Maggie Miller's Blog
February 27, 2019
HONESTY IN RECOVERY – HONESTY IN LIFE
Honesty, is it always the best policy? I guess that would to depend on who you ask or what the circumstances are. If we can talk honestly about ourselves to another person with an attitude that shows sincerity and accountability, we have then given credit to “honesty is always the best policy” theory. It helps not only us to be free, but, the other person(s) so that everyone can make an informed decision.
It’s a deep form of deception to be “led” to believe one thing, when in reality something else is true. And assuming is even more dangerous, because it takes the reality and responsibility away from not only the other person, but yourself as well. Often leading us down a slippery path to codependency, enabling, victimization, self-righteousness and martyrdom to name a few. I have always said; “The one thing about the truth that you can never take away from it, is it’s ALWAYS fair. It may bring disappointment, happiness, loss, gain, sadness or joy, but, it’s always fair, because then at least we know who and what we are dealing with.”
In a society where the truth is a deception and deception is reality, we are treading on thin ice. The world today is fragile and fractured in many areas of the pond. We refuse to implement a reasonable level of accountability that gives a person self-esteem, worked for dreams and an understanding of a good conscience and character. Like blades on the skates of our life, these thing are getting duller, and duller and the mention of them turns you into some sort of judgmental hypocrite! I often wonder how God feels about these things. For those who deny His existence (except for when all hell breaks loose), it doesn’t really matter. Usually because either they are their own God, an entity unto themselves, or someone or something is in the natural world.
Here’s a news flash for all of us, He does think and have feelings about everything. It all matters, but, His truth matters most of all, because He is truth. Until we can resign ourselves with a willing spirit to the ONE Who is the creator of all things, we live in many different layers of dishonesty. Does it mean we are all nothing but liars? No, but, we are well to remember we are conceived in sin, born in sin, live in and die in sin. Which in short was the only reason for the Cross and Jesus Christ. We are by nature thanks to our original ancestors, Adam and Eve, bent towards a sinful nature where the seed of deception and lying is part of our being.
However, we can either feed that seed until becomes a strangling vine that chokes out the good planted in us by God. Or we can dig deeper into the soil of our being and take a hold of a stronger root, God’s original ordained goodness for His creation mankind and flourish. Until we see things and people for who and what they really are and not in our humanness what they want them to be. We will never be able to be honest with ourselves or anyone else for that matter. First we must sit before the God of the Heavens, the sky above and open ourselves up to transparency of what He already knows. But is waiting for us to be a pane of glass before Him so that we may look out and see His world and not our own or the misleading way of the natural life.
May God Bless, Comfort and Lead You Today and The Rest of Your Life,
Colleen L. Bruce
November 18, 2018
Holidays; Remembering How Blessed You Really Are
As the holidays approach and one starts to feel melancholy and lonely; Please remember, first of all the “holidays” really aren’t that much different than say; “your birthday, Columbus day, a Saturday or a Sunday.” It’s perception, actually it’s all about perception. If you think about it even reality to a great degree is perception. So, before you allow the world around you to drag you kicking and screaming or passively flopping into what the holiday season is “supposed to be” all about, look up and inward.
In reality it is about the Christ Child (Jesus), Who sets at the right hand of God the Father. Not father time, father Christmas or our earthly fathers; But, rather, our heavenly Father Who created not only the heavens and the earth, but us in His image. It’s not about the biggest and most beautiful tree, the number of gifts or the amount of rich and extravagant food we can consume. Or the number of events we can attend or the number of people we can flock to or them to us! It’s a perception and reality that we live in the other 300 days per year (give or take a few days). I’m primarily talking about the time span between November 1st and January 1st. The time frame when the holiday season starts to rear it’s ugly head for some people.
GIFTS
2CORINTHIANS 9:7 “Every man according as he purposed in his own heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or out of necessity: for God loves a cheerful giver.” God asks us to give gifts from a heart of joy, not out of obligation or a social expectation. Rather one from cheerful, sincere and thankful heart that is overflowing with the knowledge of His love and joy in which He blesses us with our many gifts. Gifts in and of themselves do not always come wrapped in pretty paper, have to throw us into unmanageable debt, resentment and unfulfilled expectations. No the best gifts are the things money can’t buy and even death can’t take away: Our time, our sincere love and forgiveness. A book read aloud to a child or even another adult, sharing the experiences of baking and sipping coffee and tea together. Laughter, a board game or a walk in the cold brisk hair to breath in freedom and freshness and to get outside yourself, literally and figuratively.
And before all else, a deep and enduring thought of knowing that whom you belong to and loves you best; is God your Heavenly Father. He alone has given you the best gift of any season in your life, the life of His own Son, the baby Jesus. The man Jesus, so that you might have life and live yourself. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder. And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. ISAIAH 9:6
The angel told the shepherds not to be afraid, because he was bringing a joyful message. One that would benefit all people, a Savior had been born. So, let us thank God for that joy and let us seek that same joy and purpose the shepherds had that night!
Blessings Always,
Colleen Bruce
October 3, 2018
What’s Happening In This Country?
How is it that we’ve disintegrated two standards of Justice and Freedom of Speech in the United States of America?
It begs the question; “How can a country founded on God’s truth and Biblical principals become so distorted and depraved?” The reasons are quite simple but the ramifications are deep and destructive, leaving in their wake an unbalanced shift in the human race. It al sounds quite negative and even catastrophic, because in reality it is. When our Founding Fathers (not men or women set apart in sinless perfection) set out to establish this great nation, there was a “Book / standard” they strived to go by, the Holy Bible with Jude0-Christian beliefs. For several decades now generations have benefited from the foundation of these laws and freedoms. And now neglecting any sense of accountability or reverence to Whom provided them, God Himself. Living removed from their original intent, in free wheeling lifestyles and conduct that is sure to lead to this country’s demise.
In MARK 7: 14-23 “The Heart of Man,” Jesus tells us that it’s not was goes into a man that defiles him (her), but, rather what proceeds out of him (his heart) is what defiles him / her. It’s from within evil thoughts and desires like; theft, fornication, murder, adultery, pride, slander, deceit and envy come! It’s actually quite sobering if you really think about it. And yet, we now live in a society where the majority, not the minority look outside themselves for someone or something to blame because they don’t want to look at themselves or take responsibility. We are saturated with a society of victim minded individuals who refuse to see their own beautiful forest of prosperity, self-worth and opportunity for the spindly trees of self centeredness and laziness at any cost to society and the world around them.
In a world of pointing fingers and disguising good as evil based on freedom of speech and rights to the neglect of acknowledging those rights as coming from God; Who has boundaries, limits and rules set in place for our own protection, are surely set for destruction. It’s almost a joke now from those who scream “tolerance” and commit verbal and physical assaults on property and those who dare to disagree with them and expect the same rights. But, here’s the good news of the gospel, “God will not be mocked! Every knee will bow, everyone whether they believe or not, will give an account for his or her life.” Of all the options God has given this land of the free and home of the brave, this will not be one that is optional.
So, now that I’ve bored some of you stiff with the ‘God-Thing” I believe that’s the part most people want to shelf and keep it all “human – rights” which by the way came from Him too. I beseech the people in positions of earthly power which God gave you the privilege of having, to read, absorb, ponder and digest what the United States of America is founded on. To not neglect, regardless of your personal life choices, to uphold what made this country prosper and stand for what she was intended to. We can not govern or micromanage the hearts and lives of every man and woman alive, but, we can institute laws, exhibit fairness in justice for all; And stand for all that God, the Bible and our founding fathers intended it to not only be, but remain. So, that she may continued to be blessed among the nations of the earth.
Always His First. May God Bless and Keep You All,
Colleen L. Bruce aka Maggie Miller
February 25, 2018
MERCY and GRACE
In GENESIS 22: 10-14 God’s Mercy withheld the knife from Isaac’s heart. God’s Grace provided a ram in the thicket.
Lets hear what GOD, Himself said to Abraham.
10 Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to *kill his son. 11 But the *Angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” he answered, “Here I am.” 12 THE LORD said, “Do not reach out (with the knife in) your hand against the boy, and do nothing to (harm) him; for now I know that you fear God (with reverence and profound respect), since you have not withheld from ME your son, your only son (of promise).” 13 Then Abraham looked up and glanced around, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering (ascending sacrifice) instead of his son. 14 So Abraham named that place *The LORD Will Provide. And it is said to this day, “On the mountain of the LORD it *will be seen and provided.”
Every time I read this scripture or hear about Abraham’s test of obedience and faith in a sermon; I break out in goose bumps, feel humbled and in awe of God’s goodness and faithfulness to those who obey and listen to Him. I’ve tried to picture one of my own babies or one of my grandchildren, laying in front of me bound down with a rope. Only to know that I am being called by God Almighty Himself, to be willing to plunge a knife into the heart of one of my babies! With complete faith that He (not I) will be reward my faithfulness with His justice and bless me. To the human mind, average or otherwise, this seems frightening and intense at best.
But, reading this also gives me a look into the fragility of human life, God our Father and Creator and death itself. The breaths we breath from the time of our conception until the last earthly one that we will all succumb to at God’s appointed time; is given to us because of His Mercy on mankind after the first disobedience in the garden to His Grace for salvation found only through Jesus Christ. It saddens me when I see people who are so disconnected from the truth and reality of life after death. Some can only wrap their minds around the things of this world, earthly relationships/status, possessions and “their” intentions and works. Nothing could be further from the truth. A couple more examples of God’s Mercy and Grace are as follows.
In LUKE 23:39-42 Mercy heard the cry of the thief on the cross. Grace promised him paradise that day. In EPSHESIONS 2:8-9 Mercy closed the door to hell. Grace opened the door to Heaven.
And we are well to remember, in ROMANS 5:20 Mercy withholds from us what we deserve and Grace gives us what we don’t deserve!
Blessings Always,
Colleen Bruce aka/ Maggie Miller
http://www.inspirationsbycolleen.com
February 14, 2018
STOPPING = THINKING!
How many troubles, heartaches and misunderstandings in life could be avoided if only; “We had STOPPED and THOUGHT about what is really happening?” I can’t tell you the countless number of years I have spent reacting instead of stopping my run-away train thoughts, and instead responding according to the reality and truth of the situation! In reality a lot of us are programed to get results, answers and understand the why’s and why not’s in life.” The need for analyzing and understanding is even worse for survivors of abuse of domestic violence, because we need things to make sense. This was true for me. I went from a care-giver as a child to the adults in my life to feel a sense of belonging and love. Then I became a codependent “fixer.” Then after feeling and being used, manipulated and emotionally taxed, I became more reactive than responsive.
Reaction is when we blow past rational thinking and then plow down yield and warning signs, bringing us and often those around us to a crashing halt. The “STOP” sign is lying flat on the ground and so are we, figuratively speaking. However, when we respond we have programmed through behavior modification, a safe guard, so when satan presses our well known trigger buttons; We can STOP. Without backing up and getting the situation or person or their behavior into a rational perspective, we can’t see the truth or reality of them or ourselves. Because we are way too close and the devil knows this and uses it to his, not our full advantage.
The devil is very clever at knowing where we store our old tapes and which ones to play and when. He loves more than anything for us to remember old hurts and resentments or the times when he can convince us that God didn’t answer our prayers the way we wanted, because we are not worthy and don’t matter to God. When nothing on this planet could be father from the truth. So, I beseech you to sit down and get real with yourself, because you are the ONLY ONE you can do anything about with the help found in God’s grace. Identify your triggers, not someone else’s and make a list of the things you need to STOP and THINK about before you react, then pray about your response with an honest view of yourself first. Mirrors aren’t just for vanity, we need to look at our real selves and sift that image through God’s word, love and commandments.
Be Well, Be Blessed, Be Humble, Be Forgiving and above all else Give It to God!
Blessings,
Colleen Bruce aka Maggie Miller http://www.inspirationsbycolleen.com
January 9, 2018
A WINTER OF CHANGE
Climbing the long steep hills towards home, Earnest Grant could see the faint flickering of light from a kerosene lantern glowing in a window of a distant farmhouse. It felt as though this familiar scene had been painted on the horizon just for him. As he drove through the cold gray mist of dawn, he knew he was almost home. Home where he had been stripped of any illusion that he had control over his life. This was where he had struggled with a painful youth, and vowed to God and himself to never return.
His father, Fred, had taken a bad fall from the hayloft a week earlier, and at his mother’s begging request, Ernest decided to go home and face the life he’d left behind. Fred Grant hated the winter months. He often said, “because of how they confine a man’s soul, the earth and all that inhabits it.” With the warmer days of Indian summer gone, the doors and windows that were once open and provided a feeling of freedom were securely shut. The mornings now brought little sunlight through frosty kitchen window panes.
The bitter frost of late fall gave way to the stark reality this old farmer had tried to forget for years, he and his wife, Liddell, now in their late seventies were all alone. They had not seen their only son, earnest, in almost twenty years. Ernest and his father at not seen eye to since his youth. Fred wasn’t much for hard work, but, he always had plenty for Ernest to do. As a young man Fred was forced into staying on that old farm and caring for his parents. His father was a bit of a tyrant and saw to it that Fred stayed next to penniless and tied to a life on the farm much like his own.
By the time Ernest was twelve Fred seemed to resent, what he considered a luxury for him to go off to school everyday, but, Liddell Grant was determined to see her son have a better life and she knew that meant an education. as time passed by this “special privilege” seemed to deepen the divide between Ernest and his father. Fred always made a point of listening to what other folks had to say, but when it came to his son, he heard the words but rarely ever listened. Hard work, plenty of it and unearned respect were all Fred Grant ever wanted from his son.
By the time Ernest was seventeen he had feelings that went quick to his core. Often filled with anger, guilt and despair, he decided to leave home. A couple of towns away he knew he could find work in one of the mills. Mill town life was different to be sure, the company store usually owned you body and soul. Between housing rent, fuel and groceries all paid back to the mill owner, you scarcely stood a chance of getting by never mind a head. The day Ernest left his father stood somberly on the front porch with a dead stare across the back forty. His mother’s head hung low, using her soiled old apron to catch the hot tears welling up in her eyes. A voiceless cry of sorrow and regret crept up Fred’s throat as Ernest loaded the last suitcase into the old Ford truck. As Ernest slammed the rusty creaky shut deep inner sadness filled his heart as tears filled his eyes. Never looking back Ernest pushed in the choke and popped the clutch as he rolled out of the dirt driveway.
Weary and discouraged from his fall, Fred lay waiting for Ernest, feeling a secret shame that he had never once gone looking for his son all those years. As Ernest made the last sharp turn into the barnyard a light snow started to fall quietly over the pale brown hay fields. The crisp cold scent of winter was subdued by the smell of chimney smoke that filled the air. Feeling like a stranger as he approached the kitchen door, his prayers never ceased for the strength to face the unknown reaction of his father. Gently he knocked, then with groan of creaky hinges the door slowly opened, after the door scraped across the uneven kitchen floor, his mother’s aged and weathered face appeared. In an instant Ernest could see the same depth of love he’d always remembered in her large brown eyes.
It seemed the only words she could say was; “Son, please come in, sit down and eat.” It felt like an eternity since Ernest had consumed her good home cooking. The familiar surroundings felt strange and an intense silence seemed to fill the air. Suddenly the sound of his father stirring in the parlor on a makeshift hospital bed that his mother had made from the old cot in his room. Hesitantly getting up from the table Ernest knew it was time to face his father. Walking through the parlor door Ernest saw a physically bruised and broken man in a shell of what his father once was. Now in the winter of his years, Fred Grant could no longer avoided the painful reality of his prideful stubbornness. With tear filled eyes he reached out his hand, “Son, I’ve lived in vain and we’ve both lived in a world that should have never been the way it has for any child.” Ernest suddenly realized that he held no less guilt than his father for not learning how to live and forgive. Grasping his father’s hand he glared at the duck ducked taped crack in the parlor window. The cold blowing snow had seemed to become a comfort and not a confinement for their world. One provided by a loving God to be embraced for a time of reflection and healing.
December 5, 2017
Merry Christmas 2017
As I bring the year to close and having reached the 52nd year of my earthly life; This year like so many years in the past, I become melancholy and reflective about the previous 12 months. The goals I’ve set, the dreams I’ve had and the plans for notable change. Then life happens. Somewhere along the way shortly after the winter blues and cold& flu season of January, February and March pass; the remaining 9 months just seem to fly by. As grim as this all may sound, there’s peace, hope and contentment in the moments we choose to embrace.
In the past year many of our lives have been peppered with the death of a loved one, a pet or our health, finances and sometimes even family as we’ve known it has changed in unwanted ways. The world has certainly changed with the social and political climate we’re now living in. Most days it seems the only thing certain is uncertainty. It’s like we’re straddling the great divide. Drugs, primarily heroin and all the substances that are associated with it, have taken the lives of so many loved ones. Our family was not exempt this year from the horrible fate of a deadly overdose. The rational is null and void, as there isn’t any. So, we spend hours, days, weeks, months and years trying to get our heart and minds to wrap around what can not be reasons out in any logical way. Thus goes another scar on the road map of the lives left behind to process such an avoidable loss.
So, at Christmas time (just like any other time of the year) we can be thankful for not only the birth of Jesus Christ, but the cross as well. My first mother-n-law, Marion Bruce, was the salt of the earth. She used to sing “Count Your Blessings” and she was one of mine. Over the years I’ve had many more to count than I’ve often choose to remember. So, I would encourage all of you regardless of whatever challenges the years bring, to take a page of her book and “Count Your Blessings One by One.” As one of my counselors and mentors once said to me; “Sometimes we have to look at events in our lives like a snap shot so we can focus on the main thing or what’s really happening, other times we have to blow it up so we can see the big picture.”
In the big picture of my life, I am blessed with a wonderful loving husband, two beautiful grandchildren and two daughters who are beautiful, productive and hardworking young ladies. But above all else, I have the cross and a heavenly Father who is the best of parents to love and provide for me. In the smaller snap shot of my life I have a few things to which I need to zoom in on and get into focus, my career path and personal time and space. I’m at the foot of a bridge and I’ve seemed to loose grace for certain things in my life., but, have no doubt God will provide ample grace for the next chapter. I love being a hairdresser as much today as I did 34 years ago and will continue that for as far out as my eyes can see. I have a new website & blog www.inspirationsbycolleen.com It covers many things, but I feel my heart is leading me down a path that involves at risk children and youth. I especially have a heart for boys, as the life of my brother and so many others boys and men in my family and around me whom I’ve seen suffer because they were “boys” made to be “big boys or men” before their time, when all they needed was love and guidance and to be like any child. I can say from plenty of experience; “Once you’ve grown up you’ll be an adult a heck of a lot longer than you’ll ever get to be a child.” Savor it if you are one and don’t push it if you aren’t.
Blessings and Merry Christmas to you all. And remember;
“Life At It’s Longest Is Still Very Short”
Colleen Bruce
November 12, 2017
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving ProclamationAbraham Lincoln proclaimed the first Thanksgiving in 1863
Copied by Colleen Bruce from the Book about Lincoln
“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of GOD; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations, are blessed whose GOD is the LORD. ~ We know that by HIS divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we justly fear that awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people. ~ We have been the recipients of choice bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. ~ But we have forgotten GOD. We have forgotten the Gracious Hand, which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to Pray to the GOD that made us. ~ It has seemed to me fit and proper that GOD should be solemnly reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of these United States, and also those who are at sea and those sojourning in foreign, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent FATHER who dwelleth in the Heavens.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*A good way to make memories that will last a life time!
In my mind this is one of the noblest and most humble proclamations ever written, by my favorite president, Abraham Lincoln. I would like to share a couple ideas and thoughts with you that have enriched our Thanksgiving holiday. Buy a plain white (linen) table cloth put it on your dinner table with a piece of plastic underneath. With multi-colored permanent markers have all your guests sign, date and write what they’re thankful for on the cloth. Wash it on the gentle cycle and it will last for years. When loved ones or friends are no longer with us, you will have a part of them with you every year. As well as memories to pass on to future generations. Also, even if you do not do a formal prayer, consider taking a bold step: read this proclamation before dinner. It will give your family, guests and especially children a real sense of the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Thanksgiving Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the ...
Thanksgiving ProclamationAbraham Lincoln proclaimed the first Thanksgiving in 1863
Copied by Colleen Bruce from the Book about Lincoln
“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of GOD; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations, are blessed whose GOD is the LORD. ~ We know that by HIS divine law, nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we justly fear that awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people. ~ We have been the recipients of choice bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. ~ But we have forgotten GOD. We have forgotten the Gracious Hand, which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to Pray to the GOD that made us. ~ It has seemed to me fit and proper that GOD should be solemnly reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of these United States, and also those who are at sea and those sojourning in foreign, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent FATHER who dwelleth in the Heavens.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*A good way to make memories that will last a life time!
In my mind this is one of the noblest and most humble proclamations ever written, by my favorite president, Abraham Lincoln. I would like to share a couple ideas and thoughts with you that have enriched our Thanksgiving holiday. Buy a plain white (linen) table cloth put it on your dinner table with a piece of plastic underneath. With multi-colored permanent markers have all your guests sign, date and write what they’re thankful for on the cloth. Wash it on the gentle cycle and it will last for years. When loved ones or friends are no longer with us, you will have a part of them with you every year. As well as memories to pass on to future generations. Also, even if you do not do a formal prayer, consider taking a bold step: read this proclamation before dinner. It will give your family, guests and especially children a real sense of the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday.
October 19, 2017
WestBow Press Hollywood Coverage
Title: Lords Hill Author: Maggie Miller Genre: Drama
Setting: New England
Pages: 108
Period: 1960s onwards
Best Medium for Adaptation:
Studio Feature Film Independent Feature Film Animation – Feature Film
Documentary Alternative/reality TV series Animation – TV series (adult)
Drama/Comedy TV series Children’s TV series Webseries
Logline
A young girl struggles to navigate her life while experiencing horrific abuse at the hands of her family.
Brief Summary
A young girl, Maggie, and her three siblings are taken in by their grandmother when their mother dies in a tragic car accident. The children suffer horrific abuse at the hands of their grandmother, aunt, and uncle. Her uncle Henry terrorizes the whole family, often killing pets and threatening to murder the children. As she gets older, Maggie turns to drugs and alcohol in an attempt to cope and sees her life spin out of control, culminating in a severe car accident when drunk. After this incident, Maggie rediscovers her faith and successfully rebuilds her life by having a family and finding the loving environment she has always craved.
Synopsis
In the 1960s, MAGGIE and her three siblings go to live with their maternal grandmother, NANA HAMMOND, in Lords Hill, New England, after the untimely death of their mother. After
leaving a dance, drunk, Maggie’s mother had side-swiped three cars and hit a telephone pole head-on. Maggie’s father leaves the children behind like they don’t exist, only paying child support for the first month. Nana Hammond does not contest this as she is afraid he will try and take the children back. She tells Maggie that her father will beat them like he did their mother, and probably molest the girls.
At age nine, Maggie finds newspaper clippings in Nana’s drawer with pictures of her mother’s car accident. Up until this point, she has been led to believe her father shot her mother. After her mother’s death, Maggie’s older brother JIM is the only person who offers any comfort. As a
toddler, Maggie is engulfed with intense anxiety, fueled by being in a constant state of fight or flight, which later manifests itself in various physical, social, and emotional difficulties.
Maggie’s aunt, CHARLOTTE, has a big hand in helping Nana raise the children but it comes at a price. Charlotte is an adulterous alcoholic who takes Maggie along to meet men. Maggie often waits in a strange house, listening to her aunt have sex, which makes her feel uncomfortable.
Despite the hurtful things her grandmother and aunt do to her, Maggie still loves them.
Twenty years later, Maggie and her aunt go out to lunch and Charlotte tells how proud she is of the woman her niece has become. Charlotte dies not long after, a result of her hard drinking. As Maggie stares at her body in the morgue, she feels as much relief as sorrow.
By the time her second daughter is born, Maggie’s view of her grandmother has softened. She realizes that for a widowed woman of sixty-four, raising four young children ranging in age from three to eleven must have been quite an undertaking. Maggie feels for Nana, who was not wanted by her own mother and buried four of her ten children before her death.
As a child, Maggie experiences happier times with her UNCLE FRANK and AUNT DOROTHY who live in Maine. Cheerfully, the couple welcomes their nieces and nephew on many weekends and provides the children with a temporary illusion of freedom from the heartaches they face at home. Maggie also has a good relationship with her great-grandmother, but the old lady is physically abusive toward her two older sisters, often dragging them around the living room by their hair. Maggie also witnesses the verbal and physical abuse her UNCLE HENRY dishes out to her great-grandmother.
Nana favors Jim over the girls. He always receives his share of the razor strap, but the punishment never hurts as much as the degrading things she aims at them. Food is always plentiful in the house, but because feelings are rarely allowed to be expressed, Maggie eats when punished and develops a compulsive eating disorder at the age of five. Maggie finds Nana’s love confusing and unpredictable. When Nana loves her, Maggie feels safe, but when she gets angry, her razor-sharp tongue and aggression are unmerciful.
Throughout Maggie’s childhood and teenage years, Henry terrorizes everyone in the house. He has no regard for their fears or emotional pain, and if it is expressed, a random killing spree of the pets may occur, sometimes done in front of the children. On one occasion, Henry makes Nana cook the animals, forcing the children to eat some. Threats to kill the children are common, and he is taken to the state mental hospital numerous times.
Until she is eleven, Maggie lives and plays in a fantasy world. There, between hating herself and wishing she were dead like her mother, Maggie spends hours pretending to be a teacher. The young girl often lays on the couch, staring at a picture of her mother, desperately trying to recover memories of her, but to no avail. To feel some sort of love and acceptance, Maggie becomes a caregiver to her abusers, but this forces her self-hatred to grow because she can feel herself becoming more like them.
In addition to the abuse at home, Maggie is bullied at school. Over the years, the verbal abuse of the school bullies becomes physical torment. The only connections she makes are with other troubled kids, and together they skip school to drink and smoke marijuana. The school guidance counselor, MR. THOMPSON, is the only person who listens and cares about her pain. By the time she is twelve, Maggie is drinking and smoking regularly, and before long, stealing money from Charlotte’s purse.
A rare positive moment occurs when Maggie is accepted into a work program at the high school called the Cedar Program. She works there for two summers under the guidance of the janitor, MR. MARSHFIELD, who treats Maggie with respect. Two other saving graces during her teen and adult years are AUNT EDDIE and AUNT GENEVA, both of whom provide love and support.
Life at home gets steadily worse as Henry and Jim get into physical fights, climaxing in Jim putting a knife to his uncle’s throat after finding Henry threatening Nana in the same manner. At that time, Maggie’s middle sister runs away and never comes back. After a particularly savage beating by Nana, Maggie walks five and a half miles to the parish house of a Catholic priest, FATHER LAMPRON, where she begs him to help her find God. A gentle, kind man, Father Lampron gives the young girl a Bible with many parts of scripture underlined for her to read.
Maggie leaves school at fifteen and finds work in a shoe shop, spending some nights at her boyfriend’s house. These evenings spent away from Nana are filled with guilt – such is the strength of Maggie’s co-dependency. Since no one has ever told her about the facts of life, Maggie ends up pregnant before her sixteenth birthday and has an abortion.
Maggie is devastated when Nana passes away. Losing the only mother figure she’s ever known is traumatic regardless of the brutal treatment. In a matter of weeks, the house is closed up and put on the market as nobody has the money to stay there. Maggie makes plans to stay with Charlotte, but before she can move in, her aunt’s house catches on fire, so she stays with her boyfriend for a while.
Henry flounders around town, staying here and there, his antics too far over the edge with Nana now gone. A relative takes him in, but she is equally poisonous, eventually convincing Henry to blow his brains out. Maggie moves in with Charlotte, but her aunt’s controlling and abusive ways are too much to bear, so she and a boyfriend move to Massachusetts. Her life there is no better than in Lords Hill as her boyfriend grows ever more abusive, so in desperation, she moves back.
In 1987, after a work party, Maggie gets blind drunk and attempts to drive home. In a haunting echo of her mother, the car hits a patch of ice and crashes. Incredibly, Maggie crawls out from under the car and staggers to a nearby restaurant where a pickup truck driver takes her to the emergency room. She believes the driver to be an angel from God. By sheer luck, a sobriety test is not performed, but Maggie has a fractured hip and collarbone as well as extensive bruising.
This lucky escape prompts Maggie to visit church, and she prays hard for someone decent to love her and provide a family of her own. Maggie does marry, but more tragedy follows when their apartment building catches fire. After the couple welcomes their first child, a girl, Maggie realizes her husband is a full-blown alcoholic.
After eight years of marriage and tired of the emotional abuse, Maggie takes their two little girls and leaves, reaching out to the local domestic abuse program. Her husband’s diagnosis with lung cancer brings them back together, and after his death, Maggie turns to alcohol. After a lecture from Frank, Maggie stops drinking for good and marries her second husband, who loves her healthily and lovingly. She continues chipping away at her recovery with the help of DR. LYNCH, and her faith in God grows day by day.
Element Ratings
Excellent
Good
Fair
Development Needed
Concept
Story
Characters
Comments/Suggestions for Adaptation
LORDS HILL is a well written, harrowing, and emotive true-life story about one girl’s struggle to cope with her toxic and abusive family. It also details the resulting issues these horrific experiences leave her with as she struggles to navigate her childhood and then adulthood. This piece certainly has great potential to be adapted, with its most suited medium being an independent feature film.
There is enough conflict and drama here to keep an audience emotionally involved throughout. The leading character, Maggie, goes through horrific abuse and violence from a very young age. The pace is relentless and doesn’t let up until the end, but provides great hope for anyone in the same predicament that they may also get help and lead a loving, productive life.
This piece will be a challenging watch for anyone, but an audience will experience a whole range of emotions from sadness and anger to hope. For a film to succeed, an audience should be moved to feel deep emotions, and this story certainly achieves this. It also focuses on important subject matter which many people could relate to and find inspirational, and deserves to be seen as a full feature.
Maggie makes for a terrific protagonist who will transfer superbly to the big screen. The initial loss of her mother in a car accident will immediately prompt an audience to sympathize with the girl and root for her until the end. Maggie overcomes tremendous hurdles and finally meets her
second husband, who provides her with the safety and security she has yearned and prayed for her whole life. This offers the hope that happiness can be achieved no matter how long it takes or how unattainable it appears at times. It’s important that a story as brutal and harrowing as this provides hope and a positive ending.
The supporting characters are mostly unlikeable but move the story forward well. Nana and Aunt Charlotte are particularly three-dimensional, offering some happier memories for Maggie in spite of the abuse. One of the things that gives this story great depth is the understanding Maggie
attempts to find in her family’s toxic behavior. She is able to acknowledge how difficult it must have been for her grandmother to take on four children after the death of the mother. Maggie even finds compassion for her uncle Henry, who continually torments the family, and recalls a few happier moments that Henry is responsible for. Some viewers may wonder how she can find forgiveness for these despicable people, but this makes Maggie a more memorable and well- rounded character.
Overall, with its dramatic story and compelling characters, Lords Hill has many qualities that make it suitable for adaptation.
Final Recommendation
Strongly Consider
Consider
Consider with Development
