If You Only Knew My Story

By Bertha Banks

When Sarah was a little girl, she talked to me about the things she went through as a child and how she came through with the grace of God and family, how she grew up on the farm, and the hurt and pain of sexual abuses she experienced. Sarah lived and suffered through domestic violence as a young adult and through her married life. Sarah even had a death experience. Sarah even talked about the prayer that her sister prayed to God for a miracle to take place in their lives due to hunger. She talked about how hard it was raising three children and how the abuse affected her life. She told me how God released her from domestic-violence abuse. She talked about the infidelity, lies, and deception in her marriages. Sarah talked about the success she had in life and the success of her children. She often told how God called her into the ministry. Sarah shared about domestic violence, abuse, deliverance, healing, hope, finding your peace in the midst of a storm, loving yourself, reaching out and conquering fear, and loving one another. Sarah said to me what her favorite scripture is, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:13).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098047696

Book preview

Chapter 1

Clothing Made by Mom

Farmer families and their kids are very poor. We as a family did not have much, but we had each other, and we loved each other. My mother made most of our clothes. Some of my dresses were made out of clover sack bags, which was a cotton sack. After all the flour was used out of the clover sack bag, Mother took the flour sack, cut the bag open, washed it, and made our dresses for my sisters and me; the flour sack came in twenty-five-pound bags. My mother would take the sack, cut it apart, place it on the pattern, cut it out, and made our dresses. I am not ashamed to let you know where I came from and how I survived. Everyone in school knew we had on clover-sack dresses. Oh, we were not the only kids who were wearing flour sack bags (clover) for dresses. Wearing the clover-sack dresses—that chapter was closed in our lives when my mother got a job working as a nanny—no more flour-sack dresses.

I am so glad that bullying was not an issue then as it is today. It was bad enough. The kids would make fun of our clover-sack dresses. I had to stand up for myself because one day I was being bullied, and my brother made me stand up to the bully for myself to keep me from being bullied by the kids again at school. And coming home from school, kids would pick on me on the bus, and walking home I stopped the bully and stood up to the bully. Today when kids get bullied, they go back to school with a gun and kill the kid that bullied them; sometimes when kids are being bullied, they kill themselves. They cannot take the pressure. They act as if it is the only way out. Stand up to the bully. Talk to someone about the problem; do not think there is no way out.

When I was twelve years old, I was baptized. I did not know what I was doing at that age, but I did know it was the right thing to do. I looked forward to going to church every Sunday. There was Mrs. Jane who had two kids with her every Sunday. Her kids wore beautiful dresses with three layers of wide petticoat slip under their dresses. Mrs. Jane did not want us to touch their dresses; she said we would get it dirty. Mrs. Jane turned her nose up in the air and looked at us and took her two daughters and walked into the church. That was a bad feeling of rejection. I grew up in church until I was fifteen years old, and I stopped going to church. I started working picking peaches in the summer at Sunny Slope Farm Peach Orchard Incorporated so I could buy my clothing for the school season. The cotton-picking days were over. Thanks be to God.

I have strength for all things in Christ who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through him who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency] (Phil. 4:13 AMPC).

Chapter 2

Free from the Cotton Farm

I was so glad when my mother said to us, the last three children at home, that we did not have to pick cotton on the cotton farm any longer. My mother had saved up enough money working as a nanny to build a house for her family. My mother worked as a nanny and came home every Friday evening, went back to work on Sunday evening to work as a nanny all week away from her family. My mother had a room at her employer’s home where she stayed all week, worked, and made $12.50 per week. My mother worked as a nanny for sixteen years. I thank God for my mother because she saved up enough money for sixteen years to have a house built for her family so the family could have a place where we could call our own home. My father and my brothers built the house, and my mother became a homeowner. That was a great day. We were no longer bound by a man on the cotton farms and plantation law. Praise God.

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us (Rom. 8:35, 37 NLT).

When I was a little girl, I did not understand why my mother would go away and leave us, my sisters and brothers, all week long at home with our father. I do know now more than ever that she was making and leaving a legacy for her children in the best way she knew how. I cry sometimes when I think about my mother and all the sacrifices, all the name-calling and abuse she went through for her family while working. My mother said that her employer and family would leave money lying around on the tables and other places in the home to see if she would steal the money. My mother said that she would dust around it and leave it there on the tables and sweep around it with the vacuum and leave it on the floors where she saw it. Employers would do that all the time to see if we as black people would steal.

And that’s not all. You will have complete and free access to God’s kingdom, keys to open any every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is a yes in heaven, a no on earth is a no in heaven (Matt. 16:19 NIV).

Chapter 3

Bad Dreams as a Child

When I was a little girl, I had bad dreams until I was twelve years old. I could see things; some of them were evil spirits. I had bad dreams every night as soon as I closed my eyes. In my bed I could look down through the mattress, and the only thing I could see were red coals of fire and fire just burning as far as I could see down. I was at a point wherein I was afraid to go to sleep. I would wake up out of my sleep screaming and howling at the top of my lungs. My father would come into my bedroom and get me and put me in the bed with him. How many know that there was no child abuse from my father? He was just a father protecting, loving, and watching over his child.

I felt safe with my