Disclaimer: Some names, dates, and other minor details have been changed and/or omitted for the purposes of anonymity for myself as well as others involved. I can assure you that everything else – the good, the bad, and the imperfect – are true.
My first memory is of pooping in my pants. I was about 2 and 1/2 or 3 years old, and I needed to poop, but for reasons only toddlers can explain, pooping in the toilet isn’t all that appealing. So I was standing right outside our powder room door, doing the potty dance, screaming to my mom, “Where’s the bathroom?! Where’s the bathroom?!” I’m not sure if that’s what actually came out of my mouth, since I was only two years old and probably didn’t speak in such well-put-together sentences, but I distinctly remember expressing that I didn’t know where the bathroom was. And then after a minute or two of not going to the bathroom when I needed to, the poop had to come out. My mom came over to me, took my Disney Princess big girl underwear off, dumped the poop in the toilet, and went to the sink to scrub the brown stains off of Ariel and Belle’s faces.
When I look back on my life, I can separate it into a handful of time blocks that are marked by major milestones or life events. The first block of time spans from birth until 8th grade, what I consider to be my childhood. This was a mostly happy time in my life, and I have so many good memories. In 8th grade, my life slowly started drifting into periods of brokenness, depression, and utter despair. This continued into my early thirties when I finally hit rock bottom and found myself in a state of helplessness and hopelessness. It was the absolute worst time in my life, but it was also exactly what I needed. I couldn’t see it at the time, but now that I’m able to look back, I can see how merciful God was throughout these hard times. He took the brokenness that was my life and turned it into a beautiful masterpiece that I could have never envisioned or hoped for. And my hope is that my story will touch even just one person in such a way that they will have no choice but to believe in God and surrender their life to Him. Now to start at the beginning.
In case you missed it, my name is Eleanor Grace, but I’ve gone by Grace my whole life. My parents were born and raised in the midwest. After they were married, they had my sister, Margaret, followed by me two years later. My mother was Catholic, and my father was Methodist, so when they got married, they kind of met in the middle and became Lutheran, so we grew up in the Lutheran church. I honestly don’t think denomination makes a big difference (or at least I don’t think it should make a big difference), because all Christians, by definition, believe in Jesus. But that’s a whole different discussion. My point is that I don’t think growing up Lutheran really had a big impact one way or another as far as my beliefs.
My sister and I had a pretty normal childhood. I think it’s probably a very similar story to that of many other middle-class families. Our dad worked hard to provide for our family, and our mom stayed at home (for most of our childhood) and took care of the house and kids. She did work for a few years when we were much younger, and also when I was in first and second grade. Aside from that, she stayed home. Our dad traveled quite a bit for work, and when he was home, I remember him usually being pretty stressed out and tired. He had a short temper, and I got the sense that we should be walking on egg shells around him a lot of times. But he was a good dad, and I think he showed his love through providing for us, even though I didn’t realize it at the time.
After much thought and even more therapy, I have been able to look back at this time in my life and take away a couple of things that were very formative for me. The first is that my parents did not communicate well with me, like, at all. To this day, I don’t know why this is. I don’t think it was ever on purpose or intentional. But for whatever reason, they would always talk to my sister much more than me, and then she would be the one to tell me things. Margaret told me that Santa wasn’t real. She told me about the birds and the bees. She told me that our dad had previously been married, and divorced. All of the big discussions that parents should have with their children, I had with Margaret. Again, I have no idea why this was. My parents were both very loving and cared for both of us very well, and in every other aspect they treated us both very fairly and equally. The communication element was just never there with me.
Because of this lack of communication, as well as my dad traveling and working a lot, I think I was very young when I first felt the need to fill a (subconscious) hole in my life, and thankfully God helped fill this hole, or at least planted a seed. We went to church every Sunday, and I always remember thinking that I needed God in my life for some reason. Our family never really talked about God much outside of church, even though we were all pretty active in it. My mom is still in the same small group today that she was in 20+ years ago. We never missed a Sunday unless we were extremely sick. My sister and I went to Sunday school for an hour every Sunday after the church service while my parents volunteered in the nursery. We checked off all of the boxes for a “perfect” Christian family. But I had no idea at the time how much was still missing from my faith.
Margaret struggled all throughout school, but good grades came very easy for me. Because of Margaret’s struggles, my parents spent much of their free time helping her study and do homework. I was the best student you could find, and good grades became my identity. I think I was very much neglected because of this. Not at all in a malicious or criminal way. Like I said, my parents were very loving and good parents. But naturally, parents only have so much time and energy, and it largely went to Margaret. At the time, I think I believed that I didn’t care at the time, and as I got older, I actually kind of liked not being nagged by my parents all the time. But it definitely affected me. I remember always being so proud of my grades, and when report cards came, Margaret would get all kinds of “woo-hoo’s” for getting a C or a B, but my straight A’s were just kind of the norm. As time went on, I slowly just started keeping more and more to myself. The lack of communication slowly morphed into this “don’t ask don’t tell” sort of relationship, and I would just tell my parents what they wanted to hear so that I could be left alone. Lying to them was much easier than having to tell them the truth about boys, friends, etc. Not to mention, I didn’t even know how to talk to them in the first place. I’m sure if we could all go back in time, we’d do things much differently. But I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that within this very normal suburban home, I was very much alone.
Much more to come. We’re just getting started…
To God be ALL the Glory
Love, Grace
