“I grew up in Brookhaven, MS. I lived on the train tracks, and it felt like the train was coming through our house everytime it ran. 

I got pregnant and married my boyfriend. He joined the military and went to Germany, so I followed him there. 

He was the best husband and helped me through some  hard times. I had breast cancer at 39. After the double mastectomy, I woke up, and he was rubbing my head. I watched his face as he unwrapped my body that was now very different. He looked at me and said, ‘Girl, this doesn’t look bad at all.’ I’ll never forget the water hitting my head in the shower as he was standing there in his wet boots, kissing me all over. 

Not many people have a love like that, but things changed. He served for 29 months in the war in Iraq and was a dead man walking when he got off the plane coming home to us.

He had been sober for 19 years and 11 months; he knew I would leave him if he ever drank again. When I saw a beer in his hand for the first time, I knew he was looking out of the corner of his eye for more. One beer is too many, and 100 is not enough.

I bailed him out of jail for public intoxication. We got home, and I gave him 45 minutes to get out. I wasn’t living a toxic life. I was his wife, not a soldier. That was 13 years ago.

We haven’t been together since then, but we are still married because Jesus told me to put the divorce papers in the closet. I listened, but I don’t know why we aren’t divorced.

The pain of my broken marriage is the hardest thing I have been through. I have never faked anything, but I faked laughter because I didn’t feel it.  Mornings were hard waking up and facing the same shit all over again. 

I went to Fairhope to stay with a friend on the bay. I sat on her pier, listened to Amazing Grace, and told God about the hurt in my heart. It was a sunny day, but it felt so gloomy. Today is gloomy on the same pier, but I see the sun. 

Jesus restored my laughter, and it felt good. I am healed, but I miss the hugs with my husband and sharing memories of kids and life together. No one else will know all of that. 

Being on my own set me back because I only have a high school education. I was broke and survived on painting furniture.

One day I had $20 to my name and went to a convenience store for two Diet Cokes and a bag of pretzels. A customer was paying me $60 later in the week, and I was holding on until then. While I was standing in the checkout line, Jesus told me to give my change to the girl behind the counter. I said, ‘Jesus are you shitting me? I need this money. I am not giving it away.’  I am close to Jesus, but sometimes I can be a toddler and stomp my feet.

The girl handed me the change, and I slid it back, telling her to keep it. I got in my car and put my head on the steering wheel, saying, ‘Jesus, either I’m crazy, or I have more damn faith than anybody in this town right now because I don’t have a dime left.’ There were no more cushions to lift and quarters to find because I had already done that.

A couple of days later, the lady picked up the box I painted and asked if I was okay. I said I was fine, but when people say they are fine, they aren’t doing good. I guess she knew that, too.

I thanked her and returned inside, excited to deposit the $60 into my account — but the check was for $2,000. That lady doesn’t know how much her gift still means to me.

Painting furniture grew into design work. A furniture store hired me, and we grew into a design team. We did big projects in beautiful, million-dollar homes.

I gave a presentation for a room design that cost $100,000, and the husband told the wife, if this makes you happy, we’ll do it. I should have said, ‘Let’s talk because this is a damn problem.’ The new smell goes away and the color fades, but unhappy will still be there.

I worked one weekend a month at a furniture warehouse in New Orleans. One of those weekends, I asked my Uber driver to stop by Popeye’s. I picked up 100 pieces of chicken and biscuits, then we handed them out to the homeless under a bridge. It was like the story of the loaves and fishes; we couldn’t run out of that damn chicken. The folks would only take one piece, making sure everyone else around them got something. It was dark under the bridge with just ambient lighting from the interstate.

I kept returning to that bridge, and my friends started going with me. We gave one guy a chair and he said, ‘Thank you. The rats won’t crawl over me tonight.’ We saw a lot of love, kindness, despair, and needles. One kid asked me if I was an angel. I told him, ‘Shit, no. My wings broke.’

I worked up to the top level of design, made a lot of money, and paid my house off early. Then Jesus told me it was time for a change. Out of the blue, a friend’s husband offered me a job to improve his small gas stations. I went from smelling leather and touching velvet to smelling oil and gas and picking out brands of cracklin’.  I learned people who aren’t worried about their image have more fun in life.

We built a 6,000-square-foot convenience store in Brookhaven where the old Coke plant was and named it the Old Koke Plant. I am the retail operations manager and do any job to keep things running. I was taking out bags of trash when someone said it was hard to believe I went from a designer to the trash lady. It doesn’t bother me to take out the trash or wipe tables because this is where Jesus wants me to be.

Almost 11 years ago, Jesus told me to start writing about my love story with him. I thought, No way. I am not a writer. I don’t know where my commas or capitals go. Jesus kept after me, saying ‘Just tell them about you and me.’

I wrote my first story on Facebook, and two people liked it. I said, ‘See Jesus, I told you nobody cared about me and you because everybody has their own relationship with you.’

But he told me to write another story, and I have done it every day for 11 years.  I call it ‘Hey Jesus.’ 

I am who I am. I cuss and don’t fake anything. I will never be asked to pray in church, but Jesus knows I am straight up. I will do what he asks me to do, even if my first response is ‘Are you shitting me?’ We all have different ministries, and I am obedient in mine because I can’t make it without Jesus.

I learned to forgive and let that shit go. Friends give me stuff with those words because I always say them.  One of my favorites is a bracelet engraved with ‘Let that Shit go.’ You have to flush the toilet. 

Leave the profanity in my story because it’s not the truth if it doesn’t say ‘shit’ a bunch of times. Jesus knows my heart and that I am always here with him. I listen and care for his people in every way I can. If he tells me to do something, I do it.”

Ok

Cathy