January 24th, 2019 (most def not the beginning of my story!)
INTRODUCTION:
My husband encouraged me to write down my life story. He thinks it will encourage people, especially women (especially ones who’ve gone through similar situations as me as a young adult). I do believe our weaknesses are what God uses to minister through us the most, so I’m going to write it…parts are gonna be boring, parts are going to shock you, parts are going to make you wonder if I’m even a Christian, but I’m writing it because ultimately God told me to.
There’s power in the ponder, if that makes sense. I mean, we shouldn’t be afraid to look at where we’ve been because there’s beauty and a testimony in where we are now, no matter what, as long as we’ve not given up on Jesus and we allow Him to mold and change us more and more in to His image…He WILL complete what He started, though you can choose to not let Him. (Philippians 1:6 (from the Bible) “being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
May the ending of this story be…I chose to let Him finish what He started (FOREVER AND ALWAYS!) and in the end, I’m with Him. By Jesus’ grace and mercy, Amen.
January 25th, 2019
CHAPTER 1: Day one.
March 5th, 1979 I was born. I don’t remember much about that day (LOL). I’ve heard I was born a “beautiful lavender color; my whole body, lavender.” I’ve heard my parents were astonished and couldn’t believe I was actually a girl because they thought surely I’d be another boy after having 2 boys already. Jamey, my handsome, blonde, oldest brother who was 5, and Joshua, my cute brunette buddy and bro, who was 2 years older were also welcoming me in to the world. My mom was/is one of the strongest, most gentle, peaceful, meek, loving, long suffering, patient, Godly, selfless, STRONG women I’ve ever known. No, I take that back. She is THE strongest, most gentle, peaceful, meek, loving, long suffering, patient, selfless, Godly woman I know. So, that was my start…being born to that woman. Wow. What a blessing, right?! I’ve never recognized it like that…never put words to it. That was such a blessing. She’s a rule follower, she’s content (or she makes herself be by the help of the Spirit of God inside of her) with life, no matter what’s going on. She married a man who wasn’t a believer in Jesus, but believed herself. She was quiet, and GORGEOUS (inside and out!), always has been. What a legacy I have to follow. She has self discipline and control like no other. Dear Lord, help me be more like her!
My handsome, athletic, risk taking, adventure seeking, fun loving, stubborn, determined, STRONG, assertive, unafraid, all in, passionate, motivated, visionary, into drugs and alcohol dad was there too, and from what I hear didn’t believe them when they said I was a girl. He wanted a girl and was so happy to hear I was! They planned to name me “Jesse” if I was a boy. They had some cousins who they were very close to who had named all of their kids “J” names and had a “C” last name, just like us. Mom and dad had done that up until me so planned to continue the “JC” initials if they could help it along with their good friends/cousins. I was a girl though, so they picked “Jody Kathryn.” “Jody” (though I don’t think they cared at the time,) means “Praised, or Praise” in the original Hebrew interpretation. Kathryn means “pure, clean, chaste.”
I don’t remember much about the first few years…I’ve heard we let some Laotian refugees stay with us and live in our 1st floor area for awhile. They became our friends. My parents loved them and showed them love. They cooked sticky rice (which was awesome!) for us and we lived life with them for some years in the little, tiny town of Cuba, Illinois where both of my parents were born and raised.
They were both born there, went to school there, and fell in love there…they met in 6th grade and sat next to each other at a movie. That was it. It was done…they dated off and on most of their high school years and ended up getting married in 1971. He graduated in 1968 and went to Spoon River College for one year. Mom graduated in 1969 and she went to Eastern Illinois University in the Fall. Dad stayed at Eastern Illinois University for one year, then enlisted in the Air Force. Mom continued at EIU till they got married on April 24th, 1971. My grandma, Alice “Billie” Hansberger, thought mom should stay in college and finish. She didn’t really want her to marry my dad…partly also because dad was “dad” and a little bit of trouble. He figured he would get drafted if he quit college when they wanted to get married, so he enlisted in the Air Force to avoid the Army who, at the time, had it worse in Viet Nam.
They moved together to Mcchord Air Force base in Tacoma, Washington until dad got orders to go to Thailand (Vietnam Air support) and would be flying alot. He sent mom home to Cuba to be with their parents so she wouldn’t be alone while she was pregnant with my oldest and blondest brother, Jamey Gavin. Jamey was born in Nov of 1972 in Graham Hospital in Canton, IL (a small city near Cuba with the closest hospital).
***ask for help
We moved back to Cuba on 9th St. and were there till mom and dad bought Grandpa Hart’s (my dad’s mom’s parents’ house) house where Granny’s parents lived when she was grown. The kitche was in the basement, so dad’s sister’s husband, Gene, helped them build a kitchen upstairs. Dad worked at the Caterpiller Illinois power plant where mom would tuck a tiny Bible in his lunch box every day, hoping and praying he would open it one day and teh Lord would speak. She loved the Lord and knew dad needed him too, but didn’t know how to help, but give him the truth. Dad didn’t know Jesus yet and their early years of marriage were rough. He worked with a man named David Belcher there every day, who did know the Lord, and talked to dad every day about Him. Dad spit in his face on occasion, but David persisted in loving him and praying for him.
**dad’s conversion story here******************
This was a game changer for mom and our family…dad was ALL IN with passion like you wouldn’t believe because He’d been saved, literally, from a life of sin and sorrow. Oh, to have that kind of love!
I was born while they lived in Grandpa Hart’s house. We ewree there till 1983 when we moved to Wisconsin where mom and dad attended New Tribes Mission School.
I don’t remember much about my young years…I remember the amazing times we had with family-cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, running around at the Fish Farm that my Granny Clayberg owned and my dad had grown up helping with. They had about a 7 acre pond just outside of Cuba, IL, that they stocked with fish. They sold the fish, once grown and caught to local restaurants. It was tucked next to some beautiful midwestern farm land that rotated crops of corn and soy beans. We grew up swimming, fishing, camping, playing on the muddy bank, catching frogs, and having fish fries with the Clayberg side. Granny and Grandpa Clayberg lived in Cuba in a small house with all sorts of charm…a mystical upstairs storage area behind the bedroom-basically just a closet that you couldn’t walk in. We’d climb in there around the stuff and play hide and seek, and piddle with the stuff that was stored in there. The downstairs was always full of people, family, friends, food, card games, and fish fries. Granny was the only one really who fried the fish. She just knew how to do it best.
I wasn’t afraid to take a fish off the hook or bait my own hook. I knew if you caught a sunfish, Granny would want you to beat it’s head on the side of the boat and throw it out on to the bank to die…they were trash fish and she didn’t want them repopulating in the lake. Every summer, we’d be brown as leather, water logged, and filled to the brim with fish from the catches of the Claybergs. Those are some of my happiest memories.
I remember mom’s side too…Grandma Billie and GG (her dad that my oldest brother, Jamey, coined the name “GG” when he was a baby trying to say “grandpa”) lived outside of Cuba in a country club area right on another small lake that came from the coal mining that used to go on there. They had a huge (or what seemed like it as a kid) 2 story house. The upstairs had it’s own kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, living room, just like downstairs. It could fit alot of family and alot of family stayed there off and on together. The leaf would go in the table and grandma would cook all sorts of things that we’d all eat together. GG would tell war stories and at every meal, would say, “That one had my name on it” about whichever piece of meat or roll he wanted or just to get us to giggle. Every time he heard something pretty cool, he said, “keerimanitley!” I don’t know where on earth that came from, but it was GG’s word. He used to take my cousin, Erik and I out to McDonald’s on Saturdays for lunch. We got dressed up for that! Mom would do my long, waist length brown hair in curls or braids to fancy up. I always wore a dress and we’d eagerly wait till GG was ready.
Grandma would lay out on her belly with her bikini top strap undone to get her back all evenly browned and had a closet full of shoes to die for! I would stand in front of her closet admiring even the boxes those shoes came in. She stored them in their boxes, most of them, and I remember a whole entire closet full of shoes, ceiling high. She had a couple pairs of old “clonkers” (high heels) she let me put in my dress up box, which was stashed in another weird storage area they had underneath their stairs. It was like a big closet, that went back pretty deep and got lower because of the stairs above. I had dresses, scarves, jewelry, gloves-the fancy white ones people used to wear to weddings with the little white round button on them. There were shoes and hats, even stockings, and clip on earrings. I spent hours playing dress up…changing outfits and hats, jewelry and shoes. I “clomped” around the house in my dress up clothes playing house with my cabbage patch dolls that mom had bought the heads for and made the bodies since we couldn’t afford already made ones. I didn’t care. My favorite doll was one mom made for me out of a dark brown stocking…Amanda. Her head was the end of the stocking stuffed, with a knot for her neck. She had scrawny arms and legs and a cute little belly button. Her hair was short little loops made out of black yarn. Mom made her when I was about 5. I found out later, it was to help me get accustomed to different color of skin, types of hair, etc, as we prepared to move to Papua New Guinea as missionaries.
Whew! I skipped alot!
Jody Simmons 