I should’ve died all those years ago…

…. I finally decided to share my story, It’ll be a little lengthy so I apologize for the inconvenience ahead of time. It all starts 14 years ago. I THOUGHT that my life with my family was great (what else is a four year old supposed to think). But the state felt differently I guess because I became an orphan AT the age of four. The state for some reason or another didn’t feel that my mother was a suitable mother at that time for me and my 7 year old big sis. Well from night I think the biggest thing I remember was crying myself to sleep and waking up at some new home in some.. new location. I was lost in all senses of the word. I guess I didn’t think it could get any worse. Man how horribly wrong I was. It was (forgive my language) hell for me. The kicker is that I was moved from home to home, they were trying to find me a new family! Gah and in EACH and EVERY new home I was…… physically and mentally abused. One of the things that was said to me that latched on to me like a tick was that “The only achievement you’ll have in this life will be the day you die and the world is rid of you” That one phrase pierced me like a poison tipped dagger. All of these things made a child realize the cold hard darkness that is real life. I know full well that everyone has their own problems but…… An orphan at four will ruin a child’s childhood.

I don’t like thinking of this but…. I will admit it now that in one of the homes I was in I was raped and THAT experience tore from me what little hope I had left that my life would get better or even COULD get better anymore. And it is because that loss of hope, that loss of FAITH in life that I gave up on life in general, I mean if I didn’t matter why should I give a dang right? I also rejected the one thing that could’ve saved me back then. I rejected God from my life for good. If he cared so much about me like everybody said then why in the world would he let this happen?! I didn’t understand and decided not to even try to. Eventually me and my sister were brought back together in one of the home and I finally found a crutch to lean on. That’s a terrible way to refer to your sister but that what she was to me at that point in my life. I had shut my heart behind wall and walls of pain, anger, sadness, and hate that although I acknowledged her as my sister she was just a crutch that I leaned on to level myself out. And it was great, our relationship, but yet again I forgot that I was still living MY life and another bomb dropped and blew my reality all to pieces. We were finally going home. To my mother who didn’t raise me, never taught me life lessons growing up. I was seven and had no clue who this woman was. But I knew she was my mother and I was so happy to go back to her I cried till I was in her arms and a little more even after. The bomb… Was that my sister didn’t want to go back to my mom, and so she didn’t…. I had to watch as the only person I had ever counted on was torn away from me. Another part of my life…… The LAST part of my life…. Gone.

After a while my mother and I rekindled the dim flame that was our relationship with each other. I found I was more happy than I had ever been before. Then all of that vanished in a moment when I was raped again. THIS time was different though I had become so numb from life that I felt like I was hovering above my body when it happened. I think I died. Like everything that was left of me just died. The weird thing is I felt nothing after it happened. No pain, no fear, no hate, no anger, NOTHING. That’s how I know I died that day in that man’s house. Emotions didn’t exist to me anymore, I just didn’t have them, or more like I didn’t have it in me to give a care anymore about how I felt or how anyone ELSE felt either. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I became some kind of bully or anything I’m just saying that when my friends cried… I didn’t. When they were in pain… I wasn’t. After this time was the first time I attempted to commit suicide. It was simple really. I mean I felt nothing so why bother living anymore? I took a pair of suspenders wrapped them around my throat and just began to pull. My mother was what stopped me she found me grabbed the suspenders and gave me a good slap while tears welled in her eyes.

A little time went by and I made friends at some school I attended and I think I was happy. One of the “New Values” that my mother had instilled in me was that no matter what walk of life you come from, no matter if you were gay, bi, lesbian, transgender, a drag queen/king, had an amputated limb, you know ANYTHING, that you were still okay in my book. So I had two really amazing friends who were gay and in a relationship together. We made ABSOLUTELY sure to never talk about it around other people and it was alright for a very long time………. Until one day…… We would always walk home together, the three of us, and I don’t know how but someone found out about them and I remember on two very vivid things. The full body numbing sensation and the red. We got jumped by some guy I think and I took a pretty good blow to the back of the head with a metal pipe which led to the red. The LAST thing I remember was watching them chain one of my friends to the back of a truck and just speeding off with him dragging behind. I watched as my friend was murdered in front of my eyes. Everything else? Just black. I was depressed for a good 2? 3? months. I didn’t eat I didn’t do anything really. It was at that moment of my life where I cursed the STUPID idea of some kind of God that “saved” people and made them better or like took away their pain. Yeah I was never that lucky so I would tell myself “There is NO such thing as God!” over and over again. I started to tell OTHER people that too. The depression had another side effect though. I tried to kill myself again. The method was the virtually the same but with rope. Yet again my mother in her all – knowingness stopped me again.

After that point in my life I just went through the motions, living life, passing school, hanging out with friends, …whatever really. But I will say the BIGGEST life altering thing happened to me about two years ago, but for you all to understand it I need to tell you that my mother was diagnosed with cancer of the Lupus Strain about 4 years ago. Okay I am a Drama Nerd so I spend most of my time in rehearsal. I would miss rehearsal from time to time and never give a reason but there was always one. I just don’t like people getting close to me because I’m STILL afraid that I will get hurt. Well I asked my mother if she could come in and talk to my Drama Director and explain everything to her. I had no clue that what my mother said WOULD hurt me. She said that her body is rejecting every possible treatment there is for Lupus, that basically she was going to die of this disease. I took a bullet in the heart. To tell you the truth I had no idea how bad it really was. That day is the day other people found out what I feel inside me all the time. I was never the one to cry, EVER, so when my friends found me crying it was a big deal because I am always the big goofball. EVERY single one of them that came up to me cried with me or left crying.

I have pretty much had a crap-storm of a life, ALL my life. But it’s different now, better. There’s a few reasons why. I decided I wanted to be a performer in the 7h grade and ever since I’ve been on the stage. I heard a commercial on the radio for AMTC in 07 and called and was set to audition. The day of.. My ride flaked, so I didn’t audition. The same commercial came around this year and I set it all up again and THIS time I got to audition. I auditioned and made it through to the second round somehow and then, I thought it was all over. They said that you would be called if you made it, so all you could do was wait really. Well the next morning I woke up and waited by the phone like I was a pageant girl or something, I mean I was like glued to that phone. I didn’t get a call so I let the phone be and played some music, well during one of the songs the phone rang and I flipped my bricks! I had to calm myself down just to answer the dang thing. I pick it up and it’s Adam She. Okay OMG! I was calm though. He asked me if I had talked to my parents about the prices and everything and I told him that we HAD talked but I told them not to worry about it because I probably didn’t make it in. He asked if my parents were home and they were not. They were at work. He then asked if they were getting home anytime soon and I told him that they wouldn’t be home for a while. He then said “You know I probably should be talking to your parents about this but not only did you make it in but you were among the top selected” but the price was crazy (worth it 100% though) I told him that I’d have to get back to him on that. Anyway the news? THAT blew my mind. After we hung up I literally ran all over the apartment, up AND downstairs. I was so happy we found a way to pay for everything and I competed and it was AWESOME!!!! I met some of the most amazing people at AMTC I’m STILL in shock.

Well I met three people in particular that did something that I never even though was possible. These three guys brought me back to God! I can say now that it was God who made ALL this possible for me. It was HE who caused me not to audition in 07, because He KNEW that I wanted AND needed Him in my life, in my heart, in my soul. He knew that these amazing people who love Him so much would be at THIS Convention and He wanted me to meet them. He guided me to them and I will say for the first time in about 18 years I am SO happy. I realize now that what I went through, had I just embraced him them, was proof that if I relied on Him and gave myself to HIM that I would be able to endure AYTHING that life threw at me. It’s kinda weird but I love Tyler Perry and I would watch his live plays all the time on DVD and in his live play there was a lot of singing. But the singing, it was Gospel music. EVERY TIME they sang a song giving praise to our father I found myself crying and I know now why that happened. Even though I forced him out of my life my heart WANTED so bad to receive His love so it did the only thing it could to make me see it. I caused me to cry, the one thing I hadn’t done in so long. Now I hear those songs and still cry but not because I want him but because I FOUND Him. I went to church for the first time in about 13 years last Sunday and His word, His presence was so powerful in that house that I couldn’t even STAND on the two feet He gave me. I felt SO much love, so much grace, so much power that I KNEW there was no mistaking his existence.

I realize that was BEYOND long but I wanted to share with you all the DIVINE power that He possesses, that he doesn’t EVER leave His children. That no matter if you’ve had a perfect life, or a life like mine all you have to do is trust in the Lord our God and Jesus Christ, that you WILL make it. I am LIVING proof of this. I should’ve died all those years ago but I’m here and I live because HE never gave up on ME.

Don’t ever give up him, don’t let yourself be filled with the darkness I once felt. Let Him love you.

“No matter how dark your nights may be the dawn will always come.” Quote by: Nathaniel Stiger

P.S. You guys know who you are, thank you for showing me the way pack to him. I’ll NEVER be able to repay you guys. And thank you to AMTC for without your BLESSED organization I would not have found him, not anytime soon any way.

Note from AMTC staff: Nathaniel has a Facebook page. Click here to add him as a friend.