Gloria’s Story
March 7, 2008 | faith
I was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. I was born the second of twin girls. My parents were both full blood Sioux Indians. My father was from the Oglala Sioux Nation and my mother a Rosebud Sioux.
Up in those parts even though each is a band of the Sioux Tribe, some of the people don’t get along. So my parents relationship was like that of the Montague and Capulet’s in Shakespear’s Romeo and Juliet. None of the women in my father’s family could tolerate my fathers love for my mother. Not only was she beautiful; she was a ‘Rosebud’.
And to my mother’s parents my father was never good enough for her. Much of that had to do with the fact that my mother’s father was a minister. And my father came from a family that was known for their ferocity and willingness to fight…
They had a lot of problems that led to the breakdown and later dissolution of their marriage. They both had become alcoholics and fought a lot. I can remember most of my days with them were filled with fear.
Were they gonna get drunk and fight? Would he beat her today?
We had a shot gun in the house and I can recall several times when she threatened to shoot him with it in her own self defense.
They spent a lot of time at the local bar. I don’t know how all 9 of us kids even made it through those days and nights when our parents didn’t come home. And even when they did there was mostly violence. Court records show that we were neglected much of the time.
My mother died in a car wreck and my father went to federal prison. We had no family members fit to take proper care of us. My mom’s mother only spoke the Sioux language also known as Lakota. She was a very old lady and losing her eye sight.
Eventually all of us were spread out into foster care waiting to be adopted. Only my twin sister and I remained together. I thank God for that everyday. We lived in foster care for nearly 4 years and we were eventually adopted off the reservation when we were 6 years old by a preacher and his wife from Oklahoma.
My adoptive parents already had 7 children of their own when they adopted my sister and I. The judge deemed it a necessity that it was best for us to get off the Reservation. So my adoptive parents were literally a God-send.
My adoptive father really had his own testimony with the Lord and his walk that I knew very little about growing up after they adopted us. He had battled with alcoholism off and on as he tried to walk right for the Lord. But he walked away from his faith in 1984.
That left my mom to try her very best. But slowly our home life got scattered and she did her very best to keep it together. My older brothers and sister dropped out of school and lived rebelliously. My mom tried her best to keep the rest of us in church. She eventually quit going. Thank goodness for some of the local churches that sent out buses that gave kids a ride to church. That’s how my twin sister and I made it to church for several years.
My mom chased my dad around Oklahoma and Texas trying to fix their marriage and us younger kids changed school quite a few times in the course. My teen years were mixed with lots of adaptation to new environments and people. It was hard to make good friends sometimes. God always set someone in my life during those years who went to church. Although I never had a really good foundation of Scripture and plenty of people said, “Do you know Jesus as your personal Savior?” No one said “There is more to it… There is a full-on relationship you can have with the Lord…”.
Most of the time I made good observing the goodness of other Christians. But found myself wondering what their lives were really like.
Did they battle and struggle like my parents did?
Because I experienced so much inconsistency in my home I had no process of thought that anyone else had consistency. Until I came upon a faithful and sweet minister and his wife who pastored a church when I was 15 who made such a enormous impact on my life.
See, most of the churches I went to the kids there were one way around their parents and in church and totally different in school. And it wrecked me for going to church.
But this minister and his wife and their children ‘walked the walk’! They were good and wholesome. I had never seen that before. Then I had to move. I stayed out of church after that. But thought about that minister and his family and how I wanted my life to be like that.
Maybe it was unattainable for me. . .
Tomorrow Gloria will finish the rest of her story. Please come back!
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I’m inviting you to party with me!
Win some chocolate from my-sister-in-law and I…we blog about CHOCOLATE…me from Australia…and her from Michigan. Here’s the link: http://thechocolistas.blogspot.com/2008/03/ultimate-blog-party-2008.html
What am I doing in Australia? I married an Aussie…and moved to Brisbane, leaving my family and friends and all the right-side-of-the-road drivers in America.
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Happy Partying!
March 9th, 2008 at 11:46 pm