Lilies of the Field

About the Book

This book is about a young woman growing up on the plains of Oklahoma. She is the daughter of a farmer whose mother is an alcoholic. She spends the first eighteen years of her life trying to escape abuse—verbal, physical, and sexual. She explains how she was able to at last raise above her past and live a happy, peaceful life through her belief in herself and in her God.

About the Author

Amanda A. Courtney grew up in the red hills of Oklahoma in the era of the 1950s and 1960s. She describes her youth as chaotic, if not dangerous, having been born to an alcoholic mother without any means of protection except her faith in God. Early on, she adopted the mantra of “I’m okay. I trust you, God. Thank you, God.” It saw her through much of the upheaval and madness in her world. She was no stranger to child abuse and spent the first eighteen years of her life trying to escape the torture of her mother and an incestuous brother and sister-in-law that preyed on her innocence. When she was fourteen years old, Amanda packed up her little tin suitcase and went to Kansas on a Greyhound bus, supposedly to teach her German sister-in-law how to speak English. But Amanda received her own unwelcome education and was held at almost prisoner-like conditions that involved abuse—physical, verbal, and sexual. She describes how she was able to rise above conditions that proved one could grow up normally in spite of an abnormal upbringing. To this day, she remains thankful and humble for what God taught her through great despair and dishonor by those she trusted most.