The Storyteller

"You know, I never experienced a father in my life, so I would just turn to many different things, like boys and drugs and alcohol, just to fill myself, but, you know, it wasn't filling; it would just leave me lonely in the end."

"So I went to Charles, but I didn’t tell him what was going on in my thoughts. I asked him to give me a straight shot of whiskey, and I always had the pills to make me high or low, so I went into the bathroom and took those two elements, and what I was trying to do, I was trying to forget that voice."

In this second part of Harriet's story, she shares the struggles of her early years. The family moved around to different reservations because of her father's work, but they only spoke English. No matter where she went, it seemed that she couldn't fit in. Eventually, she would leave home for another strange place. Listen as she tells the story of how she ended up in a boarding school... where she experienced the most significant moment in her life.

It's tough growing up when you feel like you don't fit in. For a little girl named Harriet, it was a lonely time. Listen as she reflects back on the early days of her life, and as she shares the most significant moment in her life... at a school away from home.

"I never dreamed, I would not have dreamed this life, because it would not have occurred to me that it could happen. But God has opened up doors of ministry and influence and opportunity that are beyond my comprehension, and He’ll do the same for you."

"I had evaluated everything that came into my life, even as a young street urchin. I knew it was all about me, every person that came down the sidewalk, everything that happened to me in my life, immediately my thought was, ‘How was this going to affect me? How do I get benefit out of this?’ Just a little con artist, a little manipulator, and totally self-absorbed, maybe by necessity, as all the street urchins are, but that’s the way I had learned to think and exist."

"Danny was the big man on campus. He was the meanest, toughest, most foul-mouthed boy on the ranch, and we all wanted to grow up and be just as tough and mean as he was. But he would kick us around, hit us, yell at us, force us to do his chores and things, just a very mean fellow, but one day Danny just changed, totally without any explanation, without any warning his life changed. His demeanor changed, his vocabulary changed everything about him, and nobody knew what had happened."

You've heard alcohol referred to as spirits. Have you heard though about spirits leveraging the bottle? No doubt there are some who will admit this, perhaps others have never thought about it. What Ted experienced was frightening beyond imagination on his journey to loose the chains that bound him.

When alcohol is your master, it effects every part of your life. For some, it comes on slow. But eventually you begin to realize the grip is not you on the bottle, but the bottle on you. Ted speaks candidly of his journey to find something the bottle could not offer.

'Unfortunately, I ended up having to hear my husband at that time tell me that I had to make a choice between him and God. And I told him there was no choice; 'I live for God now,’ and he walked out."