Our Story (Part 1)

I enjoy the story of Joseph in the Bible. Part of the reason I enjoy it is because I can mentally add the song and dance numbers from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It’s a lovely musical. You should check it out sometime. Here’s the opening number:

Near the end of Joseph’s story, he tells his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good” (Genesis 50:20). Joseph has a great view of his past. He doesn’t hold onto his anger toward his betrayal, time in slavery, or time in prison. He recognizes that God brought him through all of that so he could save the lives of many people.

 

This morning as I read that, I thought of my past. It’s not like Joseph’s, but it includes a fair amount of pain. Yet, I can say like Joseph, “God intended it all for good.” God’s a redeemer. God’s the redeemer. After reading Joseph’s story, I was convicted of not sharing my story well. So this is the start of telling my story, His story, our story. I don’t really like calling it my story because it’s not about me. It’s about God. But I don’t like just calling it His story because it’s not the fullness of His story. He has lots of stories. So we’ll call it our story. It shows the brokenness of the world and the redemptive heart of the Creator. By sharing this, I in no way desire to stir up in you an attitude of pity. I don’t want to make my parents into villains. I don’t want to make me into an enduring heroine. I simply desire to share life events, false beliefs, and the God who worked in all of this brokenness. Let’s begin. 

When I was born, my parents were young. They were unmarried. They were in love. My surprise birth helped them to decide to get married sooner than they were planning. Thankfully, my parents still loved me. Our home was a happy home. I felt very loved and very secure. My mom enjoyed teaching me to read and allowed me to dance around the house belting out songs like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” Then my siblings came along, and our family was even more exciting, and our home had more joy. It was the perfect little TV show kind of life. We even went to church on Sundays, and I could spout off all types of Sunday School answers. The Tronvolds were the typical happy, middle class, Midwestern family.

At the end of 5^th grade, everything changed. My mom’s dad died. His years of alcoholism took their toll, and he died after a heart attack. My mom was beyond devastated. She didn’t know how to cope with her pain, so she followed her father’s example and cracked open a can of beer, then another, and another. The summer after 5^th grade, I lost my mommy to alcoholism.

In the beginning, it was manageable. She simply became more distant, lost in her sorrow. But as alcoholism always does, it got worse. Her two closest friends became her drinking buddies. She was constantly with one of them when the work day ended. If she was at their houses or downtown, I got to play “mommy” for my three younger siblings. It was hard. I learned a lot about cleaning and a little about cooking (from boxes) during my early middle school years. During this time, my dad became more distant as well. He threw himself into his work and hobby of fixing up cars. He travelled more to find these cars. I don’t blame him; he didn’t know how to handle the change, so he disappeared. It’s merely the typical “flight” response. If I had the opportunity, I would have done the same thing.

When my dad was gone, my mom didn’t always come home. I have no idea what happened. I’ve heard some tough hypotheses from her friends and our family members, but I don’t know the truth. I’m grateful for that. Forgiveness would be a lot harder if I knew all the details of this icky situation.

Unfortunately, this is a cliché story where things got worse before they got any better.

My mom became more present at home. The drinking didn’t stop; she just did it at home. When my mom was sober, the reflection of my loving mommy was still present. When my mom was drunk, it was a different story. In those times, my mom showered me with her resentment. I can’t give a good reason. I spent years trying to figure out her reasoning. I thought maybe she blamed me for her father’s death, or at least for missing it. After all, she was at MY softball game that night. Or maybe she blamed me for her life circumstances. After all, I was the accident that caused my family to become a family. The main reason I could come up with was that I was never good enough. I couldn’t clean the house as well as she could. I couldn’t take care of my siblings as well as she could. I couldn’t be perfect no matter how hard I tried. (For the record, I know none of those things are true. I’m just painting a picture of what went through the mind of middle-school-Kayla.)

My mother’s resentment began with verbal abuse – painful, but not overly traumatizing in this situation. It was simply a bunch of comparisons. I was not as skinny as my mom who quit eating when she began drinking. I was not the perfect daughter my mom once was. I couldn’t clean, cook, or parent as well as she could. I was not the perfect student. I threw myself into my schoolwork, but one mishap, and I heard more about it than I ever anticipated. A B+ was unacceptable. It didn’t matter if I had over 100% in a few classes; if there was one B+, I experienced more shouting and shame than I care to recall. I once received a B+ in my home economics class in eighth grade. I was ridiculed. My mom could have done much better. After she learned more about the class, she apologized for it, but the effect of that lecture could never be taken back. I became an academic perfectionist that day.

 

My mom’s verbal abuse went beyond talking to me. She also talked to others about me. I heard lots of stories from her friends, my family, and from the woman for whom I faithfully babysat. They shared these stories in an attempt to combat them. They wanted to show that they cared, that they felt sorry for me and wished they could do something to change my mom. Although they had good intentions, they just made things worse. I felt even more worthless, alone, and hopeless.

 

Once again, things got worse. One day, the verbal abuse wasn’t enough for my drunken mother. She needed a new way to reveal her resentment. One night, words couldn’t express how angry she was, so she turned to something that could show her superiority: she wanted to fight.

 

We were upstairs in our house, and something I said pushed her over the edge. I honestly don’t remember what I said, but I’m assuming it was something about how I thought she was a crappy mother. She grabbed my arm, pinned me against the couch, and screamed at me, “DO YOU WANT TO FIGHT?”

 

I responded with “No, please let go of me!” Even though my mom and I didn’t get along, I had no desire to fight her because part of me still loved her.

She yelled at me some more, but eventually let me go. I started to run down the stairs to my room, but she was not ready to stop her battle. She pinned me against our stairs, and I bawled in terror. My mom had never done more than screamed about how worthless I was, and I couldn’t understand why she would press our hard wooden stairs into my spine and scream, “FIGHT ME BACK! WHAT ARE YOU, CHICKEN?  JUST HIT ME BACK!”

 

I struggled to escape from her, but I only got four feet away before she shoved me against our door and dug the doorknob into my back. Her anger escalated as I refused to do anything other than cry and attempt to break away from her grasp. I ran through our basement and could see my bedroom door. I thought I was finally as close to safe as I could be. My mom still wasn’t finished. She pressed me against the wall and demanded I fight back. I still couldn’t bring myself to hit her; I could only attempt to push her away. 

 

She pointed out that she was better than me because she wasn’t afraid to fight. In her mind, I didn’t hit her because I knew I would lose because she could hit harder. She finally justified her superiority. I ran to my room and cried myself to sleep.

 

That night instilled in me significant fear. I was grateful for every opportunity to leave home, and I was terrified to return. Whenever my ride would turn at the corner to bring me home, I had an internal panic attack. I imagined what everything would be like if she was home. Was she there? Was she drunk? Was she angry? Did I not do everything she wrote down for me to do? Were my siblings home? Were they okay? My mom never unleashed her violence on my siblings, but I know that they struggled with her drinking as well. 

I didn’t know who to turn to during this time. I didn’t want to tell my friends. I was too embarrassed to do that. Only my three closest friends had any idea that things were bad at home. I didn’t want anyone to know. There was once a day where I made my mom mad on the car ride home. I didn’t respect her, and I said many things to jab at her failure as a parent. One day, it made her furious. Before I even got out of the car, she grabbed me and pinned me down threatening to do more. As I was crying, I turned my head and saw one of my classmates walking past our house. I turned away in shame. Someone saw. Someone knew. As soon as my mom let me go, I ran into the house. The girl never said anything to me about it, but I realized I couldn’t hide my secret anymore.

 

That girl wasn’t the only person who saw that. My mom’s best friend was standing right there. My mom’s best friend was always around when my mom became physical. She never said anything. She never called the police or Child Protection Services. She simply stood there crying for me. She knew it all. 

My dad on the other hand was clueless. He was blinded by love. As a scared pre-teen and teenager, I tried to get my dad to stop my mom. I turned to him because there was no one else to whom I could turn. But he wouldn’t believe me. He called me a liar and an ungrateful brat that mistreats her mother. Somehow, that hurt more than everything my mom did. My father clearly loved my mother more than he loved me.

There is hope in this story. July 4^th after my 8^th grade year was the last time my mom physically hurt me. Independence Day has a whole new meaning to me. But the hope is greater than that. During my 8^th grade year, the hardest year with my parents, I met a Young Life leader named Karen. During my 8^th grade year, I met God. I had cried out to him for the last three years, begging him to change my mom and change my circumstances, but he was no longer distant. He came near. He became real to me. I’ll tell you more of the “how” in the next part of this story, but for now, know that this gets better. Know that this God took over. Know that there’s hope. Just like God brought Joseph out of slavery and prison, God brought me out of my abusive situation, fear, pain, worthlessness, and anger.

 

God took these terrible circumstances and made them into a beautiful thing because that's who God is. That's what he does. He makes beautiful things out of the dust and out of us.