Having Wings Like Eagles

Maybe My Life Will Change?

     Hannah of course struggled in high school, with friends, boys and grades.  So called friends picked on her.  Boys would try and get into her pants and she never tried hard enough in school.  Years went on and she was determined to change the situation if she could.  She couldn't though.  Her step-father had a hold on her that she couldn't let loose from.  Life in the Yardley house was a lie through and through and something had to be done.  One day her step-father had a bright idea.  He decided to take them all to church.  Hannah and the rest didn't want to go but he insisted.  She could not fathom her step-father or her family stepping foot into a church.  As said before, she went to another church for awhile, but just wasn't interested.  "I don't want to go to church", Hannah protested.  Her step-father told his family that they all needed church so they went reluctantly.  She thought to herself, "Maybe he will change.  Maybe my life in hell will change and we'll all be different."

     Ben, her step-father took all of them into their smalltown community church.  They walked into Fellowship Bible Church and people greeted them right and left.  Hannah found out that some of her high school classmates went there, so she felt comfortable right away.  The pastor, Henry Pinkett was a man who always had a caring smile on his face.  He was new to the church and that's why Ben wanted to try it out.  He had a big family and they all were very friendly, including his wife, Audrey, who ended up being a very special lady to Hannah.  She was hoping that a change would happen in her step-father, more than a change in herself.  She thought if that change happened, life would be worth living again.  It wasn't at this point.  Later that year, in mid-summer, she and her family had made a decision.  They trusted in Jesus, or so they said.  They got baptized a few month later.  Things seemed to be going well for Hannah.  She loved church and everyone there.  They were like family.  And for a time being her step-father didn't touch her.  "This was great!  It's finally over!", she thought.

     There was trouble ahead though.  Ben and her mom, Gayle, started to stay away from church more and more.  Hannah wanted to go, but they didn't feel like going anymore.  The boys, Harry and Ronny didn't really want to go either, but Hannah continued on her way.  She sang in the choir and got involved in the Youth Group and seemed to enjoy her life, but she was concerned about her family, especially her step-father, Ben.  "Was it all real?", she wondered.  It seemed real for her. She was now 17, almost out of high school and now had a new life.  What could be better?  What could be better was for her family to love Jesus as much as she thought she did.  She was very concerned.

     She was frantic.  "What could have gone wrong?  What were they thinking?  Were they just putting on airs so others would see them as a 'good family?'" , she asked herself and God.   Hannah saw right through them and was not happy.  She had a class at the Community College, with Ben.  He thought they should take a class together.  She felt uncomfortable, but enjoyed the class.  It was a journalism class.  She wanted to work for National Geographic one day.  There was a moment during the class when no one was looking that Ben made a move on Hannah.  She was enraged on the inside, but outwardly said nothing.  "He is a fraud!" , she told herself.  "It was all an act!", she again determined.  Her world plummeted.  This was the end of her "normal" family.  Her attitude and emotions plummeted also.

     She began to think he wanted to get caught after what he had pulled.  Right there with everyone around.  It didn't surprise her though since he did it with people asleep in the house.  She wanted a way out and now, but she still was under his control until she left home, which wouldn't happen soon enough.  How could she escape?  What could she do to get out.  She thought back to when she was fifteen and took a bunch of aspirin.  It didn't do anything to her except give her a stomach ache.  She acted out her first suicidal attempt then.  Was suicide the only way?  It must be because, she thought, "Jesus is not saving me from this."

     She didn't realize what Jesus was doing and thought that you just acted the same, only with forgiveness.  She thought that with Jesus you didn't change at all, so she didn't.  She kept going to church, "working" to be a better person, but that didn't do it.  There wasn't a Sunday or Wednesday night she didn't go, and didn't care if her family did or not.  She also thought that now no one would believe her, since her family became "Christian".  There was absolutely no way to get away from the monster living with her.  Her nightmares became more and more real.  Then she realized they weren't nightmares.  It was really happening.

     Graduation had come and gone, and she was going to start going to the Community College in September.  Her bad experience with the class she took that semester didn't stop her.  She couldn't concentrate in college and skipped most classes to meet young men and drink.  It wasn't something she was proud of but she really did think now that was all she was good for.  She got a job part-time, working in the mail room of the Daily Press, the local newspaper.  She wanted to start there for her journalism career.  She did well but soon skipped out of work to party with friends or just to get drunk by herself.  It always went over and over in her head that things didn't change all that much, that maybe she wasn't trying hard enough at this new found religion.  She just wanted to be good again and wasn't.

     They told her, her life would be filled with joy when you had Jesus in it, but she felt empty and ashamed.  She had always wondered why.  She never knew the truth until many years later.  She liked being involved in the church choir and the Youth Group, but felt she fell short of it.  She wondered if Jesus could really love her the way she was.  She just assumed that because she was so new to this religion that she had a lot to learn.  It became more and more important for Hannah to change, even if her family didn't.  She thought if she was good on Sundays and Wednesday night and did all the right things at church, she would be OK to drink and smoke and cuss during the week.  In the beginning she thought Jesus was suppose to change you, but as time went on, she thought Jesus was just a ticket out of hell, and she could live how she wanted.

     College became more of a pipe dream than a reality, so she dropped out by the time she was twenty.  Her journalism days seemed to be over for her.  She kept spiralling downward and acted out self-destructively.  She was already showing very severe depression and signs of harming herself.  She had friends she went to and they didn't know exactly what to do.  Hannah didn't know whether her friends believed she would do it, or felt she was such a lost cause that she couldn't be helped.  Hannah didn't even know if she could hurt herself or just was crying out for help and attention.  It may have been a little of both.

     Her pastor was concerned though, and a few others that had noticed, so they recommended to Gayle and Ben Yardley a hospital that might possibly be able to help her.  Hannah's parents were desperate by this time and agreed to it.  The hospital was a private psychiatric facility and was quite costly.  The hospital was named The Healing Hands of Hope, several hours from her home.  Hanna was reluctant at first, but got to thinking that she'd at least be away from her step-father for awhile.  She thought that was a good thing, and it was.  It was a Christian-based hospital that dealt with their patients with getting deep into the Bible and relying on God's Word to bring them to peace.  She worked through her depression but acted out there in anger and self-destructive behavior that kept her at the hospital for a month.  She felt safe at the hospital so she tried hard not to get better.

     She finally got out of the hospital and went back to hell.  She vowed to go back to school...in another state, only about four hours away, which meant she didn't have to live with "him" anymore, and that was good, she thought.  She seemed to be doing better at this point and her parents agreed she could go to an out-of-state college, a private Bible college.  "From now on", she thought, "I will be free."  But in reality she wasn't.  She would soon find out that she would just be running away from her problems, not dealing with them.  A new nightmare was coming, and it would be coming soon.

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     *Thank you so much for fanning and reading and voting.  I really appreciate it so much.  I enjoy writing this and other projects as well.  I hope to do the best I can in editing it for you, and making this story entertaining and yet, educating.  Let me know from time to time what you think by commenting and voting.  Thanks so much!  God bless!