© 2017 by Candice Curry
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-0929-7
Some names and details of the people and situations described in this book have been changed or presented in composite form in order to ensure the privacy of those with whom the author has worked.
Author is represented by ChristopherFerebee.com, Attorney and Literary Agent.
A captivating story of hope and redemption.
Margaret Feinberg, author of Fight Back With Joy
I had no intention to sit down and read this book cover to cover in one sitting, but Candice drew me into her story from the opening chapter. She writes so honestly about the painful childhood memories and wounds left by her father. I found myself in awe of her strength and resilience. The Con Man’s Daughter is a journey of hope, redemption, and the relentless love of a God who pursues us beyond the ends of the earth. You will be captivated.
Melanie Shankle, New York Times bestselling author of Nobody’s Cuter Than You
Awesome read. Awesome story. God can always take a mess and make it his message. Candice weathered some incredible storms—this is a must-read! If Candice can make it, anyone can. Once I began to read, I couldn’t put it down! Hope, help, and healing are in these pages. Take the journey with Candice!
Ken Freeman, author, evangelist, and motivational speaker
From the first 120 mph wild ride Candice Curry takes with her earthly father to the first frightened whispered prayer to her heavenly one, I felt like a passenger in the speeding sports car of her life journey. She tells a story of heartbreak and redemption with an emotional yet humorous voice that both draws the reader in and leaves her changed.
Jenny Rapson, editor, ForEveryMom.com
The Con Man’s Daughter is a wild ride full of brokenness and pain, beauty and redemption. You will laugh and cry. You will want to hold little Candice in your arms and speak belovedness over her. You will cheer for her in her bravery and resilience and weep for her in her pain. Candice bravely shares the real truths of what it was like to grow up with a broken father and how it affected her. She doesn’t try to wrap things up in a pretty bow or avoid the hard parts, but shares with authenticity how God met her in the brokenness and brought about healing and redemption. It is full of unspeakable pain, unfathomable grace, unpredictable redemption, and breathtaking beauty.
Brandi Lea, US founder and director, Beauty for Ashes Uganda
Candice Curry has an incredible gift of sharing her story with grace, authenticity, and humbleness. I could not put this book down, and when I did, I could not stop thinking about what could possibly happen next. Her life and her story got into my head, but even more so, into my heart. There were parts of her story that broke my heart, and I found myself weeping for her loss. But God. As strong as the pain is in these chapters, redemption runs stronger. In her story she has given us a view of her own transformation—from bitterness to forgiveness. If God can help her to forgive the deepest, darkest wounds of her soul, then, surely, he can help any of us walk through forgiveness and experience what she has penned in these pages . . . freedom. Share your story and set others free.
Celeste Barnard, author and speaker
To my mom—You’re the behind-the-scenes hero and always have been. You’ve sacrificed over and over to make sure I’ve always had what I need and have given me as many of my wants as you could. For that I am forever grateful. Thank you for being my loudest cheerleader and my one and only Shema Shema.
To Jordan—My entire life has been filled with belly laughs and a sense of security because you’re the greatest big brother a girl could ask for. To sum it all up: “Turn out the lights, I lost my necklace.”
To Brandon—You’re my entire world, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. No matter what we’ve walked through or what waits for us in the future, I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else. Thank you for your patience, support, and humor. You’re my Kevin Arnold.
Contents
Cover 1
Title Page 3
Copyright Page 4
Endorsements 5
Dedication 7
Before We Begin 11
1. The Devil Inside 15
2. Daddy’s Little Girl 27
3. Turkey Pop-Tart Sandwiches 39
4. What Can Wash Away My Sins 57
5. Invisible Girl 71
6. What Happens in Vegas 83
7. Building a Life on Shifting Sand 91
8. God Turns Sand into a Solid Foundation 107
9. On the Witness Stand 119
10. In the Blink of an Eye 135
11. The Day the Bricks Came Crashing Down 151
12. My Redemption Song 171
13. The Power of Forgiveness 179
Epilogue 199
Acknowledgments 203
About the Author 205
Back Ads 206
Back Cover 207
Before We Begin
Redemption is the promise of a gift that follows brokenness. While not all roads to redemption are the same, we all have broken areas in our lives.
As a little girl, I would stick my hand in the back pocket of my dad’s Levi jeans so I wouldn’t get lost when we were out in public. He was my guide. I didn’t have to look up; I knew he was there. I blindly followed his lead. Where he went I went, with a naive confidence that he would not steer me wrong. He was my dad after all; I knew nothing else but to trust him. I was always the little girl with her hand in my father’s pocket.
As the years went on and I grew taller and slightly wiser, I started to lift my gaze from his feet to the road ahead and realized the path he had me on was full of lies and deceit. His path was paved with drugs and manipulation, and as a result he was laying down those same bricks for me.
My father was involved with the FBI for things I’ll never know. My best guess, from information I’ve gathered, is that he did work for them after being caught in one of his con man games. In return for his cooperation, he was spared prosecution. I remember the FBI coming to my house when I was a little girl and being told to go to the other room while he talked to the men in suits. My childhood was filled with moments like that, strange people showing up or calling the house trying to track my dad down. Maybe that’s why we lived in seventeen different houses before I finished high school.
His con man ways meant we drove stolen cars, lived in stolen houses, and shopped and dined on “borrowed” credit cards. This led to a lifestyle of constantly looking over our shoulders. Even as small children, my brother and I intuitively knew something was wrong and that something bad could happen at any time.
As you can imagine, living with secrets and drug use meant my dad was often on edge. We never knew what to expect with him and feared which version of our dad would walk through the door. It was either the funny and playful dad that let us to do whatever we wanted or the dad that was high on whatever he could get his hands on and who would torture us with his words. The sneaky lifestyle I was exposed to, as well as the mental and emotional abuse I endured at the hands of my father, left deep scars I’ve dealt with for most of my life.
I spent most of my life begging for approval from my father. I cried out to him instead of crying out to the One who could heal me. I stamped a label on myself very early on, a label I felt my father handed to me. I was worthless and had no real value. No one could possibly love me for who I truly was, and there could be no redeeming value in me. I built a wall. It took me years to stack each brick, one on top of the other, until they reached high enough to protect me from anyone finding out what was deep inside of me. I took on my father’s sins as my own and carried them with me everywhere I went.
But, like all of us, I had a choice to make. I could hang on to everything I had been through, let it pull me down and become my identity, or I could be set free from it and find a way to forgive.
Forgiveness is a hard choice to make; it takes a strength we do not have on our own. I make a daily choice not only to forgive the sins against me but also to forgive myself for where I’ve been and what I’ve done. God didn’t create me to be a victim, beat down and broken. He made me to be his hands and feet and to share with others how healing it is to forgive and hand yourself over to his will for your life.
God can work through any circumstance and heal what’s been shattered. He shines through all of our broken pieces.
This is my story.
one
The Devil Inside
I could hear my name being called, but I was stuck somewhere between a dream and reality. As it got louder I could feel myself trying to wake up and escape the nightmare, not realizing my reality wouldn’t be much different. I turned over to face where the noise was coming from and barely cracked one eye open, just enough to read my alarm clock. It was 1:37 a.m. I heard my name again. This had to be part of my nightmare. My alarm was set to go off in five hours, and I was desperate for a full night of sleep.
“Candice, get up.”
I finally snapped to and sat up in bed to discover my dad sitting next to me, covered in sweat, telling me we had to leave.
At thirteen, I had learned not to question him or his motives, and I knew well enough to just go along with whatever it was he was up to. But now? Really? It was almost two in the morning! This wasn’t right and I knew it. Whatever it was we were going to do or wherever it was we were headed, it wasn’t going to lead to anything good.
I mumbled something under my breath and put two feet on the floor. Dizziness rushed to my head from getting up so quickly, and I complained to my dad, who was rushing about frantically looking for absolutely nothing. I knew he didn’t hear a word I said. Since I already had on an oversized T-shirt, I grabbed a pair of sweatpants and tennis shoes. There was no need to pack a bag. This trip wouldn’t be long; I could tell by the look in his eyes and the fact that all he had in his possession was a set of car keys and a pack of cigarettes. I wanted to take one of the cigarettes out, light it for him, and tell him to sit down and relax. As a matter of fact, I wanted to take one of those cigarettes out, light it for myself, and tell my dad I wasn’t going anywhere. I pictured myself with a red ember glowing from one side of my mouth with a look in my eye that said I didn’t have time for this. On more than one occasion I had snuck one of those cigarettes, and my friends and I smoked it as if we were the coolest kids on the block. It usually ended with us either throwing up or left with a pounding headache. But we looked cool. He probably knew each time we did it, but he didn’t care. Confronting me about it would require him to discipline me, and he wasn’t able to do that. His parenting was crippled by his quest to be cool.
I’m not sure I ever viewed him as an authority figure in my life. He was my dad, of course, but he was a far cry from a father. Most of the time, it felt like I was caring for him instead of the other way around. He married my mom when they were both teenagers and had my brother shortly after. I came along two years after that. We were never the Cleavers. My mom went to college and nursing school when we were young and then had the pressure of being the breadwinner for the family. She had to work long, hard hours because my dad had never held a job a day in his life, and had no intention of getting one. In order to support our family, my mom often worked the overnight shift because it paid better. Unfortunately, this left my brother and me in the care of my dad, who quite honestly needed a babysitter himself. He lived in his own world, which often left my brother and me with the option to either play along or get left behind. On this night in particular, I decided to play along.
Parked in our driveway was a vintage convertible Alfa Romeo Spider—the most beautiful two-seater sports car I had ever seen. The outside was snuggled in a coat of deep red paint and the interior was a cloud of tan leather. There wasn’t a single flaw on the car, not a scratch or dent anywhere to be seen, and it made me think it had just left the production line. I felt sorry for the owner who was no doubt looking for it, but I was also excited to get to ride in it. My dad had a way of borrowing things and never returning them. That’s how he had acquired the fancy sports car that was about to take me on an adventure. Little did I know this adventure would be the start of my quest to rid the sense of worthlessness that slowly grew inside of my soul.
We peeled out of the driveway as if it were necessary, as if we were already being followed. I’m sure in my dad’s twisted head there was someone on our tail. I still had no idea where we were headed, and if I thought for one second that God knew who I was I would have said a prayer. But I was certain that God didn’t know girls like me. He knew only the good girls, the ones that showed up in his church on Sundays and made all the right choices throughout the rest of the week. He didn’t know the girl whose own dad didn’t value her.
I strained to hear God’s voice in my ear but only heard Satan whisper how much he loved me.
By the time we reached the highway my dad was having a full-blown panic attack. The sweat that seeped from his pores was making his clothes wet, and he smelled like something I couldn’t identify. I learned later in life that the smell was a combination of cocaine and cologne. It was a ritual for him to douse himself in Canoe cologne before he left the house. He might as well have showered in it because he was literally wet with it by the time he was done spraying. The stench made me gag. He lowered the top of the convertible to help with the intense heat he was giving off in the small space of the car, and the fresh air woke me up and made both of us fully alert. As soon as we got on the highway and headed north, I knew exactly where we were going. What I didn’t know was why it was so urgent to leave at 2:00 a.m. I wasn’t alarmed by all the craziness going on in the middle of the night; this sort of thing had become normal and frequent. I learned to go with it and enjoy the excitement of being out in the dark of night, wondering if we were going to get caught doing something we weren’t supposed to.
The howling of the wind started to drown out my dad’s rambling, and my eyes focused on the road that was so close to me I could almost reach out and touch it. I wanted to run my fingers alongside as we sped down the highway, the way I did when we were in our boat and I could feel the water next to us. The thought of being in the boat with sunshine on my face made me smile, but I knew this would not be a trip where we lowered the boat into the water. I tried to mentally remove myself from the speeding car and place myself in the fresh water. It was impossible. We were going so fast that the broken white stripes on the highway blurred to form one solid line, and the trees bravely lining the highway became a smear of green that prevented me from seeing beyond the confines of the road. In that moment I had zero fear of the speed we had managed to reach. I wasn’t worried about suddenly going into a tailspin or losing control. All control had already been lost, and I surrendered to the fact that whatever happened
from here on out was not in my hands. Unfortunately, my trust had to be placed in the adult who was in the driver’s seat, the one who was supposed to protect me at all costs.
As we reached a speed of 120 miles per hour, a police officer passed us going in the opposite direction. We must have been like a mosquito that buzzes by your face and that you can’t seem to track afterward. My dad’s body tensed up. I felt a sense of relief. There was no way that officer wasn’t going to make a U-turn and flip his lights on. My body was contorted in the passenger seat so that I could turn around and watch for his lights behind us. The extremely small interior of the car made it hard to turn around. There was no seat-belt law, and my dad was too cool for us to be wearing them. We were full speed ahead and, without a single glance in his rearview mirror, my dad’s foot pressed harder on the accelerator. He let me know that if I saw lights behind us we were without a doubt headed to jail.
We?
We were headed to jail?
Had I somehow gone from an innocent passenger to an accomplice? I was anything but a naive child, and I assumed there was something in the car that would send him straight to jail. What I didn’t realize was that the one thing in the car that wasn’t supposed to be there was me. I was supposed to be home in bed, getting enough sleep to make it through school the next day, not driving to the lake in the middle of the night.
My dad had one cassette tape in the car and we listened to it endlessly. Once we reached the end of side A, he would flip it over and start side B. Blaring from the speakers was INXS, my dad’s favorite band. “The Devil Inside” was track three on the Kick album, and as I sang along to the music I wondered if Michael Hutchence was talking about me or my dad.
The lights of a police car never followed us and it disappointed me. I asked my dad where I would go if they put him in jail. Would I have to go to the women’s jail without him and would they put me in a cell? I was serious. I had no idea what happened to the child when someone got arrested. Would they consider me a child? Would I get handcuffed? My questions almost irritated him, and he gave me short answers that didn’t ease the pain that was growing in the pit of my stomach. I imagined arriving at the jail, not knowing where they had taken my dad, and the officer telling me I had one phone call. I debated about my imaginary phone call and decided that I wouldn’t call my mom. I wouldn’t want her to know we had snuck out. I never wanted to get my dad in trouble and I never wanted to upset my mom, so I omitted the truth to her on more than one occasion. Maybe subconsciously it was to protect her more than it was to protect my dad. In the end, I decided I would pass on the one phone call and just sit in the lobby and wait until my dad was free again. I also secretly wished we would get pulled over so that some sort of alarm would go off to the fact that a child was out in the middle of the night. I wanted an officer to pull me aside and ask what I was doing out when I should be sound asleep in the comfort and safety of my home.
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