“Valleys” – “Faith” – “Mountains”: “I Am Still Here”

By Black Precious

Valley Faith Mountains is about some of the trouble and problems that can come into a persons life and turn the persons life upside down and all around. My book tells of some of the problems and trouble I have endured from childhood to adulthood. It also tells of how I overcame my situations and did not allow them to control or dictate my future.

My book tells how the Almighty God stepped in and kept me safe all through my life, even now he is still with me. It also tells how my God will and can do the same for everyone who will keep the faith and never give up that faith.

We all know that Satan wants us all to fail, and when we allow Satan to have the upper hand, he makes sure that we are caught with our mouths hanging down and our tongue hanging out. He then stands back and laughs at us as we have to go through the punishment and shame that our actions has cost us. Then again, Satan is not always to blame for our situations, is he? Sometimes, we go through trouble because we choose the wrong path or decision mainly because we think we can handle it better than God can. We get caught when our actions and decisions go wrong, and we blame everyone or something else instead of blaming the one possible reasonourselves!

My book lets everyone know that God is standing ready, able and waiting to help each of us. All we need do is have faith in God and have the courage and strength not to give up that faith.

After going through so much in life and still here to tell about it, I wanted everyone to know that God is real and able, and he waits for each of us to reach out to him for help!

Never give up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504919227

Black Precious

I was born on a very cold and blistering Thursday on the twenty-second day of November, which was Thanksgiving Day, or so I was told. I was the youngest of five children, who are all deceased now except for me. My mother was an old-fashioned lady but very proud and a very strong woman who believed in the Lord and never missed a church night. I grew up alone but learned at an early age that friends were just a title given to anyone and anything that danced to your tune. When the music stopped or ceased, the people or thing would cease also. I was never popular in school, but I did hang around with the popular crowd, but it never got me anywhere, and I was glad. Why was I glad? Because I was never allowed to do what the popular kids could do. Going to school and coming home to do housework was my schedule 24-7 all year round. I never knew what love was, mainly because love was not a topic nor was it shown in my household when I was growing up. I did learn that life, like time, was hard and did not stand still for anyone. It offered you only two roads to travel, and it was up to you to pick the one you wanted to go down whether or not you chose the right one or not. I learned that picking the wrong road got you a harder life to deal with where you would run into nothing but trouble—double, triple trouble. But God has always been there to see me through it all. I have always kept my faith in God strong, although sometimes, of course, my faith would grow weak at times. I would always be reminded of how blessed and how far God had brought me, and my faith in God would always be replenished. I charge you, who are reading my book, to replenish your faith in God today.

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Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

© 2015 Black Precious. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/30/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1923-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1922-7 (e)

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CONTENTS

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Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

About The Author

DEDICATION and SPECIAL

Thanks to my mother, Louise

For being who she was and the way she raised me!

I LOVE YOU ETERNALLY

WITH A LOVE EVERLASTING

Keep FAITH alive! -––––

FOREVER

‘Black Precious’

INTRODUCTION

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This life for me began on a cold Thursday, Thanksgiving’s Day in the year of 1949 in the month of November. I wonder if on that cold and blistering Thursday if there was a Prayer of Thanksgiving sent up for this one simple life which turned out to be not so simple and plain at all!

Was there truly a Thanksgiving Celebration planned for this precious life which had graced the world with her unwanted presence and beauty? After all I did not ask to come into this cold hard world of depression, war and strife. A world without love for its fellow man; a world where people would rather step on each other than help their neighbor out. I was an unwanted birth or that is the way my mother made me feel, but I came anyway because the Good Lord commanded it so. And we all well know that we cannot go against His will or power. We all come out to the same, to a world full of poverty and non-caring humans but some are luckier than others & have a celebration thrown for them which never comes to memory anyway.

This day a day of festivities of Thankfulness and a day to be talked about until the Christmas follies began. Do not get me wrong every day that God gives us is a chance to wake up and take hold of a blessing and thank God for another day to see His beauty and blessings in this cruel world. For we should be thankful for another chance to be able to see God’s beauty in this cruel and cold world. Just to be able to see the beauty of the trees, hear the birds sing & smell the roses is a blessing; after all there are those who wake up each morning without the blessing of ears or eyes or even the feel of their own arms or legs. Some do not even have the pleasure of having hands or feet nor eyes to see. So why do we complain so much? Is it because we humans realize that there is one thing we can and do not have control over and never will. I wonder. Do you ever wonder?

What part did fate play in this innocent soul’s destiny that could not be reversed, with not even a slight intervention of kindness, mercy or compassion? Or did I miss something along the way? I keep asking myself that question. Why was I chosen to walk down this path of darkness? Was I here before & was brought back to get things right this time? I doubt that very much because things did not begin that way for me at all. Things started out for me all wrong & stayed that way for me. I guess you could say for the majority of my life or for as long as I can remember anyway. And I can remember a long way back.

Was I born to the wrong couple? In the wrong time frame? In the wrong location? The wrong hour? The wrong day? The wrong month? Or, even the wrong year? Or maybe I was born in the wrong country? Did my parents plan for my arrival? Was I a surprise to them both or just to one of them? Did my parents even want another mouth to feed? Did they even want a female child at all? Would a male child have satisfied my parents instead? So many questions and not one answer………

Fate or destiny or a cruel play for life to be lived in a forest of clouded mirrors which keeps evolving and coming back to haunt this Thanksgiving’s precious bundle of joy was soon to set the stage for this life’s journey to hell and back again and again and again. Believe me I have really paid my dues to hell over and over again and again……………….

FAITH IN GOD and an IRON CLAD WILL TO SURVIVE, defeating the enemy and emerging in VICTORY was to be this soul’s goal, struggle and dream of a life time.

Through the Grace of God and all the meaning of the word VICTORY and what it stands for gives this simple life a well-balanced, experienced arena for conquering and subduing the enemy on his own battle ground. Life has really thrown some hard curve balls at me and satan has come at me with all he could throw and still he is trying to conquer this soul which is not his to have. But right at the end God has always stepped in and won the battle for me. I, of course give the honor and praise and victory to the one which deserves it. GOD. Not me.

My praise, honor, glory and thanks to my Heavenly Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ and the Comfort of the Holy Spirit. For without them, VICTORY over the enemy would have been impossible and defeat would have been given to the enemy of destruction of this world. This one battle he will lose although he will give it his best and his all. His all will be lest of the word "all". His best will not be good enough. He will suffer a great loss and a non-victory. His final and last battle ends in defeat after all. Doesn’t it? How many of you really believe that? You should because it is true!

Through VICTORY, it was made possible and NOTHIN became EVERYTHIN and EVERYTHIN became POSSIBLE and POSSIBLE became REAL and TRUE with great meaning and the fullness of LOVE in every sense of the four letter word LOVE. The most fulfilling and satisfying experience a life could have. If you have never had it, then you know nothing about it. On the other hand, if you have had it and for some reason you lost it, then you know what I am talking about and you must fight to regain it again if at all possible.

MY SEARCH IS ALMOST OVER BUT NOT QUITE. MY GOAL IS NOT COMPLETE AS OF YET. MY STRUGGLE IS DOWN TO MINIMUM. MY DESTINY IS IN SIGHT AND HAS BEEN ALMOST FOUND.

MY mountains are higher now and MY valleys are deeper at the present time.

I HAVE BEEN TO HELL MANY, MANY, MANY TIMES BEFORE AND HAVE EVEN BEEN TO DEATH’s door and WAS BROUGHT BACK. AFTER ALL I HAVE BEEN THROUGH I CAN SURELY AND TRUFULLY SAY THAT THROUGH THE GRACE OF THE ALMIGHTY GOD………………………

I AM STILL HERE!

I HAVE THE ALMIGHTY GOD ON MY SIDE AND I CAN ALWAYS DEPEND ON HIM TO BE HERE BECAUSE HE IS ALWAYS RIGHT ON TIME: and A VERY WELCOMED AND SATISFYING LIFE IS MINE TO COME IN THE NEAR FUTURE!!!!!

ALL MY PRAISE, ALL MY GLORY and ALL MY HONOR I GIVE TO GOD!!!!

and TO MY LOVES I GIVE YOU

FOREVER and a DAY ALWAYS…………

TO MY CHILDREN -- ANNETTE, ANTONIO, JA’FLAME, LA’SCHELLE

IT WAS TIME IN THE MAKING

BUT IT IS FINALLY HERE.

FOR YOU

AT LAST!!!

I love you dearly!!!

DEDICATED TO MY BELOVED MOTHER, Louise

Who will always be there in SPIRIT

I love you always with a heart so true!!!!!!!!

‘Black Precious’

valleys – FAITH – mountains

I AM STILL HERE

CHAPTER ONE

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Reminiscing back to a life that began in the year 1949, on a cold Thursday morning. It was a Thanksgiving Day, with a turkey and all the fixings, the twenty-second day of November. I believe that instead of serving turkey as the main meat for this feast, a decision was made and fate changed its course to substitute a simple Baby’s life, ME as the scrape goat!!!!! Or at least that is the way I feel as I write these words on paper to myself and every now & then a tear will run down my cheeks when I think about my life and some of the roads I have been forced to traveled down.

Believe me when I tell you that I have been well carved up and served on platters of non-gold and tarnished silver. I have even been served on stained brass and tarred antique gold in this life and the next life time to come, if there is a next life to come for me. I have been carved to almost no return. In fact, a return was oh so bleak at the crossroads of life that the brightest light shining could not have found its own way in the dark. This was the road I had to travel down I suppose. This was a journey that I had to take to find my way. It was misfortunate for me to end up in situations that I found myself in, I guess that was really the cause for me to fight to survive. Survival, definitely to tell my story. A story that can let another misfortunate soul know that they are not alone in this cold hard cruel world. There is always SOMEONE ELSE that is there carrying you all the time. There is SOMEONE that is always there with you and with HIS arms surrounding and protecting you at all times and in all situations.

I was the youngest of five children, born in Tennessee but raised in Kentucky, this was not, of course, my choosing. We are all grown now, married with families of our own. My mother packed me up and brought me to Kentucky when I was a year old to live. She left my daddy for whatever reason she had. I have not found out the reason for the separation and I guess I never will. My mother had her reasons which she chose not to share with me. Every time I would ask her why she came to Kentucky she would just say, ‘child you would not understand’, and continue doing what she was doing, as if she ever stopped doing what she was doing anyway when I asked a question.

The Lord called my beloved mother home July 2, 2004, leaving myself and my last living brother as survivors. He and his wife came to the funeral and stay two weeks with my husband and I which really completed my life. You see we had not seen each other for over ten years and this was a treat for me. After they returned to their home in Oakland, CA, he took dreadfully ill and had to be hospitalized with a kidney disease, and years of drinking and the other problems which he had added to his condition. I prayed that his kidneys would fight off whatever was attacking them so he could live several more years to come back and be with his little sister again. Of course, I knew that situation was up to the Heavenly Father. My daddy had passed away from drinking the year before my first child was born. Drinking became an unwanted and sour taste in my mouth and stomach.

Two weeks after my brother had been committed to the hospital my husband had to rush me to the hospital where I suffered from the flu, double pneumonia, kidney failure, a heart attack, a stroke and an infection on the flip side of my heart with a mild seizure and losing 40% of my lungs. The doctors had told my family that they only gave me not even twenty-four hours to live. I was unconscious for five days and stayed in the hospital for thirty-nine days. On April 2, 2005 I opened my eyes only to hear of how sick I had been from the hospital Chaplin in one breath and in another breath he was telling me the news that my brother had passed the very same day and the very same second I regained consciousness. Now that left only me and me alone after all these years, only me once again.

My mother passed the year before and I was still fighting with the fact that I would not be able to see her smiling face or hear her sweet voice anymore. I missed her so very much but my love for her still continues to overflow in my heart. Now I must grieve for my brother also. The doctors and nurses were telling me that I could not afford to start the grieving process because of my health. They told me that grieving would cause me to go into a deep depression and that I would have a total relapse of which I would not recover from. Now how was I supposed to deal with that along with the news about my only brother? I then thought why was this happening to me? This was the story of my life.

While there in the hospital I had to learn how to swallow my food and liquid, how to speak the simple words such as the, my, and, as, etc.. I also had to learn how to walk and basically how to do all the simple things we take for granted each and every day of our lives. In fact, they would not allow me to be released from the hospital until I could swallow liquid the way a normal person should swallow. On my release they set up a Home Health Nurse to be able to come out for about five weeks to finish the rehabilitation process. After being home only two days for Rehabilitation I had to call the ambulance to come and get my husband who also suffered from double pneumonia. What was to happen next? Only God knew!!!!

But I pray that He would give me the strength and the courage to face the future dead on and looking straight in the face of the evil one letting him know that I had someone on my side who would never leave nor forsake me.

That One is the AWESOME ONE, my LORD GOD. All praises and glory goes to HIM alone….

CHAPTER TWO

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My mother brought me to Kentucky to live without my consent of which I was too young to give anyway and my voice would not have made any difference. We moved in with my Aunt, and her son, my mother’s sister. Mother found a job immediately in a laundry service. Since I was so young, not even school age she found a nice older couple who agreed to take care of me while she worked. I could tell that the wife was like my mother a good Christian woman, who went to church and prayed a lot. The husband, however, was totally the opposite of his wife almost in every way mentionable. He would curse and say things that was not so and wanted the person he was speaking with to agree with him. While his wife would read the Bible, he would be looking at other books and magazines which had pictures in them and any one could tell he was really enjoying the scenes on the pages as he flipped through them.

He had a twisted mind which he exercised whenever he got a chance and I would feel sorry for the little girls in his path. Several times a day he would call me when he finished looking at his magazines and tell me that we were going to play a little game and if it hurt just to let him know and he would stop. Well, when I would tell him that it hurt he would always say that it would stop hurting in a couple of minutes. Those couple of minutes seem like forever to me because they never came, only when he had got his fill in. I always wondered if his wife knew what her husband was thinking or looking at when he would be flipping through the pages of those magazines which he hid inside a thick football magazine.

He would whisper in my ear that he liked little girls, especially cute little girls like me. I being too young to understand what was happening to me did not know what to do or who to tell. The only thing I knew was that it made me feel bad and sick and I would burn and sting when I had to use the bathroom. I did not mention it to my mother mainly because I really did not understand that it was wrong for him to touch me in the manner which he did. I did cry when I had to use the bathroom and my mother would ask me what was the matter and I would tell her that it was hurting. My mother never said a word to me after witnessing my crying several times but she finally stopped taking me to their house. For whatever reason she had she never talked to or asked me any questions about the couple, boy was I glad not to have to go back there again. She found someone else to watch me when she worked, a lady which had a hair dresser service in her home. She became mother’s one stop shop, baby-sitter and beauty salon all rolled up in one. She also told mother that if she had any laundry just to bring them when she brought me and she would be more than happy to wash our clothes for her anytime. Like I said a one stop shop.

I learned at an early age that everything on God’s green earth do indeed retaliate and especially when it or they grew tired of being harassed by something or someone at certain times and when backed into a corner. My baby-sitter had a pretty black cat, named Black China. I aggravated that cat to no end. Yes, I guess you might say that I was a little demon most of the time, but a perfect little angel twenty-four-seven. One day that beautiful black cat grew tired of my taunting him and taught me a lesson I have never forgotten. He jumped up on me and scratched my face, arms, and legs, and ripped my clothes to threads. In short he whipped my rear. My baby-sitter put me in time-out by sitting me down and daring me to move, unless I had to go to the bathroom and then I had to ask permission from her first, then she would accompany me to the bathroom door and wait for me.

I thought about how she put me in time out when it was the cat that had did the damage to me but I was being punished for it, I did not like that at all. When my mother came to pick me up that day she whipped my behind again for getting my clothes torn and for teasing the cat to where he would do something like that to me. Black China just laid there looking at me and yawning as if he was saying, that’s what you deserve. I count myself lucky because the cat only wanted to teach me a lesson which I learned very well the first time around. He did not draw much blood at all only because he knew me and I felt sorry for a person he did not know. Only my pride was hurt and the scratches healed a lot faster than my self-esteem.

Right to this very day I sometimes wonder if my mother ever caught on to what the woman’s husband was doing to me. If she did she never questioned me about it, but of course that would not be her way. A little while after the Black China incident my mother started dating a man and soon announced that they would be married. I later began to think that she should have left him where she found him and if he found her, then she should have turned her head the other way. But at that time I supposed he made her feel special and happy as should everyone who has someone in their life. A man she thought she could not live without. Besides isn’t that the way all relationships begin, with one party thinking that they cannot live without the other party. Soon, of course, they find out different. I found out on several occasions.

Like all good mothers, she worked hard and she never missed a day of work. She was a good provider and a darn good wife to Henry, this was his name but everyone called his by his last name, Clark. Although she worked five days a week full time and every now and then she worked on Saturday for half a day. She never failed to get up and dressed us for church on Sundays. When I say us I mean myself and mother. My stepfather, I’m not sure what kind of work he did because he never talked about his job in my presence. When we left for church my stepfather would be left in the bed asleep. I did know that when he came home he would smell of alcohol during the end of the fourth shift, if there was such a thing called the fourth shift in those days. Even though my stepfather had his flaws, I guess he did pretty good because I can never remember our kitchen table or cabinets being bare or running out of food or anything and I had clothes which took up all the room in my small closet.

I can remember playing with cousins, nieces, nephews, who were the same age or a year or two, younger or older than I. There were good times but there were more bad times than I care to remember. We would get into all kinds of trouble just like every other kid our age would and was always creating the forbidden dirt and mess, getting into fights, breaking things, etc. The amazing thing was that I was the one who would always end up catching the punishment for it all. My punishment consisted of a whipping while momma would talk to me then she would send me straight to bed without supper, while the other children continued playing and having a good time. Depending on the severity of the mischief I could be woken up around two or three o’clock in the early mornings with my bed covers being ripped off me and my flesh being invaded from the sting of a belt or the cord my mother sometimes used.

I learned how to get into things without disturbing the surroundings and how to put everything back just as I had found it without leaving a single trace or fingerprint. After taking so many whippings with over half of them not being my doing, I began to hang by myself and with myself. I would play with jacks and ball, I would write, draw and of course I developed the art of talking to myself. I even answered myself at times. At a very young age I became numb, numb to everything especially feelings and when it came to getting a whipping my mother would keep hitting me till she saw tears in my eyes. So to please her and to help her preserve her strength I learned to unlock the doors of my tear ducts and let them flow down my cheeks and of course she would stop whipping me when she saw them flowing. Am I insane or sane? You tell me. I did not need anyone to help me to get me into trouble especially when I had to take the punishment by myself. So at six years old I decided to start life’s journey alone with only one companion ME!!!!

On those nights of nights, I remember having supper in my room, made of four slices of bread with Karo syrup or salad dressing as my meat. This sandwich would not be wrapped up, but would lie underneath the table in my room which I did my school homework on. I would hurry home from school and make my sandwich because I already knew what my punishment would be the day before. At night I would quietly go the bathroom after I had my dinner in my bed and while the toilet flushed I would drink from the sink to wash down the crumbs. I thought I was being cute but momma caught me one early morning about three o’clock. I did not even hear the bathroom door open. The water tasted so good and cool going down my throat, I had my head buried in the sink. Usually I would get my water and go back to bed, but that morning I seem to be so thirsty till I just could not stop drinking. She slapped my head down in the sink till my forehead hit the top of the faucet coming up. I thought I was home free; I was fooled again when she told me that she knew what I had been doing all along and was just waiting for the right moment to catch me in the act.

I remember once when the funds were low and mother would duck and dodge the insurance man. How many parents have done the exact same thing and is still playing the dodging game? It was a nice sunny Saturday afternoon and mother told me that when the insurance man knocked on the screen door as he usually did to tell him that she was not home and to come back the next weekend and she would pay him. So when the insurance man knocked on the door, I flew to the screen door and looked the insurance man straight in the eye and said my mother said to tell you that she isn’t home right now and to come back next weekend and she will pay you. Well no use in relating the rest of that scene, because, yes, my behind caught it and I learned to leave the ‘my mother said’ out of every sentence from that moment on.