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IGNITED BY TRUTH (CHAPTER 8)
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY KAYLEE TUCKER
(with Karen Burkett)

Kaylee speaks from the heart as she tells of the pain of sexual abuse, domestic violence and depression and how she found joy, hope, peace and forgiveness through the darkness.

Table of Contents

Section I: Beginnings
Chapter One - First Memories (reflections)
Chapter Two - The Comfort of Love (reflections)
Chapter Three - A Summer of Family Love (reflections)

Section II: The Unraveling
Chapter Four - A Living Nightmare (reflections)
Chapter Five - Traumatic Teen Years (reflections)

Section III: A Gradual Awakening
Chapter Six - God's Unending Love (reflections)
Chapter Seven - Drawing the Line (reflections)
Chapter Eight - More Changes (reflections)
Chapter Nine - The Welfare Walk (reflections)
Chapter Ten - Dreams Really Can Come True (reflections)
Chapter Eleven - Forgetting What Lies Behind (reflections)
Chapter Twelve - Jesus-the Only Way (reflections)

Collection of reflections from all chapters red line

CHAPTER 8: MORE CHANGES

After Jordon left, I was an emotional basket case. I was too upset to finish school, but I did try to go back for a few months. Lucinda, my counselor, even picked me up and drove me to the babysitter and school for a while. She also invited us to her home for dinner and to spend the night away from our lonely home. But even with all this support, I could not pass the finals and gave up school for good. I began working temporary jobs and was able to get enough experience to find a steady job. Listening to a Christian radio station while at work, I heard an announcement for a secretarial position at a hotel. I called and made an appointment and got the job. It only paid the minimum wage of $3.35 an hour. It was a hotel and day employment agency that helped homeless people get restarted. The homeless people were paid cash every day and could stay in a dorm-like setting for only six dollars a night. The hotel owners were wonderful Christian people, and the job was very rewarding.

While working at the hotel, I met my second husband, Evan, who was the hotel janitor. We fell in love and were married July 17,1988. Evan, claiming to be a Christian, was interested in Jesus, church and reading the Word. He even helped me start a clothing bank at the church I was attending.

Eventually, I quit the hotel job for a better paying job with benefits. What a mistake. I had changed jobs just for the money, but quickly realized I should have stayed at the hotel, where I had been happy. Then, two months after Evan and I married, he was cleaning windows on the second story of the hotel and fell off the ledge, crushing both feet and breaking his right arm in several places. He was in a wheelchair for six months.

Evan became verbally abusive, and I sensed that something was very wrong with him. When he recovered, he got a job delivering pizza for Dominoes. One night while making deliveries, he forgot to turn on his headlights and the police pulled him over. A routine check by the Denver police officer turned up a warrant for Evan's arrest. He was wanted in Texas for molesting his niece.

I couldn't believe it! I was a victim and survivor of molestation and somehow had married a child molester. The following year my twelve-year-old daughter, Stephanie, was in counseling because of behavior problems. During counseling, she revealed that Evan had molested her. I couldn't stay married to this man. I had really tried and had prayed about what to do. More than anything, I wanted God's will. This new revelation of Evan abusing my daughter made me realize that I had to leave this marriage behind. We divorced in 1990.

From Denver to Rush

My kids were not happy in Denver schools. The three of us had been praying for several years about getting out of Denver and moving to a smaller community. Stephanie was having the most problem, so I sent her to my sister Mackenzie's house in Santa Rosa for the 1992-93 school year. Christopher and I moved to Rush, Colorado, in April of 1993 and I bought forty acres and a mobile home. Stephanie joined us in June at the end of the school year.

We were all three happy with the change. Christopher and Stephanie both started school in September. I really believed that God had his finger on this location for us.

I found a job at a local bank, but was fired three months later. The only reason my employer offered was that things were not working out like they had planned. I was a hard worker, dedicated to the Lord and to my employer. This was the first time I'd ever been fired, and I was devastated. Very depressed, I decided to go to California for a couple of weeks. When I returned to Colorado, I was able to get unemployment for a while. Then I got a part-time job working at Kings Soopers Deli in Colorado Springs. In later years, my daughter shared with me that this was her beginning of a life very much parallel to mine. She did not like staying home alone while I was at work, and she felt very neglected.

Jack Stone

One of my co-workers at the bank where I had worked for three months was named Roberta. Roberta was a very nice girl, and she felt I needed a very nice guy. She tried to set me up with her friend Jack Stone. The first few attempts didn't work. "It's OK," I said. "I don't like nice guys."

Roberta didn't give up easily. She tried again, inviting both Jack and me to her house for Thanksgiving dinner. She felt there would be no "first date" pressure this way. After meeting at that dinner, I invited Jack to church several times, and we went out on dates with my two kids and his three. We were never alone.

Finally, in February Jack took me on a drive-just the two of us. He drove me to Manitou Springs and kissed me in front of a lighted cross on a hill-very romantic, I thought. It turned out we had met on the date of my parents' wedding anniversary. We continued dating, and he asked me to marry him in March of 1995. I knew he loved Jesus, so I said yes. I loved Jesus and fell in love with Jesus in Jack. We were married July 7, 1995, which happened to be his parents' anniversary date.

REFLECTIONS (Chapter 8)

"The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence" (2 Samuel 22:3 KJV).

When I learned that I had married a child molester, I was so upset. How could this have happened? I was a Christian. I went to church, read my Bible and prayed. And yet, as I prayed for answers, I realized that I had stepped out ahead of the Lord. I saw something I thought was good to do and didn't wait on the Lord and seek His plan. And so I reaped the consequences.

So many times actions and decisions that seem good to our human eye are really not the best for us. God's plan is always best. And even though we sometimes feel as though He's taking forever, his timing is always best.

My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same. Job 4:8

I have had many difficult, even devastating, times in my life. For years, I fought and rebelled against God and His ways. And then I blamed Him when things went wrong. "Why me, God?" was my favorite verse.

Some people think that when they become a Christian, they won't have any more problems. Wrong! In the first place, we reap what we sow. Thanks to the price Jesus paid for our sin, if we receive Him as our Savior, we do not reap the eternal stay in hell that we deserve. Instead, we are forgiven, covered by His blood and His grace. But while we are here on this earth, we do reap the natural consequences of our sin and our foolishness.

Even as Christians, we make wrong choices, commit sin and often get ahead of God's plan for us. If we repent, he will forgive and cleanse us, but we will usually reap the natural consequences of those errors. For example, I believe I got out of God's will when I married Evan. God forgave me, but there were natural consequences that included my daughter being hurt, my heartbreak and the pain of divorce. But because I trusted God, He gave me the strength to walk through those consequences.

God doesn't promise that life will be easy, even when we walk in obedience. In fact, Jesus told us it wouldn't. But he also promises that we will overcome . . . that we can do all things through Him.

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33 NIV).

"For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need" (Philippians 4:13).

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red line © Copyright 17 May 2005
Taken from the web site www.changinglivesonline.org
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