My story

I am an overcomer! I am blessed beyond measure but I have had many trials to overcome in my life. I was raised in a household that was anything but peaceful. A storybook childhood mine was not. My parents both struggled with addictions to drugs and alcohol. They were very good people with BIG hearts but satan had a grip on our family and the strongholds were deep. Children are meant to be loved and pampered. To feel important and safe. Beautiful and worth any more than anything. Unfortunately I had none of these feelings growing up. Now I would like to say that my parents never abused me. I was just a witness to countless acts of abuse on each other. I would also like to point out my parents are both clean and sober now and we have a great relationship that was made possible thru forgiveness and much help from Jesus Christ. I tell you this not for pity but for an understanding that even as a small child I had birthed in me that my life was going to mean something and that someday I was going to make a difference and change the world. I had no idea that God, my father in heaven, had given me that dream.
As a young child I was molested by a family friend. That single act of violation changed the course of my teen years.
Like I said before I am an overcomer. Not only from my family but from myself. Fast forward from my childhood to my teen years... I was a mess. Desperately needing love I looked for it by means of guys. I had a warped body image of myself. Never thinking I was good enough let alone beautiful. I drank. Smoked pot. trying to desperately to fill the void I had in my life. I felt like a princess trapped in a tower waiting night after night to be rescued. I hid. I put on a fake smile and pretended everything was great. I was an overachiever took on way to much. Trying to find someone to tell me they were proud. I didn’t know who I was and the thought of trying to find out scared me to death. The person I made up in my head was much better than the person I could be. I had a deep sense of hatred for myself. I was a liar. I lied to everyone but mainly to myself. I tried to "be better" than I was. Secretly scared anyone would find out who I really was. A scared little girl who wanting someone to see me... really see me and realize that I was important. Now I am telling you this from my perspective. This is how I felt. The devil had a great control over me. I was loved deeply by my grandparents and even my parents in their own ways. But satan knew everything I struggled with. The shame from being sexually abused as a child and how to use that against me in every avenue of my life. I couldn’t see the love others had for me because I had built so many walls around my heart I was shut off from the world and from real love. I was numb. Looking back on my life I see things differently. I see the choices I made how wrong they were and why I made them I was in deep bondage that only Jesus Christ could break. I married young. had two beautiful children. I should have been happy. But I wasn't. I had a false sense of what life would be. I thought that since I was not in an abusive relationship it would be romantic and magical. I didn’t know how much work it would be. Again my feelings of self doubt and self hatred faired up. I made bad choices in my life which resulted in the marriage ending. Everyone is just a few bad choices away from life changing events. I remarried quickly. Still a mess. This time I married an alcoholic. We often repeat our past.
But all this time God was there. He was keeping me safe. And wooing me. Giving me glimpses of a better life. Dusty and I were both saved after he almost lost his life. We radically changed our lives. Dusty had felt called into the ministry as a small child but had run for a long time from God. Eventually we found a church that nurtured us. And after praying for mentors I had wonderful women of God speaking into my life and forcing me to take that long hard look in a mirror and really see who I was. Facts were I was an ugly person. I was selfish. I lived for me and what I could get out of the world. I was not nice. I never left a relationship with out another one started even as a child. I had to stand in front of the mirror and look at myself completely stripped down to see the real me and build a foundation from that. It took months stripping the layers away. It was painful. It was ugly. AND IT WAS WORK!! As I sit here now (many years from that moment) I am not perfect. I still struggle. But I know who I am in Christ Jesus who saved me. Picked me up from the muck of this world and cleaned me white as snow. Gave me hope. Gave me joy. Gave me peace something I have never felt. Gave me life. A real life. Where I loved myself and gave myself to Him freely to serve God in whatever capacity He needing me. I have scrubbed toilets, changed baby's, worked countless hours in "kid's" ministry missing services so others could enjoy services, I have also got to speak into some amazing teenagers lives that I believe have been changed because of the words God gave me to say to them. I was able to share my testimony in Africa to a group of Muslim and Christian African women. I have traveled I have done GREAT things in His name. I am a servant and I will continue to scrub toilets wipe baby's bottoms and preach anytime I can. Because I know the secret none of the things I have mentioned before are any greater in God's eyes. They were all an act of service to the King. I mean it when I pray each day. Lord what can I do for you today? It has taken me completely losing my identity and taking on the identity of the King to find out who I am and what I was made for! I am a princess of the Most High King and I am a servant ready to do the work for Him.
I am an overcomer. There is hope for all!