I’ve Found Jesus. He Was Behind the Sofa the Whole Time.
For most of her life, Debbi blamed her mother for everything that went wrong in her life: her father leaving, being sexually assaulted at age six by her brother’s friends and later by one of her mother’s boyfriends. She had a right to be angry, but not, as she would later realize, to hold on to unforgiveness. It would take disposing of the contents of a dusty old box she had kept hidden for decades and a parting gift from her mother, for her to see through a glass perhaps, a little less darkly.
When Debbi was high, which was often, she would look up and see Jesus staring down at her. It was unsettling to say the least. Usually, she ignored the Most High God’s immovable gaze, encased as He was in a frame high above her sofa; that is; until one day He spoke to her and said, “Hey, you have a lot of life left. So, pull your head out of your…”
Whether Jesus would use that specific turn of phrase, is debatable. But what wasn’t debatable was what Debbie did next. The results speak for themselves.“I got up off my couch and I poured the rest of the alcohol down the sink,” says Debbie. “Then I came to the Mission, got the application, did my interviews, and here I am.”
Debbie’s gone through the Recovery Program, twice—the first time in 2017, and then again in 2024. Before then, she’d went through the revolving door of rehab more times than she could count. “Why couldn’t I get it?” laments Debbie. “In and out, in and out of rehab and jail. Why couldn’t I have got it the first 2, 3, 4 or 5 times”?
When her mother died in April of 2024, Debbie relapsed yet again. “I wasn’t a very good daughter, and I carried around a lot of shame and guilt over that,” says Debbie. “So, I did what I usually did to numb the pain…I drank.”
Men Behaving Badly…and Mom, Too
It could be argued that Debbie’s guilt was out of proportion to the kind of parent her mother was, which was not very good. To begin with, Debbie never knew her father, and her mother refused to identify him. It was only later Debbie happened upon his name. All three siblings had different fathers, none of whom were present in their lives. Instead, there was only their abusive alcoholic mother and a revolving door of men…none of whom stayed around long enough to qualify for the job of “father figure.” So, Debbie kept searching.
“Back in the day when there were pay phones, I would get rolls and rolls of quarters and go through the phone book—calling every person I thought might be my father,” says Debbie. “But I always got shot down.”
It wasn’t just being fatherless that would leave its mark. It seems life had more in store for the young girl. One day, her mother left Debbie in the care of her older brother. He invited his carousing friends over and the alcohol flowed freely, provoking the little girl’s curiosity. Drinking seemed fun, she thought. So, at just six years of age, she tried it.
What happened next was far from fun. Two of her brother’s friends molested her—a secret she kept for a very long time. Unfortunately, two years later, Debbi would be molested again by one of her mother’s boyfriends. This time, however, Debbie spoke up. At first, her mother wouldn’t believe her. But eventually she did, and the boyfriend was kicked to the country curb.
Half and Half
Not surprisingly, Debbie too began to have inappropriate relationships. “When stuff like that happens to you as a child, you just seek it out,” says Debbie. To cope, she began using her numbing agent of choice: alcohol.
But the condemnation over her repeated failures to get sober, was nothing compared to the guilt she felt after the death of her mother. “Guilt, guilt, guilt …of not being the daughter I should have been,” laments Debbie. “That’s how I felt. But I take comfort in knowing that in the end, my mother had truly surrendered her life to the Lord. Before then, I guess I’d describe her as a “half and half” believer…half in, and half out.”
“I’m Sorry. Please Write Back.”
Today, life looks a lot more promising. The passage of time has something to do with it. At almost 60, Debbie knows her days of running amok, “like a rolling stone with no direction home” are over. Still, she struggles with a gnawing feeling of abandonment.
“All my life, I felt rejection—from both parents,” says Debbie. “And yet in my Bible study, they said God chose my parents. So I asked Him, “Lord, I didn’t do nothing wrong. So, why didn’t my dad want to see me”?
Ironically, Debbie asks a similar question about her oldest son. Incarcerated for several years, he wouldn’t speak to her and didn’t want a relationship. Recently, in an attempt to make amends, she sent him a letter. Debbie asked for his forgiveness, expressing her deep remorse for not being the mother he needed. “I’m so very sorry for all my past mistakes with you,” Debbie wrote. “With all my heart, I wish you could re-live your childhood, to play and be happy. I love you so much.”
She was hoping for a reply but never received one…until now.
“Please tell her I’m okay.”
In a “too coincidental not to be God” set of circumstances, a man named Gus from a local church had written a note of encouragement to a random prisoner. A few months later, he received a letter from a prisoner in an inmate firefighting training camp. “Thank you kindly for taking the time to write me,” he wrote. “I wonder how you got my name and address…are you from the faith-based recovery program my mom is in? Because I’ve been trying to find her, but I don’t know where she is. If my mom is there, please tell her I’m okay and I love and miss her from the deepest part of my soul.”
That letter, as it turned out, was from Debbie’s son, Justin—the prodigal son of the prodigal daughter in a world full of prodigals making their way home. Justin ended the letter with the words that Debbie had longed to hear, “Prison sucks, but me and God talk every day, he said. “We’re settling our differences. Thankfully, we’re now on the same page. And it feels good to be walking on the right path—getting closer to Him after spending years wasting my life.”
As to how Debbie discovered that letter’s existence, that’s a long story. The short version is that within days of Gus reading that reply, Debbie held that letter from her son in her hands. It’s a miraculous moment that marked yet another chapter in Debbie’s beautiful redemption story.
The Baptism and the Box
On Sept. 1, 2024, Debbie was getting ready to be baptized at a local church. She was excited beyond words. Both of her grandsons were there, and both heeded the altar call.
“My two grandsons looked at me and before you know it, I had grabbed both of their hands and we all went up—myself to be baptized and the two boys to ask Jesus into their heart,” recalls Debbie. “And suddenly I felt like an angel had just opened its wings and closed them all around us. The presence of God was so strong, And my grandsons had this beautiful grin on their faces. And of course I started bawling.”
Today, Debbie is nine months sober and growing by leaps and bounds. She is walking through those parts of her painful past that have kept her stuck in a cycle of anger and unforgiveness. Some of that pain she had kept locked up for decades—encased in a dust-covered box underneath her bed. When asked what that box contained, she answers, “The rapist…to be specific, a piece of clothing I was wearing when I was raped.”
Debbie would never open the box because she knew she’d have to forgive the boys who had raped her. And that she couldn’t do. “I had asked my therapist, ‘Why should I forgive somebody that hurt me and don’t deserve forgiveness?’” says Debbie.
Recently, Debbie summoned the courage to finally open the box…throwing out the piece of clothing that was connected to the most traumatic day of her life. “I forgave those boys,” said Debbie. “It was the hardest thing I ever did but I just couldn’t carry that burden one more day.”
The Robe
Before her mother died, she had given her daughter a gift of a purple bathrobe. It hangs on a hook in her room…the only thing left to remind her of that once troubled relationship. The gift was no fluke. Purple, it was pointed out to Debbie, is the color of royalty—a color we see represented countless times in the Bible. It’s doubtful her mother knew then the significance of that gift. But she knows now. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I am known” (I Cor. 13:12.)
Each evening, when Debbie dons that gift of a purple robe while standing underneath her favorite picture of a child reaching towards Jesus, she’s reminded of who she really is: the royal daughter of Ha’av Shadvak Besviva, or The God Who Sticks Around. She’s no longer rejected, cast off or abandoned. From God’s perspective, she never was.
As for her mother, if she could send a letter of amends to her daughter from the Other Side her letter might sound a lot like the one Debbie had sent her son:
“I wish I could take it all back so you could have had a better life,” her mother would say. I can only say while on earth ‘I saw through a glass darkly and knew only in part.’ But you, my precious daughter, have Jesus in your heart and He’s the Perfect Parent…He’s everything you need. So, go and be a child again—happy and free. I love you from the deepest part of my soul.”
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