Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2008 at http://www.godsword.net
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A generational podcast where three generations of Christian women share their thoughts about different issues and aspects of life.

The next 5 podcasts are part of a 5 part series titled
"Through the Darkness."

Christina Diliberto is on vacation and Bridgette Mongeon and Barbara Ingersoll  share their testimony.

Hosts-Bridgette Mongeon Barbara Ingersoll

Listening time approximately 16 minutes

SHOW NOTES

Bridgette 47 and Barbara 72 Bridgette receives hope in the night, and learns that God is real.

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 Announcer: Welcome to inspirations spot radio.com spot on is a British expression that means absolutely correct or exactly what is needed.  You are listening to the inspirational channel featuring topics that reflect on faith and the spiritual side of life.  Brought to you by God’s Word collectible sculptures found at www.godsword.net
Give God’s word as a gift.

Collect God’s Word in your heart.

Bridgette: Hello my name is Bridgette Mongeon I am the host of the inspirational  channel of spot on radio.com welcome to the generational podcast where three generations of Christian women will be sharing our thoughts about different issues and aspects of life my host and  daughter Christina delivery was on vacation so today it will just be my mom and I I would like to introduce to you  my mom Barbara Ingersoll.


Mom are you there?

Barbara:  Yes I am here  darling

Bridgette: My mother and I have been taking a journey into our pasts, the difficult places and our lives.  in hopes by sharing our journey that we need be able to help another woman or women  that will share when and if true difficulties in their lives/

 Thank you for staying with as I know this is not the easiest thing listen to. but today I would like to talk to you about in all of this difficulty God can bring hope and even if it's just a glimmer of hope sometimes it's just enough time to keep you holding on.

If it is o.k. mom Lets go back to Grand Island.

Barbara:   o.k.

Does that sound good.

Barbara:   That is o.k with me

Bridgette: We had talked about previous podcasts we had discussed how mom started to drink and became an alcoholic and also a prescription drug addict and the affects that it had on the family.  But again as we make ourselves vulnerable we open ourselves, and healing comes and also we hope that this will help others.  We had talked about how I was scared of the woods and you have mentioned after podcast closing that you were also scared of those woods me tell me about that? 

Barbara: Yes, at night a lot of times I just couldn’t sleep and I would go sit in the living room and we had a great big bay window in front and the house and  I would look out that window and the house was all dark and so was the woods. But, I swear there were people in the woods, and the way I could tell was they were smoking cigarettes and these red lights were going off an on. In my own paranoia I thought it was all in my head, I am certain sure there were not people in the woods, but in my paranoia they were very real.  I would slink down off of the couch and onto the floor and slink back into the bedroom and of course they were in the bedroom window then, no matter where I went they were watching me. But those woods were very scary to me.

I think that what I did was say to you, at one point how scared I was of those woods, and I think, looking back on it that you took on that fear. 

You know alcoholism is not just a single person disease, it is a disease and that is not an excuse it is an explanation and It is recognized by the American medical Association as a disease. It can be taken care of but it can never be cured.

 If I were talking to you today, I would say, I am still an alcoholic in the sense that though it has been 35 years since I had a drink of alcohol. I cannot ever drink again. And in that sense I keep it under control, but I would be afraid to drink anything for the simple reason that I don’t know what it would do to me.  And I don’t’ want to find out I don’t’ want to go back there in that horrible place again.

Bridgette: And that's been thirty-something years correct

Barbara: Right!

Bridgette: I remember you speaking about it affected everybody it even affected our family poodle.   We had a dog and that dog loved you.

Barbara: Yes.

Bridgette: I remember the sicker you got the sicker that dog got.  And we didn’t realize it till later that it was emotionally sick because of what was going on in our household.

Barbara:  Oh yes.

Bridgette:   I think your right that I might have picked up that fear from you.

I do remember a day you telling me about the people in the woods at that point, not that I wasn't scared.  I didn't care if they wanted to kill me or not and that was the stance that I had.  And I remember looking out into the darkness thinking about how frightened you were.  I didn't really care not that I didn’t care for you I didn’t care if they were going to come and get us. Because the things I was living through were so difficult.

I would like to share with you, that God did give me a hope.
 
And I have expressed in different podcast that my mother and I have a bond together we seem to have gone through, we seemed to carried  each other through spiritual things or a sister  that goes beyond just being sisters in Christ I think you would agree with that right  mom?

Barbara:  Oh yes, definitely!

Bridgette:   And so I'd like to share with you this one situation on Grand Island. Mom was in a place where most of the time I found her in bed and most of the time she was not coherent. And when you say you're sitting on a couch in the living room I have a hard time picturing that because I can't even remember seeing you out of your bedroom on Grand Island.

But the point is that God brought hope to me in the night, and I had been, at that time even though I was about nine years old, I was still afraid of the darkness. And at night, when I would go to bed, I would ask everybody to keep the hall light on.  If the hall light was a little too   strong we kept the bathroom light on.  It casts a light just over my threshold of my bedroom.

I had sought God, during his time, and even as young child I felt a drawing on my heart.  I remember ever getting a Tide box a Tide clothing laundry detergent and setting up in my bedroom.  I got my mom’s best tablecloth, Her Candelabra and the holy bible, the big Catholic holy bible.  I set it on his alter that I created in my room and told God that I wanted him to reveal himself to me. That I would read this entire book, because that's the only place that I knew to find god. I figured If I had an alter, and I had a bible, and I made a promise that I  would read it I certainly would see God. I certainly would know God existed and the funny thing is I couldn’t get past the first chapter in Genesis. Thinking I should start at the beginning of the bible. Everyone knows now  you should probably start in the New Testament maybe John. 

But, when I couldn’t understand the bible and I felt like he was hiding himself from me.  I became very irritated, aggravating and agitated over this whole God thing. One day I was in bed it was at nighttime. I was missing my friend Susie you heard from the previous podcasts we have moved to this house and the woods and away from my friend and that was the only happiness I can remember was with Susie. 

I sat up in bed and I folded the sheets of over my lap.  Just kept smoothing them out and I finally said, I whispered to god,  “you say that you are real” and I could feel the darkness in my room shift. “ and they tell me that you can hear me” and I said, “OK then if you are real and can hear my prayers you fix this!  You do something to show me there is hope and that you are the real.  I can't take it anymore!   I need to know you are real!” 

When I would cry at night, very rarely would anyone here my cries. My older sister she was four years older than I, would come into my room if she heard me crying and she would console me.  She didn’t at this time and a lot of times if I was crying real hard I would go into the back of the closet and I would cry.

If there were things that were happening in the household that where difficult for me to hear, anger or yelling or anything of that nature, I would put my fingers in my ears and I would rock back and forth and I would say anything that I could, usually the Hail Mary, the Our Father, or the Pledge of Allegiance.

[laughter]
 Hoping that something would arise from my my m…. really chanting. During that night as I said this, I saw figure that was in the doorway and in the bathroom glow created a halo around this image. It was much too big to be my sister.  And it's said to me, “Are you all right?” 

I said, “Yeah” and the figure came closer  to me.
 
And it said, “you are sad, tell me about it.”
And I strained between my tears and the…
I thought this must be an angel. There could be no one else. I thought… I saw… my mother, as sober as anything standing there I saw my mom. I kept saying to myself, “It can't be my mom, my mom is in bed, hallucinating or unconscious. It certainly can't be my mom. This person is totally coherent, and she came to my bed, and she sat on the edge of my bed and all she sat on the edge of my bed and she leaned into me, I remember trying to smell her breath.   Certainly I would smell alcohol on her breath.  I smelled nothing but sweetness.

And my mother said, “Tell me what's wrong?”  I couldn’t believe how comforting her words where.  There was more wrong in my life than I could ever muster, but I blurted out only one thing I said, “I miss Susie.”  She was my best. 

And I had no friends, I had nothing where I was and I needed to have something. And this mother figure, my mom reach down and she smoothed me with her touch.  I don't know if it was her words or my hours of a sobbing, but that touch was so intoxicating. 

And she said, “I wasn't going to say anything to you or your brother and sister; however, I can see how much this means to you. I have a surprise. I've made arrangements for all of us to go on a vacation together.  Each of you children can bring anybody you like. 

And I just looked up and said,” I can bring Susie?”  And she said, “Sure you can bring Susie.” And my mother, this angel figure, tucked me in and I was comforted beyond any comfort that I can remember. I said, “How could God know what I needed before I even asked?  The Allegheny mountains was my favorite place. I could play in the creek, and could make leaf boats, search for beds of moss, and visit bear caves. I turned around in bed and said, “I will never a doubt the you are real.”   I muttered a  thank you to God and I fell asleep.

 Now mom I  know you have no recollection of that are you still with me ?

Barbara: Are you kidding me. I do remember, I remember bits and pieces of it, but you never told me that story. I do remember a time that I went to you, why you didn’t smell alcohol, why I was coherent is totally up to God. But, I do remember a night. I don’t remember if it is the same night.  But I remember a night going to you and saying
And saying sort of like the things you were saying and telling you I have a surprise for you.

That was the year that Billy asked his cousin Davy to go, and I told all of you, all three of my children that they could ask anyone that they wanted to go with them
But , I know I was drinking because I took you guys to Alleghany
Father drove us down and drove some of our stuff down. And then he came to Buffalo to work, and I stayed in Alleghany with six kids. I had to be drunk!

Bridgette:  Yeah, Absolutely.

Barbara: But,  I was drinking in Alleghany
To this day Young Dave will say, that was the best vacation he ever had.
And he and his family would do everything together.  But the reason it was so good for him was that No body was watching him, he could do whatever he wanted, there was I sitting at the campfire just drinking.

Bridgette:   Thank you God for the protection
Barbara:  Honestly thank you for the protection. And for the way that he presented it to you, it was exactly cause I have never heard the story from your end, cause it was exactly what you needed in  a way that really showed you god was real.

Bridgette:   It was an absolute profound moment.  And I just think that I had said in a previous podcasts that “restore what the locust has eaten. ” it’s a scripture in the bible that he can do and what he did was he actually took all that pain, and he utilized it.  And he can utilize it for good because we would not be here talking to women right now have we not gone through this.  And representing different generations, but, I just think it is so  profound that you were a part of that.  The thing that we've been a part of each other's walks of much to spiritual eight but that's really important and I thank you so much for letting a share that.

Barbara: Well I think that we can share those things, as hard as they are to hear and to share> we can share them because along the way, going way back, many years. We have been sharing little by little and asking forgiveness, and getting healed and exchanging confidences as we went.

Until today we can sit here and share the deepest things, and not fall a part. Because there would be a time that I would fall apart to hear that story.  It was good,
I didn’t realize what a profound thing it was when it happened. And now I do.

Bridgette:   I would like to advise our listeners. If there are women out there who are listening to this who are hurting and need some type of assistance. I would like to ask that you do pray, like I did when I was sitting in bed. And you know, challenge god  say I need your help, I need you to do something. I can’t take this anymore and then try to find help somewhere go to a support group, find a church or something

If it is drugs or alcohol try AA do something to help yourself get you out of this.  In our next podcast we had talked about how we moved around a lot as a child, and we are going to move one more time, back to Kenmore, NY and at this point mother hits her bottom they say an alcoholic hits before they can become sober and both of us come to know the Lord, so I hope you will stay with us until next time.
Mom, thanks so much for joining me.

Barbara:Thank you darling

Announcer:
You are listening to the inspirational channel featuring topics that reflect on faith and the spiritual side of life.  Brought to you by God’s Word collectible sculptures found at www.godsword.net
Give God’s word as a gift.

Collect Gods word in your heart.