I didn’t grow up in a loving Christian home. My family didn’t attend church or serve God. In fact, it was the complete opposite. I grew up in a family full of drug addiction and alcoholism. I, too, chose the same path of self destruction and drug addiction.
I began my habit early in at the age of 16 when I began skipping school and drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana. That led me to a path of opiate and a crack addiction. By the age of 25, I became an IV drug user. In and out of jail, looking at a long term sentence, I pled out into Drug Court. I knew that wasn’t going to work for me because I didn’t know how to live a life free of drug use.
I entered a detox in March of 2016 where God put an individual in my path to tell me about the love of God and a program called Teen Challenge. The Lord made this an easy decision for me because I had already tried everything else and wanted so badly to live a good life. It didn’t take long and I was out of Wheeling, WV and on a plane to Muskegon, MI to enter WMTC. When I walked through the doors, I instantly felt the love of Christ surrounding me. I could see with my own eyes that these women were experiencing what I now know as the fullness of joy and the liberation that Jesus provided for us.
It wasn’t an easy journey but my worst day there was greater than my best day loving in the bondage of sin. The Lord has put new desires within me. I know longer am a slave to sin but a child of God. While at Teen Challenge the Lord gave me a desire to study and to truly know his word. Jesus says, You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. I want to know more about how to live an abundant life. I desire to see other people come to know Christ and see them set free from their chains of addiction and strongholds of many disorders. Through the last couple of years I have lost friends, loved ones, have had a few negative medical diagnosis, but through it all the Spirit of God, his Holy Spirit, has been my comfort and strength and I didn’t have to turn to drugs or any other substance to get me through it all. His grace is sufficient for my life.
I am so grateful for the blood of Jesus, he forgives me of my sins, gave me hope for life, he is a friend that sticks closer than a brother! He will never leave me nor forsake me! How comforting it is to know that God loves me, a wretched sinner, with an everlasting Love! I currently am taking classes through Global University to pursue Assembly of God credentials and am on staff at Teen Challenge. God is so good! He is so faithful! He is my deliverer, strong tower, place of refuge!! Christ has set me free and I am free indeed! I can’t wait to see what God has for my future. All I know is that through and by the grace of God, I will serve him all the days of my life! Thanks be unto God who causes us to triumph through Christ Jesus our Lord!
