Katie Bar the Door

Dear friends, as you know, I am in the process of writing a book on healing. The Lord has been prompting me for some time to write it sharing life lessons, encouragement, and hope for the future along the way. I have walked through many valleys before I came to a place of healing in my own life that I can share with others. Both of my parents were alcoholics, and as you can imagine, there was never a shortage of pain that came from being raised in a home like that.

With seven mouths to feed, money was always stretched thin. On the positive side, my father believed in the merits of hard work. He went to work every day, sometime riding several buses to get there. Then he would come home and work outside in the garden for several hours each day during the spring and summer months. During the winter months, he would go hunting with the hunt club and bring home venison that would be stored in the freezer. If my dad did not grow it or kill it, we did not eat it. That is how we survived. Sometimes there was very little food, and I grew to detest cornmeal mush, but we never went to bed hungry.

On the negative side, my father was an aloof, often cold man who ruled his home with an iron fist, even more so after mom died. He would bark orders and expect them to be followed with no questions asked. If one of his children failed to accomplish the tasks he had assigned, there would be a price to be paid. In today’s terms, my father would be considered abusive. One of his favorite phrases was, “It will be Katie bar the door for you if you don’t!” All during my childhood, I thought he was saying “Katie by the door,” and I wondered for many years when I was small if she were another sister I had not yet met.

This started me down a seemingly endless road that proved to be very destructive. Perhaps you have travelled down this lane as well. I would strive to be perfect to please my father and not get into trouble, but I could never quite measure up and was told so on a daily basis. I ended up believing I could do nothing right. I felt like a failure most of my childhood and early adult years.

Let me leave you with this, friend. Although that was my childhood experience growing up, and it may have been yours, the “stinkin thinkin” that resulted from all of that suffering was Satan’s plan, not God’s plan. God had something better in mind all along. It just took me quite a while to believe it, and then quite a while longer to submit to it.

Next time I will share with you how God revolutionized my thought life regarding my father and my childhood suffering. Thank you for sharing this time with me, friend. Let me know if there is anything I can do to be praying for you.