Troubled Times
The names have been changed here to protect the privacy of the family.
My oldest daughter was a troubled child since the time that she was very young. She would have "night terrors" and come into my room screaming, and tell me wild things about weird things that she had seen, and heard, and I really didn't know what to make of it. I had no experience with Spiritual warfare, and although I knew that there was a devil, and had seen some things manifest in and through my ex-husband, (her father) I didn't know what to do. I thought maybe I should take her into a psychiatrist, and I probably would have if I had any money. Her father refused to pay child support, because he thought that I might waste that $100 a month on frivolous things.
As my daughter got older, and approached being a teenager, things escalated. She began disappearing at night... sometimes for days at a time. There was a man at the church that I went to (one of the elders there) who advised me to keep going in to the police station every night, if necessary (and it was) to file yet another report, and issue a pickup order on her. I started contacting every agency and ministry that I could think of, to try to get some help for her. But I found very little. Most of the time, when these agencies heard her age, they refused to do anything. They were bound by the legalities, and could not help unless the child was over sixteen years old.
Social Services, on the other hand, advised me to admit her for observation and assessment at a clinic that dealt with problem children. This was supposed to go on for ten days, but it continued far beyond that. I had made arrangements to have her admitted to a private school for troubled children called Peniel in Spring Valley, Wisconsin. She did not want to go, so every time that the doctors would have released her, she threatened to kill herself, and started cutting herself with any available sharp object, like a curtain hook, etc. This was going on, and on for weeks.
Several of my friends and I made a commitment to fast and pray for ten days, and seek the face of God for this thing to come to an end. We would meet every day, and lift up this situation, and pray for deliverance.
My insurance was running out, and although the doctor had said that he would keep her on without pay, they could not continue this forever. They were going to admit her to a state hospital. I knew that this was definitely not going to happen if I could help it, so first, I went in to my daughter, and explained very graphically what would happen to her if she didn't sign those papers, releasing them from liability if she actually did kill herself. Then I called the doctor, in the middle of the night and told him that I thought that something funny was going on there, and asked him very pointedly why they had cameras on her at all times, and insinuated that they had an ulterior motive in keeping her there, even without pay. I suggested that maybe there should be an investigation of his facility by the state. Several hours later, she was released.
The next morning, I was to bring her into the school in Spring Valley. When we got up that morning, I found out that my children had very different ideas. Mary and Kay were ready to leave, and go out the door. I asked them where they thought that they were going, and told them that they weren't going anywhere. They tried to go right passed me, and I tried to block the door. Then, both of them were on me, Kay jumping on my back, and pulling my hair, and Mary had both of my arms gripped like a vise, as they continued to pummel me. I tried to stand up and take it and resist, because I was determined to not let them out the door. But it was no use. They were two, and I was one, and they were stronger than I was. Eventually they prevailed, and left.
I got into my car, and tried to follow them, but they were cutting across the fields, and behind the houses, and they were gone. I went into the trailer court nearby, because I thought that they had gone in there. I thought that I saw someone that looked like them going into one of the mobile homes. I went back home and called the police, after I got no answer at the door. The police met me at the trailer, and we went in to the entryway. There was a pair of shoes there that looked like Mary's, but the owner of the home came, and the shoes belonged to her. No one was in that trailer, and I didn't have a clue where they could be. The police said that they would continue to look for them, and my friend Pam also made a quick sweep of the town.
Several hours later, my friend Pam came driving up my driveway, with a very unhappy passenger. She had found Mary hiding in one of the video arcade places in town. She had gone in there and spotted her, grabbed her, and Pam said that it was all that she could do to handle her, but she got her into the car, and dragged her into the house. Mary promptly barricaded herself in the bathroom, and we started to hear things smashing and breaking in there, and the water was going in the bathtub.
I called the Pastor of the church that I was going to, and asked him if he could come over, and tried to explain the situation. He was extremely hesitant, and said that he did have another appointment that day. I told him that I didn't know if my daughter was in the bathroom right then, trying to kill herself, but we couldn't get in, and she was smashing everything that could be smashed. He agreed to come over.
The police came, and they had my other daughter in tow. She came in, and there was a constant barrage of swear words...she had always been very vocal, and never held anything back. The police broke in the bathroom door, and Mary came out. They asked me and my friend Pam to go outside and had the girls sit down on the couch.
We walked down to the end of the driveway, and the police started to yell at those kids so loudly that we could hear them all the way outside. I ducked, and couldn't believe that they were doing this, but I wasn't going to complain. I couldn't exactly make out the words, but I was in complete agreement. The Pastor and Pam's husband Mike showed up about the same time. Mike took charge, and told the Pastor that after the police were done in there, they were going to take Mary and put her in the car, and transport her down to that school. The Pastor didn't look like he wanted to be there at all. But he listened to Mike, and they did take her down to the school.
After everyone left, Kay was like a wild person. She would swear at me, and start shouting at the top of her lungs, and crying over and over for Mary. Then she barricaded herself in her bedroom, and wouldn't let me in. She had lined up all of the furniture and dressers from one end of the room to the other, to block off the door. I went around to the window, and tried to look in, but I wasn't quite tall enough. I did get a glimpse of her sitting in the middle of the floor, with a candle burning in front of her.
My friends and prayer partners came over that evening, and we were going to pray again. Kay came out of the room and showed me what she had done. Somehow she had gotten hold of a razor blade, and carved Mary's name into her flesh, over and over and over again, and upside down crosses. One that she was particularly proud of was a cross that she had carved on her middle finger. We started to pray, and she started to scream, and cry and call out her sister's name again. I tried to hold her, and she allowed me to for a while. But she really hated me, and all of us. She really didn't like when we prayed.
Then she went into her bedroom again, and I could hear her alternate between calling for her sister, and swearing at us. My friend Margaret reminded me that this day was the tenth day of our fast. We had committed to fast and pray for Mary, and on the last day of our fast she had been released from that psychiatric facility, and even though there had been a struggle, she was now in a safe place.
For myself, I was relieved that Mary was gone, and that she was in a place where they could take care of her, and a place in which she would have a really hard time getting away from.
Peniel is on a secluded piece of land out in the country, and the only thing that you can see for miles is corn, and farm land. They could possibly run away from there, but there wasn't much for them to run to, and the people that lived in the area knew that these kids were in trouble, and supported the directors of the school.
They made them work out on the farm, and grow vegetables, and take care of the animals. They also went on tours of the country, and visited many different churches and they had the kids get up and sing or do something else for a performance.
After about two months, they had another opening, and said that my other daughter Kay could go there, too. Kay was happy to go, because Mary was there. When you send your child to this school it is with the understanding that they will stay there for one year. One year of peace... Or so I thought.
Mary and Kay came home from Peniel, and it was good for about two weeks, and then I did something to cross Mary. I did something that she didn't like, so then she stayed out all the next night. When she finally came home, she looked at me, and told me that I made her act this way because of the things that I did.
Then she called her Dad, and made arrangements to go to live with him. I felt like maybe it was his turn, now. She had asked me about sexual abuse, but she didn't seem to be afraid of him now. She was thinking that she couldn't live with my rules, and that he would be easier on her. I had some really hard regulations, like:
#1. You can't stay out all night
#2. If you are
going somewhere, you need to let me know where you are.
#3. And
you have to go to school.
I didn't feel that this was out of line. She left, and went to Arizona. I just felt like I was so tired, and needed some rest from this stuff. There was too much, all of the time, and it wasn't just little things. It was always major things, and they hit me from every direction. It was a constant never ending barrage.
Mary had been in Arizona for about six months, when I started getting phone calls from her, saying that her Dad wasn't treating her right, and that she wanted to come back home again. I didn't have the money to transport her back to Wisconsin at her whim, and having long experience with her, I felt that her Dad was probably trying to make her do something that she didn't want to do, and she wanted no restrictions. I told her to work things out with her Dad, and that she had made her choice. She could not understand why I wouldn't pack up right then, get in my car and drive across country and pick her up, if I didn't have the money to buy her a plane ticket. Once she got something into her head, she never let it go, but I was not going to do this.
One day, as I was going about my business, I got a phone call from Ron (my ex). He told me a story that was almost surreal. He said that Mary had run away from him, and had taken off across country with a young man called Danny. He said that this kid was very strange, and would dress up in black capes, and he thought that he was stuck in some video game role play thing. He said that the police were looking for them, and that they had been stealing cars and weapons, and were already wanted in three states.
I didn't know what to say to him. I got off of the phone, and asked Annie and Kay about what he had said. They said that they had already seen them, and that they were in our area. Kay even volunteered the make and the model of the car that they were driving.
I made a couple of calls, and went into a prayer group that I belonged to. I asked the group to lift up this situation. There was a woman there, and she really had a good heart, and meant well, but she started praying a prayer, that God would protect Mary, and keep her safe, and bring her home... but as she was praying, something inside of me said "NO!" This was not what was needed here. I started praying a prayer of my own, but I started praying that God would do anything necessary in order to stop them, and to stop them right NOW! ANYTHING necessary. I got out of the prayer group, and went home. I called a friend that I had on the police force, and told him about the information that I had just received. He told me that he wasn't supposed to be working, because he had broken his leg, but he would go down to the office and make a couple of inquiries, and see what he could do.
Several hours later, the police came to my door, with my other two daughters in tow. They had been with Mary and her friend Danny, and the police had stopped them two blocks from my house. Mary and Danny were transported up to the Polk County Courthouse, and would await extradition back to Arizona. The judge called me once and asked me if I wanted Mary to return home and stay with me until she was extradited. I declined, because I told him that there was no way that I could guarantee that she would be there when it came time for her to go to Arizona. So she sat up at the courthouse for the next month.
The following is a copy of the newspaper article written in the Osceola Sun Volume 92, No. 15 dated Wednesday, November 8, 1989.
During this time, I had many different pastors go up and talk to her, and they told her about Godly authority, and following rules, and she would look at them and blatantly tell them that she knew all of that, because her mother had told her all of those things since the time that she was little. She told them that she just didn't want to do it. The one pastor that I really appreciated on his visits was the Baptist Pastor from my Grandma and Grandpa's church. He would go up to the courthouse, and sit with Mary, and since she was a captive audience, he would read the Bible to her, sometimes for an hour at a time. He just kept pumping in the Word, over and over and over.
During this time, it was discovered that Mary was pregnant. And now, I was going to be a grandma at the ripe old age of thirty six. I was too young to be a grandma. I didn't think about this too much, or I tried not to think about this. What did they do to children that had children when they were in jail? Any way, it was out of my hands, and she was transported to Arizona. They determined that she was supposed to be confined in a juvenile facility there, and Danny was put in prison, where he soon earned himself the reputation as one of the most dangerous inmates in the Arizona prison system.
I started getting letters from Mary, complaining about the treatment that she was receiving in Juvenile. She had many complaints. One was that they weren't giving her enough milk, and she needed more milk, because of her pregnancy. They were being mean to her, things like that.
She wasn't in there for very long. She had the uncanny ability to manipulate people, and somehow she got the Judge down there to feel sorry for her, and he released her into her father's custody. Of course she wouldn't stay with him. She had gone down there originally to try to get away from rules... my rules. She had found, after she was down there that her Dad was far worse and had more rules than anything that I had ever had. She said that every time that she did anything, he was right there, and told her that he knew what she was going to do before she ever did it. He questioned her about everything, and didn't trust her for a minute. She moved in with a girl that she knew, or thought that she knew.
I started getting phone calls again, asking to come home. She said that her room mate was stealing from her, and she couldn't take it any more. I still didn't know how I was going to transport her back to Wisconsin, and told her that. She asked if she found a way back to Wisconsin, if she could come home. Hesitantly, I agreed. She was still my daughter, and no matter what you always love your kids. About a month later, I got a phone call from her, and she told me that her Dad was driving back to Wisconsin, and he was giving her a ride, and she would be home in a couple of weeks. So she came home, nine months pregnant with a couple of suitcases and all of her earthly belongings. Marcus was born about a month later in the hospital in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin.
Continued...
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