Stormie: A Story of Forgiveness and Healing

This book is dedicated to the three most important men in my life. The first one is my dad, Mr. Dick Sherk, who is one of the greatest men who ever lived. I regret that it took me so many years to recognize that fact. The second man is my husband, Michael, whose unwavering love and support was instrumental in my becoming the whole person I am today. The third person is my beloved pastor and spiritual father, Pastor Jack Hayford. He introduced me to Jesus and over the years taught me to know and love God more each day.

PREFACE

For awhile I believed no one had more emotional scars than I did. Now I know I was not alone. We have all had times of failure and pain. Even people who experienced a wonderful childhood are often scarred later in life by bad choices, a painful marriage, or tragedies of one kind or another. Little by little, pieces of our lives are chipped away and restoration is needed.

This is the story of my struggle to overcome the emotional damage of child abuse and the heartbreak of being a potential child-abuser. It has never been my intention to blame anyone else for what happened in my past. It’s too easy to point out someone else’s faults, since we all have them. And because no parent is perfect, it is cruel and unfair to hold them forever accountable for mistakes they have made. It is my goal to instead point the reader toward the One who forgives all mistakes and restores any damage that has been done.

There are countless numbers of people who experienced similar or far worse treatment than I did, and many who have given up hope for ever being healed. I am telling my story so that they will find their way out of the pit that was dug in their past and onto the path of healing and wholeness that God has ordained for them. I needed restoration and I found it. If I can find it, others can too.

I have prayed continually that this book would bring God’s healing, deliverance, and restoration to anyone who desires to receive it. May God so bless each reader.

—Stormie Omartian

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you, Diane Kendrick, Constance Zachman, Dick and Margo Salsbury, Terry Harriton, Tami Pelikan, Anna Krausse, and Andrea Mejia for your long labor as my dedicated prayer partners. I pray that the blessings you have given me through your ongoing prayers will be heaped a hundredfold back upon you, but then again I don’t want to limit God!

Thank you, Janet Southwell, my secretary and friend, for your belief in this project and for your willingness to stand with me in the struggle to triumph over my word processor. Without you I would still be typing and crying.

Thank you to my son, Christopher, and daughter, Amanda, for loving your imperfect mom and showing it so often. I prayed that God would cover for my failings and help me raise you. He is doing that, and I am thankful for His mercy and so very proud of you.

Thank you to my wonderful editors, Bill Jensen, Eileen Mason, Al Janssen, and Ray Oehm, for their invaluable contributions and their dedication in seeing that this book is all that God wants it to be.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy.

—Psalm 107:2

CHAPTER ONE

ALIGNED WITH EVIL

I woke up late. It was ten A.M. and sunlight blazed through the cracks in the window shades. My head throbbed as I opened my eyes. The stifling air plus my sweat-encased body indicated that already the day was hot. Long into a California heat wave typical of August, my tiny two-room apartment never cooled down much. There was no air conditioning, and it was dangerous to leave the windows open at night. Sitting up abruptly in my single-sized daybed, I groaned, then fell back on the pillow. Exhausted from the fitful night’s sleep, I was too groggy to get up.

I had found another rose on my front door handle when I arrived home around midnight. This made the tenth consecutive rose placed there every evening after dark. It was beginning to bother me. What at first appeared to be a flattering gesture by a secret admirer was now becoming strange. Only someone with a sick mind would continue this odd ritual day after day without identifying himself. I had a longtime problem with insomnia anyway, and this wasn’t helping.

I had worked late last night taping another television segment of the Glen Campbell Show. Hired three years before as one of Glen’s regular “on-camera-blonde-blue-eyed-size-eight-singer-dancers,” I had become the resident actress as well. Playing dumb blonde comedienne roles, I worked with a different guest star each week. Adjusting to a new temperament every seven days was a challenge. There never seemed to be enough rehearsal time, and I suffered from chronic doubt about my abilities. Taping day, which began before dawn and lasted long into the night, had once been very exciting, but lately all I felt was exhaustion.

I sat up again, slowly this time, leaned across the bed, and turned on the television. I wasn’t much for watching TV because I was afraid it would make my mind irreversibly numb. However, this morning, for no apparent reason, I turned it on.

Immediately on the screen was a full news report detailing the grisly stabbing deaths of actress Sharon Tate and four others in Benedict Canyon. That was not far from my apartment! Horror gripped me as the details of what happened unfolded. I didn’t know Sharon Tate and her friends personally, but I knew who they were. Hollywood is a small town. They lived close to me and I traveled through their neighborhood frequently. The slaughter would horrify anyone, but what I began to feel was beyond horror. It was growing inside me to a paralyzing terror.

It was the knives. Sharon Tate was stabbed! I had always had an unreasonable fear of knives. For as long as I could remember, I had suffered from recurring nightmares in which I was stabbed repeatedly. The mere thought of knives made me deathly afraid.

The ring of my phone temporarily broke through the grip of fear that kept me riveted to the TV. “Did you hear about Sharon Tate and the others?” inquired a friend on the other end of the line. Many similar calls followed. No one could believe what had happened or could understand why. There seemed to be no motive for the murders.

That evening I went out to a restaurant with friends, and the Sharon Tate murders were the main topic of conversation. We all agreed that the heat wave made people crazy and that the flourishing psychedelic drug scene of the sixties had brought with it a kind of evil madness that pervaded everything.

When I returned to my apartment about 11 P.M. there was another rose draped across the door handle. I shuddered as I suddenly realized a pattern to this madness. The roses had started out as tiny buds. Gradually they had gotten bigger each night. And now they were beginning to open. What would happen, I wondered, when the roses were in full bloom? I hurried into the apartment, bolted the door, and went to bed in fear.

The next morning I immediately turned on the TV to see if there was further news about the Sharon Tate case. Desire to understand what happened and why filled my mind with the frustration of unanswered questions. Much to my horror, during the night there had been two more stabbing murders. A husband and wife by the name of LaBianca were butchered. The details matched those of Sharon Tate, and the police suspected that the murders were done by the same people.

Fear immediately spread all over town. The rich put up security fences, installed burglar alarms, and purchased guard dogs. The poor bolted their doors and windows and did not open them for anyone. I couldn’t stand being alone, and my boyfriend, Rick, was out of town. The apartment was too small to have people over, so I went out with friends again that night, as I desperately needed to be with someone.

When I returned to my apartment at around two A.M. there was another rose on the door handle. This one was beginning to blossom. I quickly threw it into the bushes, ran inside, and slammed the door.

As I dressed for bed, my mind sorted through the macabre details of the stabbing death of Sharon Tate. Here was a beautiful, wealthy, young woman, nine months pregnant, living in a big house with burglar alarms and an electronic fence. She was totally protected yet totally vulnerable. She, and the others murdered with her, were not the type of people to be involved in the occult practices implied by certain news reports. They were also not the type of people you would ever think could end up murdered. If Sharon Tate could have the sanctity of her home invaded in that way, then what protection was there for me? And the knives—I couldn’t even bear to think of the knives.

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