Desperate for Love

Desperate

for Love

Foreword

By Jan Smith

It was a cold evening in January when I stood inside the lobby of a renovated grocery store known as Buckhead Church amidst a crowd of other women awaiting entrance into the sanctuary for what is known as GroupLink. I stood with my back against the wall wondering to myself what in the world I was doing there, thinking I would leave any minute, when across the room came this woman and her sister walking straight towards me and smiling. They were new to all this too, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that nobody else in the entire place was talking to me. We struck up a conversation that hasn’t ended for several years now.

Allison Miller and I were group linked from that first encounter with a small group of women who became better known as the Beautitudes. We were misfits of sorts—all of us—but somehow it worked. God had woven us together for His greater good, and it was there we would spend the next two years of our lives pouring out our hearts together on Monday nights.

I had begun my recent journey back to God and the church following a long-term affair with a married man that nearly destroyed my life. And Allie was on a journey, too, but I didn’t know until sometime later just how similar our paths had been and would be. I, in my writings of catharsis, brought forth a book entitled, Run the Other Way, which became my testimony and served as the catalyst for open conversations of my infidelity to God. And in those discussions of adultery and having fallen from grace, Allison began to disclose more and more of her story—one of a woman desperate to hold onto love at any cost, even the cost of her own soul. We were similar, Allie and me.

And while everybody has a story to tell, this book is such an honest account of the bribery of sin and how it manifests itself very specifically in the minds of women, and robs them of the very love they so desperately desire. Desperate for Love is a courageous effort by Allison Miller to help other women (and men) know that God’s love and redemptive power is big enough to salvage any amount of sinfulness, even after five failed marriages and a minefield of misguided searches for love. It is through her transparent storytelling and self-assessment that we relate to Allie’s feelings of hopelessness and failure, and rejoice with her as she recognizes God’s forgiveness and grace. And it is through His forgiveness that her desperation has turned into divine intervention as Allison Miller now uses her life’s story as a tool to help teach and coach other women to navigate through their own misguided searches and finally into the arms of God.

As the famous quote by Mother Teresa so aptly states, Allison Miller is, indeed, a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.

True love. God’s love—a love worth being desperate for. Bravo, my friend!

Jan Smith is an internationally recognized vocal coach and multi-platinum certified vocal producer, and owner of Jan Smith Studios in Atlanta, GA. She is a much sought after consultant, speaker and performer, and uses her platform in the entertainment industry to speak of God’s redemption through her testimony and book Run the Other Way (www.runtheotherway.com).

Prologue

On September 20, 2006, I sat in a luxurious flat in a little beach town outside Sydney, Australia, wondering if this was the end. I looked out on the South Sea, the world seemingly at my fingertips, but I was too terrified to step out the door. In that moment, there seemed to be no hope for someone who had traveled the path of destruction I had. Wherever I had gone, I had left relationships in tatters and lives torn apart. I was a walking hurricane.

I am beyond fifty years old, and I’ve spent most of my life chasing the wind, looking for love and acceptance in the arms of men. I’ve been married and divorced five times, and I’m not sure if any of my husbands truly loved me, nor if I had the capacity to truly, selflessly love them. I have spent far too much time trying to live up to the expectations of others and consistently have fallen short. I believed so many lies about myself—that I wasn’t good enough or smart enough, that I had to perform to be loved. One of my in-laws once wrote my two daughters that she hoped God would have mercy on their lives because of my failures as a mother. Her words hurt, but they also contained a good bit of truth.

Writing this book has required countless hours of looking deep within to try to understand how I got to a place of such emptiness and dread. My search led me to revisit painful events of my past. Very bad things happened to me as a child, which were beyond my control. To this day, I don’t know why they happened, but looking back helped me see why I walked the path I did. My intention in telling my story is not to hurt or blame anyone, only to share the truth as I have come to know it so that others can discover that there is a better way to live and love. I can identify with many in the Bible, but mostly with the Samaritan woman who had an encounter with Jesus when she came to a well all alone to get water. She, too, had been married five times and was living with a man to whom she was not married. She felt so unworthy when Jesus spoke to her that she tried to change the subject. Jesus saw right through her, forgave her, and offered her a new life—living water, He called it. She was so grateful she met the Savior that she ran off to tell everyone.

She and I have a lot in common.

Part I

Adrift

1

Splashdown

M ommy, Mommy, Mommy, watch me! I yelled as I ran toward the diving board. It was summer in Georgia and my bronze skin was being scorched underneath the 90-degree blanket covering the Peach State.

Six years old and already I was bent on getting attention from anyone who would watch me. I craved it as much as breath.

One step off the burnt out yard that was mostly made up of rust colored clay, and only two steps from the diving board, I looked back like a wide receiver over my shoulder on a long pass route. I had to check in her direction one more time just to make sure she was watching. I bounced up the 2-step ladder and mounted the worn out diving board as if I was appearing in a runway show. Another glance back for last confirmation, and I leaped as high as I could into nothing but air. Fearlessly, I hung out there as long as gravity would allow, set free by the weightlessness of it all, my entire little toothpick body stiffened into straightness as my feet touched the water, pulling the rest of me down with it. Seconds later, I shot out of the water like a missile, breathless from the shock of the freezing cold water with a huge grin on my face.

This was a moment for me.

The last moment I can remember being carefree.

2

Kindergarten Dropout

At an early age, I acquired a reputation in my family for always seeking attention. One day when I was about three, I was carrying an umbrella and a gust of wind picked me up off the ground like Mary Poppins—and I flew. It was simultaneously frightening and freeing. Running into the house in my yellow rain boots and dragging my umbrella, I announced, I flew! Momma, I flew! No one ever believed me, but I did fly. Whenever I brought it up, my momma and daddy discredited the story. It was a dream, Allie, they would say. But I swear it happened.

I seemed to be a magnet for trouble. Both of my parents smoked when I was young, like most of their generation. I loved watching them use those shiny metal flip-top cigarette lighters like you see in a Humphrey Bogart movie. As a curious four-year-old, I was going through their dresser drawers one day and found one of their lighters. I had been told by both my parents to NEVER touch lighters. But I just could not resist the little voice in my head, and the devil in me won and made me pick it up. It was thrilling to hold it in my hand and see my reflection in the polished silver finish. I managed to get the top open and tried to make it do what I had seen Momma and Daddy do countless times. Somehow, I got it to light. I was excited by the flame but also afraid. I had no idea how to put it out. I didn’t remember seeing how my parents did that part. All I could think to do was stuff it under the pillow on the twin bed across the hall from the room where my younger sister was sleeping in her crib.

It wasn’t long before I heard the sirens of approaching fire engines. I had already taken refuge in the bed with my baby sister, Sarah, lying on top of her to protect her from the flames and the smoke that was getting thicker by the minute. Meanwhile, our caregiver and housekeeper, Grace, was running around screaming like a crazy woman, Someone get us out of here! By now, the block had been cordoned off. One of our neighbors tracked down my parents by telephone, but they couldn’t get past the barricades. Somehow, Grace turned into a superhero and rescued us from the blazing inferno. Since we didn’t end up in the burn unit at the hospital, it didn’t take long before Momma and Daddy zeroed in on the damage that was done to the apartment and who caused it.

Of course, something like this could have happened to any four-year-old. Who hasn’t been told by their parents, Don’t you EVER . . .? It WAS just an accident. But maybe it wasn’t just an accident. Maybe it was a cry out to my family for more attention. I was a middle child and my young mother had her hands full with 3 young girls born so close together. My father was working long hours to support his growing family. It seemed like my baby sister was getting most of the attention, and I didn’t like that one bit.

Sometime soon after I nearly burned down our apartment, I was walking barefoot and stepped on a broken Coke bottle, which nearly severed two of my toes. The wound required 15-20 stitches and weeks of inactivity, a nearly impossible task for an overactive little girl. The scars from that day still exist. Sometimes the scars of childhood stay with us for the rest of our lives. The wounds can be healed, but the scars never really go away. I believe they are a reminder of what we have endured and can become beauty marks that offer clarity when seeking the truth.

Not long after that, I was playing in Momma and Daddy’s bathroom. Curious, I opened the doors to the cabinet under the sink and found a little glass bottle with a pretty pink top and a blue and pink label pasted on the front. Since pink was one of my favorite colors, I could not resist opening the bottle and putting the little orange tablets into my mouth. They tasted sort of like an orange, but one or two of them didn’t seem to be enough. Before Momma found me, I had eaten the full bottle. Again, we were on our way to the emergency room. While the nurse forced my mouth open and poured an awful licorice tasting liquid down my throat, the doctor assured my momma, A little Syrup of Ipecac and a few hours of close watch is all she needs. I suppose it was inevitable that I became known as an accident looking for a place to happen. Let’s just say it didn’t help my self-esteem. And to this day, I despise the smell or taste of baby aspirin, licorice or anything vaguely similar.

We moved to Atlanta when Daddy got a new job. A boy in my new kindergarten class started picking on me every day. I began to develop stomachaches. Daddy gave me an ultimatum after several days of stomachaches, Go today or never go back. I never went back, and I became known in my family as the Kindergarten Dropout.

I broke my nose the following year. Some of the kids from our community were playing softball in the field behind our apartment. I was bringing them drinks on a tray and rather than watching where I was going, I walked right behind the batter in full swing. Cookies and drinks flew out of my hands and instinctively I threw my hands over my face for protection. But it was too late. I was hit. It felt like my face had just been smashed into the back of my head. With my hands still covering my face, I immediately began jumping up and down, screaming out in excruciating pain. Momma, Momma, Momma! I could feel the warm blood running down my face, through my fingers and pouring over my forearms. I don’t know how long it took my momma to realize I wasn’t playing. She was standing on our neighbor’s balcony watching, pointing and smiling, like I was showing her a dance. Then, in an instant, she turned white and was tearing down the metal stairs toward me. Wrapped in the comfort of my momma’s arms and in the backseat of our German-speaking neighbor’s tiny yellow Volkswagen Beetle, I looked up into her eyes, blood pouring into my throat, unable to breathe and believed I was about to die.

The doctor surgically removed a bone that was sticking out of the top of my nose and put a cast across my nose and cheeks. Yes, really, I had a cast on my nose and with it came black circles around my eyes. Walking through the neighborhood in the early evening, all the kids would run and hide, calling out names as they retreated, Run! It’s a ghost. Run for your life! At first I didn’t understand why they ran away. I was looking all around for the ghost. And then it dawned on me. I was the ghost.

They thought it was funny, but it was one more label that I took to heart. I was an oddball. I was a trouble-maker. I was a dropout. I was an accident waiting to happen.

Despite the labels, I was a curious, creative, and fearless little girl who wanted nothing more than to fly high and free like Mary Poppins away from the rules and restraints of parents who never seemed to understand me. When my daddy or momma disciplined me or failed to give me the attention I wanted, I would dream of escaping and heading for Hollywood. I would be like those beautiful women who wore luxurious gowns and were draped in diamonds, with men chasing after them offering them the promise of undying love. Even in the first grade, I dreamed I’d find love in the arms of men.

3

Silent Prey

Just behind that swimming pool was the neighbor’s old white clapboard house where it started. On the outside it was just a white house, but on the inside there was evil. It was the kind of evil that no one deserves to face.

It’s always hidden behind closed doors.

I was lured into the darkness with a lie. Come on in here, sweetie. I have lots of goodies in here just for you, he said. Eagerly I stepped up off the carport into the house in front of him. The door creaked as he gently pushed it closed and nudged me forward. One small step inside and the sunlight disappeared. Torn sheets and pillowcases covered the windows and a musty smell permeated the room. I stood there shaking all over and looking around. Why do you have sheets ‘n pillow cases on your windows? My tummy was all knotted up, and I became petrified. I began to want my momma more than anything. Don’t you worry about the curtains, honey. He reached down, grasped my tiny hand and led me past the blaring television toward a closed door with an old brass doorknob that hung loosely. The musty odor grew stronger the closer we stepped toward the door; it was so thick I could taste it and it made me want to vomit. He looked down at me with an eerie smile on his face, Come on, darlin’, this way. I was hoping to get my promised goodies fast and go back outside. Where are we going? Each step creaked as his big foot landed on the worn wooden edge. And when we reached the bottom of the stairs, I saw a big barber chair with a mirror on the wall in front of it. Come over here, sweetie, I just want to show you some love. I was trapped in the stale old house, with no escape. Yes, there were lots of things inside that house for me, but not anything you could call goodies.

To this day, I will not talk openly about what happened to me in that white house behind our apartment complex. It was atrocious! I was violated. Just the idea that an adult would steal the innocence from a child is wicked enough. It was beyond my first grade understanding. What I didn’t realize then was that my sense of security, my fearlessness, and my purity were stolen from me as quickly as a pickpocket lifts a wallet from his unsuspecting mark. At the time, I didn’t know what to do about it. I was afraid to tell anybody. What would I say? Who would I say it to? Was it somehow my fault? I kept the violation to myself along with the feelings of shame, anger, fear, and confusion. Soon I started wetting the bed my older sister and I shared. We got up many times in the middle of the night to change the urine filled sheets. I also began having terrible nightmares about the man in the white house.

Without the knowledge of what was really happening, my parents believed that I should be able to control myself and keep from wetting the bed, so they punished me each time it happened. The confusion and shame penetrated more deeply into my very being. I was just six years old for crying out loud! The memory of it intensified every fearful situation I encountered in the future.

Despite my deep fear of the man in the white house, I didn’t tell anyone. My tantrums, bed-wetting and nightmares were the only signs that something was wrong. I became perceived as The Girl