My Story. A bit of my past and how I came to be where I am at today.

I have always wanted to write a blog, but was never sure how or where to start. Last night my husband and I were on our way home from our home group and I was telling him that i wanted to write. At home group we have been learning about dreams. Following are dreams and dream-casting. This is a dream of mine. I have never been confident in writing. Punctuation and I do not get along. 
Part of last nights lesson was discrediting ourselves and not accomplishing our dreams because of it. Well I was doing that by making excuses on why not to write a blog. God has such a great sense of humor! I had a dear friend of mine ask me if god had ever talked to me about writing a book. This was today, after I had told my husband about my dream of writing a blog! Wow. Ok, God, I hear you and I will listen. So here I am, and now I will tell you a little bit about my life. 

As far back as I can remember, I have been around addiction. I don't think I can name one person in my family that hasn't had an addiction of some sort. Growing up my parents were addicts. My dad traded alcohol when he married my mother for marijuana. That graduated to methamphetamine after my brother was born. I remember when my mom joined in. The house would be cleaned at all hours of the night and my mom would hide in her room for most of the day. If she had friends over the door would be locked. I used to sit at her door and yell and scream and bang on the door because i knew something wasn't right. Later my suspicions were proved right when i was looking for something in my parents room and came across a spoon and syringe. I can remember the look on my dads face when he was high and "working" on a project, it was scary. I went into protection mode when they had drug friends over. Moving dressers in front of my door at night so no one could come in my room. This was also when the verbal and mental abuse started. Being told I would never amount to anything and that I was stupid. I began to believe those lies. 

I developed my first addiction at 12 years old and started stealing cigarettes from my dad. They never noticed any missing, but then they were too high to notice much of anything. My best friend Randy, and I would walk to the railroad tracks and smoke cigarettes and hang out for hours. I also started lying then. It was easy and something i learned quickly to control. 
While my home life was chaos, I found an escape with my neighbor Deb. I would stay for hours, even days at her house. She quickly became a second mom to me. More of a mom than my own at the time. I started going to church with her and her family. 

She was recently divorced and my parents had just decided to get a divorce. Things were worse than ever before. flying objects were a norm at my house. Screaming at each other had also become the norm. I had now began staying any time my dad was home at deb's house. When he would leave for work (he was a long haul truck driver) the stress level decreased. Eventually my parents divorced and my dad quit paying the house mortgage and we lost our house. The house I had lived the longest in was now gone. The worst part is my mom was homeless and my brother, sister and I had to go live with my dad. who at this point was clean. My mom continued to use and was in and out of my life for the next year until she met my step dad and quit using meth.  

That is when I started my wild first wild streak. It was the summer between 8th grade and my Freshman year of high school. I had moved from Odell into hood river and had access to more of my friends. A friend of mine had decided to tell our parents that we were staying at each-others houses. Instead we went to a much older friend of hers, house to drink. I had never drank before other than occasional sip off a mudslide during holidays. I remember feeling nervous about it being two girls and one older more experienced guy, we had planned to just stay at his house. things escalated quickly and my friend was very drunk. She was falling down and unable to walk on her own. I had the guy take us home. He dropped us off in a church parking lot in-between our houses and left. My friend was unconscious at this point, I was terrified. I didn't know what to do but i knew we were in trouble. I went home (across the street from the church) and woke my uncle up. He had been staying with us because my dad was working. I told him want happened and he quickly ran across the street to my friend, me following behind. He called 911 and then my friends dad. My friend almost died that night, but that didn't stop me from continuing drinking. 

I was grounded for the summer and the only thing my dad would let me do was go to youth group. So i went, every Wednesday. The opportunity came up for me to go to a youth conference in Colorado with two other girls and the youth pastors. This was where I had my First encounter with the holy spirit through a worship night there, although i wouldn't figure that out until many years later. While we were there we had a chance to go and serve at a local elder care facility. It was an Alzheimer's facility. Each kid was paired with an elderly person to visit with. The woman I was paired with was mute, and i was told she didn't respond to much. I sat next to her and began reading to her. She grabbed my hand and started rubbing it, then she had me lay my head on the arm of her chair and she stroked the side of my face gazing into my eyes as tears filled up in hers. This was so amazing!! I was so touched. I reminded her of someone, someone who she hadn't seen in who knows how long. I can still remember her face, and her beautiful brown eyes. I can not wait to see her again in heaven. This was my first encounter with gods love. 

When I had returned it was all to easy to fall back into my old habits. I started smoking again and took up smoking marijuana as well. My dad had a girlfriend who I didn't get along one night we got into a fight and she put her hands on me. I ran away to my moms that night, who had recently moved in with a friend of hers. She lived 5 miles from my dad. 14 years old walking 5 miles to a place i had been only a few times in the dark. Again I was alone and afraid. Seemed to be a reoccurring event in my life. Alone and afraid were my new friends. 

High school started shortly after, and so did the finding things that didn't make me feel alone. Filling the void with whatever I could. I didn't know that God was the answer. Shortly into my freshman year I found boys. Boys who wanted to, "love me" or so I thought. After my first heart break I found out that promiscuity was much easier than trusting someone with my heart. I also found the best way to be promiscuity was intoxicated. I began drinking heavily and sleeping around. This behavior continued throughout my high school career and only got worse when i was old enough to work and drive. Although i drank a lot, marijuana was my main escape from reality. It was also easy to get away with since it was already being used in my house. 
I had experienced a controlling relationship and it had killed my self worth my junior year. Eventually I broke it off and by the time senior year rolled around I was depressed. I stayed at home other than school and work. I also had gained quite a bit of weight, and that didn't help the self esteem much either. I made a deal with myself to not have sex with anyone for an entire year, just to see if I could do it. I wanted to get out of hood river and as fast as I could. I graduated, something most of my family said I wouldn't do. To be honest the only reason I didn't drop out was to prove them wrong. Two days after I graduated I moved  to Cottage Grove, over 300 miles away. Running away from everyone I knew to start all over again. 

I wasn't in cottage grove for 6 months before I moved back to hood river and in with my mom. The time that I spent there was spent drinking and more promiscuity. I also experimented with other drugs. I justified it with it wasn't hard drugs, and I wont be like my parents. When I came back, I started seeing my sons father. We were casually dating and also sleeping together, Again with lots of alcohol involved. We decided to move in together with some roommates who were friends of ours two months after dating. That ended quickly with me finding him cheating on me with his ex girlfriend. Shortly after I found out I was pregnant. We decided to try and make things work again, I didn't forgive him for cheating on me and always thought he was lying. We didn't get along but I blamed it on pregnancy hormones. We were married soon after My son was born. That ended a year and 2 months later. Divorced with a child was not how I saw my life at 21. There I was again, Alone and afraid. 

I had been working for a company taking care of people with developmental disabilities. My client had a set schedule prior to me working with her. One of her activities was going to women's group at the vineyard christian fellowship. I didn't want to go but had to. I was mad at God for so many things that I had decided he was not real. We went every week. A few weeks in I began to open up and share with the women there. It tuned out that I may have been mad at God, but he still loved me. I got prayer from the women and forgave God. That sounds silly, to forgive god, but it was what I had to do. Not long after I was forced to move from my house because I could no longer afford it, without my ex husband. I could have found a way to stay In hood river but I chose to run away again.

Back to Cottage grove I went, leaving behind my son. At the time I thought it was the right thing to do. I was sleeping on my aunts couch and didn't have a job nor did I know how long it would take to find a job. I quickly reconnected with old friends I had met from summers prior and when I had lived there before. I quickly got a good job and things seemed to be looking up for me. I started dating again. He was an old friend I had met when I was 15 and had spent summers with my aunt. I was still smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol. A few months after moving my life came to a stop. It was February 14th 2011. I woke up to a phone call stating that my Grandfather had passed away. He was the one man in my life I could count on. I was devastated. That feeling of being alone crept right back in. I started a downward spiral of abusing pain pills that night. It was all to easy. I knew my boyfriend had used them from time to time and I asked him to get me high. Something that was an a occasional use tuned into a daily use. I quickly lost everything I had worked to establish in cottage grove. When I had seen what drugs were doing to my life and wanted to stop using, I broke up with my boyfriend. He wasn't ready to stop using. Apparently neither was I. I continued to use and hurt people in the process. Lying and stealing were an everyday norm for me. I began having suicidal thoughts and attempted to commit suicide. God had other plans because the safety on the gun was stuck. 

I knew I couldn't get clean on my own. I called my aunt and asked for help. She graciously let me move back in with her. I started talking to my friend who had recently been delivered from drugs. He shared his testimony with me and told me that God will help me, all I had to do was ask! Psalm 34:6 says, In my Desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened; he SAVED me from all my troubles. So I asked, and what gods word said proved itself to be true. Not only did he come for me but he gave me a person to help me, to tangibly be there for me and help me to not be alone. Stanley became my accountability person, and gave me a book about how to hold your thoughts captive and live in our identity as royalty! I always wanted to be a princess. God came for me 110%! He took all of my physical withdraw and equipped me with the tools for the mental withdraw. He also Introduced me to my soul mate, this friend who was helping me is now my husband. He  made a way for me to move back to be with my son. He provided me with housing and placed wonderful people in my life to help me though my time of need. He set a fire so hot that it burned up any lie the enemy tired to tell me. He has restored relationships I never thought would be restored. He gave me custody of my son back and blessed me with a beautiful daughter and the most loving husband anyone could ask for. I am over 2 years sober and pursuing Gods will with passion! God came for me and brought dry bones back to life! I am new! He can make you new, you just have to ask!

Psalm 40:3 He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed, and they will put their trust in the lord. AMEN!