My Journey Between Me and God

By Rusty Boatner

This is the story of Rusty Boetners journey with God. She experienced many heartbreaking events in her and began to head down a road of alcohol and drugs, living apart from God. All along her journey, God was with her, watching over her and trying to draw her back into his arms. Her joy and peace and right living as a believer now is an encouragement to all of us that God can do the same in our lives. Linda invites you to accept Jesus as your Savior and begin to walk with God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524552992

Rusty Boatner

My ancestors are African American and Blackfoot Indians. I was born on April 19, 1955, in Denver, Colorado. My parents were Lewis and Emma Hill. I went back and forth living with my grandparents, my mom, my dad, and his parents, and then back with my mom until I was on my own. My mom met Mr. Willie Byrd, through whom I had five more siblings, which made us thirteen children in all. I lived in the states of Colorado, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Georgia. This book is about my life as a child and then as a gang member before the Lord saved me from myself. As a teenager, I was living my life my way. I have five children, who are alive today. They are Dwight, Tonya, James, Cassandra, and Kenyetta. My grandchildren are Amaree, Kayla, Khila, Tony, Torie, Camryn, Bryson, Kyra, and Kennedy. I have two great-grandsons, who are Kyree and Christian. As a teenager and then into adulthood, I got involved in drinking and drugs, letting them take over my life. I was street-smart, knew all the games a person could play until I met someone who was a little smarter than I was, and my life was almost taken away. I have been in jail many times in Oklahoma, Georgia, and Michigan. You would think I would have been tired of going to jail. But it wasn’t until the last time when I thought I was never going to get out. I went into depression because of the murder of my brother. I gave birth prematurely to a daughter because of the grief from the death of an uncle. She died a year later, and I couldn’t even attend her burial. I was separated for long periods of time from my children and the rest of my family. I was involved in relationships that didn’t bring me lasting happiness. I am happy with my life here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I enjoy my children, grandchildren, and great-grandsons. God has been good to me in providing for my needs with a job that I enjoy doing. Only my right relationship with GOD brought lasting peace and joy in my life. The message I want to send to my readers is, no matter how low you go and even if you think that you have no hope, always remember there is a God that always is looking after you even if you don’t see it. You can think that Satan’s world is the place to hang out in. Satan, he almost had me so many times. I even came so close to taking my own life. I didn’t know God still had his hands on me.

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Copyright © 2016 by Rusty Boatner.

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Rev. date: 10/18/2016

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This is my journey with God. He was always there through my trials and tribulation. I was born Rusty Boatner bka Sugar Boatner on April 19, 1955 in Denver, Colorado at 12:07am which makes me an Aries. I was born to Lewis and Emma Boetner. When I was two weeks old I left Denver, Colorado to go stay with my grandmother because my mom was too young to raise two girls. So I stayed with my grandparents until I was five.

We moved into the projects where we were the first family to move there. They were brand new homes and we lived at 108 Quince Drive. I went to Bard School there as my journey continued. My mom and dad were not getting along. So my Dad moved back to Oklahoma City where my other grandparents lived.

One day my father and grandfather came to Michigan to get us all eight of us while my mom was not there. They packed us all in the car as if we were sardines where we arrived in Oklahoma City. We all stayed with our grandparents in a little three-bedroom home. There was my grandparents, my great grandmother, our cousin Laloni and the eight of us kids living there. My grandparents made a way for us all. It was full of love in the home. My Aunt Alice lived across the street. We all started going to school there in Oklahoma City. The school kids made fun of us because we were wearing polka dots clothes with checker clothes. Every time I would walk pass them they would yell, Checkmate. We wore cowboy boots as well. My grandparents did the best they could for us on such short notice. We went to church every Sunday, got baptized, the whole nine yards. So after a year being with our grandparents, my mom decided to come to Oklahoma City to live with us. They found a house so we all were a family again. It lasted for six months then they started fighting again.

My mom decided to leave Oklahoma City and move back to Michigan. We stayed with our grandparents until my mother found a house for us to live in with a nice big back yard. My childhood was all right but we weren’t no Leave it to Beaver family. We were something like Eight is Enough family. It was four girls and four boys in our family. We had our own football team. I had always been the one in the family that did not do anything but stay in fights. I guess I stayed angry all the time because I was missing my dad and grandparents and my cousin Laloni. We had fun staying in Oklahoma City, well at least I did. My first fight was with the kids across the street. It didn’t take much for me to snap or go off on somebody. I was fifteen at the time. Once I was fighting one girl and two brothers with me on top. I was so angry. Somebody called the police. My mom was not home at the time so they took me to Juvenile until my mother came to get me. I went to court and the judge told me if I would stay out of trouble, she would wipe my slate clean. So I stayed out of trouble for a year and my slate was wiped clean.

In the fifth grade, one of my classmates was going around beating up on people in school. He stepped toward me and was trying to take my lunch money. I was not about to give up my money, I was not having it. So he grabbed my hand and we started fighting. I was fighting so hard. We were fighting in the middle of the street. Cars were stopping and this guy got out of his car and broke the fight up. That was the last time he tried to mess with me. It was all over school that I whipped him bad. He played sick for a week before he returned back to school. I was not proud of fighting because my grandmother always said a girl should always carry herself as a young lady.

In my junior year in Junior High School, I had three real close friends that I thought they were my friends. But I found out they were jealous of me because of the clothes I wore. I found this out later on down the years, that was what the fight was about. My mother, she kept us in the best clothes. They were always name brand clothes and we kept up with the styles. I was not acting in any kind of way that I was better than anybody. My grandmother taught us better. We would never to act like we were more than anybody else. That was not GOD’s way to look down on people that are less fortunate. So I went to the bathroom and you know how you see things written on the bathroom walls. My three friends, my best friends, which I thought they were because we did everything together. We even spent nights over at each other houses. We would go to parties together. We even dated three brothers. We were the four soul sisters for life. Well I went in the bathroom and see where they had written bad about me – all three of them. I didn’t know what happened or what did I do for them to dog me out like that. What made it so bad was they said if you didn’t like it to come see them. Each one signed their name to make sure I know who wrote it.

So I went to of them classroom, it was math class. I told her you said to come see you and before she opened her mouth, I hit her so hard that I knock two of her teeth out. She was bleeding bad. I didn’t have time to wait. I had to go and see the other girl and she was in gym. I told her the same thing I said. O, you want me to come see you right? Before she opened Her mouth I beat her bad. Her eyes were swollen up so bad she couldn’t see. I ran out of the Gym while they were attending her. Now I knew where the other one was going to be because we had that class together. It was science class and she was sitting down at her desk. I didn’t say a word to her. I just went over there and started beating her. I didn’t give her a chance to get up because she already knew what time it is. They took me off of her and I had to go to the principal’s office.

They called my mom. I was suspended for a week. My mom had to pay the girl’s dentist bill. She was very upset with me. During my suspension I was at home. I would rather have been Locked up in jail. That was the longest week at home from school. My mom didn’t play, no bad Grades allowed. She always told us if you can do bad, you can do good and she was right. I had to wash walls and do my other siblings’ chores. They had a week’s vacation. You can’t mess up in school and think you going to have it easy at home. So I returned to school where they gave me this name. They started calling me the female boxer because I took out three girls in one day. That kind of stuck with me. I joined this gang the GTO which means girls taking over. I had a best friend she wanted to join but she had to pass this test. You had to run through the woods without being caught. If you get caught you would get the beat down. But I had to show her the way out of the woods. I was running telling her to keep up with me. But she tripped on some vine leaves and got tangle up in the vines. I had to go back and help her get untangled. By the time she got untangled, the girls were on her beating her with thick sticks. She was not able to join our club. We would go and beat up all the males in school. We wouldn’t mess with the girls that’s why it was called GTO. So we beat this boy so bad that we had to disband the gang. If we would have been caught we would have been expelled for the rest of the year.

My older sister and I went on to high school. My name that they gave me in junior high seemed to follow me to high school. My oldest sister Kisses, she was very shy. They use to picked on her all the time. She would never stand up for herself. We always would tell each other where to meet up after school. One day school was getting out. After waiting for fifteen minutes or so for her to show up, there came a group of people my way. They were telling me that there was a group of three girls who had my sister cornered. They would not let her out. They knew she was my sister. So I went to go get her and sure enough they had her in a corner and would not let her out. So upon my arrival I told her to come on and none of them girls better not touch a hair on her head. As she was coming out the corner, they did not touch her. They knew my reputation as the female fighter. Sometimes they called me the female boxer. Well all is well that ends well. They were always jealous of her because she had a pop bottle figure. She had a boyfriend that everybody wanted.

I finally graduated in 1974. I was supposed to graduate in 1973 but I had my second child which was a girl. Juvia Marie, she was born in Grand Rapids in a home for unwed mothers. Her father and I were not getting along. I had nowhere to go, so they sent me up to Grand Rapids. When we came home, we decided to try to make it work for our child’s sake. But like they said, Once a cheater always a cheater. He was not ready to settle down so we moved out and I got my own place. My