Marked For Destruction Destined For Deliverance

Marked For Destruction

Destined for Deliverance

By

A. D. Belfor

Marked For Destruction Destined for Deliverance

A. D. Belfor

Copyright Altheda DeBroux Belfor 2014

Published by HLT Publishers at Smashwords

First Edition Smashwords

Table of Contents

A Truly Rough Start

Knowledge Without Understanding

In the Midst of Madness

I Am Not My Mothers Child

Behind the Screen Door

Father God

A ProphetsPrayer

Return to Sender: Wrong Address!

Truth Hurts

A Child Engaged in Warfare

Who Am I? Where Am I? And How do I Get Out Of Here?

A Hungry and Thirsty Little Girl

Bitter Seeds Bitter Roots and Bitter Fruits

Pick Up Thy Tents

Face To Face With The Secret

Tossed & Driven Battered By The Angry Sea

If Only I KnewThe Plans He Had For Me

Walking Through The Valleys Of My Life

Hidden In TheShelter Of the Almighty

In Pursuit Of Dreams

Wandering In The Wilderness

Knocking On Heavens Door

Conception

When Will Thou Comfort Me

Forsaken

I Surrender All

Shacking:The Great Dead-end Story

Stripped Naked and in the Belly

A Proper Perspective

At The Glorious Feet Of Jesus

Becoming Minister AD Belfor

Oppositions ToYour Becoming

Breathe& Push! Push & Breath!

Destined For Deliverance

BreakthroughAnd Water

Spirit Gave It Life!

The Lessons

Understanding being Marked For Destruction

Dancing Today For The Mercies of Yesterday

Willing To Lose That I Might Win

About the Author

A TRULY ROUGH START

I’m amazed at the way my childhood memories seemed to flood through my mind, as I attempted to recall the details. I never knew how ingrained the incidents and events of my life would be some twenty-five years or more after they occurred. God knows, I never imagined that the memories would be of such vital importance to both, you and me. I figured that when I got older and began to live life on my terms, I would never look back at the past. I was determined to dismiss the pain and the chaos, so the dysfunctions of my past would not be variables of any value of the equation in my life, so I thought… Not so!

The truth of the matter is, I do remember, and I remember most vividly. Surprisingly, as I have discovered by writing this book, I have actually been highly influenced by my past on a subconscious level that I would have even denied existed, up until recently. It is through this inability to escape the realities of life’s experiences (the who’s, the what’s, the where’s, the when’s, the how’s and whys) that God has allowed me the opportunity to reflect and share the pages of my life with you. Going back for me is therapeutic, and also, serves as a vehicle in which I’m able to stand victoriously with my foot on the enemy’s neck! For you, prayerfully, my going back will help serve as a stepping-stone that you can utilize to your advantage as you take your next step -- as you move from one level to the next.

What immediately springs forth as one of my earliest memories is, me at five years old wearing a polka-dot, red and white dress. I was posing for a picture on a day in which my grandmother had decided to throw a party. It was a typical setting in which I was surrounded by mostly adults and, of course, I was the center of attention. My grandmother and her closest friends were always wooing me with affectionate accolades of how smart I was and how nicely my grandmother kept me. I was known for being ‘Mae’s baby’. But the truth is that I was not born Mae’s baby.

For Altheda, it was a humbling and humiliating beginning of how she came into the world. Yes my beloved, some of us associate the day we began life in this world with humiliation and regret. That’s a concept to be reckoned with to say the least. I’ve only got second hand accounts of how I came into the world, but as my grandmother would explain, she picked me up at two months old from the Westchester Women’s Correctional Facility in Bedford Hills, New York. A state prison!

In short -- I was born into bondage, and I had no idea of the ramifications that reality would have on my life — on my self-image. I had no real understanding of how the shame of being born to a prisoner would cause me to internalize a negative self-image, live beneath my privilege and ability for many long agonizing years.

Growing up, I understood that my Mama was actually my grandma, but she was all I knew as a mother, and out of my heart’s recesses, I called her Ma. I loved my grandmother dearly, and she loved me even more. There was never a doubt in my mind regarding the love that my grandmother had for me. As I recall, I loved her as my mother -- my only mother -- without any apologies.

Even after I disclose some of the ugly truths in this autobiographical account of a young girl born into bondage, trying to break free of all that that bondage entailed, I still want you to know, my grandmother was the most vital and positively influential person in my life - without a doubt. My grandmother did the best she could with what she had. Nevertheless, having since been educated regarding the vicious cycles found in dysfunctional families, I have made up my mind that there are behaviors and beliefs that I would not emulate or sanction even those that my grandmother demonstrated. Heavy drinking was one behavior that I would pass up on. Actually, the heavy drinking was not my problem; it was the ugliness which came along with it that I found repulsive.

When my grandmother would drink, she did not display herself as the dignified woman that many in our community knew her to be; at least not in the privacy of her own home. I don’t say this to smear her, but to simply let it be understood, what goes on behind closed doors is altogether different from what one displays in public amongst peers, colleagues, the local banker or grocer. I’m acknowledging that it is, in fact, what happens ‘behind closed doors’ that has shaped the mindset of the generation we now see, and will see shape the world system. The public display is all a song and dance routine that is choreographed to cover up pain, shame, shortcomings, and disappointments. And the misfortune of it all, is that there is a child in the midst, who knows the song will end but doesn’t want to dance to offbeat rhythms nor to music that is full of lies. She, odd as it may be, being only a child, can somehow see the shocking and shameful reality when no one else wants to see. They’d rather she didn’t even gaze at the truth, and certainly she had better not speak the truth not out loud. But since truth prevails, the story must go on, and go on is what we will do.

My grandmother’s demeanor under the influence of alcohol is best described as senseless, irrational, unstable and vulgar. She was like Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde. This wonderful, well-respected, kindhearted woman would fill up with bitterness the emptier the bottle got. When she drank, her regrets began to surface and take on the form of indignation; not the righteous indignation that would have served a meaningful and holy purpose. I could write a book called Alcohol and The Elderly but I don’t want to go there. Not yet, anyhow.

I realize now that, perhaps, it was a way for her to escape from some disenchantment she dealt with within that she could not come to terms with openly. (You’ll later see what that disenchantment was.)

As I stated before, I know mama loved me, but as I am purposed about breaking generational curses and/or vicious cycles, I must understand that these same people (my uncles, aunt, mother, grandparents, and cousins) are the very ones who have influenced, shaped and embedded seeds of insecurity, frustration, hostility, shame, etc. within me. This led to a loss of my true person and purpose. As a child, I didn’t have a clue as to what it all meant, but as I analyze things now, I realize that I had all the pieces to the puzzle and a great deal of inclination from the Holy Ghost to put it back together. It would just take all little time, wisdom and surrender before a full picture came into view; a little time before I could see the enemy and his plan. But as they say in the world, plans are meant to be broken.

KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING!

O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure.Psalm 7:9

The atmosphere in which I grew up was volatile. There were ups and there were downs. If I measured the ups against the downs in terms of impact rather than frequency, I would conclude that, the downs far outweighed the ups. For every three good-times, there was one bad experience that rendered the good-times just about meaningless. I really didn’t know what to expect from the people I loved. On one hand, I was excited to have the attention and companionship, but on the other hand, I despised their very nature. So, it’s no wonder I loved men whose behavior I despised. I loved the drug addicts and liars but when I found out they were not going to choose to love me instead of their lies and drugs, I despised them even more.

One thing I feared as a child was the ‘thought’ what a tragedy it would be if my grandmother died while I was still a minor child--still having to be dependent on others. I feared being an orphan and possibly being raised by one of my lunatic family members. My family members meant well, but nonetheless, they made promises they didn’t keep. Fact is, they made promises they couldn’t keep.

I needed my grandmother and I felt the safest with her--despite her issues. Mama loved me and spoiled me more than she had any of her own children or other grandchildren. That alone was enough to cause jealousy, and for some, a down right type of enmity between them and me. None of us understood it, and some still don’t to this day. Back then and even now, it is said that they are just jealous. Well, I ask the question and you try to figure it out later – Who are they and why are they jealous? I was Mama’s baby, and yes, everyone knew it! I was a child of God and a chosen vessel- that is what no one quite understood. Not even me. This spiritual identity was the unknown source of conflict for many years in many aspects of my life.

My first vivid memories of my mother are of her in prison. I remember going to visit her with my grandmother. I do have a few more latent memories that come to mind when I was probably under five years of age. These glimpses make me feel warm inside. They are good little memories -- memories that serve as a reminder that my mother ain’t all-bad. This is a conclusion that is derived when knowledge and understanding meet up with forgiveness and compassion.

When I was a little girl, I remember one-day my mother and I walked from the Port Richmond area of Staten Island to West Brighton area. We walked along Richmond Terrace where there used to be a little coffee shop on the corner, right at Richmond Terrace and Taylor Street, back in 1976 or so. I remember being thirsty and hungry.

My little girl – who is six now- reminds me of the little girl that I remember being - always hungry and thirsty.

My mother stopped in the shop and ordered a French cruller for me. She convinced me that it would be good. I didn’t really believe this plain, ordinary donut would be as good as the powdered jelly filled one that I desired. But she persuaded me to try it, and it was good. Very good! She was right. I’ve always had this ‘good little memory’, and somehow, though, it got crushed under some of the ugly ‘bad little memories’: Memories like burnt spoons and syringes left behind on the bathroom sink.

I’ve always known deep inside that I loved French crullers and that, they were delicious. But, it is only recently – some twenty-eight years later- that I indulged in having a French cruller. When I would come across the needles and other drug paraphernalia, I was supposed to act like I didn’t see them or wonder what they were. Whenever I saw French crullers I acted the same—like I didn’t see them; like I didn’t know that they were good; and most importantly, I acted like I didn’t remember my mother aint all that bad.

There were two summers I spent a week or so with a foster family near the prison. I would spend my days visiting with my mother at the facility and the evenings with the foster family. Those times, as I recall, I knew Sugar loved me. Sugar is my mom’s nickname. I knew she wanted me and wanted the best for me, but I somehow also understood, even at a very young age, that she could not be the mother we both wanted her to be.

Over the years, she would be released and would get locked up again. This pattern went on up until I was about sixteen or seventeen years old when she ceased from being imprisoned as routinely as before. This was a pattern that had begun before I was born, thereby making way for me to make my entrance into the world in a New York State correctional facility. For clarity’s sake, I was born in a nearby hospital and released from the hospital into my mother’s care, temporarily, while she served time in prison. Job 8:7 says— Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.

I’m glad about God’s word, because the enemy of my soul had put his foot in my mother’s back, and wanted to take me down in the process. Perhaps, all along, it was me that he was after. He had obviously marked me, Altheda Theresa Grissom, for destruction from the time I was conceived. Why? Because God had something planned for my life. Why? Because I was predestined before the foundations of the world! Ephesians 1:11 declares, to put him (my enemies) under my feet! I would be the one willing to serve as a conduit for God to declare war on the kingdom of darkness; to take back—call forth—redeem my mother, my cousins, my friends and my family. Deep within us there is the instinct of somehow just simply ‘knowing’.

I knew there was more to me and for me than what I was experiencing at that time. Something inside of me kept whispering to me, I was created for something greater than I could really understand or properly express. Without that understanding of what I was created for and without the proper influences in my life, I was in the state of knowing without understanding.

It hurt like hell to know that there was this greatness inside, and no one could see it. If some of us had the understanding that the tears, the pain, the isolation and abuse had to take place in order for the glory to be revealed in and through Christ Jesus, then maybe it would have made the situation more bearable, just maybe…

Remember this is a spiritual battle!

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.Ephesians 6:12

I’m reminded of the biblical account of how Pharaoh commanded that all male babes be killed at birth throughout Egypt. His bottom line reason, he feared Israel’s growth and their potential for power and prosperity. There was great potential ahead and, it was in Moses. Perhaps you know the story of how Moses’ mother hid him from the hands of Pharaoh’s people and from death in a river. Exodus 1, 2:1-10 details the Egyptian account and also reminds me of how God, the Father had a plan for Jesus to enter into the world to redeem all of mankind; how the enemy, through Herod, tried to destroy God’s plan (as he attempted with Moses’ birth). He tried to intercept and destroy the babe born King of the Jews. Before Satan laid eyes on the Christ Child, he attempted to destroy ‘the vessels’ through which God’s plan would be executed throughout the entire world. Satan knew that Jehovah had a redemption plan for man, and he knew that the plan was to come through one born of the Tribe of Judah—a Branch out of the root of Jesse. Isaiah 11:1-3.

Through biblical accounts, we can glean enough information to see the pattern of deterring, distraction, and destruction that the enemy launched in an attempt to thwart God’s plan of redemption through Christ. Satan is still rigorously attacking God’s prophets, pastors, evangelists, and all of the elect in this same manner. He attacks anyone who has the glory of God upon them; anyone who is chosen, especially, when he or she consents to labor in the vineyard for Christ; anyone who, with spiritual eyes, who these enemies sees God’s anointing upon.

I was indeed clueless to the plans that God had for my life for some thirty years. But these words had been predetermined within my spirit, just as it has been written, THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND WHICH HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.I. Corinthians 2:9

When I was born, my grandmother told me that the doctors expected me to be addicted to heroin at birth. My mother’s drug addiction was supposed to cause irrevocable damage. I was supposed to have been born with withdrawal symptoms at birth. It was suppose to have compromised my development throughout life. In fact, for a child born addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, studies show that death is a very real danger.

After I was born, my mother proceeded in her cycle of destruction and she had another baby about two or three years after me. I’m the big sister of a deceased baby boy, named Alan.

Thinking on that reality, in this moment makes me say, Glory be to God – My Lord and My Savoir.

I was too young to remember my younger brother, because he died of what was then called, crib death. In the 1970’s there was still much to learn about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and many people didn’t concern themselves as to what happened to little black babies born addicted to drugs. So, when I say that these enemies were trying to destroy me at conception and that God covered me and kept me…I’m not over dramatizing! My little brother was born under the same conditions as I was, but he didn’t survive.

By no action of my own, I had managed to become a statistic that predetermined me to be a drug addict; a non-productive member of society who would probably be an unwed mother, who would ultimately abuse and abandon her children, end up in and out of jail, so on and so on. One could only speculate! But the devil is a liar; God’s Word is true! And you don’t have to speculate about that.

Satan’s plans were thwarted before he could even set them in motion. Glory be to God! Satan cannot read our hearts and He doesn’t know our future; only God is Omnipotent. Furthermore, the God I serve is not slack (slothful) concerning His promises. I’d like to think that somewhere, on some day, somebody had to have prayed for me. But even better, God has simply predestined me before the foundation of the world and had assigned an angel over my life from the day I was conceived. As Scripture says, He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. (Psalms 91:11; Ephesians 1:4, 11)God was present all of the time: shaping and molding me, establishing who and what I was to become in the Kingdom.

On September 7, 1971, I was born perfectly healthy, wonderfully and fearfully made! Yes, me. Shortly after birth, my mother arranged for my grandmother to take care of and to take custody of me. Mama took good care of me and gave me the threads of the moral fiber that I possess today -- integrity, honor, self-respect, pride, caring and consideration towards others. She taught me to