Hannah

Dear Reader,

Do you see that?  You know, the tiny bits of sunshine that curl around the corners of the day. The things unexpected and unprepared for. The things that we haven't yet had a chance to see –usually because we are silly and weird and wired. Because we are walking through the blessings with our eyes closed. Did you see that? Did you breathe it in? Because change smells different. Change tastes different. Because when we grow we don't even use the same eyes we did before.

God calls us new creations, we have been rendered. This, dear friends is a miracle on a DNA level. This is a miracle that takes the biological makeup of who we were and transforms us into what God calls us to be. That’s earth shattering.

So what happens next?

 Carol:

               People who haven’t been abused or enslaved can’t understand why women would stay in an abusive relationship. I hope by reading these stories you have learned to understand the powerlessness and futility these woman feel!  They are blind to the overpowering love of Jesus, but it’s wonderful to see Him take these women from evil and transform them!

Hanna:

My story starts and ends in a grocery store.

               There are those moments when everything changes. And the minute I met Denny, that was one of those moments for me. I had spent my whole life being small and broken. My whole life being the girl that no-one really saw. And then he walked into my life, his skin all freckle-y and his smile a smirk. 

               What was this boy going to turn me into if I let him? We worked at the same small town grocery and we were both 18 and I was quickly falling in love.

               You see, at the beginning, it was as if I was the only girl he had ever even met. It was as if I was the only girl he could even see when he looked around the room. I was in love. I felt wanted and needed and desired.

               And then it rushed in, like a crouching serpent. His anger became more and more, over little by very little. It was as if he had to kill everything he loved… and that helped him feel like a man.

               The first time he broke my nose, I apologized!

               Who the fu*k does that!?

               The second time, I cried and begged to be forgiven.

               Who the fu*k does that!?

               And then all of the sudden, without warning I changed. Anger seeped out me like some sort of virus. And everyone around me… well they knew I was broken.

               But then I would have another moment, where I fooled myself into thinking that this was something I deserved.

I lived for a while in that muck.

               Because I think in a weird way I enjoyed it.

               But then, finally, after a couple of years, I moved out and I lived in a tiny studio apartment above an auto shop. And I clumsily put my life back together, living on food stamps and a once-a-month cleaning job.

               But then, a couple of days into my new life, there was another moment that made the whole entire direction of my life change. You see, I needed bananas.

               So I went to the grocery store, as one naturally does when one needs bananas. I shuffled in considerable pain up to the counter with my flimsy looking clump and proceeded to pay in pennies.

And then I saw him, a smiling and kind face, blue grey eyes and moppy brown hair . . . and then he spoke to me.

               “Ma'am what the heck happened to your face?”

               Instead of judgment, I saw kindness, and that scared the shit out of me. I don't even know how to write what came next.

               Well, first I went home, but I kept coming back to that store with my food stamp card and my jar of pennies. I bought bananas and milk. I ate oatmeal and cheese. I was so very simple and boring. But I came in for over a year.

               And. Every. Single time. I had the same cashier; he was always there no matter the time of the day. And even though I worried about it. I knew he was not stalking me.

               So eventually on Day 100 he asked me something. “Are you okay? I need you to know, that whatever it was, you didn't deserve it. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. And I believe that even if you are broken, you will be beautiful.”

               I wanted so desperately to be mad. But all I did was blush, giggle and gasp. Like some odd coordinated 90's dance routine, and then, well, I walked out pretty fast.

               But then. Day 129, after a bunch of flirting and sweetness. And one very nice box of oranges. He asked me another question.

               “Can I cook you dinner?”

               I didn’t even hesitate and I went to his house for orange chicken and sweet potato fries. Everything I always almost wanted to say was always on the tip of his tongue. And all I could think about all night was kissing him.

               But he waited.

               So after a while, it was like nothing had happened. I was forgetting all the pain and the broken and the icky. And then day 135.

               He asked me another question, “Can I tell you about Jesus?” I stepped back remembering Denny's W.W.J.D. bracelet and the nasty pastor I had as a child who touched my butt.

               But then the words he said started to sink in, and to me this time they felt so very different. Like somehow I had been hearing about a different Jesus this whole entire time.

               SO I started to read about Jesus, and I had the moment and I called out. Jesus became my Jesus. I became a Christian and I felt like I belonged. And we studied the word together and then….

               Then on day 239 he asked me another question. He asked if I loved him and I said yes. He told me his plans to have a family, and to serve God with his wife and children. He told me how he wanted kindness to be the currency in which he dealt with the world. He wanted to be a part of a generation of believers that changed things.

               I fell in love so hard.

               And then on day 310 he asked me to be his wife.

Evan and I have been married for three years now and I am expecting our first child in three months. If it was okay I would name him “Banana” but that would be weird. Instead his name is Oak Timothy. Because his Father and I think that in this coming generation, we will need to raise men to be oaks of righteousness. We will need to teach men to love passionately and to have kindness indiscriminately.

               But I think we will be fine at that with the help of the Lord.