Steve and Sue

When I was released from prison after nearly four years I was a different person but the demands and barriers that stood against me remained the same. Before prison I had had relatives. Now I had a family. A girlfriend from my past had returned and she had a brand new daughter. She had come to visit me in prison and had decided to stay and support me for nearly the final year of my sentence. I had to stay with my father until I could get a job and a place of my own. My father made it clear every day that I was not welcome under his roof and he finally told me that it was time for me to leave after a month or so. I hadn’t been able to save up enough money for either a used vehicle or a cheap apartment in that time but luckily my girlfriend helped me and we got a small, quant apartment together. She and her mother helped me to buy my first used car and life continued on. My father kicking me out of his home was the best thing he could’ve done for me. Neither he, nor my stepmom, wanted me beneath their roof and I had never wanted to be there. For a very long time I thought that relatives and family were the same thing but they are not. I learned that you can lose yourself, you can sully your unique spark, you can hamper God’s good will for you by remaining loyal to relatives who don’t even want you around. You can never lose what God has for you by remaining loyal to family who will weather the storms of life with you no matter what it costs them personally.