Broken vessels can be mended at the hand of a loving God. Why Must I Cry? seeks to touch the heart of anyone who has ever experienced abuse or knows someone who has experienced abuse. It offers hope that no matter how many trials, tribulations, and disappointments you've had, giving up is never an option. Author Kayla Johnson has opened her heart and shared her personal experiences to illustrate how to see past the pain and experience great joy. This inspirational memoir also includes the tools needed to fight back. It explains how to find the courage to stand even when your legs are weak and saying "no more" is a struggle. Sometimes it seems like life's decisions can't be reversed, that there's nothing to be done about past mistakes. Why Must I Cry? holds the key to the change waiting on the horizon-the ability to escape a hurtful past or escape from an abusive partner-to turn mourning into laughter. Children of God, it is time to fight back. The season of restoration is now. It's time to go boldly into the enemy's camp and take back the life and hope that has been stolen from you.

Why Must I Cry?

By Kayla D. Johnson

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Kayla D. Johnson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-5026-0

Contents

Preface......................................................1Introduction.................................................5Chapter One Thanksgiving Day.................................9Chapter Two Satan Desires to Sift You........................17Chapter Three News from Home.................................25Chapter Four A Mother's Love.................................33Chapter Four The God Kind of Love............................39Chapter Five Restored In Him.................................47Chapter Six You Are Never Alone..............................57Chapter Seven That was Then, This is Now.....................69Chapter Eight Quitting Is Not an Option......................77Chapter Nine Break the Secrecy...............................83Chapter Ten Will I Ever Be Free..............................89In Conclusion................................................95Appendix I...................................................97Appendix II..................................................99Endnotes.....................................................101Personal Journal.............................................105

Chapter One

Thanksgiving Day

"Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you." 1 Samuel 12:24.

The smell of sweet potato pies, sound of children playing and laughter filled the room. It was Thanksgiving. I ask very little of my girls, but Thanksgiving Day is the one time I want them all to come home. And not only do we get a chance to find out what is going on in each others lives, but it is when the truth comes out. Now that they are grown they tell on each other things Mom didn't know. They feel that it's too late for Mom to punish them now.

The kitchen is the hangout as I'm basting the turkey, potatoes are being peeled, and macaroni and cheese is being made. Seeing the girls and the grandkids laughing does my heart good. "Mama," one of them said. "Remember when you were up praying one night that somehow God would provide gas for you to go to work and make it back home the next day? And you woke up the following morning yelling, 'Praise God, Glory Hallelujah. God is good!" because miraculously you had a full tank?" (Of course, who would forget a miracle like that?) "Well, those two over there," referring to the two older sisters, "snuck out of the house while you were sleeping, and with a boyfriend at that. They went joy riding half the night in your car and then their friend filled it up with a tank of gas. And the next day you were just praising God about how He provided." They laughed thinking they had gotten one over on Mom. And I told them "You may have thought you were being smart, but He still provided."

I then listened to one sister tell the other, "And you still haven't changed a bit, you still tell Mama everything." I watched them go back and forth about who had the biggest mouth and thought about my own childhood and how I wished I had more fun and pleasant memories than not. Despite my childhood, however, I was seeing what great things God had done through my children.

I had grown up in an upper middle class family. My father was a career soldier in the army. I had two brothers, one sister and a mom whom we thought was the best cook in the world. Being a military family we seemed to always be moving. We had lived in Germany and more places in the States than I can remember. I even have a brother that was born in Guam. Perhaps our moving so often is why all the interruptions in my own life, after a while, just seemed normal.

My father's favorite breakfast was vodka and orange juice with a camel cigarette. I don't think I can ever remember him not drinking. Most of my memories of him were very painful. I am sure he was fighting his own demons. No one drinks that much unless you are trying to forget something. I know that my father had the desire to love and give love but you can't give what you yourself don't have. The void in his life created one in ours as well.

I never once heard my father mention the Name of God. It is difficult to be able to relate to the love of a Heavenly Father when your perception of your earthy father is so distorted. A father should represent love, security, and protection. In fact, God created us for love so we would have a natural yearning to be accepted and loved. When we don't get that from our father or when there is no father present to give it, we grow up with love deficits. We have a void and a sense of something missing in our lives and a need to fill it with something. That search for fulfillment can be costly. I remembered empty relationships because I so desperately wanted to feel loved. What was sad is I really didn't know what love was. It is frustrating to be in search for something and not know what it feels like. If you don't know how it feels then how will you know if you find it? I think in the core of my heart was just the desire to feel accepted. Perhaps that is why I was so good in the Drama Club, it always felt good to be anybody but me. I know now it is because I had never been introduced to the real me.

But today, Thanksgiving day, I was seeing my own family enjoying what we had worked hard to achieve even though the odds were stacked against us. Thank God for Romans 8:31, "What then shall we then say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" There is so much power in trusting God when the deck is stacked against you. My struggles and pain without God's grace would have been my only legacy to my children. Thank God He had better plans for me and for them.

Jeremiah 1:5-8, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations." Then said I: "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth." But the Lord said to me: "Do not say, 'I am a youth,' for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you," says the Lord."

Before God created us in our mother's womb he knew us. He knew our hearts, our souls, our characters, and because he knew us, His Spirit and His love gave us what we needed for this life, our gifts, our talents, our characters, our skills, the qualities that we would need to serve Him in this world. He knew our struggles before they came to be.

He already knew this messed up, abused girl would need His grace before I was even a thought to my mom or alcoholic father. That's why I have survived much, for a time such as this. Regardless of what you are facing in your life right now there is a divine plan and a purpose. I promise you God has placed the power to overcome inside you. Trust that His Word will not fail you.

Of course I wouldn't have known very much about trusting in God had it not been for my awesome, awesome Granddaddy. I will never forget him. We used to call him, "Big Daddy." He was a huge statue of a man. He was my mom's dad. They were from Tennessee. I can remember even as a small child waiting for him to come home from work in the evenings and we would run down to the corner store to meet him and he would always have something there special for us. He loved his grandchildren. But he also loved the Lord more than life itself. I can remember even as a child him teaching us how to pray and telling us things that were in the Bible. I really...