Iv’e told you about the beginning of my journey on my spiritual highway. What about me before my rehabilitation and restoration you may ask? Let me tell you some truth about Tora.
I am a loving, caring and giving person. I had become more on the defensive side over time with different life situations. As I have mentioned before I don’t proclaim to be perfect, nor have I ever. I am and I believe will always be a work in progress; ever growing.
I wasn’t really a rebellious child, I didn’t have the best relationship with my siblings growing up and I wasn’t a model student. I was definitely not a poster christian either. I did grow up in the church, sang in the youth choir and went to Sunday school. As I became older and responsible for myself, I stopped attending church as often and started living my life my way.
I didn’t really like school so graduating from high school in 1991 was all I was really concerned about. I did attend one semester of college but that was it, I never went back. Overtime I made mistakes, made bad decisions and was confused on a lot of things in life. I fell in love, I had children out of wed lock and so I raised my children as a single mother. I don’t really know when my attitude started to change in a negative since but I do remember an incident that has stayed with me forever. People can really be cruel, rude, and down right nasty.
I remember going to Wal Mart during my 1st pregnancy after I started showing. There were 2 ladies there pointing at me and rolling there eyes at me. They walked closer to me and I could hear them very clearly saying, “she should be ashamed of herself”, “she’s probably just in junior high school”. One of them walked up to me and said “how old are you, you can’t be no more than 15”. “That’s just ridiculous”, I didn’t say anything, I just walked off and started crying. I went to find my mother to tell her I wanted to go sit in the car and wait for her.
You would have to know my mother to know her exact response but she wasn’t going. She questioned me, because she knew I was excited and wanted to look at somethings for the baby. She wouldn’t let it go until I told her what was wrong. My mother made me walk through Wal Mart with her until I saw the 2 ladies. She walked up to them and told them they should be ashamed and it’s sad for grown women to act that way instead of being encouraging and supporting. She also told them they should be ashamed for being judgmental.
As we walked away she said “by the way I’m proud of my daughter, she has graduated from high school and she is not 15, she is 18”.
I felt so much better as my mother grabbed my hand and walked away but she was still fussing of course. I didn’t feel as embarrassed at that point but I did still feel like people were always staring at me and judging me.
Ch 2 coming soon near you
A BRAND NEW KIND OF ME