BLESSED HANDS INSPRIRATIONS

MY TESTIMONY

NOT GUILTY AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET ME FREE

{Racism within the Body of Christ}

{In the hands of the klu klux klan}


There are three sides to every story: There's God's side for only HE knows, the other persons side, and here's MY side of the story...

In June of 2002, I was arrested on the charges of cruelty to all three of my children and released with bail. Release date was July 6, 2002...My son, was brain-washed and was the one who had me incarcerated. Yes, this is true. Incarcerated on a felony charge. I tell you, nothing like this has never happened to me before. They charged me with physical abuse and neglect. I still could have never imagined something like this happening to me. Yes, we have been through a lot and I am sick and tired of everything! All I know was one day I came in from looking for another job, taking a test at the Bank to be a teller,

checking on my apartment, and putting $250.00 down on a used car. During this time, I was brought in for questioning. I was SO confused; I didn't know what to do.

At the time, we were living with a church member in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Lawrenceville, GA. This was so embarrassing for me. When I was put into the car, I noticed this stupid smirk my son had on his face. My girls were crying. Now, here I am thinking "what is this...this is a pure nightmare". After things had settled down a bit he thought that he had gotten the best of me, he couldn't wait to call everybody whom had already come against me. I was at

2

Paula Cook Thompson

the point that I didn't know whether I was coming or going. I asked myself "couldn't this had happened a different way?" I really was heading toward a nervous break down. My Heart was already ripped out from my ex-husband's infidelity. I started seeing the signs...it looked like the more and more I prayed and praised God, the worse things had become. I asked my mother and uncle to come get the children and me because my ex-husband and I had gotten into a big, big fight. I had already told him I was going to leave him, because we were always fighting AND ON TOP OF THAT, WE HAD JUST HAD ANOTHER CHILD!!! Times was already hard; I mean we were always behind on bills.

Every job I had just wasn't enough to pay the bills. I know they say every little bit helps, but it was just wasn't balancing out. I had married a man with five children which at that time I thought it was a blessing. He already had three children with him when we were married and the other two were living with their mother. Well, it had gotten to the point that it was best for me to be home and work on getting our business started. Cleaning carpets, building children's furniture, etc...This business could have

worked because we HAD the talent. Due to all of the chaos and disorder, nothing came of it. For it would seem that every time we got off work, the house would be out of order. The boys were old enough to be home alone and stay there until we got home. At the time, they were 13, 14 and 15. We even told them never open the door to strangers. I would be so frustrated, because it seemed like they didn't want to listen to me at times and would wait until their father got home; then it came to the point that I was a housewife; home with the children until their father got home.

We would pray, pay our tithes, plus first fruits and offerings, read the bible and have rap sessions about girls and sex. I enjoyed and loved all of our children. Now, don't get me wrong we DID

3

Paula Cook Thompson

have some good ol' times, especially when I had gotten my tax return one year, we finally took a vacation and went to Helen, GA. Even though we were a normal family, it STILL was a verbal, physical and abusive marriage. One day his friend, which at the time, he claimed that's all who she was, called the house and asked for him. Now, this was his co-worker (she was very bold) and what I found out later also his mistress. I told her he wasn't in and that he should still be at work with you. Well, apparently, he wasn't. So, I asked her can I help you? She told me no and that he was her friend and she needed to talk to him. I said, excuse me???!!

Well, let me tell you, by that time my flesh had taken over and I slammed the phone down!! As I can remember, my ex-husband would speak of this co-worker relating to her as his so called "friend". He would tell me things about her, like the time she went to jail for being intoxicated. Not to mention, she had also gotten into a fight, because she was

involved with some one's boyfriend and that she was this Caucasian girl living in a trailer park... When, he finally got home I confronted him about it and well, needless to say, it lead to a big argument. Even before we had our last child, I knew that he was being unfaithful because after we would have sexual intercourse, my body chemistry would always produce an allergic reaction (a foul discharge in my under garments). Well, I had went to the doctor and was treated for a controllable infection. Still, this didn't make it any better.

Moving on...I'll never forget when my son was about 5 years old, we had just bought a new house, a new car and I had my own child-care business. I had that business for two years and it was called " Brandon 's Daycare". Of course, named after my son. My son said to me, "Mommy, I would love to have a father, sisters and brothers". In fact, he even drew a picture of it. I told him.