My Gritty Daughter

By Cynthia L. Akins

She gets knocked down, but she always gets back up.

What is buried so deep that you can't even bear the thought of digging it up? Are you dealing with abuse, or addiction, or any number of other problems? What has you stopped in your tracks? Are you tired of struggling and trying to fix the problems yourself? If so, there is hope to be

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Aug 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781647732158

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My Gritty Daughter

she gets knocked down,

But she Always gets back up

Cynthia L. Akins

Trilogy Christian Publishers

TUSTIN, CA

Trilogy Christian Publishers

A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

2442 Michelle Drive

Tustin, CA 92780

Copyright © 2020 by Cynthia L. Akins

All Scripture passages are taken from The Living Bible, copyright @1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information, address Trilogy Christian Publishing

Rights Department, 2442 Michelle Drive, Tustin, Ca 92780.

Trilogy Christian Publishing/ TBN and colophon are trademarks of Trinity Broadcasting Network.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Trilogy Christian Publishing.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Trilogy Disclaimer: The views and content expressed in this book are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views and doctrine of Trilogy Christian Publishing or the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-64773-214-1

ISBN 978-1-64773-215-8

Contents

Dedication v

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction ix

1. How Did I Get Here? 1

2. Pretty Little Girl 9

3. My New Life 19

4. The Dream Began 27

5. A Prisoner Once Again 37

6. Home At Last 47

7. The Dreams 75

8. The Restoration 101

9. Forgiveness 113

10. Time for Work 125

11. The Next Step 133

12. A New Millenium 141

13. My Last Year 147

14. My Parents 153

15. The New Career 161

16. The Struggle 175

17. A Great Surprise 183

18. The Diagnosis 191

19. Much-Needed Vacation 199

20. Four Questions 205

21. Chance Meeting or Not 215

22. Shattered Dreams 223

23. My Prodigal Son 233

I dedicate this book to the two people who have been with me the majority of my life. The ones whom I have loved my entire life. The ones who gave me purpose and love. The ones who believed with me that God could do anything and watched as He changed our lives. To these precious ones, my sons, thank you. I couldn’t be more proud of you. I am honored that I was chosen to be your mama.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank all the people who along the way, somewhere in my journey, have encouraged me, loved me, and helped me to continue on my path through life. There are many who never knew that they spoke the right word at just the right time, or gave me a hug not knowing the depth of my despair at that moment, or befriended me and made me feel I had value. Your contribution to my life was vital.

I also want to thank my heavenly Father, who loves me without measure; my Savior, Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice provides everything I need; and the Holy Spirit, who gives me wisdom and knowledge and whose Presence empowers me to walk down the path I am on.

INTRODUCTION

Dreams for Our Life

As little girls, we all had hopes and dreams of what our lives would be like one day when we were all grown-up. Those hopes and dreams took us to so many different places. What a glorious time that was, when all the cares of the world had not yet touched our young lives and hearts. Do you remember those days? Do you remember being free to live and dream and hope and believe that one day all these things would be a part of your life?

I’m sure your memories are different from mine, but what a wonderful feeling to remember those simple times: times of running through the fields to see who could pick the most buttercups, or playing by the creek and making the prettiest mud pie, or seeing who could swing out the farthest on the grapevine in the woods.

What was it like for you when things were simple? Take a moment to go back to that place and let the little girl in you live again. Let her breathe and let her take you back to the place you had long ago forgotten or buried under the trials of your present life.

It was a simpler time, but as each year passed, somehow many of us lost the dream and the hope that we so desperately needed. This book is for all those little girls who have found themselves grown-up as broken, hurt, and wounded women, without hope and without their dreams. There is a way to have all the hurt and pain removed, and to have your hope and dreams restored. As you read this story of my own restoration, I believe that your hope and faith will be restored, and that you also will be healed and made whole.

1

How Did I Get Here?

I sat in the closet and called out to God to rescue me, to let my life, filled with so much pain, anger, and sadness, finally be over; to please come and take me out of it. The depression from the life I was living was so overwhelming I could barely exist. I didn’t want to exist. I wasn’t suicidal; I didn’t have any thoughts of hurting myself. I had someone else who did enough of that. The death had already occurred inside of me long ago, and the shell of my humanity was exhausted from the grief of the loss. I was dead inside, but I was forced to continue to live on the outside. How long could I continue in this state? It took everything I had and more to make it through those days. I had drugs to try to take the edge off, but they were never enough. My physical body was being destroyed from the effects of the stress and the depression. Those desperate cries to God continued for months, without intervention—at least not the kind I was asking for. I’m very thankful now that He had a greater plan for my life, that my life wasn’t going to end with me sitting in a closet, and that He didn’t answer that prayer.

That’s a long way from the little girl making mud pies and picking buttercups without a care in the world. How can we start out so happy and innocent and unbroken, and end with such desperation in our lives that we beg God to just come take us, and let it all be over? I know there are many of you who are in this place, or someplace similar, wondering the same thing. How did I get here? And even more importantly, How do I get out? I need help! Someone please, help me get out!

That is the purpose of me pouring my heart and life out to you, so that I can show you how I got out. To give you hope and let you know that you are not in the place where you are supposed to stay, that there is healing and peace waiting for you around the corner. Don’t give up, don’t give in, just keep on believing, and you will find the same thing that my heart and soul continually cried for: peace.

In the Beginning

It’s amazing how fast the years have flown by. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was a little girl swinging on the playground. I remember that the dream I wanted to come true the most was to be a mother. I thought about it all the time, dreaming of the children I would have one day; what their names would be, and how much I would love them. One day in class—probably in health class—the teacher told us about the process a girl’s body goes through in order for her to develop into a woman. I was in the fourth grade at the time, and I had already been told about this by my mother. I was very distraught over the fact that this big event, this rite of passage, had already occurred for others my age and not me. Day after day at recess, I would question what was wrong with me, why this had not yet happened to me, and how much longer I would have to wait. I was so impatient because the teacher had said you couldn’t have children until after this event had occurred in your body. Of course, now I know there was no hurry, and that I should be glad to put that particular event off for as long as possible. But motherhood was my dream. That was my purpose. That was my goal, and I was so afraid that I would not be able to have my children. My time finally came in the eighth grade.

Motherhood might not seem like such an exciting dream to some people, but it was to me. It was my dream! I’m sure I had other ideas of what I would become one day, although I don’t remember them, but this one consumed me. What consumed you? What was the force that drove you as a child? Did you make that dream come true, or did someone destroy it along the way? Regardless of whether it has come true yet or not, don’t give up hope of it coming to pass.

We all begin this journey in the same way. Some of us are born into a life of luxury, and some of us have to struggle for everything we get, and there are others of us who are in the middle of these two extremes. I came from the group that has to struggle for survival, those who live from paycheck to paycheck. Even so, as a child I mostly grew up feeling very loved. There wasn’t a lack of that in our home, just a lack of money. My parents worked very hard to raise the five of us. My daddy was gone a lot when I was growing up. He said he had to leave for work before we woke up, and he didn’t get home until after we had gone to bed. So, that left my mama to raise us by herself. She was always there for us, and she managed to keep us all fed by canning everything she could find. She would go pick fruits and berries and make all our jams and jellies; she would make homemade bread for us; and she could throw together a meal just by opening the jars of vegetables she had canned. It was very hard work, but I believe she really enjoyed doing it.

As children, I don’t think we knew we were poor, but we were. My mama provided a loving home for us that was always clean, and we never went hungry because of her hard work. It was around 1970 before we had indoor plumbing, and I know it had to be very difficult for her to heat water and fill a tub to bathe her kids. I remember, when I was in the fourth grade, we had a potbellied stove that sat in the middle of the living room. She would put a big round tub in the floor next to this stove so that we were warm when we would take our baths. One particular night after my bath, as I stood by the stove drying off and trying to get warm, I backed up a little too close to the stove and burned my little behind very badly. I was so embarrassed going to the doctor, and then a few days later having to return to school with my behind still bandaged. All that you could see was that one side was bigger than the other!

I know my mother worked very hard to take care of us and feed us, and I also know that my daddy worked very hard too. I appreciate both of them for what they did to take care of their family. In hindsight, I know that my daddy greatly regrets not spending more time with his children when they were young. We didn’t know then how much we needed his presence in our lives, but we did. I remember, there were times when my daddy would drink and my parents would fight. I don’t know how often it happened, but I have a few memories that stand out from that time. But the happiest memory I have concerning my daddy is when we all started going to church as a family. I was around eight or nine years old, and one day my parents went to the altar to accept Jesus as their Savior, and my sister and I went with them. We were all four baptized shortly thereafter in the local creek. I remember how different it was in our home after that day, after we had been saved and had made the decision to be Christians. Everything seemed to change, and I loved it. There was one time when my daddy was called on to stand up and pray in the church, and I was so proud. I can still see him there now, where he was standing, the church, everything. After all these years, it’s the proudest I’ve ever been of him. It might be the only time I was proud of him.

Unfortunately, that wonderful time did not last long enough in our family. We moved away from the area, and my daddy would not go to the new church that we found with the rest of the family. Gradually, alcohol began its destructive path in our home and through his life. The rest of us tried to manage our lives and keep them on course, but when one member of the family is broken, it has a way of affecting everyone else. As I look back now, I can see clearly the ramifications of the alcohol. When you are in that environment as a child, you don’t really know what to do or say; your main concern is just survival. You try your best to figure out a way to make your life a happy one. I don’t even think it’s a conscious effort; it’s just instinctual. It’s usually not until years later that you find out whether you were successful or not. The typical course of action is to leave that environment and head out on your own—only to find your own set of issues. Many times, the previous ones are stuffed down inside to be dealt with at a later date, normally when we are forced to face the past for one reason or another.

Today, if you ask me what my favorite meal is, the answer would be gathering fresh vegetables from the garden and cooking them; or opening my canned and frozen ones and preparing them along with some homemade bread. So, even though it’s a little extra work for me to can and freeze my own food, it’s something I’ve done my entire life. It’s what I grew up on, and it’s what I love. I think it also helps to bind me to the happy years of yesterday, and I can feel the love and comfort from those memories.

2

Pretty Little Girl

Since I have been an adult, I have learned how important it is for a girl to have a good relationship with her daddy. It is a key element in a girl’s opinion of herself. She bases so many decisions later on in her life on how her daddy made her feel about herself. She desperately needs to be affirmed by him, so that she is not out looking for that love and attention from other men. That is what has happened to so many of us who have found ourselves bruised and broken at the hands of men. I’m not trying to lay blame on anyone, but a father has a crucial role to play in the life of his daughter. When we don’t get what we need from him, we go looking for it somewhere else. Thankfully, many men are being taught this now, but I’m sure they probably were not when I was a child. The men weren’t taught, so the children paid the price. That’s not to say that boys don’t need the affirmation from their father also. They, too, must have it.

As a little girl, I can remember my daddy telling me how pretty I was and how smart I was. Even though it wasn’t all the time because he wasn’t there very much, I still took that memory with me into adulthood. I remembered not only his praises, but the praise of others in my family who told me the same things. When I would see extended family members, they would brag on me about all the good grades I received in school, and what a good girl I was. I had good self-esteem as a child, and I must have been pretty selfish, too; my mother told me I never wanted any brothers and sisters, even though they provided me with four of them. Being the oldest, I suppose I wanted my parents all to myself so that I didn’t have to share their love and praises. But I did end up loving my siblings and was glad to have someone to