I grew up in a working class suburb of western Sydney called Mt Druitt. Despite the social challenges of our area, high levels of poverty, unemployment and criminal activity, my home was a happy one. Unlike most of my friends, my parents were together and loved each other very much; more than 50 years later, they still do. My dreams for the future were not lofty. I wanted to ....
My story really begins before I was born. My mother was a shy, single 23 year old girl. Raised by a loving mother and father she was the third child in a family of eight children and had led a very sheltered life. Her first boyfriend was the ‘cast off’ boyfriend of her younger sister. He too was 23 but his life had been far less stable. His parents separated when he was t....
High school was not the best of times for me. To be honest, I used to avoid even thinking about it. Sure, there are some precious memories from those years, but the hard parts always seemed to outweigh everything else. I was a thin and fragile girl and I struggled with mental health issues for a while. I can still remember standing in the middle of the cafeteria in the 10th gra....
I became a Christian in my early twenties but didn’t really have an understanding of what this meant and it had little impact on how I lived my life. I got married and had a son but the enemy knew exactly what to do to get me off track and it happened pretty quickly and involved an old boyfriend! Once I went off track things got a bit wild. I drifted along living an increasin....
I have known that I am adopted for as long as I can remember. My parents encouraged me to find my birth parents but it never really interested me, although I did think about my birth mother on my birthday and Mother’s day. I am so thankful that she chose life for me and I told my friends and family ‘if I ever do meet her I want to say thank you for my life.’ …....
