I remember going to many youth gatherings and these awesome speakers would share the Word and I mean really pour their hearts into these messages, and I was that girl who would go down at every alter call ready to change my life. Come Monday though I was back to the old ways of lying and manipulation. Looking back at those times I would often question if I was even saved. I first walked the aisle of a church during an alter call one Sunday morning when I was around 9 years old, with some friends I may add, and proclaimed Jesus as my savior. I cannot say that I truly received Christ on that Sunday morning.

Throughout middle school and high school, I searched and longed for love. I had a rough start to life experiencing different forms of abuse by my biological mother, and I would use that as an excuse for who I was. After high school finished, I had a plan, Military and school. God had a different plan though. I never made it to basic training after a guy hit me head-on and broke my pelvic bone. At this point, I was fed up with God and everything in my world, I felt like, He was destroying it. I moved out of my house 9 months after graduating high school. WORSE MISTAKE!

Living on my own at 18 with no idea how or what to do I found a guy, about 3-4 years older than me. He could buy me alcohol, and we would party all day every day. From the time I got out of bed until the time I went to bed. Of course, I lost my job because I just stopped going. Then came the drugs, as I was trying to numb myself from my past. Alcohol just wasn’t cutting it anymore so I stepped into the drug world. This would lead me down a very dark path. No light. No money. Eventually, everything fell apart. I mean it came down on me. I lost my apartment and car, and at this point, I went months without speaking to my family. I found myself living on the streets, walking the roads, and begging for somewhere to sleep.

Remember that car accident? Yes, I got a settlement from that and in 2019 I bought an old trailer and a car. Just to get a good laugh for me to go and get this car I paid for a taxi from Gaffney to Spartanburg. Crazy? Yes, I know. Anyway, before I could get the power on at the trailer I had to stay in a hotel, which in my books was a WIN from sleeping on the streets. I got sick one morning and it was out of the blue, so I thought, “Well, let me take a pregnancy test just to rule that out”. Positive! I was dumbfounded. Scared. I made an appointment with the doctor because in my mind there was no way.

I will never forget what the nurse at my OBGYN office told me for my initial intake, “if you come back in 4 weeks and you are not clean, DSS will be called to monitor you during this pregnancy with the chance that your baby will be taken.” That shook me. I remember going home and falling on my face and begging God to take this from me. I hadn’t prayed in years but here I am begging the Father to help me. You know what? He did! The smell of the drugs from that point on made me sick as a dog. I truly gave my life to the Lord on April 15, 2018. Remember that boy that was older than me? Yeah, I stayed with him for 6 months of my pregnancy until one night he was so messed up on drugs and alcohol that he hit me, pregnant with our baby girl. I called my mama the next day and told her everything. I asked to come home and she with the most grace and love accepted.

I had my baby girl, Makenlee Grace, and 3 months later met my husband, and never looked back. As I sit here with tears of joy in my eyes writing this all I can say is you are never too far away. God is always right behind you all you have to do is turn around. Hebrews 13:5 says, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you'”. He is always there. If you feel like you have disappointed God to the point of Him not taking you back read my story. If you allow Him, He will come into your world and change it.

Isaiah 43:2

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”

~Stephanie