#61 Orphaned, Yet Not Alone - Susie Jacobson
As a little girl, Susie lost everything that mattered to her. Her home, her family, and her friends. But in her loneliness, she found One Friend who would never leave her behind.
The following is a summary of the podcast interview above with Susie Jacobson. Many more details are included in the original podcast episode and we encourage you to listen.
Written by Jace Bower
Susie Jacobson was born to a mother who grew up in affluence and a father who came from a large clan in Jordan. Susie’s parents met in college and eventually settled in the Midwest.
While everything appeared to be normal on the outside, Susie’s family was totally unstable. Her father was emotionally and physically abusive. She remembers strong feelings of fear and intimidation associated with her father as a child.
A Traumatic Childhood
In one instance, while her father was away for the night, Susie slept in his room. She had set an early alarm so she could wake up for Saturday morning cartoons. When her father returned later and the alarm went off, Susie woke up to her father hitting her in anger.
Susie and her brothers suffered hitting, kicking, and even punches from their father. They also witnessed his terrible verbal and physical abuse of their mother.
Susie’s mother was planning how to remove herself and her children from this abusive situation. The children would use tape recorders to capture the abuse when arguments between their parents escalated.
Finally, the day came. Susie’s mother picked her and her brothers up from school and set off to live with their aunt in another city while the couple went through the divorce process.
Finding Hope
During this time, Susie’s mother was the source of support and stability for Susie. Her aunt, her mother’s younger sister, was also supportive and close. And another source of hope would soon shine through amid Susie’s trauma.
She attended a VBS and came to faith in Jesus Christ. Despite all the suffering she had experienced in her childhood, God had been drawing her. When she heard the gospel she responded in faith.
Susie's simple, childlike faith was springing to life. But little did she know that she would need to rely on her newfound faith, much sooner than she would have ever imagined.
A Devastating Loss
Just as stability was returning to Susie’s life, tragedy struck.
She returned home from school one day to find an ambulance parked outside her house and her mother on the floor, with paramedics attending to her.
Susie was convinced that everything would be ok and that her mom would recover. But after being transferred to the hospital, Susie’s mother died from a heart attack at the age of 42.
Susie was hit with shock. Her body shut down as the loss of her mom hit her. She woke up the next morning and couldn’t open her eyes. She lay on the couch in her aunt’s apartment all day, unable to move. She missed her mother’s wake but was able to get up within a few days for the funeral.
Susie lacked closure with her mother’s death due to missing the wake. Her brothers had been able to say their final goodbyes but Susie had only seen an urn at the burial. This was particularly traumatic for her.
Painful Relationships
Instead of staying with their kind aunt, Susie and her brothers were split up. Susie and one brother were sent to stay with an uncle and an aunt they had never visited. After the sudden death of their mom, they were now living with a family who were essentially strangers.
The reception they were given was less than welcoming. They were never treated as part of the family. Susie remembers feeling unable to relax as if she had to earn her place in the home at all times. Susie’s uncle and aunt had a reputation to keep and they didn’t want their niece and nephew to complicate things for them. Even when the family took vacations together they would leave Susie and her brother at home.
Furthermore, the family was paranoid about the time that Susie and her brother spent together by themselves. They went as far as to forbid the siblings from spending time alone with each other. This further separated Susie from her remaining family. She had lost her father, her mother had died, her brother had been sent away, and now her other brother was prohibited from spending time with her alone.
In the midst of this, Susie was still suffering from physical fatigue. She had enough energy to function but would often come home from school and collapse into bed and fall asleep.
Hope Reignited
As Susie transitioned from high school to college, she would be drawn back to her faith and deepen it profoundly.
This transformation started when a guy she was dating at the time invited her to a bible study with the Navigators. For the first time, Susie began to read the Bible for herself and dig deeply into God’s word.
Her study and growing faith continued as she attended college and found strong, godly friends who encouraged her in the truth. One friend wrote her a seven-page letter to encourage her in her faith.
Finding Her Father
It was also at this time that Susie met Mike. They began dating and would eventually get married. During their relationship, Susie was convicted that she should attempt to reconcile with the one other man who had figured so prominently in her life: her father.
She began to track her father down by contacting old family friends who knew his whereabouts. He had moved back to Jordan and Susie got an address for mailing a letter. One evening, in the middle of the night, she received a call from her father.
They hadn’t spoken for almost a decade and there was so much to say. Susie extended forgiveness to her father for the terrible abuse he had committed in her childhood. He invited her to visit him in the Middle East while she was in Greece for a school trip. Before her death, Susie’s mother had warned her children not to visit Jordan alone. Susie applied this wisdom and brought Mike along with her.
Restoration of Relationships
Susie regularly shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with her father. Despite never accepting Christ, he was respectful of her beliefs and listened to her. He never owned up to the things he did when Susie was a child but the two of them were able to restore their relationship to an amiable point.
But Susie’s father wasn’t the only relationship that Susie wanted to restore. She wanted to be free of the bitterness that had begun to take hold of her heart. She heard Biblical teaching about bitterness and took the time to call over thirty people to seek and grant forgiveness. This included her uncle and aunt who had taken her and her brother in after their mother’s death.
The Hope of God’s Redemption
With everything that happened to Susie: her father’s abuse, her parents’ divorce, her mother’s death, and the unwelcoming reception she and her brother experienced with extended family, it wouldn’t be surprising if she gave in completely to bitterness, hopelessness, and anger.
But God has been faithful to Susie. He has been her hope during all these circumstances and He continues to redeem her past, her relationships, and her painful memories.
Susie’s story points to the forgiveness and redemption of the gospel story. By extending undeserved forgiveness to her very sinful father, Susie was able to mirror, in a very small way, the same undeserved forgiveness that our perfect heavenly Father extends to us.
Our God delights in redeeming the broken pieces of our lives and He has certainly demonstrated that powerfully in Susie’s story.
—
Jace Bower is a writer with a passion for justice and biblical principles. He writes at jacebower.com.
Want to Make a Movie About Susie?
Susie’s son (Nato Jacobson) is a filmmaker and just launched a crowdfunding campaign to turn his mom’s story into a feature-length movie! This will be a long process, but you can start following from the very beginning!
Check out their crowdfunding campaign and watch some of Nato’s other film projects: SusieJacobson.com
Watch “Wanted”
This is Nato’s first short film and I (Paul Hastings… host/producer of Compelled) was an Associate Producer. And yes, I’m an Associate Producer on Susie’s new movie as well.
Wanted stars Andrew Cheney (Beyond the Mask; Vindication) and Rusty Martin, Jr (Courageous, Princess Cut).
Fun note #1: Most of the film is actually filmed in Susie’s home.
Fun note #2: Nato (Susie’s son) plays the adoption case-worker… look for the guy with the blond beard
