Shattered Dreams, Bondage, and Hope

By Dee Thompson

The author describes, in her aunt's words the turbulent and often traumatic past of a woman who struggled to overcome her past and traditions; and establish her own identity as a scholarly, bilingual achiever. Sariah grew up in the early 1900s on the Navajo Reservation. As an uneducated, non-English-speaking young girl, her life was largely influenced and dominated by the ancient teachings and practices of her culture, until she was abruptly introduced to a very different and ominous evil that held her captive for many years. Cornered and driven to desperation, she cried out and sought deliverance from death and despair. In her hour of distress, Sariah discovered there is a far greater power that can overcome the grip of evil. From childhood through her twilight years, Sariah encountered many shattered dreams and heartaches. But in all her tribulations, she stubbornly clung to the belief that whatever circumstances she faced, the divine higher power who delivered her and sealed her future is also faithful and true. This hope and assurance gave her true freedom to rise above adversity and become a woman of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644588680

Book preview

cover.jpg

Shattered Dreams, Bondage, and Hope

Dee Thompson

Copyright © 2019 by Dee Thompson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

One

I was up early on a beautiful clear morning on a day that promised to be hot and sultry. Having made my way from my home to the nearby town where my niece lived, I sat in her dining room, nervously tapping a newly sharpened pencil on the dining table and staring out the window as I waited for my instructor to arrive. At this hour, the street was alive with cars and trucks of all sizes, makes, and models, buzzing past the house from unknown points to equally unknown destinations. This small town in our corner of the high-desert country had awakened to a new day, and people were beginning their daily routines. Some people walked their dogs past the house, stopping at intervals as their pooch sniffed and claimed their territory. Other brave souls who dared to venture out at this busy hour were the self-proclaimed runners who shuffled down the street, earphones plugged-in, staring straight ahead, and struggling to keep their momentum. A FedEx truck just sped by, possibly hurrying to meet some quota. Only the mailman had not shown up yet, it is still early.

As I watched people hustling to and fro, I was reminded of ants scurrying around looking for food. An ant’s sole mission in life is to find food and bring it back to the colony. They don’t seem to mind the distance they have to travel or the stamina it’ll take to bring home the bacon. An ant will go any length to carry its load three times its size. They’ll just keep struggling heroically through impossible barriers and risk death to accomplish their mission.

The human race is very much like the ants. Our world seems to be largely made up of people who, like ants, overburden themselves with busyness. On the contrary, there are those who slough-off on their responsibilities and become a burden. Fortunately, the world is made up of ant-people more than sloughers. Regrettably, slougher characterized me for a number of years. For years, I was counted in with the uncaring, unthinking, unyielding, and unwanted. I was weighed down with a sickness called addiction in my young adult life when I should have been accomplishing great things in my prime. Walking in darkness, so to speak, was the norm for me.

Fortunately, God did not see me as dirt (no pun intended); he picked me off the streets and gave me a new life. Ever since then, having a roof over my head with a few basic conveniences is godsend, and I enjoy each day that God gives me. Having been given a new life, just puttering around the house is a joy, even tackling the most trivial tasks. My outdoor activities are always plentiful. I pick up trash and rake around the house. For a time, I was still able to chop wood, which is necessary for warmth, and, sometimes, for outdoor cooking. In the spring, I would prepare my little garden for growing a little bit of corn, squash, chili, and melon. These kept me very busy and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Lately, however, I have been so preoccupied with some of the more important matters that at some point in my life, time had begun to quietly slip away. Suddenly, I noticed that the second generation grandkids are sprouting up! And they’re growing like weeds. Before I know it, they will be of marrying age and I will have grown wrinkles. Sad realization! Our elders once had a saying that when the fourth generation offspring comes along, it’s time for you to keel over. If that’s true, I think that by that time I would be beyond old, ready, and even willing.

It’s amazing how the hands of time can spin out of control when you spend all your time trying to catch up with everything that you missed in past decades—decades of deceiving yourself, idling away time, and, basically, throwing life away. Within the past few years, I’ve spent many hours attempting to right the many wrongs of my past and trying to start anew. One of those ideas that changed the direction in my life was an intense desire to read, write, and speak English.

A couple days ago, I sat on my porch thinking about how my niece had lined up a teacher for me to begin first grade! Strange as that sounds, I was feeling pretty excited about the skill I’m adding to my life. As I thought about it, I went back into the house, poured another cup of coffee, walked back out on the porch, and sat down to begin organizing plans on how I would use my education. I thought, Wow! Here I am, a grandma, graying hair and all, just beginning to learn to read and write. How did that happen? Since I was a youngster, my life’s ambition was to be educated. Why, just yesterday, it seems I was a six-year-old, itching to be in a classroom, learning a new language along with my contemporaries.

Now, during my lifetime on this earth, the world is beginning a new century with modernization like never before. The twenty-first century has tossed-out everything we proudly knew as a hip, space-age world with astronauts going to the moon and back. Suddenly, we’re in a digitized world that has my grandchildren carrying a telephone in one pocket and a flash drive in the other. As a product of the twentieth century, I’m continually amazed at how fast our world has transformed from the horse-and-wagon days to present-day technology.

When I was born, our people were still operating with horses and wagons; my parents were very content with two well-trained mules that were the workhorses of the day. Nothing was done without the two mules. Our people were content with what is now considered primitive. While we were content with this way of life, the white folk were already driving motorized vehicles. However, in the seven decades since, our people have evolved to where we have become afraid of horses! For one to jump on a bareback horse and go galloping to a convenience store these days is ludicrous; we would rather jump into a nice air-conditioned car and drive two blocks down the street to pick up a loaf of bread.

All the sophistication now at our disposal has spoiled us. For instance, these days, I see people being yanked down the street by dogs on leashes. I see people slightly stooped over and huffing and puffing down the street, trying to catch up with some unseen prey, and that is called a walk. In the old days, being yanked around by a choking, coughing, sputtering dog on a leash was ridiculous; dogs were supposed to roam free and bolt after rabbits and rodents unencumbered. In the old days, when people ran, they ran to catch tangible things like animals or airborne objects, not chase after unseen ghosts down the street, calling it exercise. In the old days, people didn’t need to exercise to stay fit; all the exercising was done while doing chores and all chores were gut-busting work requiring muscles, blood, sweat, and tears. And whoever heard of sitting in a self-propelled box with wheels! Horses did the pulling! They were the wheels! It used to take exercise to go out on the countryside on foot to look for horses and herd them back into the corral. It was not unusual to make a five-mile trip to go looking for horses; it took muscles to tighten a cinch; it took stretching and standing on your toes to bridle a horse. Almost everything one did required strenuous exercise. Indeed, our society has turned us into mushy blobs, thanks to progress.

I thought of better days when our people were powerful, lithe, brawn, and capable of endurance, perseverance, and self-sufficiency. Today, we are overweight, sissy, and riddled with diabetes because we were introduced to modernization! Why, even my own sister got caught up in this computer-age madness, chasing after a self-propelled vacuum cleaner! When I was a child, my mother had me gather long branches from sagebrushes, tied a large bundle together, and swept the hogan with it! Not only was the floor cleaned, there was the fragrance of sagebrush in the air! Let me know if you have a vacuum cleaner like that!

But, alas, cry as I may and despite all my cynicism, here I am in the midst of it all, slowly getting sucked into the dragnet.

Who can escape an advancing civilization with all its conveniences? For me, not knowing how to stay afloat in this advanced age is tough and dicey! It’s not that I don’t want to be involved in this fast-moving current. I do want to get carried down the stream with everybody else; I want to join the madness, but the limits of not being educated is a huge deterrent. Being able to express myself, make jokes and understand them, or debate intelligently in English has been a secret ambition of mine. Letter writing on the computer without causing wires to sizzle would really be ideal. So what better way to do all this than to be in sync with all the educated ones, even at my age.

Taking on the task of learning elementary reading and writing isn’t normally on a seventy-year-old’s list of top priorities; but for me, learning to read and write has been like a magnet that draws me like a moth to a light. It was something I had imagined for a long time and now that it has become reality; I’m determined to embark on it with stubborn determination. Granted, it is a bit unnerving; but as I see it, education is a release from illiteracy. Illiteracy is a shackle, and it contains you in a bleak world of half-knowledge, hit-and-miss decisions, and the appearance of dimwittedness. It all must be arrested with knowledge, which I figure will open many doors to many opportunities even for a gray-haired one like myself.

As I think about the prospect of literacy, it has stoked many imaginations. I imagine reading the Bible a lot and conversing with my grandkids. I imagine giving testimonials and counseling people in two languages. I imagine singing in English. I imagine talking to children and young people about alcohol and drug addictions and so on.

The idea of all the things I can do with reading and writing sends chills up my spine! The longer I think, the more thoughts and ideas ooze out of my brain like foam from a shaken pop bottle. There’s so much to think about and so much to do! Opportunities are far-reaching if I can just accomplish this feat.

Two

Back at my niece’s house, I’m sitting at the table sighing excitedly. I fold my hands behind my head and sink into the chair. Just let me sit back a moment, daydream, and savor the prospects of my latest endeavor.

After a while, I look at the clock. It is now eight minutes before the instructor arrives, and I know from past experience that just the act of waiting can kill your courage and all the ambitions you’ve scrounged up for a period of time. I close my eyes; the longer I wait for the instructor and the more I hear the minutes tick by, the shakier my enthusiasm becomes. My lofty ambition to acquire knowledge and catch up with the rest of the world is ebbing away!

Exploring new territories is exciting and hopeful, but the gravity of it all! Just thinking about all the efforts involved can drive one crazy. It’s one thing to dream about what you want to accomplish and another to actually raise your hand for it. Here I am, a seventy-year-old, ready to take kindergarten class and I’m getting cold feet. That can be detrimental to any plan! All the same, I’m gripped with apprehension and my mind is going into overload. How did this learning thing come about? Why am I doing this? Is it wise?

At