This book is written to minister and give inspiration and encouragement to all of the orphaned and foster children around the world. She wants to give hope to those children who feel unloved and feels no one cares about them. The book answers the question why were you created? God had a plan and purpose for your life. She wants all orphaned and abandoned children to know that God knew you while you were in your mother's womb. You were chosen by God to be born. She wants all abandoned and neglected children to know that God loves them and cares about them. Each child is very special in God's eye sight. She wants people to know that she did beat the odds even though she was abandoned at birth. She talks about her trials and tribulations from birth to adulthood. She talks about what it was like living in an orphanage and then a foster home. She discusses difficulties she had in selecting a mate for marriage as a result of not having a positive role model for a father as she was growing up. She discusses her triumphs in getting a college education which was very important to her survival in life. She discusses how she was able to achieve and accomplish her goals in life with the help of Jesus Christ. God sent an angel to rescue her.
"Abandoned Children" Rescued, Orphaned, Restored, and Refined.
Turn your pain into purpose! Turn your purpose into praise!By Carolyn M. DriverAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Carolyn M. Driver
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4678-7702-2Contents
Acknowledgements............................................................................viiA Tribute to My Mother Evangelist Pearl Williams............................................ixPreface.....................................................................................xiChapter 1. Abandoned at Birth by Both Natural Mother and Father.............................1Chapter 2. Life in a Catholic Orphange......................................................16Chapter 3. God Sent Two Angels to the Rescue................................................38Chapter 4. First Meeting with Blood Relatives...............................................83Chapter 5. Mentor and Advisor...............................................................95Chapter 6. Reuniting with My Siblings.......................................................108Chapter 7. Challenges in Choosing a Mate....................................................114Chapter 8. Marriage and Brokenhearted.......................................................127Chapter 9. Mistakes Churches Make in Ministry...............................................138Chapter 10. Pastors Need to Be Transparent..................................................158Chapter 11. There Are Blessings in Forgiveness..............................................176Chapter 12. Woman of Survivial: A Taste of Success..........................................190Chapter 13. Turn Your Pain into Purpose! Turn Your Purpose into Praise!.....................205Conclusion..................................................................................217Letter of Forgiveness.......................................................................223Biblical References.........................................................................225
Chapter One
Abandoned at Birth by Both Natural Mother and Father
Carolyn Perry was born in 1945 in Hartford, Connecticut. I was the last of five children to be born. I am also a twin to my sister. I will call my biological mother Mrs. Lucie. She lived with her father who was my natural grandfather in the same apartment complex in the projects. One day, very early in the morning, my natural mother told my grandfather she was going out and left us with him. She got into a taxicab and was never seen again. This was in 1945. It is now year 2011. My natural mother abandoned all five of her children 66 years ago.
The word abandoned simply means to desert a person. It is giving up entirely on some one's life by just walking away. I do not remember any of the details that occurred in my life from birth until age two.
I do not refer to my natural birth mother as my mother. I refer to her as the woman that gave birth to me. In my opinion, a "real mother" does not abandon her children and disappear off the face of the earth to where she can never be found. I consider my foster mother my real mother because this is the only woman that raised me as a daughter for most of my life. She was there through thick and thin even though she did not carry me in her womb and give birth to me. I feel that most healthy women can give birth to a baby, but a real mother hangs in there and does what is necessary to nurture, support, provide, educate, and raise the child until he or she can take care of themselves. A real mother loves her children and does whatever she can to do the right thing by them. Even if my parents could not provide for me, they could have taken the necessary steps to make sure I was taken care of by making arrangements so that I could have at least had the opportunity to know who they are in the future. Abandonment should have not been an option.
Growing up I actually hated both of my biological parents for abandoning me at such an early age. I always wondered how does a mother just walk off and abandon five small children. I was abandoned at two months old along with my twin sister. What kind of a woman abandons her babies? I am still looking for an answer to this question.
My twin sister and I were two months old when she abandoned us. We were born last. My biological mother's husband was in the military during this time so I have been told. He denies being my natural father. So who is my natural father? He was married to my natural mother at the time of our birth. An older woman I will call her Ms. Sue took care of me, my twin sister, my two other sisters, and my older brother. The only thing I can remember about this woman is that every night before she would go to bed she would comb her very long silky hair. She had beautiful hair. I do not know the details of how we all ended up with Ms. Sue. My twin sister and I were two years old when we were taken from Ms. Sue along with my older brother and two other sisters. I was told that a police woman, I will call her officer BE. came to the home of Ms. Sue and removed us from her and turned all of us over to the State Department of Children Services of Connecticut in 1947. We are now called "Wards of the Court" in the State of Connecticut. We are now in the Welfare Foster Care System. I have two older sisters and one older brother. My natural mother gave birth to five children and she abandoned all five of them. We were all split up by the State Department of Connecticut.
My twin sister and I were kept together, but my other two older sisters and one older brother were split up and were placed in different institutions. I was never told where they were taken to or where they were placed. My twin sister and I were placed in a Catholic orphanage in Connecticut. I never saw my other sisters and brother once we were all separated from each other. My twin sister and I were separated from our other biological sisters and brother from 1945 to 1966. The separation for us has become a life time of questions. I still have a lot of questions that need to be answered, but I have learned to live with the limited information I have which is not very much.
I was very young when I was placed in an orphanage, and did not see my brother and sisters that were separated from me anymore. I had a lot of questions that were never answered.
Here are the questions I asked myself every day. I always asked myself, who am I? Where did I come from? Who do I really belong too? Who do I look like in my natural blood family? Do I look like my natural father or mother? What size were my natural parents? Were they fat or thin, short or tall? Did my mother have long hair? What color was it? Do I have the same eyes as my natural mother? Was she smart? What was her personality like? Was she friendly? Was she outgoing? Was she educated? How far did she go in school? Did she go to college? Did I do something wrong that made my parents so angry they didn't want me anymore? Was it my fault that my parents didn't want me? Why was I even born only to be abandoned and made to feel worthless and unloved? Why did my natural mother and father abandon me and their other children at the same time? Why didn't at least one of my parents step up to the plate to take the responsibility to raise their children? Why did both mother and father disappear off the face of the earth without a trace to be found? What was wrong with me that they did not want me? Why was I born was a constant question in my mind. These were just some of the questions I asked myself daily and still think about even today.
In the bible, Job 10:12 states "You have granted me life and favor, and your care has preserved my spirit" (NJKV). God had a will and plan for my life when he created me. I would go to bed crying profusely every night. I could twist the water out of my pillow case for the tears I shed. My pillow case would be soaked in tears. This went on for many years when I was a very small child living in an orphanage.
To this day, I never got the answers to all of my questions. My natural brother and sisters had the same questions, but they did not get any answers either. We all knew we had to have parents because we were all born and was very much alive. We were intelligent enough to know that babies do come from two people. We all would constantly ask about our heritage, but no one could supply us with any logical answers. So we lived our lives the best way we could just wondering how two parents can just vanish off the face of the earth without a trace. This is a fact we all had to live with. I always felt like I was thrown away like an old rag doll.
In the bible, Isaiah 41:9 reads "You are My servant. I have chosen you and have not cast you away."(NKJV)
When I was abandoned by my natural biological mother and father, I was too young to understand what was actually going on in my life, but the good thing was that my twin sister was able to stay with me while we were bounced around courtesy of the State Department of Connecticut.
I never had the opportunity to meet my biological mother or father. I didn't know if this is a blessing or a curse. I only know it was very painful going through life as a small child wanting to know who my parents are and never got the answer. I was told that searches were done to try to locate their whereabouts to no avail. There is such a big secret as to why my parents disappeared and never surfaced. No one wants to talk about their disappearance. This is the best kept secret. I was told that both my natural mother and father were dead.
In my opinion, I think my natural parents, especially my natural birth mother did me and my brother and sisters a disservice to disappear off of the earth and not ever taking the time to look back to see if her children that she had given birth to even lived or died. I don't know if my natural mother and father are dead or alive.
My question here is, how does a woman carry five babies in her womb, and in my case twins, and not bother to come back to see about her children? How is this even possible? I don't know if my natural mother suffered a mental breakdown or some other emotional or psychological problem that would make her abandon all five of her children at the same time. I wonder if she suffered an extreme case of post-partum syndrome since she disappeared within two months of the twin's birth. Did she suffer severe depression? Or was there some fowl play in her disappearing situation? I always wondered if there was some kind of crisis in her life that prevented her from taking care of her children. I do not know what happened to her that would cause her to walk away from five children that needed her so desperately.
My natural mother now has grandchildren and great grandchildren that she doesn't even know she has. She has never met any of her grandchildren or great grandchildren. I often ask myself, how does a person live to not even know that they not only have children, but have grandchildren and great grandchildren and not care enough to want to surface out of hiding to see her family, and their offspring? This is a real problem that has bothered my entire family for many years. She has so many nieces and nephews she has never met. And what makes this even worse is that these family members are also curious about what happened to her. They too would like to meet her some day.
When I was abandoned at two months old, I did not know this event was happening. I was taken to a Catholic orphanage around the age of two. As years went by, I understood more clearly where I was. I became aware that I was living in an institution for abandoned and neglected children. Once I learned the facts of being abandoned by my natural biological mother and father I became very angry at both of them. I actually hated my birth mother for many years for giving birth to me and then making the decision to throw me away. I was very bitter about her abandoning me. I thought to myself, how dare her to just throw her children away without looking back. How dare her to act like she did not give birth to five babies. She acts like she didn't have any children at all.
I would go to bed crying every night wondering where my natural mother was. I always wondered where she was. I looked for her daily when I was in the orphanage hoping she would come and take me and my twin sister home with her. I would have night mares of not feeling safe. I would have scary dreams and no one was there to make me feel safe when I would wake up from a bad dream. When I became sick or ill, my natural mother or father was not around to provide any kind of medical care nor provide reassurance that everything was going to be alright. My natural parents did not care about the emotional stress or the possible psychological affects that abandonment can cause in a child's life. I hated the selfishness that my natural parents had regarding myself and my brother and sisters. It is apparent that they were only concerned with their own happiness or situation and did not bother to consider how the abandonment affected me and my siblings. Worst of all, I felt my natural mother and father robbed me of the opportunity to experience real love from natural parents. I was always curious to know what it must feel like to be loved by biological parents. The way it looks right now, I may not ever get to know the real love of my natural parents. But one thing I do know and that is, God is love and I know God's love is unconditional. So even if I never get to meet or know my biological parents, God said in His word, that He will be my mother and my father and I know He is "real love". In the bible, 1 John 4:16 states "And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in Him". (NJKV)
Even though I hated the fact that my natural parents abandoned me as a small child growing up, I had so many questions regarding my natural parent's disappearance. I always had a desire to one day meet them face to face. I really had a burning desire to meet my natural mother even if I didn't get a chance to meet my natural father. I would like to know what she looks like. I wanted to know her personality. I wanted to know what were her likes and dislikes. I wanted to know about her schooling experiences. I wanted to know what her favorite color was. I wanted to talk with her and ask her what happened in her life to make her abandon five small children. I wanted to know how was she able to live a happy and prosperous life knowing she had given birth to five children that she chose to abandon. I wanted to know how do you live with yourself and how do you live with your conscience knowing that you abandoned five innocent helpless children? I wanted to know how was she able to sleep peacefully at night when she knew she had walked off and left five small children to fend for themselves. I wanted to know why my natural mother never came back to see how her children were doing. These are questions I would still like answered. However, I am not consumed by my desire for these answers as I used to be.
Once I became an adult myself, I was able to let this issue go. I rationalized in my mind that it is obvious that something tragic must have occurred in my birth mother's life for her to walk away and abandon five small children. I am still trying to make sense of this whole abandonment story.
My analysis of the animal kingdom vs. human beings.
I thought about the animal kingdom and analyzed their behavior when they have a baby or babies. I will use a dog for an illustration. When a male dog mates with a female dog, depending on the situation of where the male dog lives, the male dog will leave the female dog on her own. Once the female becomes pregnant with puppies, she is often left alone to care for her puppies after they are born. Once the puppies are born, the mother of those pups will be very protective and will not want even a human being to separate the puppies from her until the puppies are weaned and are at least six weeks old. The female dog nourishes her puppies with her breast milk and makes her puppies feel safe and secure until the puppies can take care of themselves. This occurs in most animals. The mother will stay with her babies until the babies are trained in survival skills whether they are going to live in the wild or become domesticated.
My point, here is a female adult woman who is considered to be a human being who has given birth to five babies and makes the decision to abandon them and not even once took the time to come back to check on her babies or children at any time in their lives. This shows me a total lack of love and care for her children. She just walked away from all five of her children without batting an eye. What causes a mother or father to walk away from five children without ever giving an explanation to anyone about their vanishing act?
In the above analysis I am not calling my natural mother a dog by any means. She is not a dog, she is a human being. I am just merely showing how even in the animal kingdom no matter what the species is, the mother will protect its baby or babies until the babies can take care of themselves. Some animals will discard their baby that is born defective by their own nature if the mother feels the new born baby will not have a good survival rate to live. An animal's natural instinct will take over in this situation. You will never see an animal give birth to a baby and just walk off and abandon it. The mother animal stays with the new born baby until the animal can fend for itself.
As I grew older, I had to figure out a way to not worry about what happened to my natural parents. The questions I had about my natural mother was about to consume me. After asking so many people about this abandonment event, and once I realized that no one was willing to give me any straight answers to my questions, I decided to stop asking questions and had to resolve in my own mind what could have possibly happened to both my natural mother and father.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from "Abandoned Children" Rescued, Orphaned, Restored, and Refined.by Carolyn M. Driver Copyright © 2011 by Carolyn M. Driver. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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