, even those who don’t make the best of choices, she now has an understanding that not always are they who and what they’re actions represent. Maybe it’s time to allow ourselves to forgive and love one another. So we can forgive the past and move on to a promising future with the One who promises us eternity.
What kind of memories do you want to make for the rest of your life? Will you acknowledge Jesus Christ as your personal savior and allow Him to live in you and heal you of anything your heart desires?
　
Remember, It is a choice. Will it be yours?