Anna's Story
February 6, 2025
Birth To Twenty-One
The social worker called us about “Brianna” the same week our 19-month twins were returned to their mom. She was just shy of three years old and needed someone to adopt her. Her parents, Missy and Gerry, had just declared they would no longer work to get her back if they had to give up drinking. Then they disappeared.
“I’ve never met anyone so resilient,” Karen, her second foster mom, said of Brianna as she introduced her to us. She told us how Missy and Gerry had strapped 14-month-old Brianna into their car at a bar in Middleton, then gone in to drink for several hours before someone discovered her and called the police. That’s when social services stepped in.
Brianna was reported under-nourished as she entered the foster care system. She showed signs of both neglect and Fetal Alcohol Effect (now called Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder), but was bright and beautiful. Karen worked hard for a year to help Brianna learn attachment and basic life skills. This was challenging because of frequent visitations (including overnight stays) with Missy and Gerry as they worked half-heartedly toward re-unification.
(Anna later remembered, during a prayer journey with Cross Counsel in Madison, going to Missy’s bedside and asking for food. Missy had yelled at her, turned over and gone back to sleep. Anna would have been one or two at the time.)
When Karen brought Brianna to meet us, I arranged a platter of graham crackers for everyone to enjoy together. None of us adults cared to eat, but Brianna polished off the entire platter. She then spent an hour demonstrating her love for dolls and bossing people around.
We decided to keep her.
She was so articulate. It was great fun to hear grown-up language for 2-year-old thoughts. Quotes like these had us frequently in stitches:
“Uh! These stairs are so heavy!”
(as she walked up our steep farmhouse stairs).
“I Anna. I like boys a LOT,”
(as an introduction to herself).
“I’ve got a sneeze in my throat,”
(as she cleared her throat).
The adoption process seemed long and arduous. While Kerry and I were being examined and home studied, our communicative little treasure discovered she could get extra attention by embellished tattling. Creative twists on our discipline methods brought scrutiny for possible abuse. Finally the air was cleared and everything moved ahead. The hearing was set and publicized … and that’s when Patrick discovered she existed. When he read the notice in the paper about her upcoming adoption, he came up from Colorado, proved he
was her biological father (not Gerry) and fought for her custody. Eventually, the social workers convinced him he wasn’t in a position to provide the stability she needed, and he stepped back with the request that we keep him updated with pictures. This we did until until they started coming back in the mail without a forwarding address
During the season leading up to her adoption, Brianna would introduce herself, “I Anna!”
so on her adoption day she became “Anna Rose Hauge.” What a happy event!
But little warning signs here and there signaled all might not be well. Certain trails of thinking that were natural for other kids just didn’t seem to connect for her. Of biggest concern was that she didn’t know how to tell when her stomach was full, and had to be told at every meal when to stop eating. But in the busyness of life, we prayed for her and trusted it would all work out in the end. She seemed so light-hearted and happy-go-lucky. And she knew how to turn to God for help.
When she was 10, Kerry tore the meniscus in his knee and was laid up for several months. I was busy caring for kids and running the wedding business, so Anna ran the pond shop. With Kerry laid out on the couch in the background but close enough to mentor her, she learned how to sell products, explain pond eco-systems and algae control, describe which plants would thrive where, catch fish, run the credit machine and make small talk with customers. Everyone was so impressed with this smart little business woman.
Anna always had a special sensitivity to the spirit realm. It began with strong senses of safety or fear at varying times, which she later came to recognize as evidence of angels and demons. These she began seeing and describing as she entered her teenage years. (Though I would bet she had seen and felt them through her early childhood neglect as well.)
She was also gifted prophetically from the beginning. When she was three, she picked our friend Vickie out of a crowd we were hosting and gave her a tour of Paradise Park. As they stepped onto our 40-foot pole bridge and Vickie expressed fear that they might fall, Anna piped up in her bright little voice, “Don’t worry! God will not let us fall through the cracks!”
Our friend David recently sent me this: “We often reminisce of the morning you gave Cheryl a note of Anna’s giving a word from the Lord. Words Cheryl had uttered the night before. No prophetic person in Madison, Tulsa or Kansas City ever gave us such a clear word.”
As she entered her teenage years, Anna decided she’d had enough of being everyone’s everything. She wanted to find herself and a little peace and quiet. But these were hard to come by in our house.
At night she would lay awake and worry about Missy. “Is she OK? Is she dead? Why did she give me up? Why was drinking more important than her own baby? If she didn’t want a kid, why didn’t she abort me in the first place?”
(This has led to Anna’s intense stand against abortion.)
Anna didn’t have the most understanding adoptive mom either. I would hear her fret over Missy and feel my own rejection pangs. Why wasn’t I
enough? This led to angst between us, with Anna wanting to seek her own identity while I ached to make her my clone. What I intended as motivation only brought distance. This is how Anna describes it now:
“Since I felt I couldn’t measure up to ‘the golden child’ you were, then why try? And I was afraid of becoming Missy. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but I was trying to become the complete opposite of both of you.”
Needless to say, this led to confusion on all fronts.
It wasn’t all negative. Mixed into the growing darkness were plenty of happy times. When she turned 13, I took Anna away for a weekend to celebrate. We enjoyed a fancy meal together, then hung out in a hotel room reading, reminiscing, and playing a board game called “Careers.” In this game, each person is given 60 points that they divide among their pursuits of fame, fortune and charity. Anna put all 60 in charity, and that’s when it because clear that helping people is her heart cry. About that time, she decided she would run an orphanage when she grew up.
One of my favorite memories of Anna from this time period was her fearlessness with animals. One day she and I were dis-assembling our flower pillars at the bridge garden. Under the fourth layer of stone we came upon a four-foot orange, black and white striped snake. While I was deciding whether to panic, Anna grabbed it by the tail and held it up to admire it. “I saw them do it on a nature show,” she explained. (It proved to be a milk snake, not the rattler I had suspected.)
BED became front and center in our lives as we decided to fight it with all the best in discipline techniques. Logical consequences dictated ever-increasing supervision, calorie counting and exercise. All food in the house was kept under lock and key, garbage was disposed of immediately, and Anna seldom went anywhere without us.
Through these years and tangled into the BED, Anna’s pent-up overwhelm demanded relief, and she didn’t know where to find it. Thoughts of suicide began plaguing her. She so wanted all her problems to be over and not have to deal with them anymore. But fear over her siblings or us finding her dead kept her from acting on it.
Eventually, she discovered that cutting herself brought momentary relief to the thoughts of suicide. It also seemed to fill the felt need to be punished in the midst of the shame that blanketed her. I never set out to inflict shame on her, but my frequent corrections contributed.
Finding evidence of the cutting cut through Kerry’s and my hearts. Hurt and angry ourselves, we panicked and tried everything. We scared her with warnings of an eternity without God. I argued with her a lot. We sought several forms of counseling and intervention, but found mostly closed doors and limited results.
I pulled back on academics in her 8th Grade homeschooling, doing what I could to connect her with skills through which she could find herself in Christ. Piano, guitar and singing became pursuits, along with prayer journaling, drawing and photography. Reading assignments focused on solutions to her problems, and writing assignments asked her to record and pray about what she was experiencing. Here’s one sample of her writing:
“I was angry, and I couldn’t say no,”
Anna says now. “The donuts were all busted up and dry, and there was no logic to it. But it’s like I was on the Interstate driving really fast, and the thought of crossing through lanes of traffic to take the exit ramp was just too much work. I didn’t know how to get off.”
I had the same thing going as a mom. I had my parenting techniques, and I kept telling myself, “Just stay steady. Stay steady. Be consistent with the consequences, and eventually she’ll catch on.” I couldn’t get off my interstate either.
When Anna didn’t come right back with the shovel that morning, I followed to check on her. Seeing that empty donut box lying beside the road and realizing what had happened, I threw up my hands in despair. That’s when the Holy Spirit spoke to me in as clear a voice as I’ve ever heard:
“You can’t control this thing.”
Th-wunk. It hit the bottom of my heart and sent out ripples that have affected the rest of my life.
Kerry and I began releasing control, little by little. We put a canister of rolled oats on the kitchen windowsill that she could eat from as often as she wanted. Then a basket of fruit. Soon we had removed all the locks and were purposeful to look the other way when it came to her eating. This began a very long season of both relief and fear in her and in us. It was far from instant success, and the BED continued.
Kerry and I finally got brave enough to tell friends and pull in a small army of prayer support. No one knew what to say, and words of advice usually hurt more than helped, but bringing it out into the open was a part of our survival.
For herself, Anna had a growing sense of isolation and loneliness that overwhelmed her. When she would share her struggles with a friend, she usually faced rejection. In addition, the change in her once-sunny countenance now turned people away. She felt she didn’t fit anywhere, and that’s when she developed an irrational fear that anyone she became friends with would reject her. This grew into other irrational fears that introduced her to the world of anxiety attacks.
It was her 16th birthday that Anna now credits as the beginnings of her turn-around.
We invited about a dozen lady friends from our church (Springs of Hope Fellowship) to her Sweet 16 Party, along with her sisters and cousin. All were encouraged to dress up for a banquet, bring a note of encouragement to read out loud, and be ready to pray. They rose to the occasion. Anna was surrounded with love by those who knew her at her worst and didn’t judge her for it. They warred in prayer over her. They reminded her of her beauty and her giftedness. And we laughed together over shared stories of her childhood.
Laughter is one of those special gifts God blessed Anna with. Somehow in the thick of battle, Anna was always able to find moments of hilarity that would cut her loose from the stress and give her enough strength to go on. This survival technique cannot be over-rated.
When asked what else helped her survive the tough times she answered, “When I was in extreme pain, I needed some way to release it. I didn’t need people’s advice. I needed someone to sit, listen and be a shoulder to cry on. Other things that helped were ‘legal’ ways of experiencing pain, like boxing or lifting weights. There was no easy fix; it was trial and error to find what worked. It always helps to know you are not alone in what you are experiencing, to talk with someone else who is going through what you are. Don’t be misled when people pretend they want to be left alone in their pain.”
One quote she holds onto is by Jay Shetty: “Sometimes you think you want to disappear, but all you really want is to be found.”
You’ll see if you look at the scars on her arms now that her cutting started out as little nicks low on her wrist. As time progressed, they went up higher on her arm and got deeper. But there is a clear path steering around the veins. We are so grateful her life was spared.
As healing has progressed, she has gone from always wearing long sleeves, to half sleeves, to a tattoo that blends with the scars and tells her story. “It’s a picture of lightning ripping the sky open; a dark time that God has redeemed,”
she says. “You can’t find your light without going in the darkness. You can’t appreciate the good times if you haven’t experienced the bad. Getting to the point where you can be comfortable enough to openly show scars because you conquered your enemy is a huge part of the healing process. A story for others to know that they can too. There is no shame to hide behind any longer.”
Anna still battles enemies like depression and anxiety, though not nearly as intensely as before. They are no longer crippling.
On March 1, Anna heads south to live with her biological dad and brother in New Mexico. She met them online a year or so ago, and in person over Thanksgiving. They clicked, and her heart is drawn to a new season in life as she explores her roots in greater depth. “I feel like I’ve been in intermission long enough,”
she says. “I’m excited to see what’s next, and stoked that I can hop in my car and head across the country without fear or the heavy weight of past issues.”
There have been times recently when I’ve been sitting with Anna, mindlessly eating cookie after cookie while she sips her coffee. Revelation dawns as we meet eyes, and laugh until we cry. God has brought her so far. And it's only the beginning!
By Michelle Hauge
•
March 23, 2025
Dear Nieces & Nephews, We had been home schooling your cousins for several years when I decided our days had become too mundane, and “Adventure Days” were born. Once a week, I’d wake everyone up with a mysterious list of items to pack, then we’d drive off into the great unknown. The study desk for the day might be a new library, the top of a bluff, the base of a waterfall, a waterpark in its off-season, a donut shop. Kids had only to trust, follow along and have a great time. Some of them loved these days and still talk about them today. Some chafed and battled. Why? I still ponder my way through the psychology of it. I’d suspect there were two elements at work: pride (“I have better ideas than you; I want to do mine instead.”) and insecurity (“My trust broke when I was a baby and I can’t trust you unless you’re utterly predictable.”) Both demonstrate an insatiable appetite for being in control. And I relate to both. It amazes me how diligent God is in refining the skill set I need to trust Him in each day’s unpredictability. It’s finally dawning on me that the angst in the pit of my stomach won’t dissipate until I let go of my pride and insecurity and stop battling for my own way, which sounds like this: “I want adventure, but it needs to be of MY choosing, in MY timing. I need YOU to be steady and predictable and safe. YOUR job is to (please) make it comfortable and fun, and (please) make sure I look really good to everyone else along the way.” God doesn’t usually go along with requests like this. He loves me too much. He loves YOU too much too. If you feel like you’re drowning today, please learn this alongside me: The very life circumstances that are drowning us can also make us float. The difference is in our response. Lightness and ease will not come from being in control of our own adventure, but in surrendering and trusting the One who loves us so very much. He is trustworthy, even when others haven’t been. Peace will not come when the unpredictable stops. It will come when we learn to float in it. How do we learn this skill? Ask the Holy Spirit for swimming lessons. He will teach you. He will . Just ask. Even if you don’t think you know how to hear His voice, I guarantee He will not give you a snake when you ask for bread. (Matthew 7:9.) He’s the One who knit you together in your mother’s womb. (Psalm 139:13.) He knows every thought before it even enters your mind. (Psalm 139:2.) He certainly knows your language. Pay attention. Make Him your focus, not the circumstances that are making you panic. Then respond. We’re on the adventure of a lifetime together, you and I. Let’s enjoy it! Love, Aunt Michelle
By Michelle Hauge
•
February 26, 2025
Dear Nieces & Nephews, “Grandpa Dave” has been God’s gift to our family since both sets of grandparents left early for heaven. We don’t live super close, so most of our contact lately has been over the phone, talking about challenges and breakthroughs and what we see God doing through them. Yesterday he told me that while thinking about how dismal the world is looking these days, he was reminded of Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. “God is getting ready to release an equal and opposite reaction to all that the Enemy has been unleashing,” he said. I had to wrestle through the concept of “equal” when it comes to God and Satan, but eventually it made sense. God’s not wasteful. I think He uses just enough of his bottomless resources to meet each action with its equal reaction. And here’s another scientific truth we see everywhere: When opposite and equal forces collide, there is a burst of ... shall we say ... productivity ? When it’s opposite electrical charges, there is a spark or release of energy; the intensity depends on the magnitude of the charges involved. Varying air temperatures collide to create a storm. (I could go on, but I'll stop before my simplicity brings laughter to the true scientists among you.) That’s where my encouragement for today is coming from. My life has been a fierce, ongoing storm for some time now. (I’ll bet I’m not the only one.) Every day there is either cataclysmic disturbance with flying debris, a respite of sunshine and rainbows, or darkening clouds as another onslaught forms. The main goal of my quiet times is to lift my chin, focus my attention on the Savior, press on, and hold onto peace. Bill Johnson says, “We only have authority over the storms we’ve learned to sleep through.” Jesus has a cushion laid out for me in the bottom of the boat beside Him, and I intend to use it. Then I'll wake up occasionally to watch the lightning display or pull others to safety. This morning I studied all of Newton’s Laws of Motion, and there is a boatload of spiritual truth hiding in all three. I plan to dive deep and learn as much as I can from them about my Creator because the more I grasp how He thinks naturally , the more I’ll understand Him supernaturally . Without this, I’m sure I will sink. With it, I’m in for the ride of my life. Hoping to find you resting there alongside, Aunt Michelle
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