Beauty from the Ashes

Copyright © 2014 Darbie Tomas.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

WestBow Press

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-5162-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5163-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5161-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014916322

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/3/2014

Contents

Dedication

Forward

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Dedication

I lovingly dedicate this book to my family and to Rev. Charles Carr Sr., Rev. Charles (Chuck) Carr Sr., and Rev. Travis Miller, without whose guidance and inspiration I would never have had the courage to share my story.

Forward

This book is inspired by a sermon.

Several years ago a minister visited our church and preached about the importance of leaving our words behind. He challenged us to write letters telling our loved ones how we felt about them, sharing our innermost thoughts, our hopes and our dreams. He told us to think about what we want our families and friends to know about us, who we really are inside and how we feel. He said we should put those honest expressions on paper, for posterity.

Also during his sermon Rev. Travis Miller talked about the written word and how powerful it is. David, a man after God’s own heart wrote songs, tapping into his deepest reservoirs of praise and worship. These writings still have the ability to uplift, inspire and teach us today.

To further emphasize his point, Rev. Miller read a letter written by a soldier to his wife and children on the night before he was to embark on a dangerous mission. The soldier died in battle the following day. However, the words he had penned became a family mission statement which had a profound and lasting impact on his two small sons. Rather than grow up misguided from the lack of a father’s influence, the boys became powerful men of God, inspired throughout life by their father’s final instructions to them.

Rev. Miller’s message stirred me, and I felt compelled to write something to leave behind for my own family. As I listened, I realized that although I had raised my children on a church pew, I had never fully shared my testimony with them. My journey to find God began with a traumatic experience which nearly cost me my sanity. I didn’t like to talk about my past. However, I found the courage and inspiration to do so in Rev. Miller’s sermon (and, many months later when I might have given up, I was spurred on by a subsequent message by my pastor).

Inspired, I began writing. To my amazement, incidents and feelings I had always found difficult to talk about flowed quite naturally from my fingertips into my laptop computer.

My oldest daughter, Julia, began visiting with me on Fridays and I told her what I was doing. Through our talks I realized my testimony did not end with my journey to find God, but continued throughout our lives together with the many trials and miracles that have proven God. Julia encouraged me to expand my writing project, and the book, Beauty From The Ashes is the outcome. It is both my story and Julia’s.

Julia has bipolar disorder, a mental illness that has made life extremely frustrating for her and challenging for our family. She was diagnosed in 2001, and throughout adolescence and most of adulthood the disease has kept her on a roller coaster ride of manic, depressive and sociopathic cycles. Julia has engaged in self-destructing behaviors, often associating herself with criminals and drug and alcohol abusers. Her actions and decisions have at times alienated her from her family and put her life at risk; however, time after time God has rescued her from danger.

To protect our family from possible retaliation I have had to write this book under a pen name and change our identities. Otherwise, this is a factual account, taking into consideration it covers more than 30 years and some minor details may be slightly out of sequence.

What I want this book to portray, more than anything else, is the beauty of forgiveness and unconditional love and the life-changing wonder of God’s gift to mankind, the precious Holy Ghost.

—Darbie Thomas

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath annointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek…to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound…to comfort all that mourn…to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness…that He might be glorified."

-Isaiah 61:1-3 (KJV)

Chapter 1

In 1977 I was a tortured soul. My youthful impulsiveness had caused me to make a bad decision and the consequences had been harsh. My situation felt hopeless to me, and I was convinced my life was ruined. I did not think I would ever recover.

I had much to discover about the power and unconditional love of God. When all I could feel was despair and regret, He rescued me from the rubble of a broken life and wounded spirit and rebuilt me into a whole person again. He gave me beauty for ashes.

In order to share my story, I must first go back to the ruins. One’s quest to find God is a personal journey, and mine began with an incident which shook my world off its foundation.

On the evening before the worst day of my life I was visiting with my friend Dollie and her husband, Gabe. It was Sunday. I had intended to stay with my friends until Monday morning but I went home a day early because of a stupid argument I’d had on the phone with my husband, Skylar, a Marine Corps corporal.

Darbie, you know how I feel about you hanging out with Gabe and Dollie when I am not there. Either you go home right now, or as far as I am concerned you can pack your bags and go back to Missouri, Skylar had threatened, angrily.

Skylar did not dislike my friends, but he was nursing a grudge. A month earlier I had stayed at Mollie’s during one of Skylar’s duty weekends. There had been drinking and I had gotten drunk. I had known my husband would not like it. Afterward I’d felt guilty. I had confessed my crime and apologized, but he was still angry. We were young and immature and still learning how to build a life together. Most of our disagreements were about something small which got blown out of proportion.

Our natures were very different and we were an unlikely couple. We met at the beginning our junior year of high school and became sweethearts. Skylar was raised near Chicago, Illinois. He had been in a couple of fights at school and, in an attempt to lessen the risk of his being expelled, his parents had sent him down south to live with his grandparents in rural Naylor, Missouri.

Skylar was a tough city kid, an outsider trying to fit in with a close-knit group of about 40 classmates, most of whom had grown up together. He seemed cocky and condescending and most of my friends did not like him—neither did I, at first. I came to know Skylar better during rehearsals for our junior class play. Underneath his abrasive exterior I discovered a funny and genuinely likeable guy—a diamond in the rough, I felt. Despite my more quiet nature I was drawn to his brassy self-assurance.

We became friends, then started dating. By the end of our senior year we were talking about marriage. However, Skylar was a possessive boyfriend and his jealousy had made me miserable. I did not want that trait in a husband, so I broke up with Skylar just after graduation. I enrolled in junior college to study art. Skylar joined the Marines, thinking to put as much distance between us as possible.

I dated another boy for several months, but I still loved Skylar. I wrote and told him if he still wanted to marry me I was ready to make that commitment.

At the end of the summer of 1975 Skylar came home from bootcamp and we married, without the fuss and expense of a big wedding.

After a brief honeymoon Skylar returned to California to attend six weeks of basic training and I spent the time getting to know his family. Finally, he was assigned to serve as a security guard at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Norfolk, Virginia. He rented a cramped ocean view apartment and flew back home to buy a car and get me. We loaded up all our shower gifts and clothes and set out to begin our future together.

The idea of living in the city had been exciting for me, but the reality did not live up to my expectations. I found myself completely out of my comfort zone in Norfolk. I was afraid of losing my way in the city. I had a driver’s license, but I was unused to the fast-paced city traffic with its complicated four-lane highways and ramps. I rarely went anywhere without Skylar. His duty kept him on base most of the time and I had little to do but clean house, watch television and hang out with my new best friends Dollie and Mayleen. I walked to the library or visited Dollie when I wanted to reclaim my independence. The beach was several blocks from our apartment and Dollie and I went there sometimes, even though I knew Skylar would not have approved.

The Marine Corps had turned Skylar into a soldier who gave orders and expected them to be obeyed. I, on the other hand, was a peacemaker who hated confrontation. When I hung up the phone that night at Dollie’s I was furious with my husband and embarrassed at being treated like a child.

Skylar’s mad. I’ve apologized over and over about the drinking, but it’s no use. He wants me to go home. If I don’t he’ll only be more angry tomorrow. It’s easier to just do what he says, I told Dollie.

Come on, then. If you have made up your mind to leave, I’ll walk you home, offered Gabe. His car was broke down, but it was growing late and he didn’t think I should go out alone.

Thanks anyway, but I’ll be fine. I’ll run like the wind. I was the fastest runner in gym class…of course there were only about 20 of us. I joked, mostly to mask the fact that I was scared. I had gone to Dollie’s in the first place because I’d had a bad feeling about staying home alone that weekend, but in the face of Skylar’s disapproval I could not bring myself to admit that to him. Skylar would not have wanted me to walk home alone after dark, but my anger made me reckless.

I felt in my shorts pocket for my house key. In spite of a country girl’s fear of what might hide within the dark corners of a violent, crime infested city, I dashed out into the night. The houses were a blur as I steaked past them. I heard nothing but the slap of my tennis shoes as they hit the pavement and my own frenzied breaths as my heart began to pump faster, partly from the exertion but also my fear. Gabe followed after me, but he could not keep up. I ran the entire four blocks’ distance without once breaking stride, (Gabe later said, as if the devil had been on my heels).

By the time he reached our building my lights were on and he knew I was inside.

He turned back, satisfied that he would later be able to assure Skylar he had seen me safely home.

In those days Skylar and I lived in one of a matched pair of two-storeys which faced each other. We had recently moved out of a cramped oceanview apartment into this much nicer, larger complex. The two structures were divided into 18 efficiency apartments with a spacious, shared parking lot in the back. Our fellow tenants were all military or ex-military men and their wives. Skylar and his best friend, Earl, were the only jarheads or Marines, among the group. There were two older civilian couples, but the other husbands in the complex were ducks or squids, terms by which the Marines referred to sailors. Most of the couples were in their early 20s. Skylar and I were both 19.

When I reached home I was winded from my run. My knees were weak and my hand shook as I unlocked the door. I quickly closed and locked it behind me and slid the chain lock into place. I turned on a lamp, then collapsed onto the couch and sat until my breathing and heart rate returned to normal. I had made it home safely, but still I felt nervous and uneasy. I told myself it was silly and immature for me to be afraid, but the fear wouldn’t leave me. In spite of the muggy August heat, I exerienced an eerie chill. I tried to shrug it off, but I knew I would not be able to sleep.

I decided to deep clean the apartment. I turned on the radio and set the dial on my favorite comtemporary Christian station. I got out my cleaning supplies and proceeded to scour the small kitchen. I worked for a couple of hours. I rearranged the living room, dusted, vacuumed and put everything neatly into its new place. I changed the drapes in the living room, and then turned my attention to the bathroom and bedroom. I was so engrossed in my work I didn’t notice at what point the music had stopped. A preacher was warming to a topic that did not interest me, so I turned the dial to a station that played soft rock.

It was about 2 a.m. when I finally finished my work. I was worn out enough from my cleaning frenzy that I knew I would be able to go to sleep. I showered, turned off the radio and went to bed. I drifted off almost as soon as my head touched the pillow.

A couple of hours later I woke to go to the bathroom. Still half asleep, I slid out of bed and groped my way in the dark. I found the light switch, and flipped it on.

In that instant I heard the clink of metal against metal, the familiar sound of a key in the front door lock.

My first thought was Skylar must have come home early, but I suddenly remembered I had our only key. The door burst open with sudden force, pulling the chain taut and ripping the facing off the wall.

A dark form stood in the doorway, a demon monster in black, who hesitated for only an instant and then charged toward me. I heard one long, shrill scream and realized it was my own. The front door was the only way into the small apartment and, without a back door, I was trapped.

I tried to shut myself in the bathroom, but I was not quick enough to get the door closed behind me. I got down underneath the sink and tried to find something to hold onto, something to use as a weapon, but there was nothing. I cowered, tensing my body into a tight ball as the monster reached me and switched off the light.

He pressed a rough, gloved hand over my mouth. His face was against my ear. If you scream or try to fight, I swear I will kill you, he whispered, in a fierce tone. He had a knife. He said, I’ll let you live, but only if you cooperate. His grip tightened and he roughly dragged me out of the bathroom and toward the bed only a few feet away. He forced me down onto my stomach, gripping my hands behind my back and anchoring me down with one of his knees.

Along with the knife he’d also brought a length of rope and I heard him cut it.

I was terrified, frozen by my fear of being stabbed, and I lost the moment when flight might have been a possibility.

Please, don’t hurt me…please, I begged, him. I was hysterical. Shut up! I told you to stay quiet! he whispered through clenched teeth.

Cold fear petrified me. I did not dare scream or try to speak anymore. I disassociated myself with what was happening and inwardly prayed, Please, God, spare my life.

My mind drifted into a trance-like state brought on by despair and helplessness. I believed I was going to be stabbed to death. As frightening as that was to consider, something else scared me even more. I had always believed myself to be a Christian but in that moment of absolute truth I was certain I was not saved. I was horrified to realize that the relationship I had with God was not enough to secure my eternity in