Breaking Free

A little over nine years ago, I sat down and started writing out what was supposed to be my testimony. I titled it "Patchworked and Pieced Together: A story of God's love and redemption.

  But as I wrote, the story quickly became less about what God had done in my life and more about how jacked up my life had been. Oh, I told about how God had delivered me from the obvious sins in my life. I shared how I had been delivered from a homosexual/lesbian lifestyle, from alcoholism and drug addiction, all the while still caught up in other addictions and lifestyles. 

At the time of writing, I began to focus on the who, why, what, how and when of every wrong that had ever been done to me in my life. I started at the beginning when I was conceived, the rejection of a father and then the unknown birth (my mother was told she would have a big boy yet delivered twin girls. I was a surprise to everyone, Dr's and nurses included). I allowed words that were exclaimed by a surprised doctor to dictate the trajectory of my life. 

As I continued in the book, I focused on every negative aspect that I could. I painted myself the victim and told of a life that had been destined for failure from the very beginning. I recounted the verbal and some physical abuse I had endured and the very words of never amounting to anything in my life which were declared over me. These words stuck and I allowed them to direct my paths.

I then started to tell how God had taken those negatives to turn them to positives. I was in a church at the time that pretty much ordained every person that walked into their doors and stayed a minute to be a minister of the gospel so I thought I had arrived. 

In less than one year of being ordained in that church, I was back out on the streets. I had taken those words of being a failure to heart and sabotaged myself at every turn so that I could "live up" to my destiny of failure.  But here's the thing: I was succeeding.  I made myself to be a failure, each and every time things started to go well for me.

Once I started to work in the food industry again, I put myself on autopilot.  I did the same thing six days a week: wake up in enough time to shower and dress for work, grab a bite to eat, go work until close, come home after midnight every night, watch tv until the early morning hours, sleep and repeat. The only day that varied was Sunday because we were closed. That day consisted of sleep until I woke up and laundry that had collected for the week. 

These things started to change when I started to attend my current church. I pushed myself and got a job I never thought I would have.  And shockingly, I was very good at it. I could do my process in no time and by watching my co-workers, quickly learned their positions as well. Then I was moved to another position due to my attention to detail.  But as always, I quit the job. I think this is the first position in my life that I didn't provide a notice. I just stopped going due to Matt's health issues increasing. I let the fear of what could happen be greater than my faith in God to keep and protect him so I could work. 

The position I have now I really do enjoy. But I walk in fear on a daily basis. I try so hard to do things the right way, to honor a business that has been around for decades with tried and true methods. I also work with/for my pastor, his wife and his sister. So the fear is there that if I fail I am not just letting down my employer, but also my church family. 

When Matt passed away last year, I saw myself as a failure, as a wife and as a caregiver. For 17 1/2 years of for better or for worse, in sickness and in health I had dedicated myself to being there and taking care of him. Knowing how bad he felt and seeing him/hearing him be so incoherent on the day of his passing, instead of taking a personal day to tend to him and make sure he was ok what did I do? I left him in the bed sleeping, walked to the other end of the house farthest away from him and logged onto my computer for work. Eight hours! I couldn't spare eight hours of the vacation or sick time I had accumulated to take care of the man I said that I loved and cherished. 

I have spent my adulthood building things: friendships, relationships, careers, a home only to turn right around and fill them with so much dynamite that they are utterly destroyed. People who I called family for well over twenty years from previous churches that won't even speak to me if they see me out and about or return a text if messaged. Family members from all sides who see me coming and turn in another direction (no one from Matt's family has spoken to me since his visitation). Former co-workers who would call or check in from time to time have been silenced. When did I light the fuse? 

I know the saying goes "faith over fear," but what about if the only faith you can sometimes muster is the faith that your life is about to be blown up? Have you heard the saying "I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop?" I feel like that is me, always looking over my shoulder for the next thing that is going to happen. 

I have been at LAPC for five years now. With the exception of The Rock, this is the longest time I have stayed in a church. And I can't really count all the time I was at The Rock because I started in 2001 and "left" in 2005. I came back when I returned from North Carolina but it was never the same. So, LAPC is the longest continual attendance. Yet, I still look over my shoulder looking for what is coming that is meant to take me out. 

As Bro. Knowles looked me dead in the face tonight, Saturday April 4, 2026, and said breaking curses... word curses are real. Whether intended or not, they carry weight and power over your life. From the innocent "Oh my God! There's another one" spoken by the doctor right before I was born, to being told I was worthless and would never do anything in life to me calling myself patchworked and pieced together, these statements have shaped me. They cursed me making me want to hide in the shadows, invisible.  They made me lazy because why should I even try if I'm just going to fail. And they have made me to be expendable, like a filthy rag that is used and tossed in the trash because it is not fit to be used any longer.  

But God sees me. I wasn't just "another one". I am uniquely me, designed and created in His likeness, formed in my mother's womb, fearfully and wonderfully made.  I wasn't an afterthought, He knew me all along. I am not worthless because He says I know the plans I have for you; plans to prosper you, not to harm you. Plans for hope and a future.  I am not that patchworked, pieced together person to be conformed into anything or everything that someone needs me to be. I am being transformed by the renewing of my mind. I am not the ship that is sailing upon the seas without a rudder because Jesus is the captain of this ship and I will go where He leads me. 

Bro. Knowles also spoke of a crushing during his message this evening. You don't get oil from the olive or juice from the grape without the crushing. The last year and a half felt as if I was in that press squeezing tighter and tighter. I didn't think that it would ever end. Once Matt passed, the press got even tighter where I thought I wouldn't ever get out or breathe again.  But it was this crushing, the final squeeze, that had to get the last drop of the old Shana out so that the new Shana could shine. He knew that as long as I was torn (squeezed) between service to the church and obligation to Matt that I would never fulfill the purposes He had for me. 

Can I say that I am doing everything perfectly? Nope. But I'm trying to be a little more like Jesus everyday.