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I had to overcome a lot in my life. Trauma after trauma, yet the Lord rebuilt me every time. Each time I faced a new trauma, I told myself that it would be the hardest thing I would ever have to go through. I walked through things like infidelity, teen pregnancy, rape, and emotional and mental abuse. These were seriously hard situations to experience, but God always saw me through them.
July 28, 2022 was supposed to be another ordinary day but it turned out to be anything but that. 30 minutes after talking to my husband, he died in the blink of an eye. He was gone! How would I get through? I was lost. The kids no longer had a father, I no longer had a spouse, and our home no longer had him.
My God knew this would happen, and He had a plan. He reminded me of so many promises through the two women he sent. Through them, I had remained encouraged and supported. Getting squared away with finances and how to navigate the different systems became manageable.
He provided me with the strength to keep going day after day. He gave me reasons to keep smiling in the ability to laugh loudly. Because of Him I have been able to keep going.
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Jesus loves me, this I know For the Bible tells me so
I vividly recall the circle of little wooden chairs in a small vestibule behind the sanctuary at Montgomery Presbyterian Church. I was between three and four years old. In the tiny vestibule we sang “Jesus Loves Me’ knew that my mother loved me. I knew that my Aunt Geraldine loved me as well. When I was six years old, a piano was moved into the sitting room of our house. On Thursdays my mother would drive my father to work then come back home in order to drive me to piano lessons12 miles away. I have no doubt that my Aunt Geraldine paid for the piano and probably the lessons. My aunt also bought me new winter coats and a watch with tiny diamonds. All because they loved me!
My mother was a sweet child of God. The Wilder family legacy was one of faith and gentle spirit. The Mob family from whence came my father carried forward a legacy of anger, alcoholism, and unrelenting bitterness. This legacy was manifested in a generational cycle of physical and emotional abuse among the five Mobley s (My father was the oldest) and alcoholism caged in co-dependence on the part of the one Mobley daughter. The two youngest boys clung to their mother and were emotionally and mentally disturbed throughout their lives.
I learned later that children raised in an abusive household will respond in different ways. Most common is normalization of the abuse. Thus continues a multigenerational cycle of abuse or co-dependence. Less common is a fierce will to not repeat nor tolerate the behavior. I experienced this in dating years, when any show of anger would drive me away. I escaped the noisy environment at home by retreating into books. My favorites were “Heidi” and “Anne of Green Gables”. Was it coincidence that they chronicled life as an orphan? Along the way I became an excellent student, the pride of my parents and family. I was the only child of seven to graduate from high school, the only Mobley to graduate college.
At the age of 15, God placed a young man in my life. He sat in the back of tenth grade French class. I hadn’t noticed him, but he tells me now that my legs drew his attention from the back of the class. I always sat in front. Well, God would use more than a French class to accomplish his purpose. A month or so later, I was walking along the deserted beach on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. My father loved Daufuskie, a remote barrier island where he could escape the noise and stresses of an industrial power terminal where he worked swing- shift. On Daufuskie he could also drink, dance and party with his island friends. Not a recipe for long life. He succumbed to a major heart attack at age fifty-six, but not before I came to understand him and through forgiveness, love him.
Back to the young man. As I was walking the beach, this fellow was standing at the water’s edge balancing a slalom ski. Chuck and his family frequented the Daufuskie beach for picnics, swimming and water-skiing. What a coincidence! He recognized me from French class and I nodded and smiled. Thus began a 58-year romance with our 53nd wedding anniversary approaching soon.
God’s blessings have been beyond measure. Beginning with the immeasurable love and devotion of my husband. A story punctuated by the birth (not an easy one) of our precious son. These blessings have culminated with an amazing daughter-in-law and three incredible grandsons.
The story doesn’t end here. Through a series of “coincidences” I have met and worked together with a cousin from Louisiana (remember the Mobley daughter) to develop a genealogy and gather family history. Genealogical research reveals the tragic experiences that have formed the Mobley Legacy. The reuniting of the Mobleys was begun in 2003 with the first annual Mobley Cousins Reunion. Those whom God has rescued through faith in Jesus Christ have led other cousins to leave the hurt and unforgiveness behind them, to be washed away like footprints from the Daufuskie sands.
Jesus loves you!
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Never, ever, ever give up on the promises that God has for you!
I had made a decision to follow Christ in college at Duke University after being raised in mostly the Catholic, and later Methodist churches as a child. I was also exposed to pornography at the age of 12 or 13, thus beginning my long journey of addiction. Further wounding came at the age of 17 when I was molested by a male college student while attending a magnet high school on a college university campus in Louisiana. Yet the Lord saw me and blessed me by introducing a beautiful young girl with a heart for His into my life. We met when I was 17 and she was 14. After dating for 5 years, she became not only my wife, but eventually my soul mate, my life partner, and my best friend. Our 31 years of marriage have been tested with many trials— early arguments over money and me being controlling, cold and insensitive. The stresses of having to provide for my wife and first child, who was conceived out of wedlock, while studying endlessly in medical school, manifested itself through relief and escape in my pornography addiction. With each child or each new stressor, my addiction grew deeper. But my relationship with God was also growing. He never turned His back on me, even in the middle of my sin. He allowed my sin to be exposed several times throughout our marriage, and each time He has drawn me closer and closer to Jesus as I surrendered my heart piece by piece to Him.
It wasn’t until August 2023 that I realized I had not completely surrendered my entire heart to Jesus. I was holding back a false sense of control and self-sufficiency. Financial freedom had become an idol to me, so the Lord exposed me once again, this time in a spontaneous act of adultery, which was orchestrated by the enemy to stroke my ego and turn me away from God. Through this extremely painful and shameful trial, as I lay naked and bare before Him, I finally surrendered EVERYTHING to Him—all false sense of control, my money, my marriage, my kids, my house… and more. What transpired was nothing short of a miracle, as He transformed me through His mercy and overwhelming, infinite love. He began comforting me with songs of worship and scripture and imagery. Then, within a few days of my complete surrender, He filled me with the Holy Spirit and a Divine Encounter that I will never, ever forget. I saw the throne room and witnessed the circle dance of the Holy Trinity-Abba Father, Yeshua, and Holy Spirit-all together in the most beautiful setting and light imaginable. For nearly an hour during that encounter, as I wept uncontrollably, I felt the most sublime peace, love, and joy one could ever experience. As tears rolled down my face and the vibrational energy of the Holy Spirit surged through my fingers, my arms, and into my body. I didn’t want it to end! I just wanted to stay there, remain, abide. Just as He calls us to abide in Him—He is the vine, and we are the branches; none can bear fruit without Him. I’ve always known that verse, but now I have a much deeper understanding of it.
Now, filled with the Holy Spirit, as I walk face to face with Jesus day by day, hour by hour, I see that He has much more in store for me than I could ever have planned or imagined.
My wife has chosen to forgive me, and God is restoring our marriage in preparation for our journey with Him to further His Kingdom. The Lord is faithful and committed to honoring His promises to those He calls His children, and my story is overwhelming proof of that.
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It was in the spacious confines of the Target family bathroom, alone, where my world was knocked off its axis. It was 2011, and I found out that sunny morning in early April that I was pregnant with my fourth child…nine years after my husband’s vasectomy.
I had just received the beautifully printed invitations for our eldest daughter’s high school graduation; our second daughter was 15 and in the throes of adolescence, and our youngest was 10 years old. My husband and I had only recently begun going out on dates again.
After three stick tests and a blood test, a very long walk around the block with my husband, we were forced to accept it-we were going back to the starting line of parenting. We would be parenting for a total of 36 years.
I was reminded of the old Yiddish adage, “Man plans, and God laughs.”
After our baby came, Skye Lynn, the adjustment was very difficult. I endured a horrible postpartum depression and left behind my music career for a season. I began writing in the late hours of the night when I couldn’t sleep, which led to a blog and then a book of family stories, “The Secret Life of a Doctor’s Wife.”
Over time, I recovered, and Skye became the joy of our home; our older kids gave her a thousand nicknames, songs were written for and about her, and we all continue to delight in her as she has become a talented visual artist and animal enthusiast.
How do we handle the unexpecteds that come to us in life? We may struggle during the adjustment, but in the end, we trust that God knows what is best for us.
Rebekah McLeod, author, musician, storyteller
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October 31, 2019, I tripped and fell and broke my wrist at work. After having immersed myself in worship to the song, “The Goodness of God” that morning, my accident woke me up to how good God had/has been to me over the course of my life. But most especially, to how GOOD HE HAD BEEN in the 10 years before my accident. You see, summer of 2009, I left my husband, my four children, and my home. It was a marriage of about 35 years – a VERY difficult marriage, an emotionally exhausting marriage. Never able to live up to his expectations. However, it wasn’t just leaving him. It was leaving my four children behind, abandoning them. What nearly killed me for it was my children, who kept me going, and then, without them, I felt, “what was the use in living?”
Mother’s Day 2011 my sister came and rescued me from going back and brought me back home, where I grew up. Again, after a year and a half, I left and abandoned my children, yet once again. But God had not abandoned me. He brought me back and placed me in a job that I never in my life imagined I would have. He placed me at Gulfstream as an upholstery tech, where He knew that I could not easily escape back to Jacksonville. This was a job where the Lord could take care of me and have coworkers who would support me, and the healing process began. Eventually, He brought me to Compassion Christian Church, where I was accepted and loved right where I was. Over the next few years, I was able to travel back and forth to Jacksonville to restore relationships with my children.
Only God can mend what we break.
A.S.
