 with
guest:
Lorell Panske
My mom is First Nations from Saskatchewan and she had me when she was just a
young teenager. She tried taking care of me, but was finally unable to. She was
living in a foster home on a farm, and trying to finish school, so that's
where I spent my first five years of life. But she just couldn't do it, so I
was given up for adoption. A pastor and his wife from southern Saskatchewan
adopted me.
I believe that we all make choices in our lives, but there are also choices
that are made for us. And, for some of us, those choices made by others can
cause confusion, hurt, anger, and bitterness. For me, personally, I was too
young to know what was going on -- at first.
I have very few memories of being on the foster farm, but they are good
memories. I loved the animals, and I loved being able to run free in the fields.
But I remember the time of transition -- when someone said to me, "Okay,
these are your new parents now. You have to go with them."
I think I emotionally and mentally just clogged out. I don't have very good
memories of that period of adjustment. My parents later told me that, because I
couldn't cope with it, in my mind I turned into my favourite animal. I
literally turned into a dog! In the morning my mom would say a prayer over me
before I dashed out of the house to play in the surrounding farm yards and be
among the animals -- being on a farm was what I had been most familiar with.
But it was in my adopted home that I learned about the love of God, and made
a personal decision to follow Jesus at the age of seven or eight. My dad was a
pastor, and when I was in my teenage years he transferred to a church in
Minnesota. So I spent my last two years of high school there and then after
graduation came back to Canada for a year of Bible college.
But even then I was beginning to question just exactly what life and God were
all about. Even though I was going to Bible college, I was starting to take
steps away from God. I was trying to pull away from my childhood and somehow
trying to grab onto life for my own.
For the next 10 years I guess you could say
I was probably making my own hell. When I was about 28 or so, I remember telling God that I hated Him, and that
I hated men, and that I was not ever going to get married. That was the end of
my conversation with God, as far as I was concerned.
Obviously God had different plans for me! Not long after that I met Nick, who
would become my husband about a year and-a-half later. We met in a bar, but even
as we were going out that first year, we talked about God.
Nick was also from a church background, but both of us were really struggling
with what it really was all about. There were a lot of other religions that I was
checking out, too. We were both trying to look for the kind of peace and hope that
actually stays and doesn't go away. We would have conversations about it, but
I think it was really for the sake of our daughter that we decided to start
going back to church.
And that's what really pulled me back to the Lord. Soon Nick gave his life
to the Lord, and so for both of us it was a complete turn around. But it was a
great relief not to be struggling against the Holy Spirit anymore!
It is still painful for me to think about some of the things that I've gone
through. I think we all have a tendency to blame God for some of the choices
that are made for us -- things that are out of our control. My parents had
allowed my blood-related mom to come and visit me throughout the years -- those
were confusing times. I guess I learned in early age to change hurt into anger,
and then automatically into bitterness.
So for me, personally, it's been rough going. But coming back to the Lord,
these last seven-or-so years, I've been trying to allow God to take all that
hurt away. I've been trying to just allow the hurt to be hurt, and not
instantly turning it into anger and then holding a grudge against someone.
And God always takes me back and says, "Okay, I know it hurts. Give your
hurt to Me. Don't allow it to grow and change into anger and bitterness."
What you have just read was adapted from a television broadcast of Tribal
Trails. We would be happy to hear your response. Please contact us.
To meet more people like Lorell Panske -- Native North Americans whose
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