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Trip Back Home and Reflection

On my way to Rochester from Austin. I am going home to visit my family and do a book tour. My book is popular or known in Africa but not much in the US. When I look out over the clouds, I realize and awesome in awe of God’s creation around me. We live on a huge globe that seems incredibly large. Yet to God we must look like tiny grands of sand. Smaller than a speck but we do not. He knows us all by name and knows how many hairs are on our hands.
Many may wonder how this may be possible. I do not know. I am not God, so I don’t have all the answers. However, I do know he is always there in my life. The evidence is so clear to me. I see him in the small stuff and the large stuff. Not sure if this is because I lived such an incredible life, filled with ups and downs.
I ran into another lady heading to Rochester, NY. She was around the same age as me. We got to talking and she also lived in Delray Beach, Florida and was born around Pittsburg, Pa. What a small world. We ran into each other at the Austin Airport. I am sure her life did not parallel mine, but it seemed very odd.
One person that I met before had lived in Delray Beach, now in 54 years later I meet 2, both living in Texas. One man who goes to my church and this lady. However, they did not live there as children and had experiences there that differed from my own. It reminds me of my babysitter from there who was killed while she we lived in her hotel room.
Mom blamed it on the woman’s husband, but the murder was caught only about a few years ago in New Jersey. He had killed a couple of girls in New Jersey and then admitted killing the lady in Delray Beach. This was very scary for me because I was about nine years old, and she was my babysitter.
My mom, Dorothy, and I were living in a motel room while my stepfather, Dorothy’s dad, was still living in Titusville at the shop. We were living there while waiting for the house my stepdad had to finish in the house my stepdad was purchasing. Meanwhile, while I was in school, this lady watched Dorothy and when school was finished, myself.
I remember walking through the watermelon patches on my home from school and never scared how I walked so far, I had to walk to get home. While living in Jamestown, I remember walking to pre-school without anyone’s help. Once my mom’s boyfriend Eddie stopped and asked me if I need a ride, but I told him no, I was not allowed to get in the car with strangers. He was driving the milk truck, and he just chuckled and said, “Sherry, you know me I am Eddie, your mom’s boyfriend.” Still, I was persistent and would not get into the milk truck.
Well back to my story about Delray Beach. I was sitting and telling this lady how I was beat up everyday by the white and Mexicans daily at school. She asked me why, I replied, “I don’t know but my guess is that I was the new kid and I was the new kid all the time, got beat up a lot” I then preceded to tell her how my stepdad would have a part time job taking us kids out selling candy bars. I did not know how much we made selling candy bars, but we all had our routes we go and knock on doors to try to sell candy. He had a total of 9 boys. It was not always the same boys that went out every sat.
But back to the thoughts of us so small and God so big. We many times let our ego’s get the best of ourselves, I believe when we see things through the lens of a Christian, we can see how small people are in the vast plan of things. Yet we are so important to God that he knows how many hairs are on our head. You ever really thought about that?
I don’t even know how many hairs are on my head. Only God knows. Now I suppose if I was bald that might not be significant but how many of us are born bald? We can remember to the time when we did have a full head of hair and be in awe that we matter so much to God that he is concerned with how much hair we have. He knew us before he even formed us in our womb.
This amazes me because I never felt important to anyone except my son and that was when he was a child and depended on me. I say felt because I know I am important to him, but many times feel unimportant due to my own insecurities of life.
Traveling is such an amazing task now. You can go from Austin Tx to Rochester, NY and only spend about 3 and a half hours up in the air. Thinking back before planes, it would have taken people like 10 or 20 days to make it to these places each way.
I had no idea why I felt I was to use the extra money I got on coming to New York, but I believe once here, I had a little idea. I was able to see old friends, some from a long time ago and some I have only recently not been in contact with. My second day I did a book signing event in Honeoye where much of the book, “Never Forsaken God Delivered Me From Hopeless Situations” have writings about. Click the underline title to learn more or go and by the book at Amazon.com or an autograph copy from me at Ebay.com
The first person was an ex-boyfriend. I started dating him when I was nineteen, on January 1. I knew where he hung out weekly and I went looking for him. I found him and we kissed all night. He had the most beautiful eyes, like my momma. He had black hair and a ruddy complexion, opposite my olive color skin and pitch-dark brown eyes. I had been in love with him since I met him.
Well, I write a little about the relationship but not a whole lot, as I did not want to offend him if he ever read the book. However, the re-connecting him was what I would call a notebook moment. It was beautiful and left me high for a few days. When we broke up, there were no real words. He just stopped coming over and I would drive by and see him on the side of the road. He would strut by, and I would just pass him, or he would pass by my place and blink his lights a few times at the top of the hill.
There was so much more I could go into but let us say there was never any closure, and I felt that was only on my part. I wrote in my book I had stronger feelings and that he had other women. I can honestly say, after reconnecting that is not so. He felt bad for the way he treated me, and he also went many years before dating again after we were over. He did tell me a little about his wife and it was sad to hear that they always fight. Even after 30 years. I told him sometimes fighting is good in relationships. Other times it can be a dangerous thing.
It was sad to realize that if I had just talked to him, we might still be together. However, I told him, all things work out like they are supposed to. Now I am not sure that is true, but it sounds good. Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” KJV.
It was such a great closure. I always felt that the man who I had loved the most on earth, never loved me and it was a great feeling to know I was wrong. However, I knew after talking to him I was wrong. I won’t go into all the details, but I will say, I have been sleeping a whole lot better since speaking with him. I gave him a book and hope he reads it, understands me better, and finds Jesus.

Next was my seeing an old friend, Bev. I wish she had bought my book. My prayer is the book helps the people who read it that haven’t come to Christ that they find him or desire to find him. It was great seeing her. Her husband had died, and she has had a rough time since, he was the love of her life. I still pray that she finds Jesus or through meeting me and seeing how at peace I am regardless of the turmoil I have lived and will want what I have, which is Jesus. I will continue to pray for her salvation.

Next was my friend, Angie, who actually edited two of my books. She has stuck with me through life. We have made it through thick and thin. She has been my friend that I have known for the longest span. My friend, Joan, in Philly I have known the longest, but we were many years apart at various times in our life. It was nice catching up with Angie and her mother. Being at her mom’s almost felt like my second home at the time I lived in Howard, NY. It was only like six months, but Angie and I have been friends and in contact most of the time.
While in NY part of my stay was with my sister, Lisa, also in my book. She is handicapped and truthfully hard to deal with. No one else in the family has anything to do with her. She is argumentative, hardheaded, and lazy. She is saved and her mentality is that of a ten-year-old. She can’t play Skip boo but can play UNO but would rather have the same conversations about what she can’t do. However, much of what she can’t do is because she refuses to do things anymore. She got a wheelchair and gave up. I can honestly say, I don’t know if I could live like she lives.
She hates my suggestions of things she wished she could do because it contradicts what her I can’t statements. I have to remind myself that Jesus loves her very much, and as much as he loves me. He does not see her disabilities and we are to have empathy for people with such deformities. “1 Thessalonians 5:14“Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.” KJV.
So, I must work and pray to work on my empathy towards my sister and not be so hard on her for her lack of actions.
Next was my trip to see my cousins. I felt at home, comfortable, and loved this weekend. I loved being at their houses because I spent much of my life before age five with them. Then every summer for six weeks until age twelve with them. They feel at home. However, I came away with a strange perspective. I do believe that I was meant to marry Dale, he is Jake’s father and there is a purpose and calling for Jake. There was a strong need for me to live in multiple places and have no one place I actually call home. He needed me humble and lowly in life.
Times, I think my life might be so different if I had just talked to Tom and reconciled with him, Jake would not be Jake but a different person. How would my life have looked? What would have become of me? Would the marriage have survived? Would our love have survived the test of time? Then I realized that we are not to try to ponder on what would have been or could have been but stay always focused on our heavenly home. Hebrews 12:22 “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
So, I was to stay focused on God, which I did until age 18, the second rape, and then the third which totally did me in for a number of years. I then rebelled, repented, and came back to my walk with Jesus at age twenty-nine. I never fully left my walk, just tried to justify the worldly life and incorporate it in my Christian view.
I learned this is not truly surrendering to Christ. We are to die daily and pick up our crosses and follow him becoming more like him every day. We are to read our Bibles every day to hear what our good Lord has to say to us and fervently pray about all things. I still have the same perspective about the trip after the trip. However, I no longer pine for a love I know was never meant for me.
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