Almost 10 years ago...

I was almost 10 years ago, this summer (August to be exact) that my life was forever changed....

Let me take you back a bit further...Just so you can get a better understanding of how impactful this time was for me...

Despite being raised mostly "Christian" for most of my youth, I was, at one time what some would call a "troubled teen"...After the divorce of my parents, when I was 13, I began down a very dark road... My Father, who was living in New York at the time, was absent. My Mother was working 60+ hours a week, and then partying a bit like a kid again her self, when she could on the side. She was sort of facilitating my partying lifestyle at the time too...

We were more like pals, than mother and daughter...Things had changed...I had changed...My Mom had changed...Life was different...

I started feeling more depressed, maybe it was hormones, maybe it was the divorce?.... Then, I started hanging out with different people, and ditched the friends who were actually decent...I got caught up, and wrapped up in the attention I was getting from boys too..Attention from Bad boys, who were nothing but trouble and I knew it, but I didn't care. Something about the thrill of knowing they were bad news made it even more fun...And with little to no supervision, I had plenty of time to get into situations I should not have been in. It was always fine and dandy, until things stopped being fun and games for me, one horrible afternoon, when a few guys decided it would be "fun" to force themselves on me.... Repeatedly...I blamed myself ...It took years of counseling to even be able to sleep at night...

That event sent me in a tailspin...I eventually turned to drugs to numb the hurt, guilt, and anger. I started with a little bit of pot, until that stopped working, and eventually found my way to doing crystal meth, regularly. Heck, I was doing anything and everything I could to get my hands on it, for just a moment of peace, even if it was counterfeit... I began to deteriorate.

I was up for days on end, skipping school, running away for weeks to live with strange tweakers in the ghetto, just to get high, stealing, robbing people, and did many more questionable, and even terrible things...

Eventually that landed me a long stay in juvenile hall. I was forced to get my act together...For a while anyway...

I did my time, got out,and was 100% certain I was done with this lifestyle..I was still dabbling in little things here and there, and hanging around with men I really had no business being with. Men who were 6+ years older than me....Eventually, I ended up in a dysfunctional, abusive relationship... I thought it was "love"...But I was in love with the IDEA, of being in LOVE....Then...I got pregnant...At 17...Despite being on birth control, and taking it "right" for more than a year, I found myself with a positive home pregnancy test, and heart full of regret, and tears streaming down my face....

After confirming, via ultrasound, I was pregnant, the father of my daughter and I started to get our acts together, and "do things right" (AKA- "play house") and he was "going to counseling" and working on his past, and he swore, he would never hurt me again .....

I was committed to being a good parent, and staying clean, and making this relationship work, for the baby, if nothing else...We did OK, for a while...

It was not until my daughter was 3 months old, everything hit the fan, and things got more out of control than I could have imagined....The abuse got MUCH worse...To the point where I could have died.... I finally had enough, and filed a report. He went to jail for a number of months (he had prior offenses too, a real "winner") and I spiraled out of control, emotionally... Again.

The life I had tried to build crumbled in front of me...I turned once again to drugs...I even lied to myself and told myself it made me a "better" single parent since I stayed up longer and had more energy etc...But eventually, that all came crashing down too, and I hit the bottom....HARD...

I had a dream, one night, and in that dream, I was somehow at my father's church in NY (that I had only been to once before) and there were people there praying for me. I felt so much peace in that dream...I knew I was supposed to go back , and I did JUST that, when I woke up the next morning...I needed to get my thoughts together, so I had my mom take my daughter for a few weeks, while I went and visited my father in NY.

So, off I went...On a plane...Broken, and soooo totally devastated...This was NOT how I pictured my life...The drugs were wearing off, and I was seeing and feeling the weight of the consequences of all my choices. It was VERY hard to see sober...I hated who I had become...I hated that I was not the mother I needed to be...How could I be, at 18? Hurt, confused, broken, and desperate...

Now, fast forward 3 weeks- I am in NY, attending my Father's church...Which for me, was something I never thought I would do, after my childhood chuch ostrasized my mother and I after the divorce, because they did not understand how my mom could leave my father. All they ever saw was the "masks" we wore, not how abusive their marriage really was...Anyway, all that to say, I was bitter at the church...And somehow, moved on, just enough to let myself walk in that building...

I experienced a tremendous amount of healing in that time- And for the first time, found out what it was like to have a RELATIONSHIP with Jesus, not just read about him and talk about him...The restoration that took place in my heart, and life was amazing...The Joy I experienced that summer, feeling the LOVE of my heavenly father like never before was priceless....The time I spent with my earthly father, mending our past issues and making new memories was more than I could have ever asked for....
I decided to get baptized that summer, there at my father's church...ONE of the best days of my life!

Little did I know, I would eventually meet the love of my life there at that church,  (that same summer) and together we would spend the majority of the next 10 years raising our family there, at that very church, watching God do miracle after miracle in our lives....