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"Plenty Good Room"
by Cheri Paris Edwards
Author Testimony
Brought up by my mother and stepfather I grew up the second
oldest of four girls and one boy in a middle-class family.
I was raised a Christian and eventually confirmed into a
multi-racial Episcopal Church in the small Midwestern town
I lived in. While I didn't fail academically, I became an
underachiever in junior high school, never really working
to my full potential.
After high school I successfully completed some community
college courses and then transferred to a four-year institution
but I did not finish. I came back to the area, worked and
attended college again, still didn't finish, spending much
of these years searching for affirmation through a ‘loving'
relationship. Instead, I repeated the pattern that I'd experienced…though
I'd felt abandoned by the lack of contact with my biological
father as a child, I became the parent of a son whose father
abandoned me.
I knew God, but only from a distance, since I'd never formed
a relationship with Him on my own. One day when my son was
about three, a neighbor told me "God loved me" and
though it wasn't the first time someone had said that to
me….I actually heard her. I had little money and even
less food and too ashamed to tell my family of my plight,
I'd been crying when she stopped by. To my surprise, she
walked us to the grocery store, and allowed me to choose
my own groceries, which she paid for. Stunned, yet grateful
for her selfless actions I felt a desire to know God for
myself and I began to study my Bible on my own. Not long
afterward, I married in an attempt to ‘legitimize'
my life and child and when my ‘too-quickly entered'
marriage dissolved I began to study even more earnestly.
But, even as I was gaining this new-found Biblical knowledge,
I continued to believe that I would find the ‘completeness'
I longed for through a relationship with a man. But, another
son and one short-lived marriage later, I was again on my
own. With a new job as a Community Outreach worker in a local
middle school, it was my job to convince these too-often
wayward young folks to stay in class and/or come to school.
It wasn't long before I discovered that these youth were
the very sort of young people who had made my own middle-school
years so difficult. They were the fighters, the disrespectful
ones…they were the troubled kids.
But, as is often God's way, it is through my relationships
with these young people and their parents that I finally
began to gain a real sense of myself. In the young women
especially, I saw me, wanting to be liked, loved…some
trying hard to be a part of the group and others lingering
on the outskirts, still desiring love. I realized that it
was during my own adolescence that I first learned to underachieve
academically, striving instead to be accepted by my peers.
While I never outspokenly pushed to ‘fit in', I silently
kept to myself all the qualities I had that I thought would
make me stand out in the crowd. I never was a fighter and
so perhaps at times, I had been too afraid to let my ‘light'
shine, so to speak…a coward of sorts. In the mothers
I met, I often saw myself too; and I identified with their
struggles, frustrations and their joys and failures.
Especially touched by the youth I'd met during this time
living in foster care, I took in two young women myself during
this time, but I could keep neither. They were emotionally
fragile and afraid to attach and really so was I. At that
point in my life, they required more than I could offer on
my own while working in another town miles away.
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At
their July 2005 meetings, GLORY GIRLS™ will be discussing Plenty
Good Room by
Cheri Paris Edwards
Cheri Paris Edwards
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My older son and I had been struggling as well during this period
and he moved out to go to Job Corps during this two-year period.
Through these upheavals, my salvation was that I'd begun to pursue
a deeper relationship with God. During quiet meditation twice daily,
I began ‘to exhale'; for the first time in many, many years.
Through the use of breathing exercises, prayer time and most importantly,
silence; I began to reflect on my life. In these quiet moments
I heard God's Word to me. And, finally, at almost 43 years old,
I began to feel an inner peace within myself…at last I began
to feel some self-love.
Approximately one year after I began having this meditative time,
I quit smoking…cold turkey, after twenty-five years. After
years of neglecting myself, I gained the courage to visit a doctor
for old ailments I'd ignored and that became a tumultuous time.
Minor surgery became major…as a result of unchecked fibroids,
my uterus was ten times the normal size and the doctor was forced
to remove it! Next, I sought long-overdue treatment for a lump
growing in my neck and when medication did not work to shrink it,
I returned to a new doctor to schedule surgery after a routine
preparatory cat scan. Instead, I received a glumly delivered diagnosis
of suspected cancer (lung, lymph node and/or thyroid) and embarked
on months of testing with specialists. Subsequently, the growth
in my neck was removed as well as part of my thyroid.
Through over a dozen office visits, procedures and tests, I walked
two miles almost EVERY morning at 4:30 a.m., using my ability to
move with ease physically, to help convince myself that I was okay.
Truthfully, until then I'd never asked God for much, accepting
all that occurred in my life as His will and really not believing
I deserved His help. In fact, for much of my life, I'd grown accustomed
to expecting the worst, and sure enough that's what usually happened.
But, this time, scared and feeling though my life was passing me
by without me ever having participated fully, I asked God to please
let me live. I promised Him if he let me live, I would give life
100% this time, pushing aside my worries about what anyone had
to say about me…I would give life my all! And, ‘no
cancer' is what I heard after each test…no cancer!
Though early on I seemed to hear a small voice telling me ‘all
was well', it was months into the testing, that I dared to become
truly positive and this is when I wrote Plenty Good Room. By then,
I'd begun to believe I would live…but still reasoned that
if I was to die, I would leave some mark of myself behind through
producing the book. I wrote the first draft in about 8 weeks; spending
time writing each evening when I finished the two jobs at the school,
I worked daily. The original title was "LoveWalkin'",
and with Denise's help we changed it to "Plenty Good Room".
I am grateful to her for thinking of it because I love the new
name, since there is ‘Plenty of Good Room' in God's house
for all! The story is still one of that celebrates the power of
the love journey by reminding us how important it is to walk in
love as defined by God in His word. It is God's will that we reflect
His love in how we treat others and ourselves. No matter what disappointments
and hurts we experience, we can always learn to love, even when
we've been hurt, by putting our trust Him.
Though the book's plot was conceived right before I went through
the ‘cancer' trial, months later when I finally began to
write the novel, it was cathartic for me. The characters seemed
to create themselves once I sat down at the computer, and I hope
they reflect with honor the type of life-experiences they represent.
I often shed tears as I wrote, as many of my own frustrations and
concerns are interwoven in the story. I also laughed a lot at the
humorous interactions between the characters, and I hope readers
enjoy these light-hearted exchanges as well.
Through a series of coincidences the manuscript landed back in
Denise Stinson's lap after she had initially rejected it. This
in itself is amazing since I felt that God had drawn me to her
from the first moment I saw her name on the internet! The second
time she read it, I'd worked on for several months, trying to make
the story tighter. I'd submitted a sample to a Christian web site,
called the Writer's Edge. Denise happened to spot the title about
a week later on their monthly print-out, called and asked for the
manuscript again, and this time she liked it!
I am so humbled that God has brought me this far in my life,
because each day as I move through the world, I see myself in others
still struggling. The young woman pushing a stroller down the street
with the baby or standing at the bus stop waiting with her child
in her arms…..that's me. The person who had to learn the
hard way to stand on her own ….that's me too. And, the woman
who still wrestles with insecurities and anxieties….well,
that's me too. But, I wouldn't give up a day of my experiences,
because it is all of the hardships, some the result of my own poor
decisions and choices, that brought me closer to God
God has let me see through my own experiences that my problems
are small in comparison to what others may be going through. Every
second of the day there is suffering…there are diagnoses
of cancer or other debilitating diseases, there are young people
who are abused or neglected, and there are people who live in homelessness,
as well as so many other difficulties and challenges being faced.
I am a witness that when we focus less on our own problems, when
we remember to pray for others whose struggles are greater, and
give of ourselves to those who need our help…it can help
heal our own aching hearts.
I know that my story is not all that unique and the only difference
between myself and another woman with a similar experience has
been the merciful grace of God. I still mis-step and God is still
working on me, but I've finally learned to lean on Him and not
another. In doing so, I am closer to becoming the woman I believe
He wants me to be than I've been in my entire adult life. I've
found that God's love is consistent and my relationship with Him
is the one I can count on. In return, I've learned to love Him
enough to try to live in obedience to His word and my life has
become more blessed because of it! I am convinced that if I, with
all my past mistakes, can be in this particular position, still
alive and healthy after all I've been through it is only because
of the power of God and His grace.
I hope in my writing to inspire those who might be experiencing
difficulty by reminding them through my stories that every life
has meaning to God and many times the problems we face will pass
with time if we remain strong and focus on the Lord's promises.
I am grateful and humbled that He allowed me to be a vessel for
His word in this manner and it is my hope that the book brings
glory and honor to Him and His grace and power
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