From: clrclady
Date: Mon Dec  8 18:00:40 EST 2008
Subject: where I come from

Responses kimc: thanks for telling this part of your story (12/10/08) Responses (sorted by date) kimc: thanks for telling this part of your story (12/10/08) Ever since two Sundays ago when Eric was talking about where we come from, I have been thinking a lot about my childhood and what effect my growing up has had on me. My parents married in High School; my mom actually graduated as a Russell (her married name). They had a child a little over a year later. They were not educated in college (mom a stay at home mom and dad a mechanic). We were kinda poor. We were not really really poor. Never homeless. We always had a house. We just did not have a lot of money. It was always tight and my mom always worried about money (I got the worrying from her). I never thought as a child that we were poor. I did not really have a concept for poverty as a child and knew nothing else. Even when my mom went to work for TUSD food service when I was in Junior High out of sheer need, I did not really realize we were bad off. When I look at how much the Seneca kids have, I realize how little my sister and I had as children. My mom knew how to stretch the food. She did bulk before it was in style and before there were bulk stores. We ate lots of noodles, rice, beans. I learned to sort beans before I learned to read. We never ate out, not even to fast food. Most all the meat we ate, my father had hunted partly because he loved hunting, partly because it was too expensive to buy meat. Everything me and my sister wore was made by my mother or bought from a thrift store. My sister (older) had a harder time with this than I as she wanted to be in style. I really did not care, except the year that I grew like a crazy person and my mom put fringe on the bottom of my pants to make them stretch another several months (that was embarrassing). We never asked for help, and I can still remember the disdain my mother had for my uncle when he asked his father for money. That was a bad thing. As my father always said, “You pull yourself up by your boat straps.” I think he still hates that fact that one of his daughters went into social work. But this taught me survival, how to live with a budget and how not to want a lot. It did teach me to worry about things which does not solve anything, but I learned a lot about survival. We camped a lot; it was our vacations and my dad did a lot of teaching us survival skills. So we learned how to make fires, collect water, cut open cactus to survive, all those fun things. My dad always had the plan that if someone took over the US we could escape with our guns and live in the mountains or desert. I am sure we could have. My father ran someone else’s business and his own business to success for years. He is a good numbers man, good with people, good manager. He is humorous on his good days. The most intelligent man I know and can learn just about anything that he wants to learn. He is a people man who people will follow and they often think he is the greatest guy in the world. I got a lot of how to work with people and who to do leadership from my father. My mother loves children, loves art, loves creating. She used to make beautiful ceramics that she painted, all of our Christmas decorations were made by her. She taught me a lot of the creative heart and making of things that I have in my life now. When she took a painting class and painted animals one year, they were breath taking. I do not think she paints at all anymore. My sister and I get our creativity from her. Survival, living on little, leadership skills, people skills, intelligence, creativity: I got a lot from my parents. They taught me how to live in the WORLD. They did not do so well on teaching me how to live in the Kingdom of God. I struggle to receive grace, blessings, and love. My mother often related to me that God was punishing us with not having things, my father’s anger and violence. I often see God cursing me instead of loving me, waiting for Him to attack me with something instead of anticipating the good things He wants to give me. I push aside His hand of blessing and turn life into a curse instead. I do not ask for help of the people God has given me in this community for fear that I will get hurt or because I am believing the lie that I have to do it on my own. God has been doing a lot in me this year – taking away my financial comfort zone and making me rely on him, taking away my comfort zone of going into food instead of turning to Him. I have seen these as punishment and curses, but really it is God answering my prayers to make me reliant on Him and help me to love him more and more. They have been His blessings to me. I pray that I can take the good that my family has taught me and take off the lies of the bad that they installed in me.

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From: kimc
Date: Tue Dec  9 23:15:34 EST 2008
Subject: thanks for telling this part of your story