The Believer

By Erin Yokum-Achane

The Believer is a heart-wrenching and awe-inspiring story of Erin Yokum-Achane's personal evolution. Through these pages, you see her life's transformation from trial to tribulation: the murder of her first child, unexpectedly learning that she's carrying twins while in jail, a visitation from Jesus that reconnects her to her deep faith

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erin Achane
• Release date: Dec 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781637608562

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The Believer

A Testimony of God’s Love for a Lost Generation

Erin Yokum-Achane

Copyright © 2022  Erin Yokum-Achane

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations, reviews and other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Digital book: ISBN 978-1-63760-856-2

Print book: ISBN 978-1-63760-855-5

Cover Design: Cutting Edge Studio LLC

Editor: Amy Pattee Colvin

This book is dedicated to

all of those who have given up on God.

Change will not come if we wait

for some other person or time.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

We are the change that we seek.

—Barack Obama

Contents

Chapter 1. First Born Child

Chapter 2. A New Life in Atlanta

Chapter 3. Restoring My Soul

Chapter 4. Redeemed by Choice

Chapter 5. Faith Leads to Transformation

Chapter 6. Unexpectedly Building a Business

Chapter 7. Trusting in God’s Timing

Chapter 8. Hold Fast to Faith in Troubled Times

Chapter 9. Maintaining Strength Through God’s Word

Chapter 10. Grow Compassion and Thankfulness

Acknowledgments

About the Author

1

First Born Child

This dude just doesn’t respect my life! How rude! My baby daddy must be losing his natural mind.

I told him good last night that I had an interview at the Round Rock Medical Center hospital in Austin, TX, at 10:00 the next morning. It’s 10:15, and my phone was vibrating back to back in the middle of my interview. The hiring manager, dressed in slacks and a nice blouse, was trying her best to ignore the constant vibrating coming from my purse. I just kept smiling and answering her questions. 

Why was this guy trying to ruin all my hard work? It took every ounce of me to get here. I had my son, Brent, freshman year at Louisiana State University. We moved into the graduate dorms by my second semester.

College was not like high school, with no one to make you wake up and go to class. No one was there to make sure you finished your homework. All the rewards and responsibilities were yours and yours alone. If you missed class and got an F, then you just got an F and wasted that good grant money.

On top of my classes, I had a newborn baby who needed my attention as well. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.

At night, I worked at a strip club four days a week, where old men stared at me, imagining their wildest fantasy with my face front and center. I liked the attention at first, I must admit. But after four years of the half-naked outfits and a face full of make-up, I hated that place and hated a small piece of myself for staying so long. I was not going backward! I had to get this job!

When Brent was a year old, his father and I had broken up. I did what I had to do to take care of my son. He was my driving force, the common denominator in every decision I made. Moving to Austin was the right move for us. My son, barely three years old—the most incredible thing I ever saw—stood out like a sore thumb in Baton Rouge.

Hurricane Katrina had just turned our world upside down the previous year, and the city of Baton Rouge was filled with so many people all trying to find their place in this new reality. Brent’s father is biracial, and I am Creole, so my son looked like a little white boy even though he had black parents.

The folks at the daycare were very confused when I registered him for his first day. And to add injury to insult, he had long blonde curls with so much body this kid could do a Suave ad. Women paid big money to get his kind of highlights! 

Austin, TX, was a perfect place for me and Lil Brent to start our lives over. Austin is such a big melting pot of multiracial children; he would fit in perfectly here! He could start school in an environment where he would look around at his classmates and see many different shades of color; he would feel like he was more than the way he looked. He’d feel like a normal little boy. 

So, for the life of me, I could not understand why my baby daddy was trying to mess this up for us! Besides, he had moved on. He was dating a girl for a few years now, and I could not stand seeing them together. It was a constant reminder of what we had and how I had chosen to give it all up, forever asking myself if I made a mistake letting him go.

I was nineteen when Brent was born, and his father only  seventeen. We immediately moved in together, and while I was ready to be a mom, I did not know how to be faithful. I know I hurt him on that day when I saw his heart break into pieces that I feared would never completely come together again.

I did not  mean to hurt him. I just couldn’t pretend anymore. I wanted more; I just didn’t know what that more was. I might not have known what it was I was looking for, but I knew what I didn’t want. I didn’t want me and him. So, like all ex-boyfriends, he went out and found a cheaper version of me. He’d continuously throw her in my face. Each time we exchanged Lil Brent, she’d be in the house like she was a celebrity or something.

She hated me, and I did not care for her, either. As far as I was concerned, they could go live happily ever after; I wanted out—out of their perfect relationship and out of Baton Rouge all together. That’s why I was having this interview, so what’s the deal with the back to back phone calls?

After what felt like the longest interview in history, it came to an end. I felt like I impressed the young lady interviewing me. I tried to show my passion and willingness to learn. I stood on the shoulders of my time at LSU to illustrate I had the knowledge to be a major asset to this hospital. We shook hands, and she told me if I got the job, they’d give me a call to move on to the next steps.

I smiled at her with so much hope in my eyes. This lady had my future in her hands. And I wanted this so bad for me and my son. To work at this amazing hospital north of Austin would be life-changing for us. I prayed as I walked out of the hospital. I asked God to please give me this job. Give us a fresh start in a new city.

In my cheerfulness, I greeted each and every person as I walked outside the hospital towards my car. These were all my future co-workers, and I might as well introduce myself early. I believed this job was mine! 

I got to my car and turned on the AC; this Texas heat was no joke. As soon as you walk outside, you are instantly sweating. It’s like the heat is waiting to attack you as soon as you step outside. I pulled my cell phone out to see I had forty-seven missed calls from my baby daddy and his mother!

If I had only known this was the last time, the last moment before I would lose my innocence. 

Hey. What is so important you got to call me back to back? You know I had an important interview this morning; what’s wrong? I asked.

My son’s father was crying uncontrollably. My heart sank. Something is wrong. He mumbled something, but I couldn’t make it out, and then his mother grabbed the phone. 

Erin, you have to get back to Baton Rouge right now! Lil Brent is dead. 

What? How? Are you sure? I asked in total disbelief. 

Yes, Erin. All we know is he was throwing up blood and died in the ambulance. 

At that moment, pain hit every part of my body. It felt like I just got hit by an eighteen-wheeler. I could not breathe, I could not think, and I could not speak.

My respiratory and nervous system paused, and I felt as if I was going to throw up and pass out all at the same time. Just the thought of a world without Lil Brent was too much to even comprehend. 

I hung up the phone, and I began calling my family to tell them this folk tale of how my three-year-old son was gone. The seven-hour drive back to Baton Rouge was plenty of time for me to try and figure out this fairy tale of my son being gone and trying to make sense of it all. I constantly called my son’s father as new questions arose in my mind while I tried to piece this thing together, and all I could get was uncertainty. 

This could not be happening to me! This is not how my life is supposed to go. What did I do to deserve this? I was what my peers would call a good girl. I grew up in Crowley, a small town in South Louisiana. I played sports, was a cheerleader, made the honor roll, and had tons of friends.

I started going to church as a toddler and spent the better part of my childhood and teenage years behind a pulpit in the church choir. I would listen to sermons at my Pentecostal church, and I learned God was good. And he was so good to me; we had a system!

I would pray for stuff like making the homecoming court, and he would answer my prayers—I was on the court! I prayed to get accepted into LSU, kept my grades up and filled all the requirements, studied, and prepared for the ACT, and he answered that prayer too. We had a thing going on where I would pray for stuff, and he would do it.

I was so confused! I thought being a Christian met nothing really bad would ever happen to me. Like occasional bad news was cool, but my only son, my firstborn, was dead. Like, yeah, right. They play too much. There’s no way! 

Then a voice told me I deserved this! I was not a good girl like I had portrayed myself to be—I, in fact, was a bad girl. I did work at that strip club for years. Grinding on old men for money and getting a little tipsy every night, just the right amount to be extra friendly to strangers.

I did have Lil Brent out of wedlock—out there fornicating like there was no tomorrow. Oh, I could have fixed that one thing and married my baby daddy like he had wanted, but I could not see myself with him for the rest of my life. I wanted to live my life, free like a bird, without the restrictions of his will. Was I being punished for all the bad decisions I had made? 

I knew enough to know when you mess up, you should ask for forgiveness. So, while I drove back on that long drive, I asked God to forgive me for my sins. Forgive me for having sex with not just my baby daddy but the other guys too. Forgive me for putting my body on display for money when I knew my body was a temple. I asked him to forgive me for fighting, for cursing, and for drinking too. Forgive me for not going to church since I moved to Baton Rouge even though my home church had a sister church in the city. I had never stepped foot in there. Too ashamed of how far I had strayed from the Lord. 

I begged him not to let this news be true. Please, God, let this be some sick joke to get me to come back to Baton Rouge quicker. Please, God, let my son be alive. I promise I will start going back to church. I will get my life together. Just don’t do this to me. The thought of the possibility of Lil Brent being gone hurt so bad. I could not think straight. 

As I got to Louisiana, I picked up my mom and my best friend from Crowley to come with me to figure out this horrible lie told about my sweet boy.

When we arrived in Baton Rouge, I went straight to Baton Rouge General Hospital, where he was. We got out of the car, walked inside the lobby, and asked the front desk what room my son was in. The rep looked up his name on her computer and looked at me, and said, I’m sorry, Ma’am. You cannot see him. He is on his way to the coroner to determine his cause of death! 

I saw red! Anger rose in me like I never felt before. I felt like I had the strength of 100 men, like I could leap over tall buildings, and the hulk himself was ripping through my body. 

"What do you mean I can’t see my son! That is my son; I carried that child for nine months! Why can’t  I see him? He’s