By Rachael Lockhart
The reason this reaction took me by surprise is that until very recently I didn’t think I had anything of worth to talk about….. I wasn’t very interesting! I just want to tell you a little of where I’ve come from to help you understand just how God has changed me.
I am the eldest of 6 children and grew up in local housing estates. I don’t have many memories of childhood but the few I do have aren’t really very happy. Family life was a struggle. My parents didn’t have very much money and found it difficult to provide for us. On occasion they didn’t know where our next meal was coming from.
From a very young age I got bullied, I couldn’t even go to the shop but I would run in to trouble. I carried that fear with me all the way through school so I would put up a front, not allowing anyone to get too close.
I wasn’t very interested in academic stuff and spent the majority of secondary school staring out the window dreaming of my knight in shining armour coming to my rescue; needless to say my exam results told the same story!! However, I was really good at sport and spent all my time throwing myself in to that. I loved hockey and played for school and then for Coleraine ladies where I shone. I had ambitions of becoming a PE teacher but was discouraged because of my academic history.
In my mid-teenage years I was more confident outwardly but by now trusting people had become a real issue. I was already struggling with who I was and wondering did people really like me?
Most of my childhood my dad was absent, being broken and hurting himself he was always getting involved in petty crime and spent a lot of our childhood in and out of prison. Towards my late teens his social drinking was becoming more often, developing into the addiction and life-destroyer that alcoholism is. He was clearly hurting, but what became my, my siblings and my mum’s every day was that he was hurting all of us too. Don’t get me wrong, my dad was so much fun to be around when he wasn’t drunk and would do what he could for us, unfortunately these times became fewer and fewer.
I seemed to take the brunt of his pain as we got older. I couldn’t work out what I had done to make him want to hurt me so much. Was it because I was the eldest? Was it because I often challenged him on it or because I was always telling my mum to leave? Or perhaps it was because I wasn’t his natural child? I loved him so much but he was hurting me. His words were sometimes so cruel. If I was being naughty or being a difficult teenager he would threaten to send me back to my ‘real’ dad, whom I didn’t know and had never met. I was always afraid of having to go and live with another family I didn’t know. I would be so afraid walking home from school that a strange man would stop the car, say he was my ‘real’ dad and take me away. I had my journey home from school all planned out so I could make a quick get away!!
I would often wonder. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I be loved? Why was I abandoned by my natural dad and now the daddy that I so desperately wanted to love me, why was he hurting me this way?
Even though I wasn’t very good at school I wanted to have a career, get married and have a family in that order. That didn’t exactly go according to plan. In my dream of finding my knight in shining armour, who was going to take me away from life as I knew it, I fell pregnant at 18. This just confirmed to me that I was worthless. I had no self-respect, drinking and partying too much because I thought that’s what I needed to do to be liked, accepted and loved. Now what was I going to do? How was I going to be a mum? How was I going to love a baby?
My best friend Amanda was my rock and helped me believe that everything was going to be ok. I owe her so much, more than words can ever tell her. She was and is the most amazing friend. The next few years my confidence was like a rollercoaster. Even though I had my knight by my side, loving and protecting me, I still felt worthless. No matter how often he told me how great I was and how much he loved me, I was always pushing him, looking for different confirmation. No matter what he said or how he tried to show me, deep down I wasn’t convinced. I had the most beautiful baby girl that I was and still am so very proud to show off, a very handsome knight and had trained as a hairdresser, but still there were some very unhappy days that I couldn’t explain.
During my second pregnancy my moods were often low and I became paranoid, feeling like I was losing control of my life. This pregnancy was planned so why wasn’t I happier? I was still believing for my fairytale and happy-ever-after life, but reality looked very different! Following the birth of our second baby girl I started crying a lot and having suicidal thoughts. I kept that to myself putting on my public face…..the one society and the media said I should have. I wouldn’t let anyone in but expected Geoff (my now husband ) to just know that there was something wrong. My bestest friend was always there to listen but I didn’t even share all with her. Now when I look back at this time I can clearly see that My Lord and saviour was with me.
Ten months after the birth of my second beautiful daughter I was diagnosed with having depression. These were some of the darkest days. I didn’t want to do anything or go anywhere unless Geoff was with me. I couldn’t hold a conversation without analysing what that person thought of me. At times I got so anxious at the thought of doing anything for myself. I felt like a failure, my knight deserved better, my children deserved a better mum, someone who could take them to school and make friends with their friends’ mums...to take them to the park without having to wait until their dad was with us. How would they grow up to love me?
I was so afraid of Geoff leaving me (and who would have blamed him) that I started smothering him. I needed to know his every move, where he was, who he was with and how long was he going to be away from me? I started taking anti-depressive medication and had a few counselling sessions and a light began to appear. Geoff remained so loving and positive toward me, no matter what I threw at him he was always telling me YOU CAN do anything YOU put my mind to. You are beautiful and funny and loving. You are a great mum and they love you. Finally believing him I went back to school and with his amazing support and that of my friends I qualified in 2004 as a nurse.
During this training Geoff and I got married and had our third baby girl. I couldn’t have been happier; I loved my job and had a beautiful family. But the depression still had a hold of me. There were still days of total anxiety, fear, hopelessness and worthlessness. I still felt a huge void in my life and I was still blaming Geoff for not loving me enough or the right way, still looking for him to fix me.
The question for this blog was….What has/is God doing in your life? WOW….Where do I start! I AM HAPPY and full of HOPE. I now have my own voice and identity and I am finally proud to be me and I now know that the Knight I was desperately searching for is my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. August 2011 my life changed beyond anything I ever thought possible; the first time I knew the presence of the Lord was when I came to Vineyard for the first time.
Our circumstances had become so overwhelming that I was really struggling to keep my head above water, to even breathe at times. My best friend had already begun going to Vineyard and knowing how much we were going through had invited me to come to church with her. ‘You’ll love it Rachael, everyone is great and it might help’. Of course I resisted for a while, then one Sunday I got up and got dressed and went…….WOW!!!!!!! I now know that what I felt that morning was the presence of the Lord meeting me at the front door of the old Dunnes building. The song Kathryn Scott sung that morning spoke to me very loud and clear…. "Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me!!!"
I couldn’t wait to get home to tell Geoff all about it. I tried to explain what I had felt but I couldn’t. So he came the following Sunday and felt it himself, literally!! It was a physical presence wrapping us up and making us feel safe. I always believed there was a God but had too many questions that didn’t make sense, I’d never heard of having a relationship with God…..that would have been bonkers!
The people I met that morning and continue to meet actually wanted to talk to me and get to know me just because. The love that shone from them was definitely something I wanted too. I have met the most amazing people who have guided, taught and shown me that Jesus is alive and recues and saves. I gave my life whole heartedly to my Lord on the 18th December 2011, the exact date and moment my husband did…..That’s a story in itself.
In 2 ½ years the Lord has changed me from the inside out. I have Jesus at the centre of my life who has given me self-worth and my own voice. I no longer believe I’m a failure but a true woman of the Lord with a design and a purpose of my own. I am exactly who He intended me to be and I don’t need to hide behind my husband anymore. He shows up in every area of my life.
I am on the welcome team at church and LOVE to talk to newcomers at the end of Sunday’s service. I want everyone I meet to feel as I did when I met Father God for the first time and love watching peoples’ faces when they realise that Jesus is real and alive. I also lead a support group for single mums once a month in church where we as a family can love one another through difficult times and enjoy happy times together…..amazing!!!
God has taken that broken person who didn’t feel she had anything of worth to talk about and put her into areas where talking and sharing is essential…. Lol, what an amazing Father we have, the exact thing that I found the most difficult and that’s where I am serving Him. I love Jesus and want to shout it from the rooftops and often share my faith with my work colleagues and family.
Shortly after my journey began my mum joined us at church on the Sundays she wasn’t at work and has also given the Lord her heart. What an amazing journey she is on and I love watching our Father God heal her also. I have a deeper and stronger relationship with my husband, whom I now totally believe loves me and wants to protect, care and provide for me. He has always believed in me and I love him for that. I have better relationships with my family, including my dad who is still battling with alcoholism and his painful past. He has asked Jesus into his heart and I will continue to pray for his healing.
As for my children, well I enjoy every moment of life with them. God and I are in a partnership of love, strength and hope…..He has delivered me from the hurts of my past, from the disappointment, bitterness, resentment and self-hate and has given me His GRACE.
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