If I Can, You Can

By Dr. Ruth Hayes

BLURB

Dr. Ruth Carter Hayes feels and believes that you can do whatever you set your mind to. If I Can, You Can is based on a true story about Dr. Hayes's life as she was growing up in New Jersey. She had to live with several family members as a child and practically raised herself. She did something that she was not proud of but felt it was a means to an end. She grew up fast. She dropped out of school, had to get married, had children, and started working. She had to learn how to trust and believe in God all over again. She had to bring God back into her life as well as her children's life. Through God, everything is possible. You only have to trust and believe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685266080

Book preview

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

1: Home without a Home

2: Two Rooms

3: The Great Separation

4: A Time to Work

5: Making My Way

6: Children and Choices

7: Walking toward My Faith

8: Finding Grace

9: After Graduation

10: What Went Wrong

11: Letters to Ruth

Friends of the Community

Business

Field Trip

Success Story

About the Author

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If I Can, You Can

Dr. Ruth Hayes

ISBN 978-1-68526-607-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68526-608-0 (Digital)

Copyright © 2022 Dr. Ruth Hayes

All rights reserved

First Edition

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. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Iwas not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. However, I am happy with the gifts and attention on the many occasions given to me by my parents, grandmother, aunts, uncles, and especially God.

This book is in memory of my beloved daughter and son, Sandra and Alex.

Special thanks to Debra Daniel-Purnell, Patricia Kitchens, and Nyawi Barnes.

All proceeds from this book will go to different youth and senior charities the author supports.

1

Home without a Home

God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good. My story is not unique. It's not different. I'm just a woman that knows God will give you anything you need and most of what you want. All you have to do is love, ask, and obey him. I did in the beginning, but I certainly didn't always obey him. I didn't even think about him most of the time. In fact, he was seldom on my mind. I was too busy living the life I thought I wanted. I went to church occasionally, but it was when it was convenient for me and when I wanted to.

Sometimes I went with my friends when they were made to go. There were times when my adult family made me go. I also went with my aunt and cousins whenever I stayed with them. I had an aunt who I can never remember going to church. However, they all believed in God and always talked about him. I knew about him and was taught he would do anything that was good for his people if we would only obey him and learn to love him. I did those things. I loved him, but I just didn't have time for him. I was busy doing my own thing. Nonetheless, I finally found time for him and learned he was the most important person in my life.

When I started worshipping him the way I should, there was no holding back of what he could and would do for me. Sometimes it would take weeks, and other times, it would take years for him to answer my prayers. However, when he answered them, it would be more than I asked for and more than I expected or needed. He loves me. I am his. In fact, he loves everyone but not their ways. The question is, do we love him? He gives us free will to do what we desire. The choice is ours. Therefore, since I know and love him, I've tried to serve him. In doing so, he has done more for me than I can imagine or deserve.

I tried in my mind to weigh every aspect of my life, and the road I've traveled leads me to wonder. I am ninety-two years old and in debt. Yet I have enough money to live comfortably so that I don't have to worry about money. I've lived with cancer and had chemotherapy about thirty years ago, and I still go to the cancer doctor to get checkups. All the time, I've been discharged from Dr. Wallace, my cancer specialist. I still have lymphedema which is very painful.

Today, I'm living with a heart condition and lymph nodes on my lungs. I've been married twice and divorced twice. Alexander Ziggy Carter and Sandra Crystal Carter, the only two children I've had, are dead. I have four grandchildren alive, one grandchild that died, and eleven great-grands living. I don't have any siblings of my own but was reared by seven adults who had twelve children. The sisters and brothers were my cousins, and I also thought of them as my siblings.

The seven adults I lived with were my parents, my grandmother, two aunts, and two uncles. I lived in four different homes, went to six different schools, and yet I didn't have any one to teach me right from wrong. The adults loved me but did not chastise me. Of course, they did chastise their own children, and it often caused conflict between their children and me, but the final thing was they, too, loved me. I knew the difference from right and wrong and often took advantage of my circumstances. However, no one in my family stayed angry with me for long, and life was good.

Since my mother and father worked and lived with the people they worked for, I had to think of my relatives' homes as my own. The beautiful thing about it was they thought of me more as a sibling than as a niece or cousin. The five adults I lived with were my grandmother, two uncles, and two aunts. She rented a five-room house which consisted of two bedrooms. Since Mama, my grandmother, only had two bedrooms, Jackie, my uncle, slept in one, and Mama and the two girls, Alma and Nora, slept in the other.

I slept on the living room couch. At my mother's sister's house, I slept with Doris, my cousin, and the two boys, Elijah and James, slept together. I guess because I didn't have any sisters or brothers of my own, and my mother and father (although they loved me) were never there for me at that time, I adopted my cousins as my sisters and brothers and their parents as my moms and dads. It worked out fine. I had money from my parents, education and love from them all, and although my aunts and uncles didn't give me money, they all gave me love. I suppose because they felt I was just short of being an orphan, they not only felt a little pity for me, but it all worked out fine.

There was also my aunt and uncle who lived in Paterson, New Jersey. They had six children and three bedrooms. I shared a bedroom with the girls—Nita, Jean, Laddie, and Beatrice. They never knew when I was coming to stay, but when I came, I was