I first encountered Christ when I was in 6th grade. It was the first time I prayed the prayer of salvation. I grew up always being told that I was loved, but I never really believed it. Our culture makes it really hard to believe it. So I prayed the prayer of salvation, but it just didn’t stick, you know, I was at camp. The presence of God is tangible when you’re in places like that. 

It’s harder when you go home. I did what I wanted to do and when I was in high school, things didn’t really go my way. I blamed God for it. I gave up on God for a little bit because I felt like He gave up on me. The year after I graduated, I was raped with a knife held to my throat. That was how I got pregnant with my oldest. I thought about abortion briefly. I thought about adoption. Between the church I grew up going to and the awesome pregnancy center in that town, I decided to not abort my baby fairly quickly, but the thought of adoption stayed a little bit longer. I had just turned 19. I didn’t feel like I was ready. But my church prayed for me – I wasn’t even going to church – but they would send me messages and letters letting me know that they were praying for me. I did decide to keep my baby. He’s 8 years old now. The relationship after that was not very good either. That relationship resulted in my next three children. He was controlling and he was manipulative. In June of 2020, he was arrested and was not allowed around my children. Even after that I tried to keep my family together. I did what I had to to try and get to a point where he could be around the kids, which he did for a short while before he was arrested again. When he was arrested that time he failed his drug test, which for me, it’s a hard no, no matter the circumstances. My children deserve better than that, and so do I. I lost custody of my kids for six months because of that situation. 

The day after I lost custody of my kids, I received a notice to vacate on my door. So I had lost every single important person in my life. I was about to lose my home. That was my rock bottom and that was when I decided that I had to surrender my life to the Lord. There was there was nowhere to go but up. 

I did end up losing that apartment. The place that I’m living now wants me out of their house as soon as possible. But I have faith that God will provide a way. He will. No matter what, God has been in my life. I’ve been through a lot. At times, it felt like God had abandoned me. It really did. But I think those were just the times that I forgot about Him.