Throughout my life words such as angry, hard and rebellious described me exactly. I grew up in New Orleans and was schooled in life’s toughest lessons at an early age. I was raised in a home of chaos and pain.
To escape the turmoil inside my home I would often run away seeking refuge from anyone who would open their doors to me. My first suicide attempt was at the age of 11, which lead me down a path to an addiction to self-injury. At 14 I was arrested and my mom chose for me to go to reform school rather than go to juvenile detention. I was finally safe from my dad’s abuse and my mom’s rage.
At this Christian school, I heard about Jesus for the first time. I was not so keen on believing in a God that is love and is good with the life I had experienced.
God did not really play a role in my life other than going to church on Sunday and working at a Christian summer camp. At camp I met some friends who led me to Liberty University. I made my way through college because I wanted to finish what I started, but my heart did not change. After college, I continued down the road of self-destruction and darkness. Finally, I decided to rid myself of the questions that had swirled around me in school and in college about faith. I wanted to put the God question to rest.
I was not interested in going to actual services but I thought an easy Bible study where I could observe in the back would be the best bet. I found a Women’s Bible Study at Blue Ridge Community Church, but I was wrong about being able to slip in and be unnoticed. It seemed the more I pushed them away the more the women wanted to know me and my story. To my amazement I kept showing up.
As I slowly got to know a few of the women I began to think that they really believed in this whole Jesus thing. I slowly began to open up to a few of them and thought for sure this would be the point where they would turn and walk away. They didn’t, and, in fact, they continued to seek me out and talk to me about what God meant to them.
I so desperately wanted some sort of hope and some sort of truth. God used my brokenness to lead me to reach out. Eventually I fearfully gave God my wreck of a life. I asked Him to pick up my pieces and to take my life.
God began his renovations in me. It was like a gust of fresh spring air into a dark and dreary house. There’s no other way to explain it other than God began picking up the pieces of my life, renewing them and placing them where He wanted them. He was and is bringing me from death into life in a very real way.