Out of Darkness

vol.58 no.2 APR-JUN 19 Out of Darkness / Out of Darkness / The Oldest Orphan / The Long Road Home / My Beloved Alexander: A Life Cut Short challenger APR - JUN 2019 Out of Darkness by Stormie Omartian* nce you recognize the darkness as one of four female singers and Ofor what it is, it is possible to dancers on The Glen Campbell walk out of it and into the light for Goodtime Hour. Glen was the best, the rest of your life. I desperately but the work was challenging—and needed restoration, and I found I suffered from chronic doubt about transformation! If I could ind it,my abilities. Besides two TV series anyone who wants it can ind it too!a week, I crammed every spare hour with recording sessions and Escape to Nowhere commercials. I was obsessed with working. It helped me minimize In 1969, I worked in television my deep feelings of inadequacy 2 and enabled me to keep a tighter fellows I had dated, and we were rein on the depression and fear that somewhat compatible. Despite pleas always threatened to control my life. from a friend and Christian musician, Depression was something I dealt Michael Omartian, that I not marry with daily. For most of my life, at Rick, I was getting married. I had to least as far back as age13, I awakened settle for some amount of security every morning to the thought, Should and reprieve from my intense I kill myself now or can I make it loneliness and fear. through another day? Unfortunately, I believed I was only as good as my After marriage, my loneliness last performance, so when a job was actually increased daily, along with over, so were my good feelings about my fear and self-doubt. I needed myself and my life. more from Rick than he could give, and I resented him for not being able Despite the frightening aspects of the to give it. And the growing bitterness occult, I was irresistibly drawn to it. I toward Rick was taking its toll on my was desperate for anything that could body. I was frequently ill. I felt ugly possibly ill my emptiness inside, and old. All the choices I had made soothe the intense emotional pain I for my life that I thought would save felt, and quell the unreasonable fear it were killing me. that threatened to control my mind. There had to be an answer for me. Living in Darkness From Ouija boards to horoscopes, to seances, no matter how I tried One day, a friend who knew I was to think good thoughts, the fear, struggling called to give me the name depression, anxiety, and panic in me of a psychologist. My emotional grew worse. Peace eluded me. afliction had been affecting my work! With the assurance that the After two close-death encounters doctor gave “good advice,” I made from drugs and alcohol, I knew I an appointment. Not being able to had to correct my lifestyle or I was hold in my emotions any longer, I going to self-destruct. Every day I blurted out all my problems to this entertained suicidal thoughts, but man. With reassuring words, Dr I didn’t really want to die. Wishing Foreman suggested that I open a few that I didn’t have to live alone, I doors from my past to see that what resolved that I would not live alone. was once so frightening no longer Marriage was the answer, and Rick posed any threat to me. was the most likely candidate. I had known him the longest of all the I took a deep breath and slowly began Out of Darkness 3 challenger with my earliest recollection. I was were the only ones I understood. So, four years old, sitting cross-legged on it was oficially conirmed: There was APR - JUN 2019 top of the large laundry basket that something deinitely wrong with my was illed to overlowing with dirty mother, something that had a name. clothes. I waited in the darkness of the small closet beneath the stairway It was during this time too that I of our old, two-story ranch house, not learned that I was pregnant. The daring to get down from my position news devastated me. Marriage was because of the mice that frequently out of the question, and suicide was scurried across the loor. a solution to my terrifying dilemma of being pregnant and unmarried. My mother was always angry with me. The weight of the world was on my Her bitter anger was so frightening shoulders, but I knew that my dad that I had frequent nightmares about and younger sister needed me. There her. When she told me that I was was just one place left to turn. I drove ugly, stupid, bad, and would never to Tijuana, Mexico, for an abortion. I amount to anything, I realized I was knew the risks. I had wanted to die a very undesirable person. Feelings so many times in my life, and now of helplessness, hopelessness, futility, the thought frightened me. I prayed rejection, abandonment, sadness, silently, “God, please let me live and fear, and self-hatred settled heavilyI’ll be good.” on me. These were words too big for me to fully understand or verbalize For years I had dreamed of doing at age four, but they were genuine the things I was now doing, but feelings I experienced every day. all of the modeling, commercials, television shows, and acting could Throughout my adolescence and not convince me I was attractive or high school years, Mother’s behaviortalented. I still saw myself as ugly was erratic and volatile. Her behaviorand unacceptable—a failure who made no sense. I was always aware of would never amount to anything, the fact that I lived in a crazy house— as my mother always reminded me. not like the homes of normal people. And all my grasping for love caused There was no laughter, no fun, no me to end up in the same situation peace in our lives, and no hope for that two years earlier I had promised it ever being different. My last year in God would never happen again. I college I learned that my father had got pregnant. Getting pregnant was consulted a doctor who diagnosed deinitely a bad career move, and my mother’s mental illness with a without my career, I would cease to string of medical terms of which exist. In contrast to the last abortion, “schizophrenic” and “paranoid” when I felt relieved to be alive, this 4 time I felt depression, failure, and Son of God, and that the Holy Spirit disgust. It had been so ugly. wasn’t working with power in my life right then. “That way,” he said, “you Finding the One True Light are rendered totally powerless.” Dr. Foreman listened to my story The book of John was making things unfold over a number of months and a little clearer for me. Jesus said, “I helped me gain some perspective, have come as light into the world, but neither of us could understand that whoever believes in Me should the origin of my mother’s hatred not abide in darkness.” I didn’t fully toward me. Then one day, Terry, a understand, but I recognized that the Christian friend who knew I wasn’t light had been there all along, but doing well, asked me to come with I couldn’t see it. My spiritual eyes her to meet her pastor. “What have were so blinded that I had chosen you got to lose?” she insisted. I darkness over His light, and I didn’t looked at the devastation of my life even know it. “In Him was life, and and clearly saw that she was right—I the life was the light of men. The certainly had nothing to lose. light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Pastor Jack listened intently as I shared about my depression and When Pastor Jack asked if I wanted to fear. Then he asked, “Have you ever receive Jesus and be born again, I said, heard of the term born again?” He surprisingly without any hesitation, explained that being born again is a “Yes, I do.” It was simple and easy. I spiritual birth, not a physical birth. was born again, and according to the It’s the opportunity to not only secure Bible, I was the Lord’s and His Spirit your eternal future, but your future in lived in me. And that is how I knew this life as well—to begin life anew, the Lord would change me from the with your past forgiven and buried. inside out. I sensed a supernatural presence of love so powerful that it Pastor Jack gave me a reading permeated the air and washed over assignment, including the Gospel me. There’s life here, I thought to of John, which gave me something myself. And this life is real. tangible to do while looking forward to our next meeting. Later, meeting Delivered! with Terry and the pastor, I confessed that I didn’t believe in the devil. All that remained between Rick and Pastor Jack calmly explained that me was resentment. When I told the devil wanted me to believe that Rick that Jesus had changed my life, he didn’t exist, that Jesus wasn’t the he demanded that the name of Jesus Out of Darkness 5 challenger never be mentioned in our house pastor’s wife prayed over me.

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