Who am I?

I am what the creator made me to be. At least I pray so...Each day is to walk in a good way to honor all who lived before me..Who died for me..To be who we are meant to be and not to be as what others say we should be..To be proud of our heritage no matter what it may be.

All blood lines run to the same creator..How we walk in this life is up to us..I choose to walk with honor and respect..Truth and Gentleness..Love and Compassion..I can not say where I have been or what I have seen..I have lived..Loved..Cried..and Screamed..It is all in what makes me who I am..No better than this person or that person.

I walked in life a lot of it not knowing what was going on..Some I did not want to know..Some I was meant to know..Some was hid so I would not know..In the end I knew what I was suppose to..Life is meant to be lived without causing pain to another..We are the teachers of tomorrow and how we teach is what our future will turn out to be.

Who are my heroes? All who have lived and died so we could live..Those who made me..My Elders..My Children..My Mothers and Fathers..Grandfathers and Grandmothers..The Ancients who made the way for us to live.

I do not know what your tomorrow will bring but I do know what mine will..I do not know how you will live tomorrow, I do know how I will..When the day comes to an end, I will know that I have walked in a good way.

I do not know how you pray nor will I tell you that it is right or wrong..For each of us has our own prayers..I will respect yours and you will respect mine..You might light a candle, I burn cannabis as I stand with all creation..You might bow your head, I raise my arms to the sky..I find great peace being in the mountains..sitting by a creek and just being part of all that is there..I enjoy standing in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm feeling the wisdom and power of the thunder.

Each of us were born of this world to be everything we can be..I do not believe we were meant to be mean or hurtful..Life has gotten carried away..And how do we make it better..I wish I knew..If I could I would take all the bad..all the pain..all the sickness and give back balance..peace..freedom..kind and generous hearts within compassionate peoples.

For now I will do my part in Teaching... Loving... Healing... Praying... For all peoples for we are all of this life and here we live..Together.

We are the Caretakers and it is time to do our jobs..I might not be what you wanted or hoped for, but I am what God made me to be and for that I am proud and stand humbled before Him.

I was born in Pensacola Florida to parents of mixed faiths. My mother was raised by her Holiness Grandmother, and my father was raised Baptist on the family farm. Since my father’s family was in Pensacola and my mother’s were in California, we attended the Baptist church that my father’s family attended, Hillcrest Baptist Church.

I attended Sunday school and worship services. I even went to Vacation Bible School during the summer. I learned about Jesus and how he loved the little children. I also learned all the usual stories about baby Moses in the basket, and baby Jesus in the manger. I don’t remember much from the worship services, except that we were supposed to fear God. The sermons seemed to be a little over my head. I certainly did not learn what real love was, at home or at church.

My mom treated me like I was a baby doll that she could dress up. My father worked a lot and didn’t really spend any time with me. We never actually talked about anything important and I didn’t learn what life in the "real world" was really like. What a blessing that was!

My parents divorced when I was twelve, and my mother remarried shortly after that. Her new husband made us change churches and we started attending New Smyrna Baptist Church. It was there that I learned who God was and that He was watching me. It seemed that God was just waiting for me to do something wrong (sin), so He could smack me. It was the whole “fearing God thing” again. This was in tune with the new stepfather and his attitude toward children. (to be seen and not heard, and also just waiting for me to do something wrong so he could smack me) I still didn’t learn what love was. Nor had I really ever felt it, either coming toward me or from me. But I knew what fear was.

When I was 14, I attended a Catholic service with one of my friends. I couldn’t understand a single word that was said, and everything seemed so foreign. How was I going to learn anything when I couldn’t understand Latin? So, Catholic was a no.

At 15, I married the first man I dated. I was convinced by my mother and stepfather that I should marry him because, and I quote from my mother, “You should marry him because he wants you to, and no one else will ever want you.” I also was happy to get away from the abusive stepfather that my mother always took sides with. I still didn’t know what love was.

My new husband joined the Army and we set off on our life together. We didn’t attend church at all because neither of us could see the benefit. (He claimed to be Baptist also, but never attended church anywhere on a regular basis) We had our first child at our first duty station in California, and when she was a year old, we got orders for Germany.

I couldn’t go with him right away, as he didn’t have the rank necessary for us to get housing, so my daughter and I stayed temporarily with my mom and stepfather. While I was there, we attended a local Baptist church. This was when I was baptized, at the age of 18.

Once my husband was able to secure housing, my daughter and I traveled to Germany. My husband and I had another child, and I settled into the military wife role. We still didn’t attend any type of worship services.

One afternoon, a woman knocked on our door. I let her in and talked with her for quite a while about God, Jesus, and religion in general. I felt very comfortable with her. She was Jehovah’s Witness. I invited her back when my husband could be home, and she returned with her husband. She was German, her husband was American. They visited us quite a bit after that and we started attending worship services with them at the Kingdom Hall.

This religion was a HUGE difference from Baptist. There were so many rules. No Christmas, no birthdays, no Easter, etc. We had small children at the time, and it seemed cruel to completely remove all the holiday celebrations from their lives. I also had a big problem in the belief that only 144,000 people were going to heaven (which they believed was to be on Earth), and those spots were already filled long before I was born. I wondered what I was doing on Earth at all if there was no chance of reaching Heaven. It just didn’t ring true to me. So we stopped attending, and never really found another church that we could agree to.

A few years later I was invited to join a Wiccan Coven. I didn’t. The reason I gave was that I knew that I would be turning my back on God (or so I thought at the time), and I just didn’t have the heart to do that. I knew deep down it wasn’t right for me. Plus, I was afraid of ticking off God, remember.

My husband and I divorced after being married for 13 years, and I remarried a few years later. I married a youth minister for an Assembly of God Church. I thought he would be a good father for my children. So, I started attending worship services with him. The services we attended included lots of singing and speaking in tongues. I actually felt the Holy Spirit descend on the congregation a few times. But I still didn’t actually feel God’s love. I still felt as though He was watching me, ready to smack. Especially since my new husband was actually mean to my children, and completely intolerant of noise or activity of any kind around the house. He, like my stepfather, used Bible scriptures to try to control me. Due to my experiences with my stepfather, I felt the need to protect my children from this and my marriage to him ended at my insistence.

At this point in my life, I felt very estranged from God. I felt that I had made so many mistakes in my life and I knew that I had some serious atonement to do. I was working in the medical field in various capacities, and made friends with the women I worked with. I was able to speak to quite a few of them about spiritual-type issues, but I didn’t really find an actual church that I felt comfortable with. I read in the Bible that prayer was an individual, private issue and I talked with God often. I still didn’t really feel forgiven and I still carried around a lot of guilt and fear.

In late 2002, I had a talk with God. I told Him that I wasn’t happy with my life and I was ready to make some changes. I told Him that I was tired of trying to run my life all by myself and that from then on, I was going to let Him guide me. The next time I was asked by my sister to go out to a social engagement with her, I said Yes instead of my usual No. That evening was the first time my current husband, Bruce, saw me. He says that there was a glow about me and he couldn’t take his eyes off me.

I learned that Bruce’s mother was a devout Catholic, but he didn’t seem to be heavily influenced by that. He was more of a free-thinker, and didn’t go along with all the harsh rules that seemed to be a part of the Catholic faith.

I still didn’t really know what love was or what it felt like because I was still so consumed with fear. I know now that love and fear are opposite ends of the spectrum, and where fear is, love cannot penetrate. And where love is, fear cannot penetrate. This I learned from Bruce.

Not only did I find True Love in Bruce, I found cannabis. He had been using it for years and didn’t seem the least bit stupid or lazy or any of those other stereotypes that I had come to believe were true. I started trying it just to try to relax a bit. For my whole life I had been crippled with the most severe anxiety and cannabis seemed to help stop the constant worrying. It also actually helped me to laugh at life’s ups and downs instead of thinking that every single thing that went wrong was literally the end of the world.

The biggest benefit came when I talked to God while using cannabis. I could actually feel His presence and feel His love pouring all over me. I finally felt forgiven for all my past mistakes, and found myself able to forgive my mom, my dad, my stepfather, my previous husbands, and MYSELF. The biggest step was realizing that everything that "happened" in my life was meant to teach me something, and help me grow. I had to stop thinking that I was a victim of these circumstances and realize that I didn't need to let any of the past "stuff" weigh me down in the Here and Now. This was like letting loose a big anchor that I was pulling around with my neck. It also helped me conquer fear and replace it with love. Real love, the kind I never felt before. The kind that is enough not only to fill me up, but enough to pour out all over everyone else too!

Cannabis helped me to reconnect with God on a very personal level. It has also made it possible for me to conquer fear and replace it with love. And that's the biggest blessing of all!