Seed of Life
by
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IT’S HARD TO single myself out from a bunch of children struggling to survive the life that was thrown our way. I see a little girl from afar. In my thoughts, she doesn’t belong to me. We are totally separated. The feelings and emotions are completely dead. It’s like I’m watching a television program of her life. The memories are still there, deeply embedded, but it’s like they are of another child, not myself. Maybe I locked her away somewhere in the depths of her subconscience mind. If the pain and anguish were too much for her to take, locking her away was the only thing she could do to survive. Or am I too afraid to see this child as a part of me? The pain I may have to face blocks her out of my own existence. Now I need to find her and feel for her again. But how do I get in touch with her? Where is she? I am an adult now, but the child I lost is still deep within my inner being. Her roots are still holding me in bondage to fear and torment with the suppressed emotions still locked up within the child. I need the key to release the damaged soul and mind to be the whole adult person I was meant to be, to be emotionally free. I have found that the only way to find her is to write her story. Maybe as I go through her life from as early as I can remember, her feelings may start to get in touch with me again. My conception and birth There was much confusion and trauma for Mum at the time of my conception and birth. Mum locked that part of her life away and didn’t speak about it for years. I couldn’t even find out where I was born until two weeks before she died in December 1993. When she knew she was dying of cancer, she sat with me and told me the truth about her life and the truth around my birth and her painful experiences around my conception. What I did know was that Mum and Dad lived in South Africa for a time before my birth, due to Dad serving in the Royal Navy. They lived well then. Mum loved it. They even had a servant whom Mum loved as a friend. But their life started to fall apart when Dad was struck down with tuberculosis, resulting in a collapsed lung. The lung was removed and he became very ill and frail. It took months for him to recover. Mum went through much grief and worry over Dad’s illness. Coping with a young family didn’t help. After some time, Dad was discharged from the navy on medical grounds, which put a great strain on both of them. There were no prospects and their future was uncertain. What were they going to do? Leaving many friends and the happy memories of South Africa and navy life behind, they were sent back to England to my dad’s hometown of Nottingham, with no home of their own to go. Somewhere in the midst of sickness, uncertainty and worry, I was conceived. The timing couldn’t have been worse. When they arrived back in England, they had only one room in an old house in Nottingham, belonging to an Asian family who were kind enough to rent to them. But this didn’t ease the pressure of the family situation, resulting in a complete change in Dad’s personality. The sickness, plus a dramatic change in lifestyle had taken its toll on Dad, and another baby was on the way. They already had two sons and three daughters: George, Peter, May, Janet, and Pauline. When Mum was six and a half months pregnant with me, she had a shocking experience and went into premature labor. Dad had taken to drink and this caused him to get irrational in his thinking. He got ideas into his head that Mum had been unfaithful to him. One day, Mum went to the coal shed to bring in some coal to make a fire. Little did she know that Dad was waiting behind the door with a belt in his hand. He leaped out at her and beat her with the belt. The shock, then pressure to abort me using knitting needles, brought on the labor which resulted in my premature birth on November 19, 1952.
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About the Book
When I first started writing, publishing a book was the last thing on my mind. I knew there was still a fragmented, locked up, hurting little girl deep inside me. It affected the way I felt about myself. I needed to get in touch with the Yvonne that I had locked away many years ago. I asked my great friend Jesus, the one who knows all things and even the roots to our very being, to go on this journey with me. He unlocked memories and core pain beyond anything I could ever imagine. This book contains deep exposing issues of my life. I never wanted them to be exposed, let alone in a book. But the freedom grew daily. Not long into writing the book, I began to have a great burden to help the hurting and the mentally ill, to give them hope in their own lives. First I wrote it from the eyes of the four year old, and then along with the power of the Spirit, and was careful to write it with biblical truth. I felt as though I was turning from a crushed up flower, never having the chance to show my beauty. Now the petals are starting to open, showing what is inside. This book is meant to give hope for life to those who feel too damaged to be repaired. Not just repaired, but made totally new.
About the Author
Yvonne Brett was born and raised in the city of Nottingham, England. Her life was filled with trauma, abuse, and poverty, as was that of the twelve brothers and sisters. They struggled to survive their lives, which seemed to be thrown away. Outwardly, she looked frail and well undernourished. Shy to the point of not speaking, she lived in her own shell, her own safety covering. But beneath the battered frail little girl, her inner strength went well beyond her own capability, right to adulthood. God had plans to use the depths of her pain and suffering to comfort others. From the age of thirty Yvonne worked alongside her husband Patrick, pastoring an Assemblies of God church in Nottingham. She always looked for the sad face sitting in the back of the church, to comfort and love. That empty void in her own life went out to others causing her to love them in the way that she had not been loved. Her friends said that was a magnet to the outcasts. She used to say, "Good, they need the love and care the most." People of all walks, including the mentally ill, came for to her home for help day and night. In 1995, Yvonne and her family moved to the Appalachian Mountains on the boarder of Western Maryland and of West Virginia. Her heart never changed towards the poor and needy. She would rather tend to individual lives, than stand up front and preach. She is a Partners In Harvest pastor affiliated with the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship in Toronto, Ontario, who reach out to the world and to various denominations with the Love of God.