There IS Hope!

There is something important that I want to share with you…

Regardless of your past - regardless of what you have done or what has been done to you - there IS hope for a good future.

I understand it doesn’t always feel that way, but the truth is that we are not victims of our circumstances, and God can and will make beauty from the ashes of your life.

I was born in Los Angeles to very young parents. My father made it clear that he wished I had not been born - he never wanted children and he had tried to convince my mother to abort me. He was an angry and abusive man, and he left when I was two. I had two siblings, an older brother and a younger sister - we all had different fathers - and we were raised by our alcoholic mother. 

Because of her alcoholism, my mother constantly lost her jobs and we were evicted from every house we lived in. We moved regularly, and I seldom went to the same school for more than 6 months. I often went to school with greasy hair, wearing the same clothes as the days before, and there were many times in my childhood when we ran out of food and had our utilities shut off. At a very young age, I became the caretaker for my little sister, and I did my best to care for my mom. She would go out dancing and partying most nights and sometimes she wouldn’t return until the next day. My sister and I lived in constant fear that maybe one day she wouldn’t come home at all. Finding her in the morning passed out in her vomit, and helping her clean herself up, was a regular occurrence.

My older brother was addicted to drugs by the time he was 12. He was filled with hatred and anger from the abuse he had endured from my father, and there were times when he took his anger and pain out on me. He would destroy things that were meaningful to me and hurt me physically. One time he caused me to fall down an entire flight of stairs. One of the worst things he did was when I was 6 years old - he encouraged a group of his teen friends to molest me while they were at our house for a sleepover, and several of his friends took him up on his offer. By the time my brother was 15, he was living full time in mental hospitals, and though I felt sad for him, at the same time it made me feel a little safer knowing he was locked up.

By 13 years old I was smoking cigarettes daily and drinking alcohol on a regular basis. I swore to myself that I would never do hard drugs because of how I saw them destroy my brothers life, but I sometimes drank so heavy that I would black out by the end of the night. I so desperately wanted to have a normal life, to have someone, anyone, scoop me up and make me feel safe, cared for, loved. But there was no one, and so I sought attention the only way I knew how. At 14 years old I found out I was pregnant and I didn’t know who the father was. The people at Planned Parenthood were friendly and kind, and they made it seem like they were there to help me. But what they didn’t explain is that the “help” they were about to offer was going to fill me with regret for the rest of my life. They just scheduled the abortion and assured me that’s what was best.

My depression was at an all time high at that point. I didn’t want to leave my little sister, but I felt like I couldn’t live another day in that life, so at 14, I dropped out of school and ran away. I won’t go into all the details, but I will say that there are plenty of people who are willing to take advantage of a 14 year old girl living alone in Los Angeles. The majority of the people I asked to help me would only do so with strings attached, and looking back now I know that it is only by the grace of God that I am alive today. 

In spite of my pain, I truly desired to somehow have a better life, so when I was 15, I borrowed a typewriter from a friend, I taught myself how to type, and I convinced someone to give me an office job.That period of my life seemed to be a series of taking one step forward and one step back. I was working hard to survive, but there was still part of me that kept making bad decisions that would damage my life. Because of my past, I had no sense of self worth and so I repeatedly ended up in unhealthy relationships. 

As I said earlier, because of my brother, I was determined to never do drugs, but when you’re drinking and desperate for acceptance and love, you often do things you may not have intended to do. So one night in my late teens, an older guy who I cared about and thought I could trust, convinced me that it wouldn’t be a big deal to do just a little cocaine. Well, a little cocaine turned into many nights, weeks, months, of doing cocaine from evening till morning. Eventually I realize that regardless of your intentions and your heart, the bottom line is, drugs and alcohol cause good people to make very bad decisions, and there was no way I was ever going to have the life I dreamt of with those things in my life. So at 19, with all the determination I could pull together, I stopped doing drugs and I walked away from the majority of the people I had surrounded myself with. 

In spite of the things I was doing to try to improve my life, something was always missing, and the pain deep inside never went away. One day, a friend and I decided to try going to church, and I’ll never forget the feeling I had - it was like my soul had finally found home. I’d like to say that I was one of those people who met Jesus and instantly experienced a transformation, but that’s not at all how it was for me. I wanted to know God, but I wrestled with feelings of anger, wondering why He had allowed so much pain and trauma in my life, and when I wasn’t feeling that, I then wrestled with the thought that there is no way that God could love someone like me. 

In my early-twenties I met a Christian man, and I so desperately wanted to have a normal family life that I looked passed a lot of red flags and I married him. Though I was young, I had already had two failed marriages and I dreamt of creating the perfect Christian home, with babies, and bbq’s, and magical Christmas mornings. But it wasn’t long before I realized I had married an alcoholic with an explosive temper and other addictions, and my dreams of stability were shattered. Early in the marriage there were times when I found myself hiding in the closet or running from the house in fear, but I was a Christian now and I had children, so I continuously forgave the scary behavior and I was determined to somehow make the marriage work.  

As the years passed, the lies and addictive behaviors became more extreme, and the relationship was a constant cycle of abuse, then gifts and poems and promises, then abuse again. I now had 4 kids, no job of my own, no education, no family to turn to, and he threatened that if I left he would take my kids, take our money, that my friends would hate me, and that even God would be against me. I felt like there was no hope and I became so depressed that I started to think that maybe suicide was my only escape from the pain. I had a bottle of vicodin that I would consider taking in my darkest moments, but I kept reminding myself that suicide would damage my kids and leave them in a terrible situation. In desperation, I started going to counseling, I began reading book after book, I went to church, and I took my focus off of trying to fix the people and problems around me - instead I started doing everything I could to work through and heal all that was broken inside of me. 

A day finally came when I realized that I did not deserve the abuse I had chosen to accept, and that my repeated forgiveness was only reinforcing the abuse cycle, not healing it. I realized that I had stayed for so long partially because I thought it was best for my kids, but also because deep down I didn’t think I deserved love. Though I had long before received God’s love and forgiveness in my life, I still had never been able to love and forgive myself, and the guilt and shame that entangled me kept me from protecting myself. I also realized that staying was not helping my kids, and that instead I was teaching them that it was okay to live with abuse and addiction and codependency, which would likely lead to them ending up in similar relationships as they grew up. So after nearly 20 years in that relationship, I finally mustered up the courage to leave. 

I wish I could say that life was miraculously better from that point on, but the truth is that my ex followed through on all of his threats and he did everything he could to damage my life. It was a very scary and painful time, and I felt incredibly alone. There were days when it took everything I had to just get out of bed to take care of my kids. But in faith, I walked through the darkness and feelings of hopelessness, I continued to work on me, and I trusted God’s promise that if I were to follow Him that He would guide my path and provide for me and my kids. 

I was in my 40’s at that point, I still had 3 kids at home, and I had to take multiple jobs to help support us. Though I had dreamt when I was younger of having a career where I somehow helped struggling youth, I feared that it was too late and would be too hard to have the career I desired. But as I grew closer to God, the more I became confident that it is never too late to be the person God created you to be or to have the life God created you to have. So during the day I worked at my kids school, on the weekends I cleaned houses, and in the evening after my kids went to sleep I studied to earn a GED. 

Within a year I earned that GED, and then I kept going… over the next 6 years I earned a bachelors in psychology from ASU, and then over the next few years I earned a masters in special education from USD. While I was doing that, I also partnered with a friend to start a non-profit school for children with learning disabilities and over the past decade I have had the honor of working with and encouraging hundreds of at-risk youth. 

Another fear I had was that having a healthy relationship was out of the cards for me, and I assumed that I would likely spend the rest of my life alone. Thankfully, God had other plans. In 2013 I decided to take guitar lessons - my guitar teacher would come over each week and we would play guitar for 30 minutes and then we’d talk about Jesus and life for 30 more minutes. Over time, we developed a friendship like I had never experienced before. Two and a half years later we got married and we’ve now been married for 9 years. I had no idea that it was possible to have a relationship that did not include chaos and instability, but it IS possible. My husband has been sober for 17 years, and God has brought so much healing to both of our lives through the stability of our relationship. Over the past 11 years with my husband, I have truly experienced what it feels like to love and be loved the way God intends.

As for my kids, though I was not able to give them the perfect life I had dreamt of giving them, what they did get to see is how incredibly faithful our God is to restore, protect, and redeem the lives of His children. My kids have had to work through the trauma and pain they endured when they were young, but that pain and work has produced the most beautiful character in each of them, and they are thriving. They have all graduated from high school and have gone on to college, and my two daughters recently married kind and loving Christian men, which brings me so much joy. The generational chains of addiction and abuse that kept me, and my parents, and their parents in bondage have finally been broken!!

I wish so much that I could go back in time to save and protect my first baby, but I have peace knowing that he or she is safe in the arms of Jesus, and one day I will get to hold that baby and say “I love you” and how sorry I am.

My life is not perfect - both my brother and sister have passed away and I have had to live without a mother or a father to be there for me throughout my life - but in spite of all the pain that I, and other humans, have inflicted on my life, God has truly brought restoration and I could not feel more blessed and grateful. 

I don’t know your story, or the specific pain that you carry, but I do know that our God loves you more than you can imagine, and He can and will redeem your life if you let Him, just like He has redeemed mine.

Don’t give up!