My dad came in one day, took me on his knee and said, "Steve, I don't love your mother any more."   Those are hard words to hear, just shy of five years old.   I didn't understand.   My daddy went away for a while, then came back, and it looked like they would reconcile.   But, it just couldn't work.   He had someone else.   I have a memory of that, like some of the other young people.   In that memory, I was holding my daddy's leg, begging him not to go, and he was telling me, "But I have to go."

I was holding on with everything that I had, "Daddy, don't go.   Please don't go.   Please don't leave."   You see, young people and teenagers suffer so severely, and if it wasn't for the mercy of God, we'd be scarred for life because of the things we've gone through.   I know I would be.   I believe with all my heart, if it hadn't been for God, I would have been a mental case.

My mother lived alone for a while.   She was just a young woman (had been married only ten years).   Then she married again.   This is very painful for me to tell and very painful for her to hear. As often is the case in second marriages, two people who think they're in love, marry for the wrong reason, loneliness.   He was so good to her before they married.   He was the daddy to me that I never had.   I loved him, and I believe she loved him.   He treated us like we were the most important people in the world, until they married.   After they married, everything changed.   Almost every day he beat my mother, unmercifully.  Sometimes she would have to go to the hospital.

I couldn't understand why mother would stay with a man who would beat her for no reason.   It was just a demon spirit on him.   What would make my mother stay and say to me, "But I love him."? Later I came to this conclusion.   It's not love.   It's a demon spirit that holds a woman there while she is being beaten, not slapped around, not whipped, but beaten until she would grab me in the night and run for her life.   But, she could not break away.   There was a spirit about that man. She could not break away from him.

Although I would miss going to church, he moved us away to an island off the coast of Georgia, away from my family.   That's when things really took place.   Nobody was there to monitor what he did.   He mistreated my mother severely.   I wasn't allowed to go to church.   I'd look out the window on Sunday morning and see the Sunday School bus pick up all the little children. I'd cry because I wasn't allowed to go.   I'd get down by my bed at night and pray, "God, just kill me.   Just let me die to be with you."   I only say this because maybe someone else will know what I'm talking about.

In the night I'd lay there, hearing my mother's screams.   Brother, that's hard.   I witnessed the violence many nights.   My mother would run into my room to get away from him, but that didn't work.   I saw him break a bottle and hold it to my mother's throat.   I've seen him have her down on the floor with a butcher knife to her throat yelling, "I'm going to kill her!"

These are some of the memories I have.   I thought I was dying.   I thought I would lose my mind. I didn't think I could take any more.   But, down by my bed I would go, as I had seen my granny do, and pray for daylight to come because the beatings would stop.   I'd pray, "Oh God, keep my mother, keep my mother."   I know, sometimes those prayers gave her strength.

My daddy married again a few weeks after the divorce was finalized.   I had to go back and forth. You know, that's no life.   I spent so many days with my mother and so many days with my daddy. That's what my life was like.   His wife was challenged by me.   A mature adult would have understood the difference between the love of a husband and a wife, and a daddy and a son.

Brother, I can't tell you that God delivered me from drugs.   I never drank, never smoked, nor have I been involved in illicit sexuality.   I can't tell you that God delivered me from any of those things, but I can testify to the keeping power of Jesus Christ.   He kept me as a little boy.   When my whole life was turned upside down, I'd go around singing the praises of God.   I talked to the Lord just like He was my friend.   "Jesus, here's what I'm going through," just like a child would pray.   I knew how to tell God what I was going through, and I believe He understood everything I said.

Finally the beatings got so bad until my mother said, "We'll leave."   She was beaten so severely in the head until she had to go to the hospital.   I called my granny and told her what was going on. Can you imagine how her heart was grieved, knowing what I was going through?   She loved my mother like a daughter.   When my mom and dad divorced, she said, "I took you for my daughter and even though you and my son aren't living together, I still love you like my daughter."   It didn't split them up.   In fact, when the divorce got complicated, my granny came and sat through it with my mother.

Finally, my mother decided we'd go home.   We put our things in the car and went down the road. We had breakfast at McDonalds.   Mother said, "Steve, I believe I'm going back."

I didn't think I could take any more.   I said, "Mama, if we're going back, I'm going to pray to die.   If I can't go to church and be around my granny, if I can't serve the Lord, I don't have any reason to live."   I believe the Lord got a hold of my mother's heart.   She never told me whether we were going home, or if we were going back.   After riding a while, I realized we weren't going back, we were going home.   What a reunion!