My Testimony, By Rhonda Patton
It started when I was a young girl, many miracles happened in my life. I had a problem where I couldn’t go to the bathroom, but had to go. My parents rushed me to the hospital. My bladder was really full. They emptied it out, but they let my mom know if they hadn’t brought me it would be bad. As I was growing up I went to church at 10 and was baptized. Growing up, you do things you don’t realize you are doing wrong, and harming yourself. I drank like other teenagers. I did a lot of things not supposed to do. But survived them.
I lost many dear people to me in my life, which I was very close to, my papaw at 9. And uncles, aunts, many teenagers I hung around with who were dear to me. At 19, I lost my best friend who was pregnant. She had been my best friend since the age of 10. She lived down my road. Her husband lost her, two kids, an aunt and grandparent that day. My life began to turn around; I wanted a life of love with a man and have a family. So I dated the wrong people, and met my ex-husband.
He was nice, at first. He had a lot of problems, first he didn’t know how to add or subtract without a calculator, and second he told me he was divorced. So we had problems coming into the marriage, and he told me he didn’t have kids, but shortly I found out he had one. And he was the cutest angel. Smart, beautiful red hair, and a loving kid. I fell in love. I didn’t fall in love with the problems we had though. Shortly we married, and a month later the abuse took place. I was slammed up against the wall, pulled hair, bitten face, back so purple it was black all across my back.
I was tired of the problems, but I was tired of the abuse. I started writing my feelings down on paper, getting so depressed I would drink. The day turned for me when I came home for lunch and he was home and needed the car for a job interview. I asked him if he would call them back and make it for tomorrow because I got paid, and we would have gas money. He went crazy on me. I came home to tell him I had lost 5 pounds that week, and came home to a turning point. He busted my lip, threw me against the wall, and pinned me there. I remember praying to GOD, “If you help me, Lord.
Just let me die. I didn’t want to live. It wasn’t worth it. But GOD said it was. I remember hearing this deep voice. Telling me, it would be okay, I am here. And I love you. So, I got out of my husband’s hands of choking my neck and told him I loved him, I had to go back to lunch. I leaned over and knew HE WAS GONE. But I wanted him to know with my bruised lips, and red neck that I loved him no matter what, but when I left I had it in my mind I wasn’t turning back. It was it. I see a cop turn into the post office by my house; this cop SAVED my life, and got him out of my house. This was October 22, 1998.
I was divorced finally in August 1999. I had a friend of mine ask me to go to a hockey game; we don’t have a hockey team in Shreveport. But we did. I missed out of doing a lot in my life, because I was paying for a child that wasn’t mine, and a husband that wouldn’t work. So I went with her. Started going, met new friends. But one guy would change my life forever. This guy kept staring at me and my friend in the stands, I thought this guy was crazy, should have listened to my gut feeling, but I wouldn’t change one second of it.
I had to go to the bathroom, and then get something to drink for me and friend. The guy (from the stands) didn’t know he was right behind me says, whatever she is getting I am buying. I thought he is crazy. I didn’t know we would start to date, then have a little girl. Our first time of being intimate I felt real sick afterwards, he even joked “you aren’t pregnant are you”. I said no. I hadn’t been with anyone since the day my ex-husband left, so I knew I wasn’t.
