I decided a long time ago, I would not be ashamed of what has happened in my life; instead, I choose to share it and hopefully help someone in the process. Jesus' love has been the rock that has gotten me through everything I have ever faced and it is stronger than any storm I will ever encounter.
One of my earliest memories as a child is one where I'm standing in the doorway to the kitchen in my parent's house watching my father drunkenly beat my mother. At just three-years-old. I wasn't entirely sure what was happening, but I knew I was scared. Soon after that, my parents divorced.
From then on, my parents went through a series of "make-ups and break-ups," One of those ending with my mother being pregnant with my little brother and left standing on the street with nothing but laundry baskets full of our clothes. In the midst of all that confusion, my maternal grandmother (who I was very close to) was involved in a fatal car crash. Even at six-years-old, I felt like my life was spinning out of control.
During my mother's pregnancy, we stayed at a women's crisis center and were cared for in every way possible. After a period of time, they placed us in our new "home" -- a place that even the thought of it now makes me cringe. While living in this new community with such terrible company, my mother became addicted to drugs which left my seven-year-old self to take care of my newborn brother.
Fast forward about a year and my parents decide to give things another try. The only thing I remember from that time was coming home from school one day and my mom being gone and somehow my brother and I ended up in a new town with a part of our family I didn't even know existed.
Come to find out, my mom had been checked into rehab to try and better herself for our family. In the meantime, my brother and I lived with our extended family during the summer before my fifth grade year.
Up until this point in my life, I rarely attended church unless my paternal grandmother would take me or a friend invited me. I knew who Jesus was and knew bible stories but I didn't personally know God. Once moving in with my extended family while my mom was away, they took me to church every week; however, I didn't really gain anything from it.
Finally, my mom came home and the three of us moved into a "new" home. I started my fifth grade year at the fifth school I had been to since Kindergarten. The kids were nice enough, and I immediately became best friends with a boy, Jesse, who is still my best friend to this day. Things were finally starting to look up and I was finally starting to be able to be a kid.
Unfortunately, my mom's sobriety didn't last long. One night over winter break during my sixth grade year, while I was in the shower, my mom took pills while cooking and our house caught on fire. Thankfully, all three of us got out without any injuries. Three moves later, we finally found another good place to live where I could stay in the same school and we could stay close to our family.
Once again, I thought things were going well and we were happy. School was going great, I was in seventh grade, I joined cheerleading and band, and my little brother was attending kindergarten. Thanksgiving break came around and like any day off school, I slept in late. I woke up to my brother in the living room watching "SpongeBob Squarepants" and decided to watch with him since our mom was still asleep. But I only thought she was still sleep. After what seemed like forever, I attempted to go in our mom's room and wake her up, only to find she had passed away in her sleep due to an overdose.
The next few days were a whirlwind of events and emotions. Our family we stayed with while our mom was in rehab became our legal guardians, and it felt like the whole world turned upside down. I can't express in words the pain of losing my mom. My heart broke, and there's still a piece of it missing even now. I fell into a terribly dark depression. I put a smile on my face when I needed to, but on the inside I just wanted to crawl into a ball. For a period of time, I harmed myself thinking I was only hurting myself, but I now realize it hurt everyone around me. But I don't really remember much else from that time and I'm sort of glad about that.
The following summer I attended church camp, like I did every year. I liked to go to get away from home and spend a week with friends I didn't see very often. However, this particular year during one of the first sermons, the speaker was talking about testimonies. I remember him saying, "If you don't remember the place, a day or anything about when you accepted Christ, if you don't have a testimony, are you really saved? Are you really going to heaven when you die?" And all of a sudden it felt like my heart was being yanked out of my chest. All of the years of church, VBS and revivals, and not once did I remember a time where I had asked God to come into my heart and save me. So on that day, June 14, 2009, at Spring Lake Baptist Assembly Church Camp, I accepted Christ. He loves me for me. He has loved me since before time began. He loves me in spite of all my faults and imprecations.
Since that day, I have witnessed a love like no other. A love more powerful than the love of any earthly relationship.
Unfortunately, I am an imperfect person and I fail Christ daily. Since starting college in the fall of 2014, I find myself faced with so many "small" day-to-day struggles that challenge my faith, whether it be relationships, peer pressure, something on the Internet or even my own thoughts. But I serve a God who is so much better and so much stronger than all of those temptations. I'll never be thankful enough for the light that Christ has brought to my life. It hasn't been perfect since being saved and it's not supposed to be, but now I have someone to carry me through all the storms that I'm too weak to handle.
Finally, I would like to end with this. The goal of my story is not to make people pity me or to complain about what a tough life I have lived, but rather to show people that no matter what you have been through, God loves you and wants you to accept His love. He can save the most messed up people in the worst situations and completely turn their lives around and make them the type of person who people think have always had their lives together.
My prayer here is to help anyone who has struggled with similar problems or maybe even people who just feel bogged down by life. Even if just one person is changed by this article, then my prayer will be answered.
