God Binds Up the Broken Hearted

It was an interesting time living with my grandparents. My grandmother would probably be the only relative that I would actually consider as my friend, especially when I was a child as I had spent a lot of time there in the summers. They weren't perfect people. My dad's home life had been awful. It was one full of extreme physical abuse and hate. My grandpa beat my grandmother and all three of the kids severely. My dad had been beaten to unconsciousness once when he was five years old. They actually thought he was going to die. My grandpa hated God, not as strongly as my dad, but he made it clear he did not like God. Despite the pain that happened there, the place was a beautiful place. It had a beautiful barn on it. I loved seeing the Brahma bull out in the pasture whenever we went over there. It was a sign that we were almost there. It was also where my dad learned to ride bulls. Some of the great rodeo stars ...

While at Mercy Ships in Lindale, Texas, I was asked to be a helper for some of the moms there. I would have been helping with the schooling of their children. The problem was that I had put in my three months of service already, and in order to continue on, I would have to take the Discipleship Training School or DTS. A DTS consists of a three-month lecture phase and then two months of outreach anywhere in the world, anywhere that God put on the heart of the people to go really. I went home. I really didn't think I could pull it off financially as it did cost a little bit of money. While at the Mercy Ship base, I had been able to sit in on the DTS that had started that winter. The speakers were amazing. Having been an established YWAM base for over 30 years, they were able to get some of the top speakers from all over the world. One of them was Doug Easterday, who spoke on the Father heart of God. It was an absolu...

I was 20 this year. It was the last year we went to Junior Rodeo. I am not sure what happened, but my dad started yelling at my mom in the contestant parking lot over something. He was never asked to come back to judge the Junior Rodeo again. I believe who he really was and how he treated his family was starting to come out. I was too old for the Junior Rodeo, so I was no longer participating. La Pine was having a jackpot rodeo series through the summer though that I participated in instead. My horse wasn't near ready, but he knew the barrels and we made a prime barrel run. Everything that I had worked for for years came out in that run. The timer had not been set, though, so my time was not clocked therefore I had to run again. My dad actually stood up for me. He told me that was a “hell of a run”. I had to run again and did better the second time even, but after that I really had n...

I had met girl that was going to college at Treasure Valley that summer I was 18. We had gone to a few jackpot barrel racings together and she told me about the rodeo team there. I started thinking that I might try going. I got my GED, filled out my paper work for the college and filled out my paperwork for financial aid. I got accepted for financial aid, but my mom would not sign the papers for it. It went against her “convictions” of taking money from the government, something that she believed was a sin to do. Therefore, I didn't go. I continued working. At 17 I was fully running our restaurant. From September to June, I was running a full time daycare. I was barrel racing and roping. I had taken my first trip to Europe while I was 17, with four other kids from our area. We had traveled Europe and fit a trip to Israel in as well. My life was full and active although I always fell short when it came to my mother. She co...

When I was 18, I was able to go to my first couple rodeos. I had worked countless hours with my horse and endured an extreme amount of criticism under my dad's tutelage, if one can call it that. I am talking beyond criticism but actually degrading. I am talking “You stupid b****, you can't ride,” and on and on it went. It was loud and clear so every person that visited the post office, the library, our restaurant or the store heard every word. The criticism I endured would have made any person crawl into a hole and never come out. I am not going to say I was a strong person, but I wasn't going to quit either, and he wasn't going to make me. I was also not allowed to go to any barrel clinics or get any training from anyone. I read books, bought a video, and talked to a lot of people. I spent that summer going to all the rodeos I could, ending with the rodeo in Lakeview, Oregon over Labor Day. That fall, my gr...