Blue Butterflies: Miracles, Mercies, Mysteries and Lessons Learned

Contents

Introduction

One   Ruby Rivers Disappears

Two   Emma’s Injuries

Three   Wicked Wanda

Four   The Door to Mt. Shasta Hasn’t Closed

Five   Funeral Home Fiasco

Six   Of Mixed Blood

Seven   This Is Exactly What You Asked ME For

Eight   You Want Me To Say What?

Nine   Energy Healing Enlightenment

Ten   Just Send the Damn Butterflies!

Eleven   White Amaryllis

Twelve   This Is Just The Way I Am!

Thirteen   Holly Commits Suicide

Fourteen   Choices and Priorities

Conclusion

Other Books by Sharon O’Shea

Female Victimization Issues

One day it occurred to me that we often experience

more of the power and protection of the Divine

when we are in the darkest places and facing the most danger,

both from within ourselves or from without ourselves,

in the form of friends, family, spouses, coworkers,

neighbors, or others.

 –Sharon O’Shea

Soli Deo Gloria

(Solely to the Glory of God)

"Sister, when you get, give.

When you learn, teach."

–Maya Angelou’s Grandmother’s advice

Dedication:

To everyone who has ever helped me in any way

along life’s journey.

A portion of the sale of this book goes toward

the creation and support of Merry Heart Ministries,

a healing and recovery center for abused women.

Author’s Note:

With the exception of my name and my husband’s name (Richard)

the names and descriptions of businesses, locations and persons

have been changed to protect the peace and privacy of the people involved.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

is unintentional and coincidental.

Enjoy life.

This is not

a dress rehearsal.

–Author Unknown

Introduction

If you want to serve spirit,

be sure to know

who you are serving first.

–Master Chi

In Jessica Page Morrell’s book, Bullies, Bastards & Bitches, she wrote:

I’ve been ripped off, lied to, slandered, gossiped about, slapped, falsely accused, and had my truths not believed. I’ve had my heart broken, had my pride stomped on, witnessed unforgivable acts, and heard words that hurt so much I wished that they would not replay in my head, but they did.

When I read Jessica’s words, I felt a kinship, an understanding. For I, too, have been through those experiences, felt those feelings, and more.

Even so, mine has been a continuous walk with the Divine.

I was raised without religion, yet when my Father died when I was four, I prayed.

As a teen, I heard my Father’s voice instructing me on how to pray more effectively.

My step-father hated any mention of God, and all forms of organized religion. Fortunately, he was in construction and not around a great deal when I was young.

My Mother was an atheist who had survived her own hellish childhood and young adulthood. Yet, curiously, as a young child living primarily in a rural desert-like part of Southern California, I was given the freedom to go to church if I desired. On a hit-or-miss basis I attended the small Methodist church in our rural community.

As a young adult, I didn’t give much thought to God. I suppose like most people who have a series of challenging life experiences, I wondered why, if there were a God, God didn’t do a whole lot more to make my life easier.

In my late 20’s, a coworker at the probation department urged me to attend both a noon Bible study and a weekly Bible study in a remote nearby town. While attending those meetings, I was also taking an evening college class. During one class, the instructor excitedly told us about the latest breakthrough in psychology (I don’t remember what it was, exactly). The next day, at the Bible study, we read about the same principle in the Bible. I was transfixed. I decided that perhaps I should spend more time studying the centuries-old Book with information educated people were just now considering breakthroughs.

Soon after, I became a Christian. But my life didn’t improve immediately. In fact, I made a couple of horrendous decisions that seriously negatively impacted my life. I had erroneously believed that as a new Christian, This is what God would want me to do. But my intuition (God’s guidance) screamed, It is the wrong decision. My intuition was right—it was the wrong decision.

A few years later, a series of challenging circumstances led me to Idaho where I received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit (became Full Gospel). To my great consternation, I was then led back to Southern California.

In my 20’s and 30’s, I was devastated when, as a result of the immoral and unethical conduct of others, my life took a series of downturns.

In my 40’s, I felt led to return to college and then to create a healing and recovery center for female victims of rape, incest, battering and prostitution. To that end, I earned a BA from Vanguard University and a MS degree from the University of North Texas.

Over the next decade, I wrote a healing and recovery program, Born A Woman, that I offered over the Internet. However, I had grossly underestimated what was involved in learning to function on the Internet, set-up a web site, and market a program.

Needless to say, all of the above took a great deal of time, effort, energy and money. I set aside Born A Woman and pondered new ways to independently fund a healing and recovery center.

In 2010, I decided to work toward generating income for a healing and recovery center through writing and, in part, sharing some of my spiritual and learning experiences.

While studying and working on the Butterfly Series, I also wrote my first fiction novel, Sedona’s Golden Secret. I enjoyed writing fiction so much that I am currently writing Matagorda Bay Magic just for the fun of it. I also recently modified and reworked portions of Born A Woman and self-published the results as Walking Toward Wellness.

In the bright light of hindsight, I have experienced a significant number of miracles, mercies and mysteries along this often hellish and rocky road called life. I present many of them in my Butterfly Series (four books), in which I have also incorporated a number of painful lessons –learning experiences. I hope that by sharing my experiences others will be saved the pain and disillusionment I endured.

This, then, is what led to the creation of this book, and what the Butterfly Series is all about.

Perhaps this excerpt from Angel Wisdom by Taylor & Crain best summarizes my current stance regarding spirituality and organized religion:

Spiritual Individualist: Never become too comfortable with answers or affiliations.

… Spiritual individualists are freethinkers; they do not rely on any one religion or philosophy to tell them what is right or wrong … They seek mutual respect in this arena, and they move on quickly if they feel the heat of extreme dogma … The spiritual individualist wants to know God, not just be told about God.

Today, I continue striving to grow, to learn, and to overcome my faults and flaws. At the same time, I write.

Some people have wondered about my spirituality and getting messages from the other side. In fact, sometimes I’ve wondered about it, as well, even though it’s been a life-long part of my life. Perhaps a quote from Come Away My Beloved by Frances J. Roberts helps to answer the why question? In part, Head Into The Wind states: The storm is not a thing to fear but rather to welcome. You will learn to head into the wind with sheer delight as soon as you have made the discovery that in the time of stress and strain, you have the clearest revelations of Myself (slight modifications to aid in clarity). My life path has been rocky and rough, dangerous and sometimes desperate. Through it all, I’ve come to believe we hear the most from the Divine when we need to hear from the Divine. I lament those times I let my mind overrule my intuition or knowings. I have learned to agree with Frances J. Roberts—my life has been storm-filled and often bleak, and it was during those times, or when I was making a wrong turn, that I heard the most from the Divine.

For those who have expressed an assumption that because I study the issues of female victims, and not those of males, I must dislike males—that’s not true. In fact, that’s laughably untrue. However, as empathetic as I am about the plight of the growing number of males who are sexually used, abused and exploited, they are not the group I have been called to help. My calling is females, so females constitute the group I continue to labor to help.

Post-Script:

On Friday, September 27, 2013, after having submitted Blue Butterflies to iUniverse to be published, I began to wonder, Should I really be doing this? Is anyone ever really going to benefit from my sharing these experiences? It’s a lot of work, effort, energy and expense. Should I forget about finishing this series and just table Yellow Butterflies, Red Butterflies and perhaps Black Butterflies?

Then I decided to look into the writer’s blog by Frank Ball called Help Me Tell My Story that Mr. Cecil Murphey mentioned in Writer to Writer.

When I looked at Frank Ball’s blog, I had to smile. First, I noticed that he wrote, I abandoned the technology I loved most so I could pursue what I hated most: writing and teaching. I suddenly felt understood.

I continued to scan Frank Ball’s blog and was struck by this comment:

Stories give hope when people can’t see past their problems … How you made it through trying times has more meaning than the answer at the end. Your most difficult tragedy might be the greatest hope you can give your readers.

That settled it. I would continue to write about the trials, tests, temptations and torments I have endured, as well as the lessons I have learned, and how God helped me in, through, and out of each one. Hopefully, there is something of benefit to someone within the pages of these books, and my writing has not been in vain.

Without a spiritual dimension,

life loses its luster.

Experiences like beauty and mystery,

destiny and hope,

tend to evaporate.

–Fred White

One

Ruby Rivers Disappears

Circa: 1952

It may be shocking to some people

in this country to realize that,

without meaning to do so,

they hold views in common with Hitler

when they preach discrimination

against other religious, racial or economic groups.

–Henry A. Wallace

My step-father was in construction. That meant I spent many summers in different California towns, and sometimes parts of a school year at different schools. For a few months, I was even home-schooled in the inhospitable desert in the out-lands of Barstow, California.

Our home base was a comfortable three bedroom home with a detached two car garage near the heart of a small rural town in rural area nestled inland between San Diego and Los Angeles. Back then there were rumors that major freeways would one day be built to connect San Diego and Los Angeles, but to my young mind that seemed an impossibility.

Today, what was once a small rural town is a never-ending blanket of housing tracts and business centers. The warm and cozy extended-family-feel town I grew up in has been consumed by big business and over-populated with wall-to-wall housing tracts.

Back then, we were spared city life. We had one tiny market, a gas station, a couple of diners, and a small cottage-looking café that had six bar stools and served hamburgers and sodas. We had a small post office the size of today’s double-car-garages.

A two-lane road connected our town with the rest of the world. It cut through the heart of our sleepy burg. A few streets branched off from the main highway. They quickly turned into narrow gravel roads. A riverbed snaked through the countryside behind the grammar school. When we had a rare heavy rain, the riverbed was transformed into a small stream that usually didn’t last for long. But most of the time it was just a ribbon of sand.

A mountain range separated our town from the coast. That meant our town was almost a desert –hot, dry, barren. Weeds and stickers were everywhere. A few people farmed by growing dryland wheat and other grains.

Most adult women living in our town were homemakers. If they worked outside the home, it was usually part-time work at the nearby hot springs.

Most of the men worked at jobs outside the area. Some spent their weekdays in Los Angeles, or San Diego, or a coastal town, and commuted back to our rustic village on weekends. Others, like my step-father, were in construction and traveled, while their family stayed in town. One family had an egg ranch. One a dairy. Retirees were scattered here and there.

When grammar school started back up in September, it was, per usual, hot. Very hot. Dressed in my usual ironed and starched dress and saddle oxfords, I walked the few blocks to our four-room schoolhouse.

The first and second grades were in one room on the far left of the horse-shoe-shaped gray brick building. Straight ahead as one walked in through the front gate, there was a small gravel area and a flag pole. Behind the entry graveled area and on the left was the room for the third and fourth graders. To the right of that classroom was a basement storage area. And to the right of the storage area was the fifth and