licoricestcklady

licoricestcklady is so blessed
updated 3 months ago

56, Female - Eons member since June 06, 2007

Located in Visalia, CA

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Relationship

Single

Hometown

Stockton, California

Places I've been

Other places I've lived: Rocklin, California - 4 years Chicago, Illinois - 8 years Red Wing, Minnesota - 1 year Houston, Texas - 2 years Peoria, Illinois - 9 mos. Quad Cities Area - 15 years Ensenada, Mexico - 2 years Traveled to: Canada, Middle East-including Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Europe-including Amsterdam, Vienna, Brussels, and most of the U.S.

Education

North Park University, Masters of Divinity in Counseling - 1983 to 1988
University of Pacific, Music - 1973 to 1977
Amos Alonzo Stagg Senior High, Stockton, CA - 1969 to 1973

Work

Lutheran Social Services, Therapist, Recovery Specialist (Substance Abuse - 2005 to 2006
Dept of Corrections, IL, Sunstance Abuse Counselor - 2003 to 2005
Rock Island Co Council on Addictions (RICCA), Substance Abuse Counselor, Outpatient treatment - 2001 to 2003
Assocation for Retarded Citizens, Counselor and life coach - 1999 to 2001
Bettendorf Presbyterian Church, Youth Minister - 1996 to 1999
Genesis Medical Center, Hospital Chaplain - 1992 to 1996

More about me

I am and always have been a spiritual person. Over the years it has become clear to me and I have been reminded more profoundly recently that my faith in Jesus Christ is my greatest life resource.

Born and raised in Stockton, California, I attended college and received my Bachelor's degree in music. During that time, I married and moved to Sacramento where I was a professional musician and my husband taught music in the public schools. I became pregnant and gave birth to a son. A year later, my husband died of congestive heart failure. I then found myself with massive medical bills and sold nearly everything to pay them. For a short time my son and I were homeless, sleeping in the car until a kind lady where I worked discovered this and offered us a bed at her home. In about four months, I was able to save enough to get us a place of our own.

During this time I was active as a volunteer with my church junior high youth group. I started with four kids and watched it grow to nearly fifty in two years' time. This helped me decide that going back to school, to seminary, was the best opportunity for me to answer God's call and strengthen life for my son and me, so off to Chicago we moved and I began full time studies on my master's degree. I still had to work full-time to support us so I often had several jobs. I graduated in May of 1988 and began my pastoral care residency in counseling. By November of 1988 it became very clear that the illness of depression was having a major impact on my life and I was hospitalized for a couple of weeks and then returned to life and work.

After my residency, I was offered a supervisory training position in Houston where we lived for, what were for us, two difficult years of a stifling climate and culture and we couldn't wait to return to Illinois. There, in the Quad Ciites, I began to work as a chaplain supervisor in a local hospital. After four years, it merged with the Catholic hospital in town and my job was a casualty. At that same time my mother died. Then a couple of months later, I fell and broke my foot, and a couple of months later my late husband's mother also died and as her only living relative a lot fell on me. After seven years with no problems, after all this happened, I was again hospitalized for depression. Unfortunately, after this hospitalization, to medicate myself, I used alcohol more heavily than I had ever done before with the result that in September, 1996, I spent 28 days in a treatment center and by the grace of God, have over 14 years sobriety at this time.

These past 14 years I have tried to find a career path again and went back into counseling, this time with an emphasis on addiction and had several years of success, during which I met Bob. For 9 years, we lived together; I loved his family as if they were my own. I maintained my career and we had a farm. About two years ago a series of illnesses interrupted my life. Partly due to my illnesses, I wasn't working, and that exascerbated the deterioration of Bob's and my relationship. The end result was that when I came to Ensenada, Mexico to bring a friend back to work on the farm, Bob changed his mind about hiring her and about having me in his life. Thus I found myself in Ensenada with very little in the way of money or possessions. God, in His love and mercy, used some wonderful people in Mexico to return me back to Himself and remind me of His love. Last year I had an opportunity to return their love by helping them in a time of terrible crisis and this brought me back home to Calfornia where I am now living and working.

Today I am grateful and blessed. I have a wonderful son Paul and daughter-in-law Grace, and a beautiful granddaughter, Lindsay. My father is 89, and still lives in the childhood home in which I grew up. My younger brother lives in Tucson, Arizona and younger sister lives in Sacramento, California. God has provided wonderful friends in Mexico and in the States in both church and community, who have become family for me. I have experienced God's incredible healing touch very strongly in my life and thus have not been for any medications for two years for the health problems I had experienced, including depression. I still love music and stitiching, sewing, and quilting. Languages fascinate me, and my Spanish in reading, speaking, and writing is better every day. There is no doubt, my life is full of blessings. My life's greatest strength and joy is my faith in God and , as a Christian, in Jesus Christ.

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