Sandra Hill - Stones of Remembrance

Stones of Remembrance

SANDRA HILL

Copyright 2016 Sandra Hill.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

All Scripture verses are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-0125-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0126-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015920757

WestBow Press rev. date: 09/22/2016

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to my wonderful husband, Lamar David Hill. His love for me and patience with me (especially when it seemed as if I had lost my mind) is what kept me going in my early days as a Christian and is what still keeps me going.

Lamars understanding of the things I go through, even when I feel as if he just doesnt have a clue, makes me tell him daily, I love you, man!

When we become Christians (that is, when we become Christlike), we are often confronted with many obstacles in the realm of finances, health, family, and occupation. When facing all these hurdles, we have to either jump over them (knowing that sometimes they can be as tall as mountains) or find a way around them. We realize that there really is a higher power working in our lives to guide, keep, and strengthen us, if we allow him.

In Joshua 1:5, when God told Joshua to take the children of Israel into the Promised Land, he said, There shall no man be able to stand before thee all the days of your life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. God keeps all of his promises. In addition, he does not change.

In this book, you will read of the struggles that I have gone through and am going through now. (My struggles are similar to those that other Christians go through.) You will learn how God is able to bring a person through these trials.

I sometimes find myself sitting back and remembering the things that have happened in my life that should have taken methat indeed were designed to take meout of this world. However, God spared my life.

Now sit back and allow the Lord to minister to you from the pages of my life. You will realize just how much he loves you.

CHAPTER 1
Am I Adopted?

I come from a rather large family by todays standards. During the time when I grew up, it was not unusual for a family to have more than four children.

In my family, there were twelve of us: seven girls (who were often called the seven gables), three boys, and of course my mother and father. We were a close-knit family. Our father taught us children always to look after each other and stay close to one another.

Whenever we would mention having friends, he would say that there were too many of us to even think about having friends. So we learned how to be friends to each other and how always to have each others back.

Our father was a military man who served in the United States Navy. He taught us to stay as close to our family as he stayed to his navy family. He later became a construction worker and continued in that profession until an accident forced him to go into early retirement.

Our mother was a seamstress. She often made clothes for us children using paper bags as patterns or using other methods to get things to fit.

Having to work as they did to support us, my parents found it hard to give us the kind of attention many children receive today; however, we were well disciplined and loved.

Being taught how to stick together has its pitfalls and advantages. One of the pitfalls was that if one of us did not do his or her chores, we were all punishedalthough we quickly learned how to help each other! Even though our father would have given us specific instructions about who was to be in charge of which task, we would all be found guilty if the job wasnt completed. He would sit us down in order, from the oldest to the youngest, and then go down the line, giving each of us a whack with his belt.

Although I was part of a large family, I often felt alone. It was difficult for me to find my place and to see how I fit in to a family of seven girls who, though they looked like me, appeared to be nothing like me.

I know I should not have felt that way. Even though I knew that my family loved me and protected me, I felt lost.

I would often observe my parents and siblings. At times I wanted to emulate them. However, it was difficult for me to be like them and to change who I waswhoever I was.

Of my six sisters, the one I admired the most was the third oldest. She was very radical. (Back then we used the word radical , not rebellious .) Now this one sister was my strength. Sometimes she would sneak out of the house to meet her friends. I wished I could go with her.

One day I got up the nerve to blackmail her into taking me with her. We ended up at a racetrack. It was dark out. I was more afraid of where we were than of what Daddy would do if he found out. In the future, I just kept quiet and let my sister sneak out on her own.

Another one of my sisters was very active in school. She was a cheerleader and on the track team, but she frequently fought with our mother (who was a small but strong woman). I couldnt do that myself, so I was more like the oldest of my six sisters (who is now deceased). She was more like a mother to me. Sometimes my sisters and I would sit in our beds and sing our favorite songs. Whereas my sisters would sing the latest R&B numbers, I would belt out the latest ballad as they laughed and made jokes. However, I didnt mind that they made fun of me. My choice of music didnt mean that I didnt like what they sang. Rather, I simply liked songs that were more soothing.

At times, my sisters would tease me and tell me that I had been adopted. Feeling as out of place as I did, I would wonder if they were telling me the truth.

I would look into the mirror and compare myself to my sisters in an attempt to find the one thing that made me so different from them, but I couldnt find it. We were alike in so many ways, but oh, we were as different as could be in other ways.

My efforts at trying to fit in with my sisters would transfer to many other aspects of my life, especially when it came to making friends.

One of the first things I did to accomplish the goal of making friends was to start smoking at the age of twelve. I didnt care if Daddy found out; I would just have to take the beatdown, since I felt that what I was doing was worth the punishment. I desperately wanted to belong somewhere.

It is a horrible thing to feel out of sync or out of place, as if you are an alien from another planet whom no one understands. You just want to look up and ask someone to take you back home, but you dont know whom to ask.

After I began to smoke, I also began to curse like my new friends did, but profanity coming from my lips sounded weird. The words didnt seem as if they should be coming out of my mouth. I was often told that I sounded funny when I cursed, which would leave me with a feeling of inadequacy. And so as a young girl I learned how to be alone. I would drift into a world of daydreams in an effort to escape or fill the void that was in my life.