Hostage
by Kathleen Watson

It was once a magnificent chair, carved by a master’s hand, exquisite, intricate, with a great hope and a purpose. And in the beginning, it was lovely. As life went on, however, it became unappreciated, exposed to the elements, worn, and even abused. Its original beauty and any perceived value appeared to be destroyed.

Since my earliest memories I felt like this chair: insignificant, ugly, stupid, unwanted, and unloved. Can anyone relate? Maybe that is why as a very young girl, I chose to go into the field of interior design. It was a profession of unlimited potential, where the unlovely did not stay that way. It was escaping what something was, to become something totally different, to be the contrast of where you started: something better, desirable, appreciated, and even loved.

My story illustrates a journey that in some ways, we all take. Where, like this chair, our promising beginning encounters many harsh, unkind years that seem to dash our hopes. Where also, like the many homes I have remodeled, transformation is possible.

My mother grew up in a dysfunctional, abusive home. She had very low self-confidence and always seemed beaten down. She received all of her worth and value from my Dad as he sparingly dispersed it. When I was born, she saw me as competition for my dad’s affections and felt threatened. Years later when my daughter, her first grandchild, was born, she admitted this to me in tears, saying that is why she was never able to love me like my brothers and sisters. To me, she was distant and uninvolved. I assumed it was me; I was not good enough, not worthy to be loved.

My father was a workaholic and gone most of the time. When he was home, he was critical and a perfectionist. My parents fought often. Our home was not a happy place. Once in a blue moon, however, something I would do pleased him, and then he would praise me, and I was his princess. The affirmations were few and far between, but it was all that I ever got from anyone, and it was precious! He was the one person whom I felt loved me at all.

In first grade at a small school, I received A’s, B’s, and one C. My father was extremely disappointed, and against the school’s recommendation he held me back to repeat first grade. At that point, I also believed I was stupid.

There was a bully from my original first grade class who decided his life goal was to make me miserable. He made it known to all the new, shy, incoming first graders that I was a loser and a flunky, and if anyone became my friend, they would regret it.

So my new classmates avoided me like a plague, and for the seven years I was in that school, I ate lunch alone and sat by myself on the playground.

At home, life was not much better. My perfect, intelligent, athletic, older brother, whom my parents adored, also constantly called me names, made fun of me, and was continually cruel. With no correction or intervention from my parents, their silence seemed to be their endorsement. So, that was my identity. I was stupid, ugly, and a loser. I felt alone and unwanted.

Have you ever felt that way?

Ironically, my family was religious in a dry, legalistic sort of way. When I was ten, my father became ill, and this empty religion no longer satisfied; so they began to search for more. That’s when a neighbor invited my parents to an informal Bible study he was having in his home. They learned that the Jesus they had read about their whole lives was more than an historical figure from a book. He is today a living, active, fully alive Savior, who is not only interested in our individual lives, but desires to know us on a personal level. Grasping that changed everything!

The Bible they memorized came alive as the Holy Spirit filled the words. Their lives took on a third dimension as they began to have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Both my dad and mom gave Jesus lordship of their lives, and our home became an entirely different place.

My dad became encouraging and kind, and my mom started to smile and sing around the house. I, too, gave my heart to the Lord and was filled with a hope and a joy I had never known. I still had no one to sit with at school, but I was no longer alone, for Christ was my new best friend.

Over the next year, although my father’s condition worsened, we were full of hope, believing God would heal him. It was the happiest year of my childhood. Then at the age of thirteen, everything changed when my Dad died. All hope seemed to evaporate. Now I also felt abandoned.

My mom found herself alone without any extended family, a widow with four young children, without a job, deeply in debt, grief stricken, confused, and overwhelmed. She found a secretarial job, earning minimum wage, came home every night, went directly to her bedroom, and cried herself to sleep.

My brothers, sister, and me, ages six to fourteen, went to work doing whatever odd jobs we could find to help make enough money, so we wouldn’t lose our house. We mowed lawns, took newspaper routes, babysat, de-tasseled corn, you name it. There was never any milk or fruit in the fridge and often no heat in the cold Illinois winters. Mom no longer seemed to function, but appeared more like the “walking dead.” We did not eat a family meal together or celebrate a holiday or birthday again. I was numb and in survival mode.

At the age of sixteen, I decided there were three possible explanations as to why my life was so awful:

#1- God is mean and cruel,

#2- God is uninvolved and does not care, or #3- God did not exist at all!

These three options left me with the same conclusion, that I would no longer be a “Christian.”

That is when I met a boy named Steve, who I worked with at a shoe store in the mall. He was twenty-three and a graduate student at the local university. I remember at sixteen thinking, He is so old. He was tall, 6’4”, handsome, clean cut, and always kind and polite. He never flirted in any way or asked me out, so I thought of him as sort of a big brother and really my only friend. We would spend hours talking to each other when the store was slow.

One day, Steve invited me to his apartment for a Super Bowl party. When I showed up with my cheese tray, no one else was there. I asked where everyone else was, and he said they would be there any minute. Then Steve asked if he could show me something “really quick” and motioned for me to follow him. I did, without a second thought.

At the end of the hall, before I could realize what was happening, he pulled me into a dark room, slammed the door, and locked a series of deadbolts. The light bulbs were removed, and the window was boarded over; weapons, rope, and duct tape lay on the dresser. He then proceeded to tell me he knew I was a loner and had no friends, that my mom was basically non-existent, and that no one would miss me for days.

He said we were a couple stories up, and there was no way to escape. I could scream all I wanted, but all the other tenants were gone for Christmas break and no one would hear me. Then he flatly told me he planned to kill me, but not quite yet.

He threw me down on an old mattress that was on the floor; then sometime later when he was done, he left the room. This repeated itself over and over. The mild mannered Dr. Jekyll had become Mr. Hyde, someone I had never seen before, evil and full of rage and hate. I was a virgin, saving myself for Mr. Right; I guessed now we would never meet.

I remember thinking how odd it was I did not have any tears. I suppose they had all been used up years earlier. At the time, I believed I deserved it. I wondered how I ever could have thought that there was even a slight possibility to have a “happily ever after.” As I lay there, full of fear and pain, I wondered if I should cry out to God for help. No, I thought, if there actually is a God, he would not help me; besides, if there is a God, I burned that bridge.

My life was worthless, not worthy of saving anyway, right? Then I thought of my dad. The thought that he was sitting in heaven, able to see me like this, broke my heart. I decided to escape. I whispered a silent cry to God for help and waited for an opportunity. Thinking I was resigned to my fate, Steve let his guard down. He walked out the door to get something and left it open. That was my opportunity!

Without a stitch of clothes on, I ran stark naked out the bedroom door. My purse was still on the table with my keys lying beside. I grabbed them and was barely out the front door, and Steve was already at my heels. I dove down three flights of stairs, and jumped into my clunker, which thankfully I never locked. He leaped onto the car yelling, slamming his fists on the windshield. My heart was pounding through my chest! Then, as the car flew around the corner, he was flung from the car. I escaped!

God heard my cry for help, and delivered me; but even still, it did not soften my heart of stone. I quickly chalked it up to luck and remained distant from God, behind the tall walls I erected around my heart.

I never told a soul what happened; and in fact I kept it boarded up in a secret place in my heart for many, many years. That night of my escape, I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, and decided to pretend like it never happened. However, we all know that never really works.

A few months later I met another boy, Brad. He too was tall, athletic, handsome, and a seeming “prince charming.” We started dating. He treated me like I was valuable and told me I was smart and beautiful. Oh no! I feared I was falling in love. How could I not?

But I was so afraid; I just knew this was too good to be true, and I would end up hurt again. Either Brad would snap and turn evil, or he would wake up and realize I was a disappointment and leave. Every day I held my breath, hoping today was not that day. But the days turned into weeks, and the months into years, and to my surprise he remained true and devoted. After three years of dating, to my astonishment, we were married.

Wow! I found myself looking at my life in utter amazement. I had a happy marriage with an adoring amazing husband, a beautiful condo on the lake, my dream job as an interior designer on Chicago’s prestigious North Shore, and plenty of money. It was more than I had ever even dared to hope for. It truly was the perfect life. Right?

So why was I not happy? Why did everything seem empty, shallow, and gray? In the stillness of the night, night after night, as these questions rolled through my head, I kept hearing a still soft voice say,

“You know what is missing, it is Me. Return to Me.”

Shivers rolled down my spine, and I replied to the darkness,

“No. I cried out to God to save my dad, and God didn’t.”

The voice said, “But I saved you.”

And I yelled in reply, “No, I saved myself. All the hardship I faced was your fault! If you are real, you let me down.”

Then I would remind myself how great my life was, tell myself this ‘gray emptiness’ was crazy. Of course I was happy. I was not missing anything or anyone.

Fortunately, God is a gentleman, and not pushy; but He is also not easily dissuaded. He would not give up. After being married for almost two years, one day at work I came across the poem Footprints. It was about a man who had a dream that he and the Lord were walking together on the beach. They were viewing scenes from the man’s life. The man realized that whenever he went through a very difficult time, there was only one set of footprints. He asked the Lord, “Why did you abandon me when I needed you most?” The Lord replied, “I never left you my child; those single footprints were mine. That is when I was carrying you!”

As I read the poem, it was as though the Lord himself was speaking to me. Those words went deep into my heart. His firm, strong voice, washed over me. “I never left you, Kathleen. I was holding you in my arms. It is because I was there with you, that you are here and have survived! I am the reason your life today is blessed. You can trust me. Come back to me, and let me love you.”

The three reasons I thought I had to invalidate my faith were instantly eliminated.

#1- God is not unkind or unloving. John 3:16 says God loved the world so much that He gave his only Son for us. It is our choice to turn to Him or away from Him. To thank Him for the good, or blame Him for the bad. Satan is more than happy to help us come up with accusations against God and justifications for our bad decisions. God never stopped loving me! He still loves me, and every one of you as well, more than we could ever comprehend.

#2- God never abandoned me. Deuteronomy 31:6 says, “For it is the Lord your God who goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.” They say, “Hind sight is 20/20.” That’s the truth. Now, in retrospect, His continual presence is apparent. He was, and is always there, is involved every minute, and cares beyond what I could ever comprehend.

#3- God is not only real, He is alive! Revelation 1:18 says He is alive “forever and ever.” At that moment, I knew all of this in my heart beyond a shadow of a doubt, and He continually reveals Himself to me.

There at my desk, I broke down, sobbed, and rededicated myself to God. Everything God said that day was true: I was alive in this body, yes, but in my spirit as well, and for all of eternity. I was loved perfectly by the Lord himself, who would never abandon or disappoint me. I was blessed beyond measure with treasure that would not rot or rust, that of joy, peace, hope, and contentment. Now I truly had the wonderful life, the life I never before even allowed myself to dream of. It all was a product of God’s loving kindness and grace.

I felt I deserved hardship, so it did not draw me to Christ. Rather, it was the unmerited favor that brought me to my knees. The goodness of God led me to repentance.

The heavy cloud was lifted off of my life, and everything was bright, beautiful, three-dimensional, and technicolor. There was once again joy deep within my soul. The same joy that I knew as a ten-year-old girl, that same joy that today characterizes my life, to all who know me.

That was twenty-five years ago. My life has not been perfect; it has had its heartbreaks and struggles, its ups and downs like everyone else’s. However, since that time, I have not spent one day feeling worthless, unloved, hopeless or alone. I say this not because of any person in my life, but because of the Holy Spirit who lives inside of me.

We have all been born into a world full of hardship, sickness, and death. Being a follower of Christ does not negate this, but it gives us the resources and ability to not just survive, but thrive in the midst of it. Life on our own, apart from God, no matter how beautiful or successful, is unfulfilling, empty and vain. I know this first hand. But we have the choice to invite in the Creator of the universe, to remedy that hopelessness, and make our lives bright and beautiful. He restores the worn out, old chair.

At one time, my life was like the discarded chair, ready for the dumpster. Its beauty and perceived value appeared to be destroyed. But then the King claimed it, and in His hands it was boldly redeemed from imminent destruction and delicately restored. All the years of damage, exposure, neglect, and abuse melted away, to reveal its original beauty. Now, it is as magnificent as the day it was created and even more precious because of the high value given by its owner.

Kathleen Watson’s passion is to see believers realize and embrace their true identity in Christ; finding freedom from the past, and joy in their present spiritual walk. She is a speaker with Stonecroft Ministries, travels internationally, speaking with Global Advance, and is an ardent Bible study teacher.