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    Once Broken
    Once Broken
    Once Broken
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    Once Broken

    By Renee Spivey

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Never in my life could I’ve imagine I would be on the inside of a prison cell, but sure enough in 1995, that is exactly what happened. You see, I was the ultimate good girl – perfect student, church-going, never got in trouble girl. I also was an outcast, never fitting in. Even though I knew better, it was really easy for me to succumb to peer pressure.

    Little did I know, being popular was not all it was cracked up to be. I should have “stayed in my lane.” But common sense did not prevail and I found myself in a situation that would change my life forever. It was the worst time, but yet it ended up being exactly what I needed to get my life back on track.

    Thankfully, the story didn’t end there. Come along for the ride in Once Broken...A Journey to Restoration!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRenee Spivey
    Release dateOct 3, 2017
    ISBN9780999046913
    Once Broken
    Author

    Renee Spivey

    Renee Spivey, an avid reader and aspiring author, has a short story in the recently released anthology, When Women Become Business Owners. Women of Worth Ministries, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation whose mission is to inspire, inform and encourage women from all walks of life to step out of the shadows of their past into a brighter future and know that they are Women of Worth!

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      Book preview

      Once Broken - Renee Spivey

      Part One

      My Journey to Restoration

      Chapter One

      Derailed Dreams

      All my life, I knew I wanted to be somebody. Growing up in the country, in a small town, in a house with no working indoor plumbing where the only neighbors are your cousins in the one house down the road, you have a lot of time to dream. I imagined life had to be better than what I was going through.

      I dreamed I would be the first Black, female president.  I had plans to go to college and then to law school because I knew that was the first stepping stone to achieving my dream. Well somewhere along the way, those dreams got derailed. I lost sight of who I was and what I wanted to accomplish. I started trying to live the way I thought other people thought I should live; the way I thought would bring me acceptance. You see, I have always been a loner – always on the outside looking in, yearning to fit in. I never fit in. I was a nerd, raised by a strict mother, oblivious to the ways of the world. I guess I just gave off an aura that kept me from being popular and part of the in crowd. I could count on one hand the number of friends I had and less than a full hand, the number of boyfriends I had over the years.

      During high school, I ended up becoming a statistic…a teen mother. I never expected to get pregnant and foolishly believed that even though I was having unprotected sex, a baby would not be a part of my future. But reality quickly set in and at sixteen, I gave birth to my first-born, a daughter.  Being a teen mother was definitely not part of my dream, but I did not let it stop me from graduating high school. I was determined not to be another statistic. I went on to finish high school in the top twenty-five percent of my class, thanks in part to my daughter’s grandmother who paid for a babysitter so I could finish school.

      Fast forward to high school graduation, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I no longer wanted to live under my mother’s roof. I wanted to be independent and live on my own…no rules, no regulations, I just wanted to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. One of my cousins felt the same way, so we found an apartment, agreed to be roommates, and struck out on our own. Needless to say, at eighteen, I was not ready to handle the type of responsibility that went along with being a full-time working mother and living on my own, so this adventure failed miserably.

      Instead of tucking my tail and going back home to my mother, I decided to move in with someone who claimed to be my friend.  She was grown and experienced in the ways of the world and I was a young naive girl who didn’t know anything about anything.  I have always been shy and unassuming, following everyone’s lead because I just wanted to fit in and be accepted.

      This friend took advantage of that in every way.

      Remember earlier when I said I was never a part of the in crowd and never felt accepted? That feeling persisted for many years and prompted me to do something I knew was wrong, something I knew I would never have done if I had stayed at home just a little while longer.

      During the time, I lived with this friend and ended up committing a crime – felony theft by check. I wrote tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of hot checks, furnishing this woman’s house and both of her daycare facilities, buying clothes, electronics and anything else she wanted while very little of it benefited me.

      I am sure you are wondering how I could I do such a thing especially if I reaped little benefit from it. I did it because she encouraged me to, assuring me I wouldn’t get in trouble, and she made me feel like I had to do it. At the time, I wasn’t working and needed to contribute to the household in some way.  I was guileless and trusting enough to believe her when she told me she’d done it before and gotten away with it, especially if the checks were written to out-of-town businesses. That was not true because I ended up being sentenced to eight years in prison by an out-of-town court.

      On August 17, 1995, I was sentenced to incarceration in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for felony theft by check. Imagine what it feels like to be sitting in front of a judge, waiting on him to hand down a judgment that could potentially change your life. I could not believe the same things I saw on TV in courtroom dramas was happening to me.

      Even though I had prayed and made all kind of promises to God, that judge had no mercy on me and quickly sentenced me prison. I had never been in any trouble before. Me, the church going, good grade-getting, mostly-obedient child. I had no business going to prison, but sure enough, it happened. Even though I was a first-time offender, I was convicted and went on to serve almost two years of an eight-year sentence.

      I was devastated! I just knew God heard my prayers and knew He wouldn’t allow me to go to prison. After all, I promised I would go back to church and be active in the church. I was going to be the best little Christian girl I could be. It was as if God laughed in my face because He knew I was only making those promises because I had found myself with my back up against the wall. God knows when we are sincere and He knows when we are making empty promises. They may not seem empty to us when we make them, but the One who is all-seeing and all knowing, knows.

      I knew what I did was wrong. Who writes tens of thousands of dollars in checks and expects to get off with a slap on the wrist? I know God knows I only did those things to fit in, to be one of the cool people, but that didn’t exempt

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