Anna’s Way

Anna was born into a life that made it hard to believe there was any good in the world. The water and power in her house were frequently turned off because her father drank his paycheck away rather than using it to pay the bills. Her father left the house early in the morning and didn't come home till very late after Anna and her brother were in bed. There was always fighting and yelling when her parents were together. It took so much strength, but Anna had a way to hold on.
 
Anna's mother was psychotic – she never threw out garbage – instead she put it in cabinets and in the stove.  Her mother had irritable bowel syndrome and often didn't make it to the bathroom. The hallways of Anna's house were filled with her mother's excrement. When her mother would get discharged from the hospital, the doctors would tell Anna that her mother couldn't be sent home to a house filled with excrement because she would become psychotic again. This confirmed little Anna's fear that she was the cause of her mother's illness. It was nauseating – but even at such a young age, Anna was constantly cleaning up her mother's filth. The garage was piled high with garbage – and excrement – that leaked from the bathroom floor into a huge bulge in the roof of the garage. Nevertheless –  Anna had a way to hold on.
 
Mother's bedroom was piled to the ceiling  with trash – there were swarms of roaches everywhere – but Anna had a way. At night, Anna showed her brother how to move their beds away from the walls and cover themselves tightly with the covers to keep the roaches off their faces and bodies while they slept.
 
When Anna was three years old, she would wake in the morning to the sight of dead rats floating in the kitchen sink amongst the rotten food and filthy dishes. Utterly alone with no one to turn to Anna started fainting. It was then, when she "woke up" that little Anna received the greatest teaching of her life –  her way of holding on. Wet from tears, Anna would reach out and just hold G-d's hand. It was her way of not feeling so alone.
 
Anna was eventually hospitalized for her fainting spells in 4th grade and again in 6th grade. Her doctors couldn't find the reason for her fainting but Anna didn't wait for the doctors to figure it out. By the time she was in 4th grade, Anna was already walking by herself to religious services "holding G-d's hand" the whole time. When Anna was much older the doctors gave her condition a name – they called it postural orthostatic tachycardia.
 
One night, when Anna was ten years old she woke up from hunger and the freezing cold temperature. She got up to look for her parents but they were gone – Anna was alone with her six year old brother. The creaking of the wind blowing the front door back and forth terrified her – this happened whenever Anna's mother heard "voices" calling to her from the street lamps – at those times, she would "abandon" her children to follow the "voices." Anna reached out and squeezed G-d's hand.
 
At age 17 Anna went to the bank and begged in tears for them to switch the family account to her name so that she could pay the power and water bills. The bank manager gave Anna a form for her mother to sign. Anna took the form to the hospital for her mother to sign but her mother was so "doped up" that she didn't recognize her daughter. Anna turned to begging for money to pay things off. Her father never helped her – but G-d did.
 
Anna attended a small woman's college. She loved learning and graduated with a 3.9 grade point average in biology – but the darkness of Anna's life had not yet passed. She was assaulted and severely beaten by a date who was very sweet until he didn't get what he wanted. He later forced Anna to submit to highly degrading and excruciatingly painful forms of abuse. Anna never reported this or told anyone. She was too frightened – she clung to G-d.
 
Anna's soul kept searching for Hashem throughout the terrible darkness that seemed to follow her everywhere she went. After she married, Anna and her husband converted to Judaism – that was 12 years ago. Today Anna has her own successful business which she runs from her home. Anna home-schools her 12 year old daughter and 6 year old son because the closest Jewish school is a 2.5 hour drive away – that's the same distance Anna drives to buy kosher chicken. She drives 4.5 hours each way to go to the mikvah (ritual bath) that is up to her standards and to buy kosher meat. Anna never complains about these "small inconveniences." She is too busy feeling grateful for everything she has now – a loving husband, healthy children and a beautiful clean home.
 
A few years ago, Anna started following Rabbi Brody and Breslev.co.il. She devoured Rabbi Arush's books and the darkness began to lift. The purpose of Anna's life became clear to her. Despite all she had gone through, she now saw that G-d had prepared her for an extraordinary life which she began to fully embrace.
 
With iron-clad faith Anna faced the last remaining obstacle – her terror of her own husband. Anna's logical mind told her that her husband was a good and gentle soul and that he would never hurt her, yet from the first day they were married, Anna was haunted by the memory of being assaulted by a man. For this reason, Anna could not sleep in the same room with her husband. Anna knew that if she reached out to G-d that he could heal her from this too – so she did.
 
The power of Rabbi Arush's teachings are such that Anna was healed from that trauma in less than an hour of emuna-based therapy and she has been sleeping with her husband since then.
 
I asked Anna, who is now studying for her certification in Emuna Coaching, what message she wanted to give our readers. She said:
 
1. "Know that you are much stronger than you realize you are."
 
2. "Know that  Hashem is always right there and helping you even when He seems like He's not."
 
3. "Don't let yourself be defined by your past."
 
4. "Be verbally gentle with yourself."
 
5. "Find ways to keep growing in emuna."
 
In the future, Anna plans to use what she's learned by extending her loving hand to help traumatized women and children. May it be so.