Testimony

“You assaulted me.”

My mother screamed those words to me as my father helped her up from the floor in our upstairs hallway. That was immediately after I threw her down. And right before she threw me out.

Let me rewind some years before that fateful night.

Home

I grew up in a family of seven, and I was smack dab in the middle. Not only was I the middle child, but I was also the middle boy. Honestly, you would have thought my parents had the power to literally program the family makeup. Each pregnancy was about three years apart, and the sequence of births took on a clear pattern—boy, girl, boy, girl, boy. Almost like they had placed an order at the altar.

With an Irish father and an Italian mother, as you might guess, we were raised in a Catholic home. My siblings and I were all named after saints and baptized within weeks of taking our first breaths. We went to Mass every Sunday and on holy days of obligation. During our elementary and middle school years, we also attended a Catholic school, where we crossed the early sacramental milestones—confession, First Communion, and confirmation. A quick tour of our house revealed no shortage of rosaries, crucifixes, and depictions of Mary. Indeed, my parents’ faith played a dominant role in the Hartnett household.

As for me, I believed God existed, but that was about it.

While religion was a major theme in our upbringing, it certainly wasn’t the primary story in our home. Growing up, the atmosphere became increasingly hostile as we approached our teenage years, with no real sense of trust, intimacy, or peace between family members. With two working parents and five kids, you can imagine the stress.

In typical middle child form, I was the black sheep of the family, viewed as the main source of conflict and dysfunction. As time went on, I adopted an “every-man-for-himself” mentality as I related to my siblings, and my relationship with my parents rapidly deteriorated.

My mother and I, in particular, had very little tolerance for each other, and we never seemed to pass up an opportunity to make that known. To this day, I believe there was genuine hatred between us. I remember times when I used to fantasize about hitting her. I would even imagine her death with a sense of relief. Over time, my heart had just hardened toward her, and I felt thoroughly justified in every ounce of bitterness that had accumulated.

Years of deep wounds and unforgiveness came to a head one night, May 19, 2002. I was 19 years old at the time and finishing up my freshman year of college.

What began as one of our routine fights escalated to a boiling point, where I finally slammed my bedroom door as my mother screamed at me from the hallway. It was a desperate attempt to momentarily muffle the voice I had grown to hate.

But by the time I had turned around, my door flew open, and my mother rushed in the room and lunged at me. With her hands just inches from my face, I instinctively grabbed her forearms and threw her to the floor.

The fleeting pleasure of releasing pent-up rage was immediately interrupted by the acute awareness that I had crossed a life-altering line. As my father helped her up and held her back, she shouted accusations of assault and demanded me to leave. To avoid making matters worse, I walked out without protest.

Homeless

My initial hope was that my mother would allow me to return home after a little time to cool off. The good news was that she let me come back the very next morning. The bad news was that she allowed me inside only to gather my belongings. In disbelief, I packed a suitcase and a duffel bag and moved into my 1989 Buick LeSabre.

For the first week or so, I parked on random streets in my neighborhood during the night. That strategy, however, was soon reevaluated as the early morning sun blazed through my windows and baked those leather seats, making it nearly impossible to sleep. I then moved to a nearby one-level parking garage, which became my home base. Even though the garage lights remained on throughout the night, the sun never touched the lot.

This parking garage was located at a business park primarily occupied by medical practices, so it was completely empty at night. I parked in a far corner of the garage, which limited the angles from which someone could approach my car.

I rolled down all my windows to allow for airflow, and I left the back driver’s side door open to maximize legroom. I stretched out across the back seat with my feet dangling out the door. I was well aware of how vulnerable that position left me, but it beat sleeping in an enclosed vehicle. The final step in my nightly routine was to stuff my keys and wallet inside my shoes, behind my socks, and cram them under the front seats. I figured that any potential thief should at least have to make some effort to locate my valuables. And if push came to shove, I slept with a homemade weapon by my side.

Although the garage was where I spent most nights that summer, I took advantage of any opportunity to sleep elsewhere. I worked at a local clothing store at the time, and the guys who owned and operated the store often stayed through the night, hanging out and designing merchandise. When the owner learned of my situation, he graciously allowed me to crash in one of the back rooms as long as someone else was there. On those occasions when I took him up on the offer, I turned a stack of sweatpants into a bed and called it a night.

Aside from my employer, I relied even more heavily on the kindness of my friends. They shared their laundry machines, showers, couches, phones, and food whenever possible. One even made me a copy of his house key so I could access his place while he and his parents were at work.

I hung out with friends as often as they were available in order to minimize the amount of time I spent alone in my car. Unfortunately, my constant needs put a clear strain on our relationships. But because my need for support outweighed my desire for peace, I never rejected their helping hands in spite of the growing tension. Ironically, the situation that created distance between us actually brought them closer, as they bonded through a shared frustration toward me.

My downward spiral gained momentum as the weeks turned into months. I saw no end in sight. I worked less than 25 hours a week, making under $8/hour. I dropped my classes for the upcoming semester at the University of Maryland. There came a point where I assumed enlisting in the military was my only feasible option. Needless to say, I sunk deeper into that hole, growing increasingly depressed and discouraged. I was desperately lost and broken.

Hope

Eventually, one of my closest friends invited me to his church.

Just the word church put a bad taste in my mouth. I had stopped going to my parents’ church more than a year before, distanced myself from all things religious, and had no plans of returning to any of it.

My reason for finally accepting the invitation actually had nothing to do with God. I agreed to go for a much simpler reason: air conditioning. Sitting in an air conditioned church on Sunday morning sounded way better than spending it in a stuffy car. Surely, enduring a church service was a small price to pay for the cool air.

When Sunday came, it didn’t take long to realize that this church would shatter all of the preconceived notions that I had walked in the door with that morning. Two things initially struck me. One, there were people who seemed incredibly genuine and down-to-earth yet greatly in love with Jesus. And two, the Bible was explained and preached in such a way that it actually made sense to me and seemed relevant to my everyday life. Those two things really caught me off guard; they didn’t seem to go together based on my past experiences. But I was intrigued, nonetheless, and kept coming back.

I didn’t experience an overnight transformation, but my eyes gradually opened. Slowly but surely, the hole in my soul was revealed, the sin in my heart was exposed, and my need for God's forgiveness became apparent. The truth of the cross was crystal clear, and I knew I belonged to Jesus.

As odd as it might sound, I began to realize that God had lovingly allowed my world to crumble. He had been working behind the scenes to graciously bring me to the end of myself.

My sin left me homeless. My homelessness left me broken. My brokenness left me open to accept a friend’s invitation to church. And it was there that the gospel took hold of me. God met me where I was, drew me to himself—sovereignly working through my sin and circumstances—and brought me to my knees in surrender to Christ.

Though my body was still homeless, my soul was finally home.

Home Again

It was only after recognizing my own desperate need for reconciliation with God that I began to think that reconciliation with my mother might be possible. In late September, I wrote my parents a letter, describing in detail my experiences since being kicked out. I shared my struggles and my newfound faith. I asked for their forgiveness and begged to move back home.

After taking some days to carefully weigh their options, my parents finally granted me permission to move back in on October 6, 2002.

What a feeling it was to sleep in my bed again. That awesome twin-size bed. Between the backseat, the stacks of sweatpants, the couches, and the closet floors, my body had forgotten what a mattress really felt like. Over the years, that bed had become an expectation, something I never thought twice about. How thoroughly spoiled I had been.

Fast-forward through years of prayer, therapy, and tough conversations. By the grace of God, I can say that a level of healing has taken place in my family that I had once written off as impossible. For years, I couldn’t bring myself to say “I love you” to my mother; it was a struggle to even greet her in the morning. I’m grateful to say that’s no longer the case.

Over time, anger drained, bitterness faded, forgiveness took root, and reconciliation became a reality. Through the blood-bought redemption found in Jesus Christ, I have been reconciled to both God and my parents.

In homelessness, I came home.