My Story of Redemption — Christina Gatewood — Ep. 097

My name is Christina Gatewood, and I'm originally from Kansas and been in the Pennsylvania area for 16 years now. My family, um, is a little bit discombobulated. At the age of two and a half, my parents got a divorce. My father actually got custody of us, which was very rare back then for a man to get custody of two small children. But since my mother had an affair and, um, did not own a house, and she was working at the time, but she didn't have the house. So for the first five, six years of my life, it was kind of just messed up. Like, my father worked really hard, um, being a single dad and trying to be a mother and a father to both my brother and I. He did his best.

And then at the age of six, he actually got remarried to his third wife. I thought this was going to be a wonderful thing, but actually she was physically and mentally abusive to my brother and I. She was not the ideal, picture-perfect mother figure that I thought we were going to be getting. We lived with her, and she had three stepchildren, well, two stepchildren and one real son with her previous husband. And they were a little older, and they, um, we saw them occasionally during the summer. They stayed in Tennessee, but we would go visit. But this one daughter, which was her stepdaughter, came to live with us, and she actually had a child when I was ten out of wedlock, and she went into a depression.

And so I had to help raise him. Um, actually, I didn't hear about God until that church bus came around to pick me up. This church bus came and would pick me up and take my brother and I to church, but it was a holy roller church. And actually, it was quite scary and intimidating for a little child like me because they would slay in the spirits and speak in tongues. To me, no different from my mother who struggles with mental illness. And so it was really hard to decipher what exactly was happening. And I couldn't go home and talk to my family about this because, well, my dad didn't want to hear about it.

We both continued going until I was ten, and then my nephew came and I had to stay home and take care of him. But it was at the age of five when they gave a sermon about, um, heaven and hell in a Sunday school class, and I learned about heaven, and they made heaven sound so beautiful. And then they talked about hell, and hell was pretty scary. And then they looked at me and said, "Well, you're going to hell because you're not saved." And so it was right then and there that I made a commitment with God, and that was the seed that was planted for my, um, conscience of right and wrong. And it really helped carry me throughout the rest of my life.

When I was ten, it was just my brother and I, my dad and his third wife, and her stepdaughter and the son. I became his mama and helped raise him for the first two years of his life. And then after that, um, my dad was losing the house to foreclosure, and so we were going to have to sell the house, and I was going to start, um, junior high. And I decided, since I was going to have to move, that I wanted to move and live with my mother.

And my two families were extreme opposites. Like, my father was poor. My mother was rich. Um, my both my parents were depressed. Um, my father lived very dirty. My mother had, like, a white glove. Literally, she'd take a white glove and check to see if we could clean, like, keep the house clean. Two extremes, and it was very, very hard to live like that.

Um, and my mother is deaf, and she struggles with mental illness. My father had a very bad porn issue, and he, um, actually made porn videos, low-grade porn videos, and just totally opposite worlds. Like, I I didn't really want to be in either world. Like, I would wake up crying at the one parent's house when I realized I was at that parent's house, and then I'd be there and then want to be at the other house. Just because the mental and physical abuse at my dad's and the mental abuse I received with my mother with her mental illness, it was just extremely hard. Yeah, school is what saved me, actually. At my dad's, I wasn't popular in elementary, but then when I went to junior high, I actually started making friends, and I did every single sport possible just to get out of my house.

I did know that I had teachers that I enjoyed. Like, they became my my security, and I would often babysit for the teachers, and I I had a lot of special teachers that reached out and helped me. Otherwise, I would have I was pretty suicidal towards my senior year when things were getting really, really bad. Um, at one point, my mother's mental illness was so bad she tried to kill herself in front of me. I remember I had this, um, I went to the kitchen and I took a butcher knife, and I remember placing it on my wrist, and I was about to, like, I kept going over. I was trying to decide which way to use the knife so that I wouldn't be able to be stitched back up.

So I was placing the knife over my wrist, and I kept making it redder and redder. And then all of a sudden, someone was pounding at the door, and it was a front door that we never used. And someone just kept pounding and pounding and pounding and pounding.

And so I'm holding this knife, contemplating, and the pounding wouldn't stop. So I put the knife down, and I went to the door, and no one was there. And I truly felt like that was God. I see that throughout my life. Definitely, I even when I was getting, like, abused, just everything, I have seen God. And one of my things is to try to find the good out of something negative, like always trying to find the positive out of a negative, no matter what. Even today, so the woman who used to abuse me, like, hit me up upside the head or slap me in the face, or just whatever she may have done, um, I purposely try to go back home and see those people because Jesus loves them, and I am called to love them no matter what.

And it actually helps. But it's been a long journey, actually, to get there. After high school, I actually, it kind of got worse because I was getting kicked out of my house because my mother was getting married to her third husband at the time and told me I was in the way. And so I needed to find a place to live.

And so that kind of made me a little bit depressed. I found a place to live. My teachers, once again, came through and helped me find a place and helped me get a car. And I, in school, I worked, like, I was, I had to work my senior year just to pay for things because my mother's mental illness was, those last four years of high school were really bad with her. So I was working to, um, provide for myself in school. And after high school, I got offered a job at a preschool that I was in teacher's aid at. So I worked there full time and went to college, actually, community college, um, full time in the evenings.

And so that's what I did after high school for the first couple of years. My friends, my teacher friends, always were trying to get me to go to church. And I was was, like, making excuses, like, so many excuses. One of them was I didn't have a Bible cover. I just never really wanted to be, I wanted to go to church, but I wanted to make sure I'd fully commit myself to church. But I still struggled with right and wrong throughout school. Like, that just, and it seemed like it got even stronger, pretty much. Every time I wanted to do something, like, my friends would go out drinking, and I'm just like, well, why can't I just be like them?

Like, one time I even tried. I drank a whole bunch of alcohol, and it was the first time, and my friends were like, is this the first time you ever drank? And I was like, yeah. And they didn't believe me because I didn't get drunk. But I believe that that was God's hand too, because no matter what, it just, it didn't work for me. I actually was the designated driver a lot for my friends. So that's how I was able to still have friends, even though I didn't see what they did. It was after I got into a car wreck. It was when I decided to get serious about life. I realized that I am not in control of my own life.

Um, I was going 55, and this, um, other lady was going 55, and she ran this huge stop sign. She was on her cell phone, and she ran it, and I, like, T-boned her. And then we both went off to the side of the road. Her car went this way, and here I was. And I was with two other people, and I only put my seatbelt on that night because I assumed they had their seatbelt on. Here, they didn't even have theirs on. But anyways, the seatbelt is what helped save me in this wreck. I ended up being the worst one in my car wreck. Like, I had severe head trauma and contusions, and I was picking glass out of my head for, um, over a year and suffered with migraines for a long time.

But that night, it was amazing how my car just went perfectly over to the edge of the road. Um, one of my teacher friends actually happened to be going on that highway coming my direction, and she pulled over and asked me if I was all right. And she ended up going to the hospital with me and staying the night at my house because I couldn't stay alone. And my, um, cousin was the ambulance driver. Like, it was just amazing how God worked that night. And I even, like, so we said a prayer that night in that car. But that was the moment I decided that this is it. I'm surrendering my all to God. Like, I am not in control of my life.

It's very obvious. And so that was my commitment that I was surrendering my all. I went to a Southern gospel concert, and they did an altar call, and that's when I committed my life to God. And then not long after that, um, so there was, like, two choices for me growing up as to what I wanted to do with my life. I always wanted to get away from my situation.

My brother did it by going into the Navy, and I, um, I wanted to do something. It was either be a nanny or, I don't know, I just couldn't really justify going off to war. That just never looked appealing to me. I was at my dad's visiting over spring break, so I was off from my job, and I was online filling out nanny applications.

And there was this, all these applications asked, do you have mental illness in your family? Do you have drug abuse? Do you have, like, anything negative? I had to say yes to. And I, that just really was discouraging me. And then, um, I finally found an application through All American Nannies that didn't ask me all those questions. And I was like, yes. So I filled it out and sent it off. And by the time I got back to my apartment, I had a phone call. Like, I was receiving phone calls from this agency of people who wanted to fly me out for interviews. So I ended up, um, saying yes to a place in Maryland.

Um, there was a family that had a bedroom that was, their closet in my bedroom was larger than my own bedroom. So I was really excited about this. And they had three boys, which I kind of wanted girls, but they had three boys and one special needs boy, which is what I wanted. Like, I love working with special needs. I went there, met them, they took me out to an expensive dinner. I was like, I don't have this money.

And it was a really nice interview and everything, and they wanted to hire me right then and there. But since I was in college and I had a full-time job and I was living on my own, I said, well, I have to go back and give notice. So they gave their, they said that they could only give me a three-week notice, but I was able to finish out my finals and tell my job, and my landlord was extremely nice. So I did that, and I was going to fly out, but then right before I was going to fly out, like, I packed up my apartment, did everything, finalized it all. I get this phone call from the mother, or no, the father, and he said, well, I'm sorry, but I really want you, but my wife really wants her mother, so we're kind of fighting, so we'll need to wait and take some time.

And I just did not get this good feeling, and I was like, okay. So I called the agency and I was like, what do you have on me for this job? And they're like, we have you on as hired and flying out. So then I was really, really discouraged because they gave up everything. And about that time, I was going to church and I was looking forward to getting baptized at, um, a Grace Assembly Church. I enjoyed it. I loved the church, um, and I was going to get baptized. But then anyway, so this happened with the job, and they weren't too impressed either with me just leaving so soon after I just became this Christian.

I, um, waited a while, and then I got a couple more phone calls, and then I got this one for St. Thomas, Pennsylvania. And I was like, oh, okay. This woman has a seven-year-old son, and she's about to have another baby, which is going to be a girl. And I was like, oh, this son's really, really nice.

And they're like, we'll just fly you out, and then if you don't like it, you can come back. I was like, this is even better. My stuff's all packed. Why not? So they flew me out, and I just never left. So I was living with them, and about two weeks in, she goes into early labor and has this baby early. She comes out weighing five pounds.

And over the time she was in the hospital, we actually hired cleaning girls. And the cleaning girls that we hired happened to be River Brother and Girls. Like I said, religion, anything about God was pretty much zero besides my Pentecostal experience. And let alone playing people. I had no clue what the head covering was. Nothing. These two River Brother and Girls, we just hit it off. I think a week, the first week they worked there, and then the next week they invited me to a sleepover. I was like, well, this is really nice. Like, I was so lonely because first off, she went to the hospital so soon once I got here, the mother did.

And then I was really wanting some good friends. And so I went with them, and I actually became really, really good friends with them. But they were the first playing people I ever met. And then, I don't know, maybe about a month later, I met a woman from St. Thomas, and, um, she was at the library, and she commented on my children, and I was like, wait, these aren't my children. I'm not quite old enough to have children here. She asked me where I was from, and I'm like, I'm from Kansas, but, you know, I'm really kind of homesick, and if I don't find a good church, I'm going to go back home because church is pretty important.

And she's like, oh, I have a church for you. I go, you do? And she's like, yeah. I'm like, well, it has to be small because I don't want a big church. She's like, no, it's really small. And then I was at the St. Thomas Library, so our church is across the street from it.

And so she pointed out and she goes, you're feel free to come on Sunday and whatever. So I'm like, okay, sure. I went home and I was telling the people I was a nanny for, and they weren't too impressed that I was going to maybe go, but they were like, okay.

So I went to that church, and when I pulled in the parking lot, I'm just like, um, everybody has something on their head. I'm sitting there thinking, um, my dress is not like their dress. I'm like, oh no, Lord, you're going to have to help me. Like, this is just so not me. And anyone that knows me totally understands that that's not me. That's not my personality to go somewhere strange and to do different things. And so anyways, I said that prayer and I went in and I just kept going. I remember the youth girls approached me and I was like, oh yeah, nice to meet you, but I'm still really shy. And yeah, it definitely took a while before I warmed up.

But I actually continued going. The family I was a nanny for was not impressed. They were trying to, they worried a lot about me because here I am, this girl from Kansas, out here all alone, and they felt very, very responsible. Yeah, I started just going there and actually eventually I became good friends with the youth there. Um, I was really, really happy that I met people like me for so long. Like when I was younger, I didn't wear jewelry. Um, I was wearing dresses all the time, which I pretty much did in Kansas. Occasionally I didn't, but I knew that we're supposed to be set apart. Like I knew that when I was out of Kansas and I, um, I felt like just dressing modestly.

Like I pretty much always dressed modestly because of my past. So like, especially with my dad and his whole thing with porn, like that's part of the reason why I didn't watch TV. Like you just, I didn't want to be near that. I always wanted to go towards the light. I just always wanted better. Um, but living with the funks, they didn't force me to put the cape dress on. They didn't force me to cover my head. They let me make that decision. Mm - hmm. And, um, I saw actually the beauty, the beauty and modesty way before I saw the head covering. Like the head covering just totally set me apart is what I felt like.

So I was wearing a cape dress for about a year. Like it took me a long time to make my changes. And I wanted to know why I was doing what I was doing. What I would do too is bounce questions off my Mennonite friends and off my Grace Assembly friends. So when it came to the head covering, um, I was like, well, you know, Muslims cover their heads. The Jewish people cover theirs, um, the nuns.

And I go even Pentecostals. Like the the very first church I went to, they would wear a little lacy thing head covering. And so my friend knew this. And so I was talking to her. I'm like, well, what do you think about the head covering? And she said that, well, we should probably all have one on our head. And I was like, oh. When she said that, it just made me think, yeah, I really should then. I mean, it's in the Bible clear as day in 1 Corinthians 11. But then after I put on the head covering, it was, yeah, really hard for my family. In their eyes, my mother went off the deep end of being too, like she, you know, struggled.

And then here I am. I'm the religious one. And they could see I took my time about it. And yeah, after 16 years, I haven't lost it yet. So it was a blessing and a huge relief to meet people my own age who I thought we have, I mean, we have a lot in common. And so that's what really drew me at first to the Mennonites was just people that were good, honestly trying to do what's right. And so I started hanging out with them a lot. And I actually had a really good, strong group of friends who I could ask questions about. They weren't scared to to kind of talk about things with me.

And yeah, and they would support it by the Bible. And so my friends, like, were a huge draw for me. After that nanny job, I actually moved in with one of my friends and her family. And I told myself it was only going to be for just a year because I was so used to being on my own and everything. Well, that year turned out to be like way longer.

I think it might have been sad, I don't know, seven years. And then from there, I went, um, to Faith Builders, the guys in the Hills area, and stayed there for six years. And then I came back here and it's 16 years now. Okay, my dad was probably my biggest supporter.

He actually passed away. So, um, he was my biggest supporter. He always said he was happy as long as I was happy. But he never, like, we never could talk spiritually. My mother, she was a hit or miss. It sort of depended on how she was doing mental-wise. In my church family in Kansas, the great, like the Grace Assembly Church, they were the ones that basically had the hardest time with me. Sent me letters and said I was joining a cult and I was under law. And it was really hard. I lost a lot of people, actually. And especially my own family. Like, I still kept in contact with them, but we weren't near as close.

Like, I mean, we were never close, close. But it just definitely took them about 15 to 16 years to see that I'm still the same person. Like, over time, it probably wasn't that long, but it took a good 10 years for them to realize that I am still the same person. I just look different. So it was just kind of, it was really hard in the beginning. Okay, so when I went to the guys' mills area, um, I was a student. I was a VSR for the first year, and then the two years I was a student. And then after that, I stayed in the area and taught at school.

And hence why it was six years. But during that time, I was teaching school. Well, when I was my last year as a student, my father had lung cancer, and he was struggling, um, pretty bad. He'd belt died several times, and it was extremely hard to finish that last year. But anyways, he ended up dying not long after I, um, was finished with Faith Builders.

That first year of teaching, basically, he died, and then I started teaching school. And then I lost like four other close family members. So Vivian, the family I live with, her mother died. They were just key people that you would talk to like on a daily basis. Like I was always calling, trying to get Vivian. Well, I couldn't get her. So Katherine would answer the phone. And so Katherine and I would just spend an hour talking on the phone. And I also, I helped care for her as she was getting older. So Katherine was one of them. And then it was, um, my nephew who killed himself. And then it was my father of lung cancer.

And then it was, um, Miss Day, who it was my teacher, like mother figure. Um, she's the one that helped me with my apartment. She's the one that helped me with my car. And we'd continue talking throughout my life. Like I always stayed in contact with her. And then it was my great grandma. Mm - hmm. And then not long after that, it was actually an uncle's. But I just mainly say the five main key figures all passed away within a year. So it was extremely rough. And I would literally go to school, like drive myself to the school I taught at. Mm - hmm. But on my way, I'd be crying. And then I'd compose myself, teach school.

And then I'd cry all the way back home. And I was alone. Like in guys' mills, those winters get pretty rough. You're just alone. And so I had all this time alone. And that's when I just really struggled. Like, like I said, like I wasn't sure exactly what is life about. What do I really want? Like, do I want to continue this path or what is there if I don't continue this path? And it was most definitely, I want to do what's right. I love the idea of having hope and knowing that there's a purpose and there's something better than all of this. It's breaking the cycle, which is extremely hard. But I do believe that life is all about a choice.

We don't always choose the right choices. And as you can tell, when you choose the wrong choices, then you're going to struggle. But as you continue to struggle and go to the right direction, it's definitely worth it. And so it was over that time that I really like wrestled with life and was trying to decide what's really important about life. What do I want from it? What do I want to do? And that's when I realized that church is my number one priority, like serving God. I want to be near family. I want to be sold out. And so I was like, so do I do it here? I technically I could, but I wanted to come back to my area where I first started, which was this area.

It was a lot harder to keep walls. Like when I first came, I wouldn't let anyone touch me. Like I had this huge wall and bubble around me. And my poor friends, I'm not sure they knew exactly what to do with me.

Because, you know, we're just more the type of people just want to give someone a hug or whatever. Well, that sure wasn't happening with me. And yeah, just learning to let go and break those walls, definitely. And it's definitely not all roses, but it's anything is so much better than like you don't realize how much when you're in the victim mode that those people are actually controlling you. For example, of people, I wouldn't let them touch me. Well, that's all because I was abused. But then just letting that go, they're not hovering over me with those negative thoughts anymore. Like I don't have them anymore. And that breaks control and you're able to break the cycle.