Unraveled, Time to Tell

By Lisa Lynn

Unraveled, Time to Tell is about a life of secrets turned into heart-opening revelations from God and how a questionable death can change life and leave a young girl vulnerable and unwanted. This change leads to many consequences and puts in front of her choices she was unaware of and ashamed of. This girl lived her married life concealing these secrets, even from her own children.

This memoir tells us how her life of abusive, undesired, and unexpected actions could be replaced with joy, peace, and encouragement from God through His Word and His revelations. It includes help from God’s Word that will be an inspiration to anyone who reads it.

Her now-grown children heard for the first time her life’s details through this book—her letter to them. Their responses included “wow,” “shocking,” “incredible to have survived,” and “a testimony of God’s redemption.”

Other comments included:
“A true inspiration, I could have never walked in my mom’s shoes.”
“A positive woman that never let the negative get to her.”
“It’s a truthful tale of one girl going through life seemingly by herself, striving to survive and revealing those experiences through her own writing of her personal life.”

Beginning with Chapter 1, “The Darkest Day,” you will read of her details and decisions, and hear the descriptions of how God revealed each meaning along with Biblical truths throughout. After all the unraveling, all she was shown, she now has to share.
Jeremiah 20:9

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781512713930

Lisa Lynn

Lisa Lynn is originally from northeastern Indiana, now residing in Texas. She has always been an avid reader, and decided to try her hand at writing. She has been an EMT/EMT-P, and studied forensic science in college. She is hoping to retire, and travel. New places are always a good place to start a new story.

Book preview

Unraveled,

TIME TO TELL

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LISA LYNN

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Copyright © 2015 Lisa Lynn.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. The Living Bible, TLB, and the The Living Bible logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers.

Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright ©1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-1394-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-1395-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-1393-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015915805

WestBow Press rev. date: 9/30/2015

Dedication

To my husband, for listening to and trusting in God to give us the life we’ve had together.

To my children and their spouses, for still loving me after reading this book.

To Mary for her help, support, and encouragement.

But mostly, to God, my heavenly Father, for writing this on my heart and using my hand to write it on paper.

Contents

Chapter 1: The Darkest Day

Chapter 2: The First Nine Years

Chapter 3: My New Normal

Chapter 4: First Stepfamily

Chapter 5: Always with a Smile

Chapter 6: Second Stepfamily

Chapter 7: My Brother

Chapter 8: Life away from the Next Two

Chapter 9: Growing Up in Christ

Chapter 10: Marriage and Beyond

Chapter 11: Raising Children While God’s Raising Me

Chapter 12: Marriage and Beyond Continues

Chapter 13: What Are the Odds?

Chapter 14: Reality through Revelation

Chapter 15: Children, God, and Jesus

Chapter 16: Bonus of Blessings

Chapter 17: Beyond Raising Children

Chapter 18: The New You

Chapter 19: After the Empty Nest

Chapter 20: Our Creator and His Plan, Our Success

Chapter 21: Our Purpose

Chapter 22: Knowing Our Creator

Chapter 23: Knowing Ourselves

Chapter 24: The End?

Preface

In times of struggle, instead of asking God to change the situation, pray like this:

Thank You, Lord, for this opportunity/situation, that I may call on You and know You are there.

Thank You, Lord, for giving me the way to know that I need You and will grow closer to You through this.

Thank You, Lord, for giving me Your peace and joy throughout this situation and helping me realize I can be content because You’re here.

Marla, my grandmother on my momma’s side, always wanted me to write a book telling our story. Of course, she wanted it written according to her version of events, but I was convicted to write it from God’s version.

If any of this book convicts you, please don’t put it down. That’s the Holy Spirit revealing something to you, the way He did and still does to me. Just listen and try to obey those convictions.

I’ve included prayers, thoughts, facts, poems, feelings, and Bible truths from me, my grandmother Marla, and others inside and outside our family. Some of these are based on my own experience of certain times, and others were given to me more recently through revelations from our loving heavenly Father.

The question answered through this scrapbook of life experiences is: What was the purpose, God?

And I can’t quit! For if I say I’ll never again mention the Lord—never more speak in His name—then His word in my heart is like fire that burns in my bones, and I can’t hold it in any longer (Jeremiah 20:9 LB).

The stars were glittery,

The moon was so bright,

As I lay in the clover patch,

Night after night.

I would look up and dream,

As my world seemed to grow,

For the sadness to come,

I wasn’t to know.

Chapter 1

The Darkest Day

I was nine years old, and staying with Daddy’s parents, as I always did in the summer. I remember Grandma answering the phone. She said What? in a disturbing tone and shut the door to the room I was playing in. I heard her crying, wailing uncontrollably. I cracked the door open, and there she sat, stomping her foot and crying in a way I’d never seen anyone cry before. What’s wrong? I asked. She came over and shut the door again without saying anything. I was scared. I heard her say, I don’t think she heard anything. What had I not heard? Minutes later, she loaded me into the car and took me to a neighbor’s. I stayed there for hours. This was something I’d never done before. The neighbor lady and her son treated me so kindly that I knew something was wrong.

A few hours later, Grandma and Grandpa showed up. She’d gone and gotten him from work. They picked me up and we went to my house. Marla and Ralph, my mom’s parents, lived in front of us on a three-acre plot of land. There were so many cars parked at Marla and Ralph’s and police and rescue vehicles at my house. People were everywhere. I was really scared! So scared that I started to shake. As we stopped in the drive, I saw Daddy outside. He started crying, so I started crying too, still not knowing what was going on. Daddy took me inside to Marla. When she saw me crying, she too started to cry. Through her sobs she just kept repeating, How much does she know? How much does she know?

I was told only that Momma had gotten sick and had to go to the hospital. I never saw my brother, Ronnie.

Later, in the middle of the night, I was awakened by the sound of Aunt Marie coming in. Aunt Marie was Marla’s sister and actually my great-aunt. She was a favorite aunt of mine, so I got up to go see her, but Marla escorted me back to bed. I heard her tell Aunt Marie, She still doesn’t know. I vividly remember thinking, What don’t I know? I got back up again and went to them to ask what was going on, in my headstrong way. That’s when Marla took me in her lap and told me, Momma has gone to heaven. I didn’t really understand, but oh, the tears from all three of us!

We went to the funeral home a day later, after they had gotten Momma ready. I had recently attended the funeral of Uncle Eddie, Marie’s husband, so I had an idea what was going on. Marla told me that I could go to the front and see Momma when I was ready. She was standing at the side of the room, talking to Ralph, when the funeral director grabbed me by the arm and started to pull me down toward the casket. I immediately started to protest, but before Marla could see what was happening and get to me, the director had picked me up and placed me over the casket, exclaiming, You need to see her! I exclaimed right back, No, I’m not ready! But there she was: my momma. She didn’t look quite like Momma. I was screaming and sobbing, but through my tears, I could see that something was not right. Momma just didn’t seem the same. Marla quickly got me away from there, as fast as she could, but it was too late—that impression was fixed in my mind, and not with good feelings.

Just before the funeral, when they were getting ready to close the casket, I went on my own to see her one last time and actually touched and kissed Momma. She was so cold and hard. I guess that’s when it really hit me that she wasn’t coming home. I don’t know whether I’ve gotten a revelation from God about this experience with the funeral home director, but since then I have received revelations on many other occasions, and for other situations surrounding Momma’s death. And through all this, I’ve learned how to witness to others, as Paul often instructs us to do in his letters. One such reference is Ephesians 4:29: Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear (ESV).

As I write this now, I think how ironic it was that the three of us—Marla, Aunt Marie, and me—were together that first night, since years later, the three of us were again together, alone for a long time and caring for each other. Isn’t that just like our wonderful, heavenly Father to put the pieces together so perfectly, then reveal the picture to us at just the right time. Thank you, God, for the revelations!

The apostle Paul wrote letters sharing what he knew, learned, and had revealed to him by God, knowing God’s instruction was for him to do so. This book is my letter to you!

Now back to that day. My brother, Ronnie, was immediately suspected in Momma’s death, although I wasn’t to know this until months later. All I knew was that Ronnie was nowhere to be found. I would ask where he was, but to