Kristi's Story

I decide to share the piece of my story that began my personal relationship with my Eternal Father.   I was 27 at the time and had two children and was married to an abusive man.  I worked graveyard and would often arrive at work with handprints on my throat or torn clothes…  I was trying to make my marriage work and had tried working with the police about the situation but they were no help. 

I got to the point that I felt I needed to end my marriage and so I filed for a divorce and I also filed for a restraining order.  My husband at the time would harass my friends, he disabled my car, and one night I woke up and he was standing at the foot of my bed, and it was only because I threatened to call the police- and at this time he had warrants out for his arrest- that he left.  But he did not go away, sometimes when I would be tucking my girls in at night I would look up, and there would be his face in the window.

 

I was tired of looking over my shoulder, he wore me down, and I agreed to move to Montana with him.  That is where all of his family lived and I thought he would behave himself with his family nearby.  So we moved up there and things only got worse. 

When the state of Montana stepped in and said that they were going to press charges, things got really bad.  He forced me to go talk to the prosecuting attorney and try to convince him to drop the charges.  The man just looked at me and said “I don’t believe you, I think you are just afraid of him”  I was afraid of him, and what life was going to be like when he found out that I failed to get the charges dropped.  I went to bed that night knowing that I was soon going to wake up with a gun to my head and the thought occurred to me that I did not want this man to raise my children.  

I was not allowed to have a phone and I tried a couple of times to get to a phone and call my parents but he found me and stopped me.  Then one day I told him that I needed to return the kids’ books to the library.  Because he was distracted, he did not go with me, and he did not follow me, so I called my mom and told her that I was going to run away with my girls and check myself into a woman’s shelter in the next town until I could earn enough money to get us home to Utah.  Instead, my mom wired me the money. 

I made arrangements to pick up a uhaul truck and arranged with a couple of neighbors who did not like my husband to help me load up a few things.  So my husband got up to go to work and I rushed to get the truck, load up some things, and then get on the road.  I was trying to hurry because he worked right next to the mountain pass that I needed to cross, and I thought I needed to be across the pass and over the mountain before his lunch time, when he might step outside and see me, and discover my plan.  So we loaded up what we could and headed for the pass, but they were doing construction and they said that it would be a 45 minute wait. 

I sat there in the truck and just sobbed, not knowing if we would be discovered or not.   And I had left in such a hurry that I did not grab any snacks or water, and my 2 year old was complaining that she was hungry.  As I sat there sobbing, and whispering a prayer that we would not be found, a little grandmotherly type lady in the van behind us came and knocked on my window and asked if we would like some of her sandwiches and soda. 

I could not believe it!  We had not attended church in many years, and we drank, and I figured God had no reason to know who I was, or what I was doing, or what my needs were.  I couldn’t believe it when she knocked on my window with the things that we needed!  It was as if he had sent this angel to tell me, that he knew who I was, and what I was going through.   This gave me hope.  

This wonderful angel lady came to my rescue one more time a few miles down the other side of the mountain.  At the time I was not sure what she was trying to do, she nearly got herself killed trying to pull me over, but finally she got me to pull over.  I was leaving sparks from a chain that was dragging, and she was able to pull out a very large and long pair of tweezers and jam them into the hole to hold the chain up.  I made it safely the rest of the way.  And my ex-husband’s family delayed him until I could get there safely.  The police were waiting for him when he did arrive. 

 

This experience was the beginning of my awareness the Heavenly Father loves all of His children, even when they are not being perfect, and that he was aware of me.  This was the beginning of the wonderful relationship that I have with my Heavenly Father now!  I love Him and I know that He will never abandon us!