Death to Life: Memoirs of Wendy Adams

By Wendy Adams and The Holy Spirit

When author Wendy Adams was forty-five years old, a visiting Christian minister laid hands on her in a church. She fell to the ground because of the power of the Holy Spirit that was upon her. Transformation occurred immediately. From an angry, aggressive, revengeful, suffering fighter, she became a healed, understanding, and compassionate warrior for the Lord. Adams discovered he’d been with her all the time.

In Death to Life, she shares her life story beginning as a little girl growing up in the Blue Mountains. She narrates how she was bewildered and frightened by her fathers’ bizarre and violent behavior. She tells how she learned to overcome her fear and trauma by finding replacements that gave her peace and happiness for her sanity and control over her life. As she matured, the dislike for her father and her survival instincts became stronger than the fear of him, and she developed into an aggressive, strong-willed, independent young fighter, traits that nearly killed her.

Encouraged by the Holy Spirit to write this memoir, Adams offers her story as a message of hope to others. Wendy Adams, a Christian, is now retired.

In 2019, Death to Life won a book award in the bookexcellenceawards.com competition, becoming one of 10 finalists out of 3000 entries.

To view or purchase prints of artwork, go to wendyadams.com.au
The link for the book trailer on U-Tube is https://youtu.be/YYazPfwBWaU.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Mar 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781504320030

Wendy Adams

Wendy Adams is a half-marathoner, a kook surfer and a black-belt in kung fu... oh and a middle-grade author. She has a passion for fantasy and her dream is to create a story that will stay with readers forever, just as her favourite books from childhood have done. Wendy is a mother of four and lives in a house overlooking the sea with her husband and border collie, Mac.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 Wendy Adams.

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.

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.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com.au

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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.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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: 978-1-5043-0725-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2003-0 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 12/04/2019

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

DEATH

1. An Abused Child Living in the Blue Mountains

2. Living with Grandma in the Country; Nearly Dying

3. Growing Up in the Suburbs a Defiant Teenager

4. Meeting My Husband, Bringing Hope

5. Our First Owned Home, Birth of Our Son, and Separation from Family

6. Violence and Murder on the Farm

7. Divorce, Struggling, and Court

8. Buying My First Home, Holidays, Then Illness

9. Incapable of Working, Son Leaving, Health Improved, and a Poltergeist in the House

10. 10. Meeting a Christian Minister on Holidays and Working as a Live-in Housekeeper

11. Moving Back into My Home and Exorcising a Poltergeist

LIFE

12. Becoming a Spirit-filled, Talking-in-Tongues Christian, Marrying, and Reunited with Son

13. Divorced, Cancer, Moving into the Holiday Home to Live and Work for the Lord

The Writers Say

Why I wrote this book

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Acknowledgements

Thank you Lord for choosing me to partner you in writing your book, making it our book, and for showing me the information you wanted in the book, and bringing to my attention stories you wanted deleted.

I would like to thank the following people;

Trent Adams, son, for knowing the technology that I needed, and for setting up the computer. Installing the typing programme, and then teach me how to use it, and for solving many problems.

Charles Bacon, computer teacher, whose continuing patience while teaching me how to use the computer was very much appreciated.

Allison Adams, daughter in law, for her help and encouragement.

Robyn Lucas, friend from Church, who organised everyone in our Church while the Sunday service was on, to pray for me and the book.

Premium Support, computer technical team that I joined who were only a call away, and always rang back quickly of me reporting a difficulty. Solving many problems for me.

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Introduction

Wendy was a little girl who was bewildered and frightened by her father’s bizarre, violent behaviour. She learned to overcome her fear and trauma by finding replacements for what she needed to give her peace and happiness for her sanity, as well as control over her life. As she grew up, the dislike for her father and her survival instincts became stronger than her fear of him, causing her to become an aggressive, strong-willed, independent young fighter. The result of living this lifestyle nearly killed her.

When she was forty-five years old, a visiting Christian minister laid hands on her in a church. She fell to the ground because of the power of the Holy Spirit that was upon her. Transformation occurred immediately from an angry, aggressive, revengeful, suffering fighter to a healed, understanding, and compassionate warrior for the Lord, and she discovered He’d been with her all the time.

When the Lord speaks, the words are in CAPITAL LETTERS.

The verses from the Bible are from the New King James Version.

DEATH

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Chapter 1

My oldest memory is of me crawling behind the couch to hide, frightened by the sounds made by my father in one of his rages.

We lived off a dirt road on top of a hill, in a house where we fed the kookaburras on the veranda, which was closed in by windows that we could open. It turned into a disaster one day when one bird flew inside and nearly killed itself trying to get out. That was the last time we saw them.

A pastime of my brother Gary and I was peeping through the holes in the fence at the girls playing on the grounds of the school.

The elderly next-door neighbours told us they were moving. On the day, I packed my little suitcase with my teddy and proceeded to leave with them. They were kind to me, sometimes giving me chocolate and inviting me into their home when I knocked on their front door. I liked them.

My father brought some iodine home from his work to put on the ringworm that my kitten gave me. I had blue spots on my face and body until it healed.

A few months later, we moved to the bottom of the dirt road to another house, with the train line across the road. I would wake up in the middle of the night from the noise of the trains going past. Eventually I became used to it and slept through. The house was surrounded by pine trees that made an eerie whistling noise at night when the wind whipped them up, waking me up and scaring me.

My brother and I slept in the same bed. If it was too early when waking up, we would play this game called Things, which are people that are our fingers. We used the bed clothes as caves for them to hide in. I scared Gary’s things, and when they jumped up in fright, his finger went into my eye. I could not see or open my eyes, and it was very painful. We had to catch the bus, travelling for about an hour to see the doctor. There was no major damage to my eye.

I hid behind the bedroom door while playing hide and seek. It was Gary’s turn to find me. When he came in to look for me, he pushed the door open onto my foot, tearing my big toenail. It grew back tougher and stronger.

Our neighbours Robert and Gail, who lived behind us, were our playmates. They had an apple orchard, a dam, and two goats (one male and one female). The female gave birth to a baby. We came outside in the middle of the night to see what all the noise was about. The male goat was attacking the baby. David and Sue’s father came out with a rifle, and he shot, killed, and buried the male. The female and baby goat lay on its grave for days.

They were the first in the street to buy a television, and they invited us to watch it after school. We stayed there so long that we ended up eating dinner with them. This could not continue, and of course it didn’t.

The four of us kids made a go-cart out of old pram wheels and bits and pieces that we found or were given to us. We’d ride down the dirt road from the top to the bottom of the hill. It didn’t last long because we ended up with too many injuries. The cart was not very well built because we did it ourselves without help from adults.

We made a raft for the dam. Paddling with our hands out to the centre of the dam was no problem. When we tried to come back, it floated away into separate pieces, causing us to swim for our lives. That was our first swimming lesson. The edge of the dam was oozy and slimy, which caused me to panic, and the other kids had to encourage me to go through it. I was the last one out. The raft was as good as our go-cart.

Gary and I always walked ourselves to and from school along the great western highway for about three blocks, past the nursery and hall to the pub on the corner. Then we’d pass the newsagents, real estate, and shops; sometimes we’d order a pie for lunch at the pie shop. One morning the man couldn’t take our order because he hadn’t baked anything. There was a live red-belly black snake asleep in the oven, and he was too scared to go near it.

Once a week after school, I practised with this acrobatic family at the hall, learning juggling, cartwheels, and climbing up everyone to reach the top of the pyramid. I was the star on the top because I was the smallest and lightest. The praise and encouragement I received from the rest of the troop made me feel good about myself.

The hall was then used for Saturday afternoon flicks, costing two and six, which included a picture and enough money left over for a sweet. We chose a Choo Choo bar, which was a sweet, hard, flat, liquorice stick. Some of the kids played up by running around, throwing things, and yelling out. The attendant would threaten to stop the movie unless they sat down and behaved.

We were given threepence each for the plate and sent to Sunday school. After two visits, we decided it was not our thing, and we spent the money on lollies and playing in the park. Someone must have seen us and told our parents because it only lasted a couple of weeks, and then there was no more money for the plate.

While walking home from school, an old black Ford with side panels one could stand on pulled up beside us. Inside was a man and lady my parents’ age, and they were dressed up to look like a grandfather and grandmother. She had butterfly waves and grey in her hair, as well as a high lace collar with a cameo brooch pinned at her neck. He wore a black suit with a starched white collar, and grey was sprayed at his temples. They were like characters in a movie. My Nan and grandma didn’t dress old-fashioned, so I knew they were fake. The lady said, If you get in the car, we’ll give you some lollies.

I said very sternly, I have a grandmother, and you’re no grandmother. Then I yelled, Run, run! Come on, Gary run! I must have scared them because they drove off in a hurry.

Everyone in our class had a turn at being milk monitor. School children had to drink a small bottle of milk every day at little lunch break, serving a bottle to each kid from the canteen. No one liked it because it was warm, with the cream sitting on the top; it was not refrigerated because it was freshly delivered.

My choice of sport was softball. Most of the time I was sitting on the grass and waiting for my turn to bat. It was the in thing to dig up these little plants with pink flowers on them and eat the bulb. While I was digging, I found a gold bracelet buried under the dirt. I immediately hid it in my pocket, knowing it was valuable because it was heavy with thick links. I was allowed to keep it and wear it, but not at school.

I don’t remember how we acquired our terrier dog named Timmy, who ripped my Christmas present (a bride doll) to pieces the day after. I discovered I wasn’t a doll person, so that was the only one I owned. Anyway, dogs were better to play with because they were real.

I loved the Australian wildflower book that someone gave me. I still remember some of the flowers: Christmas bells, flannel, wattle, and devils. Devil seeds had three points on them, two on top of their heads for pointed ears and one in the middle for a nose. Craft people would use them for heads for dolls or figurines.

I won a prize at school for a painting of a tree. The teacher liked it, giving me positive comments that made me feel good.

A storm blew in late one night while we were all asleep, causing one of the pine trees to fall on top of the house. It landed on my bed. I had to crawl out from under it in order to leave the bedroom and house. No one was hurt.

We moved to another home, closer to the school at the end of the dirt road, on a tarred road. The house we lived in was demolished by the pine tree. The road we were on led to a street that had a garden in the middle, and one could walk through to the main road. As I was leaving this garden through the archway at the entrance, I saw a brown snake go into a hole under the column. I looked in and saw other things moving around—there was more than one snake. I didn’t walk there again.

Gary and I bushwalked, checking out our surroundings, the wildlife, and the flora. I fell in love with the gum trees, shrubs, flowers, birds, crayfish, and possums. I even liked the red-belly black snake that was wrapped around a lost hubcap. We thought it was a tyre, and the snake came up with the hubcap as my brother picked it up, looking us straight in the eyes. We screamed and ran to tell the owner whose property it was on. He looked for it to kill it. I was sorry I told him because I didn’t want it to die, and I told him, It didn’t bite us. He couldn’t find it, and I think secretly he didn’t want to hurt it, because he was slow at the hunt.

The open fire in the lounge room was often used to cook jaffles. Wood was expensive, so collecting old, dried-out pine cones became one of our jobs. They were easy to carry, filling the bags without any trouble, unlike sticks that scratched and dug into me. Plus, they gave off a nice smell while burning.

The house on the left was lived in by an old man. My brother and I used to sneak up to his window to spy on him. One day we looked in, and he was looking back at us. We got such a shock that we didn’t do it again.

The house on the other side was a holiday home, and it was empty most of the time. The people eventually moved in permanently with a small, brown, ordinary-looking young dog. They asked me to feed it while they were away; I was told to lock it in the outdoor dunny when I wasn’t playing with it. After a couple of days, its head started to shake, and then its body. I was horrified when it died and was worried about them finding out on their arrival home. I was told later that it died of parvo virus

In the middle of summer, all the able-bodied men were called up to help with the bush fires, apparently, nearly all the mountains was on fire. Our father joined all the other men, leaving at home only women and children. The fence between us on our left caught on fire. Mum, Gary, and I had to put it out with just our hose, and we managed it. We discovered that they had been stacking the beer bottles up against the fence where the grass grew all over it—perfect kindling when the sun heated up the glass. My father came home with the hair on his arms and eyebrows singed.

My father went on another one of his binges. It was a long one, and we didn’t see him for days. Maybe it was a week or two. We collected apples from our friend’s orchard, dug up wild potatoes, and picked blackberries, using discarded roofing and wood to throw onto the bush so we could climb up to the top, and make sure we found every berry, leaving none. We had blackberries, blackberry pies, blackberry jam, and blackberries on bread. On the last picking day, I found a female tabby kitten, named her Angela, and took her home with me. She didn’t stay long, disappearing after two weeks. Maybe she went home; I don’t know.

My father came home smelling of stale beer, talking loudly, saying things that didn’t make sense, and scaring me. He gave me a cheap ring with a pink glass stone in it, telling me it was an engagement ring. I knew he was totally nuts and scary, and he was not going to treat me properly. I was alarmed and frightened.

The next cat was a large grey-and-white-striped male. He was a stray, and would cry at the back door, waking me up in the middle of the night, to sleep with me. Every Saturday we had to clean and tidy up our rooms. He fell asleep on my bed after I had just made it, so I pushed him off and told him to go outside. He scratched me, so that night when he cried at the back door, I didn’t let him in. I never saw him again. I was devastated and blamed myself for being so mean. I worried for a long time about whether he was dead or injured, or whether he was suffering. I hoped he was all right and in a new home.

A few months after he disappeared, my parents told me they found him dead under the house the day after I didn’t let him in. He’d been hit by a car or attacked by a dog. I was upset at the news, but because it had been a few months, I had already grieved over him.

Timmy became nuttier, chasing us on our pushbikes, trying to bite our feet as they went around on the pedals, and running around the backyard while balancing a long stick in his mouth. I loved him.

The nursery was raided by our dog, or so the owner said: tipping over pots, digging holes, and pulling the canaries’ legs off while trying to get them out of the cage. There was no way that a dog (or even a cat) could do that. It sounded more like a human hand opening the cage, pulling the legs off, putting them back, and closing the cage. They either didn’t like him because he’d annoyed them before with his antics, or they didn’t like us. I couldn’t find out whether they actually saw him do it, or whether they made it up. The nurseryman said he would report him if we didn’t keep him away. Because we didn’t have fences to keep him in, we had to tie him up under the house because he was not allowed to stay inside. He hated being tied up and cried all the time. After a couple of weeks, sores appeared on his body.

My brother was everyone’s favourite. Look at those big brown eyes. What’s his name? cooed all the ladies everywhere we went. Jealousy caused me to pick a fight with him.

I had a nightmare like no other. Large shells covered the walls, with spiders coming out of them to bite me every time I tried to get out of bed. The nightmare caused me to run into my parents’ room, to my mother’s side of the bed. She said, Come into the middle.

I said, No, I just want to be next to you. Feeling uncomfortable, I went back to my bed, knowing I had to look after myself.

My father would tuck me in to bed at night, pushing the bedclothes around my body and making me feel safe, enclosed, and cosy.

After coming home from work in the middle of a cold winter’s night, he entered my bedroom. It was dark and freezing cold. Snow was on his hat and the shoulders of his overcoat, and his breath smelt like stale beer. This didn’t stop him from giving me a tongue kiss and saying, When you grow up, if a man doesn’t kiss you like that, he isn’t a man.

My heart broke into a million pieces at the realisation that my father was creepier than I’d thought. I was in shock and worried that he would do more to me. I thought, He’s not getting away with this. I’ll get him back. I’ll run away. I was eight or nine years old.

Timmy came with me, plus a blanket, pillow, and biscuit’s. I went farther down the falls than before, with each one becoming colder. Finally I stopped at a perfect one with a beautiful, clear pool that had easy access for drinking and for washing my face and hands. There was also a wood picnic table and chairs, so it was very homely. The second day going into the night, my not-so-loyal dog made his way back to the path. I yelled at him, demanding he come back. With determination written all over him, he left me. I guess he was sick of eating biscuits. I was too scared to stay all night without him, and I decided to go home. As I walked along the road, car lights appeared in the distance, so I hid behind a tree. It was a police car, and I guessed the police were looking for me.

I climbed up the side of the house, onto the veranda, and into my bedroom window. I fell asleep instantly.

Someone switched on my bedroom light. I opened my eyes to see a man in authority standing at my doorway with my parents. He said, Why did you run away, little girl?

I looked at my parents, and my father narrowed his eyes at me as if to say, Don’t you dare tell him.

I said, I don’t know.

He left. I was told that I’d embarrassed the whole family because my picture was on the front page of the paper with the words Girl missing. Everyone thought I fell into the same fate as a local girl who’d disappeared a few months back. I was pleased about that.

I became very sad and depressed. Playing handball on the brick wall of the tennis courts and walking in the bush by myself were the only two places that gave me any sense of peace and quiet for my sanity. I was alone and had to look out for myself. The bush became my refuge. I wondered if the other girl was taken by the fake grandparents who tried to take Gary and me a couple of years back.

My father didn’t come near me again, but he showed his dislike towards me by ignoring me, staring at me with a hard look, or grunting at me if he had to talk to me. The pain increased to the point of distress.

A few crayfish were placed in the saucepan filled with water and then put on the stove. As the water heated up, their screaming and scratching to try and get out as the water became too hot for them horrified us. Father was bewildered as to why we wouldn’t eat them; they were his prize catch.

Mowing the lawn was a rare occurrence, so much so that it became a huge job, needing all hands on deck to rake up the grass. It left a huge stack, which we would then use to jump on. It became flatter and flatter after each landing. It was my turn again, and I landed on my knee on a broken beer bottle—my father’s rubbish—causing a dark, deep red hole about the size of two shillings just below my right knee. It gushed blood and needed attention by the doctor. Large needles were inserted into the wound to numb it so that I wouldn’t feel any pain when he pushed the tweezers into the hole to pull out the fragmented pieces of glass, which made a clinking sound as they landed in the metal dish. He said I was lucky; if the wound was a fraction closer to my right, the nerve would have been severed. For months after, every few days I would continue to pull out pieces of glass from my knee.

I had a baby