TheBanyanTree: A LONG HAUL

[Sharon Mack]

A LONG HAUL  

by Sharon A. Mack

1 Timothy 4:12

When I was 35 years old and the mother of four children, my husband finally left us after a long and painful battle with his drug addiction.  It hadn't always been that way, but in the later years of our marriage, the recession of the 70's hit, and he lost his job.  It was the first time in our married lives that he had ever been without a good paying job.  I went to work trying to help but it only seemed to lower his already low opinion of himself.  He questioned his worth, his value to the family and to himself.

He finally hit rock bottom.  It had started with alcohol and had evolved into drugs.  Things got rougher than rough, even though he no longer lived with us.  After many altercations I decided that the best thing for my children and myself and our safety, was to leave the area*. and leave, we did.  He never saw us again.  I lived underground from 1983 to 1997.  He died in 1995 but I never knew.  I was too far underground.

We moved thirteen times in one year, through three states.  Each time he would find us via some unerring, wanting to be helpful person back home or some stranger in the place we had just left.  Always the midnight call from people who knew the truth, always the quick, helter-skelter packing job, the midnight move, the cramped car, the sleeping, trusting children as we sped through the night to our next haven.  

We were desperately poor.  I worked two and three jobs keeping us barely together, but keep us together I did.  At last, after an eight-month stint in Tennessee, we snuck back to New England, still in tact, still hopeful.  We had outrun him at last.  I still took no chances.  Utilities were put in others' names.  Phone numbers went unlisted for years.  We never gave anyone our information unless we knew to whom we gave it.  The fear of it happening again lived in our hearts.  Not until we learned of his death did we finally heave a collective sigh of relief.  Only then did we believe we were safe.

No one believed that we could make it.  Everyone questioned my wisdom.  How could I raise a family of two girls and two boys on my own and still instill in them the stabilization required to bring them to a fruitful adulthood.  People thought I should put the younger boys into foster care.  My parents offered to take the eldest girl, but I refused.  We were a family and we were a team.  We were going to see each other through this with God's good graces.

And it was God's good graces that did, indeed, bring us through.  Through diligence and faith I beat the devil at his own game.  Through prayer and trust in God, we remained safe.  There was never a time that we did not have a place to call home.  Sometimes it was a friend's finished basement rooms, sometimes an attic but it was warm and safe.  We always had food, enough to share.  Never did we ever have a utility turned off (though there were many "notices" to do just that).  I worked and wheedled and wiggled and jiggled those meager finances.  The "how" of it, I cannot tell you.  But we made it.  People still marvel at it!  So do I!

Because of my experiences, God has given me the opportunity to share, on more than one occasion, with other young women who face similar problems.  I have been able to encourage them in practical ways as well as the spiritual.  

This has been my reward and I give the praise to God!