I am a proud follower of Jesus Christ.  I am from Ahtahkakoop First Nation, I am 45 years old and for almost 30 years of my life I had been addicted to alcohol and hard drugs.  For the first 13 years or so it was an addiction to alcohol which then turned into a hard-core drug addiction, and it took total control of my whole life.  I became a slave to this addiction.  I had become someone I didn’t recognize or even like and for the last five years of this addiction, it was an everyday, all day, tiring, endless cycle.  The only time I was sober was when I ended up in Pine Grove (jail) which was only for about a month or two at a time (until my last arrest).  I was homeless, living on the streets of Saskatoon. Sadly, the only thing I cared about was getting my next fix, my family didn’t matter, my own wellbeing didn’t matter, nothing except drugs mattered.  I didn’t want it to be that way, but I couldn’t and didn’t know how to stop or change.  It was a horrible way to live.  I remember when I was at the end of it, I felt so incredibly stuck, so empty, so lost, so broken, so depressed, so alone, and full of so much shame and guilt.  I knew I didn’t want to die a junkie, but like I said, I didn’t know how to get out of it.  I went to treatment twice, sought addiction counselling more than once but none of that helped me.  The biggest problem I had was that I absolutely loved getting high.  I was addicted to the rush of the drugs.  How do you change that?!?!  Satan had total control of my life, he had me trapped in his web of lies and deceit and he had tried his hardest to destroy and kill me, but Jesus in His mercy and infinite love had other plans for my life and would always come and save me. “For the Lord your God is He who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you.” Deuteronomy 20:4 

I grew up in a home where I was never exposed to alcohol, drugs, or even smoking.  My parents became Christians when I was three years old and at one point I had given my life to Jesus, but to me, in my young and rebellious ways, I thought living for Jesus was boring.  My parents, because they loved me so much, protected me from the ways of the world, I remember every night my mom would read Psalm 91 to my siblings and myself.  My parents gave us everything we needed, lots of love, a safe home, guidance, and protection, but at a young age, I gravitated towards the party life.  From the outside looking in, it appeared fun, and I really wanted to be experience it.  My parents, especially my mom, wouldn’t allow me to go to any secular events like dances or to go spend evenings at friends’ places who she didn’t approve of and to me it felt like that was everyone, so I grew bitter towards her.  I started rebelling at a very young age.  I started lying to them and taking off from home.  The first time I smoked a cigarette I was 12, my first drinking/party experience was when I was 13, and I had lost my virginity when I was only 14 years old.  All this opened the doors wide open for Satan and his demons to come and make their home within me.  Because I allowed them to dictate and run my life very bad things kept happening to me, but like I mentioned earlier, Jesus in his mercy and infinite love would always come and rescue me, but I still wouldn’t commit to Him.  Solomon said it best when he said, “A wise person always thinks about death constantly, but a fool only worries about having a good time.”  That was me 100%, I was very foolish and only thought about having a good time.  I’d always be adamant about getting to that party or to the bar and my addiction to alcohol grew fast when I was a young teenager.  Almost immediately, when I drank it would never be just one night it would be for at least 2 whole days.  It destroyed relationships and it destroyed my reputation completely.  Satan put blinders on my eyes so that I couldn’t see what I was doing to myself or to my loved ones.  I desperately wanted a boyfriend but because I was a shy and awkward teenager, I had a hard time getting one.  Drinking changed that, it gave me the courage to be outgoing, a lie the Devil put in my head and when I’d get drunk, I’d start hooking up with random guys because I thought that maybe that was how I could get that boyfriend I so longed for, another lie the Devil told me.  At age 17 I ended up pregnant through a one-night stand. I tried at first to have an abortion, but my mom wouldn’t allow me to because it was against her Christian beliefs, so we decided to keep it.  Almost immediately I started having problems with my pregnancy and the day after I graduated high school, when I was seven months pregnant, I ended up at Royal University Hospital.  I stayed there for over a month and when I finally gave birth, my son only survived for 45 minutes and then died in my arms.  That was June 19, 1996.  Although I didn’t want to have this baby, it was hard for me to lose him.  I named him Jared Samuel Ahenakew, and for a very long time I had blamed myself for his death.  My addiction to alcohol intensified dramatically after my loss.  When I was 19, I finally met someone, I had fallen in love and thought I was going to be with him for the rest of my life and start a family but again, Jesus had other plans for my life.  After a six year, very toxic and stormy relationship on both our parts, it ended abruptly, and it left me completely shattered.  I was alone, no kids, no boyfriend, no nothing and this is when I started drugs, this is when my life went from bad to extremely bad.   

Truth be told I was very curious about hard drugs; I remember watching movies where people would inject heroin and the way they looked after the drugs would flow through their system got me very curious. I was 25 years old and besides smoking weed every now and then I had never experienced any other drugs before this time and my first real experience with them was a 10 pack of cocaine in a syringe.  I was obviously scared at first, but the plan was to just try it out that once, just to say I did it before.  After that one shot, I was addicted.  Irony of it was I never believed that a person could become addicted to these kinds of drugs only after one time, I use to think, “how could that even be possible?”, until it happened to me.  Unfortunately, most of the things that happened to me I had to experience first-hand.  I was an extremely stubborn person and wouldn’t listen to what anyone told me no matter who it was or what it was, and the consequences of being that way led me down a dark, long, and very lonely road. “We will continue with our own plans: each of us will follow the stubbornness of his evil heart.” Jeremiah 18:12 

Almost immediately, I contacted Hep C, an “incurable” disease.  Because a lot of people I knew had Hep C, it didn’t really bother me, I thought, as long as it isn’t HIV, I’ll be ok.  I started becoming addicted to these drugs, started experiencing withdrawals and because most of the people I used with got on the methadone program, I decided too as well.  But because I turned to man’s way and not God’s way of curing this disease, my addiction was still there, it just went from injecting drugs to swallowing or eating them and I still drank.  

After I was on the methadone program for a bit, I decided to start a new treatment that had just come out to cure the Hep C.  I still drank quite heavily after I contacted it and when the doctor tested my liver to see what my viral load was at, he told my mom and I that there were three stages and that I was on the worst stage.  I had over 1.2 million Hep C viral cells in my liver and that the treatment was going to very hard on my body.  I still wanted to go through with it, so he told me to come back in three months to re-test and we’d go from there.  Little did I know my mom, being the prayer warrior that she was, was interceding hard for me.  She had been praying for me since I was a teenager, since I started down this path of destruction.  After the three months were up, I went back to that doctor to re-test.  To both our surprise, the Hep C viral load went from over 1.2 million to only 164.  The doctor looked confused and shocked, but he then told me to come back in three more months to see where the viral load would be at then, I did, and the Hep C was gone.  Back then I thought I was just lucky, that I must have a strong immune system, but my mom with her strong faith knew otherwise. 

When I was about 29 years old, I was living in Prince Albert.  I considered myself a “functioning” addict because by then I was heavily addicted to popping pills, and I was injecting every now and then, but I still managed to hold onto a job and an apartment.  At this point in my life I managed to quit drinking only because my addiction to drugs intensified.  I was still on the methadone program and was getting small blue pills called oxybutynin along with my daily drink.  I learned that you could inject these little blue pills and every now and then that’s what I would do.  One night, I had just gotten off work, I had some of these pills and was planning to go home and get high off them.  I had allowed a couple, who were both users themselves, to stay with me.  I didn’t have a syringe of my own and when I asked them if they had one, he told me the only one he had was dirty, he had just used it, but he offered it to me.  I thought about it for only a few seconds and asked him if they were clean.  She told me, “We don’t even have Hep C”.  Gullible as I was, I believed her and I took that dirty needle and flushed it about 3 times with water.  About three weeks later I found out that they both had HIV.  This news devastated me, but I didn’t tell anyone about it because I was terrified of what everyone would think of me.  I was mad at this couple, but I was madder at myself for believing them.  I thought for sure I had HIV because of that dirty syringe I used, and I remember seeing dirty blood in it, which I flushed with only water.  I didn’t want to go get tested because I wasn’t ready to hear that awful news, I thought no news is good news and that’s when I started using crystal meth.  Meth numbed me and allowed me to forget what was going on in my life which I liked and thought I needed at that time, but it done crazy things to my mind, and I wouldn’t sleep for days.  I’d flail around, doing crazy things.  One day my aunt found me sitting in front of my apartment building looking at rocks and not for just for a little while, I sat there all day long.  I remember seeing men in trees.  One night I was outside, I don’t have a clue as to what I was doing out there, but I remember looking up at my window and it was high up, I seen people taking my furniture down by a ladder.  I thought I was getting robbed, so I ran to my sister’s apartment, she lived in the same apartment building as I did and grabbed a huge knife and went to my apartment but “surprisingly” there wasn’t anyone in there.  I ran outside and thought they were hiding in this closed off space but there wasn’t anyone there either.  My sister called the cops on me because she had never seen me act that way before and it scared her.  The cops took me to the city cells for the night to sleep it off.  A couple weeks had gone by, I was still using meth because I loved the way it made me feel.  The rush was intense and that was why I didn’t want to stop even though at the beginning of my using it, it made me act like a complete lunatic.  My family came to me and wanted me to go to treatment in Saskatoon, Calder.  They wanted me to get off meth because of what it was doing to me.  I thought about it for a little while and decided to go.  One requirement of going to any Treatment Centre is that you need to get a full medical done.  I still hadn’t told anyone about me possibly having HIV and I hadn’t gotten tested yet.  I was scared.  As it turned out I was negative.  No HIV.  I still had no idea God was intervening for me throughout my whole addicted life and this news, as awesome as it was, shocked me.  I finished my stay at Calder, and I had these great plans to remain in Saskatoon, to build a “better life” for myself.  I thought that by leaving Prince Albert, my addiction could be handled a lot better in a city I didn’t know or where I didn’t know anyone.  HUGE mistake.  What I chose to overlook was that it doesn’t matter where you go in life, if you’re dealing with any kind of demonic issue and you’re not turning to Jesus to help deliver you from it then it’ll never go away, it’ll just follow you.   

I ended up staying at the homeless shelters when I first officially moved to Saskatoon and through these places, I found an organization in the city there that helped people that were in my situation get suitable housing.  The beautifully souled woman that was assigned to my case was named Shania.  She helped me get on welfare, helped me get my power hooked up, helped me with furniture and furnishings, and she was the one who got an apartment for me.  It was located on 33^rd and Ave P.  Not quite the “hood” but same vicinity.  It is actually nicknamed the “little hood”.  I didn’t know Saskatoon at all then and my “big plan” was to just stay away from any part of the city where drugs could be easily purchased but because of my insistent personality, it wouldn’t have mattered if I was at the North Pole, I could have found drugs anywhere.  It’s awful the way the Devil manipulates and deceives you into thinking what he wants you to think just so that you fall for his schemes and lies.  Anyways, I made myself comfortable in this strange new city and I stayed sober for about a week until I caved into my addictive tendencies.  Within a couple weeks I was meeting a lot of new people who were on the same path I as was, and this is when I also met a Pakistani man who I immediately started a relationship with.  He lived only half a block from my me.  Red flags came up right away but like everything else in my life I chose to ignore them.  He wasn’t a good man at all, even the way I met him I should have known he was a bad seed.  He would stalk me, but I justified it as he’s protecting me. He had another girlfriend who he lived with but always lied about, and there were so many other countless things this man did, but everything, I chose to overlook.  One night, I went over to his place, he had a camper/trailer thing set up in the back alley of his dad’s house and I had spent several evenings there with him already.  One particular night, I was there with him, but I had forgotten my purse with all my drugs and drug paraphernalia in it at my place.  I told him I would be right back because I needed to go pick it up, but he insisted I stay there with him and that we’d go pick it up the next day.  I wouldn’t listen to him because at this point, I could only go a few hours before I started going through withdrawals, so I left to go pick it up.  As soon as I was out the door and a few steps down the alley, I heard two doors slam and a vehicle had started up.  In my head, something shouted at me, “RUN”.  So, I immediately started running and then I saw his dad’s truck with his dad and his brother in it, they were chasing me.  I ran behind two huge garbage bins that were situated in Co-op parking lot on 33^rd and Ave P.  I knew for a fact they saw me run there.  I seen them see me run there and I heard their truck pull up on the other side of those garbage bins and I heard them both get out, but for some reason, unknown to me then, they got back in their truck and drove away.  This gave me ample time to run to my place that was just across the street, but I was very confused and terrified.  Confused as to why that happened, confused as to why they didn’t just look behind those garbage bins when they seen me run there, and terrified because I had heard of foreign people kidnapping Canadians and selling them to work in the sex slave industry.  Looking back now I know that that was The Holy Spirit who told me to run, and it was his power that saved me from getting taken by those two men.  I often thought about what would have happened to me had they caught me?!?!  Thank God, I never had to find out.  I never told the authorities about that incident, and I kept on seeing that man.  I did tell him though that I told my mom and other relatives about what happened to me and that if I was to ever disappear, they’d know where to look.  He denied the whole incident ever happened and said I was just “cooked”.  Truth is, I hadn’t told anyone, but I figured it would keep me safe as I carried on that toxic relationship with him, and I was right, nothing like that ever happened again while I was with him. 

One day I was sitting in my apartment at my kitchen table, alone, getting high.  I had all my drugs, drug paraphernalia spread out on my table and suddenly Shania was standing there.  She started talking to me, I can’t remember what she said, what I do remember is that she started crying.  I had asked her what was wrong, and she pointed to what I was doing, she then turned around and went walking to my bathroom.  Seeing her cry kind of made me confused and sad so I got up to follow her but when I got to the bathroom, she wasn’t there, no one was in my apartment.  Now I know some people might think because of my daily meth use and the fact that I had seen things that weren’t there before that this is what was happening to me then, that maybe I was experiencing drug induced psychosis.  Maybe I was but what this world doesn’t know or refuses to admit is that crystal meth is the Devil’s drug and it opens the door wide open for the addict to see and hear in the spiritual realm.  People also choose to overlook, or they don’t realize the fact that we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places.  I now know that what I saw wasn’t in the natural realm, but it was in the spiritual realm.  I now know that that was an angel sent by God. If it were a demon or anything demonic then why would she have been crying? Just like it says in Matthew 12:26 “If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself.  How can his kingdom stand?”.  If those were demonic spirits, or anything of the Devil, they be cheering me on and not crying.  But I never gave it much thought back then, I wasn’t even scared and again, I never connected it to God and how he was with me throughout my trials and tribulations and how real the spiritual realm is.  It is more real than the natural realm.  

A few months later, my one-year lease came up, but my landlord wouldn’t resign the lease because I allowed to many destructive and sketchy people into the apartment building and I had no back-up plan like any normal person would, so I just went to the streets.  By then, it felt like I had a million dollar a day addiction I had to feed, and I constantly needed money or “sellables” to keep up with it.  I had no income whatsoever, so I resorted to stealing or boosting from stores.  When you’re out there like that, addicted like I was, there’s only a few ways a person could get fast money.  Selling drugs, which to me was too dangerous and I knew I would just get myself in a lot of trouble because my addiction was just too bad.  I knew I’d use the drugs I was supposed to sell, hence getting me in a lot of trouble with the drug dealers.  Then there was prostitution.  I had heard too many dangerous stories about it, a lot of my friends who chose that lifestyle told me horrid stories they experienced, plus I just couldn’t do that to myself.  I had had times when I just about gave in, thinking to myself it would be so much easier and faster than going out to steal every day, plus no one would ever know.  But I would know, and God would know which was what persuaded me from pursuing that.  Another money maker was panhandling but I was just too shy to ask people for money all day long and most of the time, it wasn’t fast which is why I chose boosting and I became good at it, but I hated it.  I hated stealing and the way I justified it was, at least I’m not stealing from people, I’m stealing from multimillion dollar stores/companies, but in the back of my mind, I knew it was still stealing, and what bothered me was that it was one of the 10 commandments.  God had placed conviction in my heart when I was young because I always felt bad about doing the sinful things I did, but I still did them, my fleshly desires always won the battle.  Paul mentions this in Romans 7:19-20, “I want to do what is good, but I don’t.  I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyways.  But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong, it is sin living in me that does it.”  Which is why it is so important to pick up your cross daily, to ask for forgiveness even if it seems minor so that you have the power of Jesus within you to fight sin, and to fight Satan. 

It’s now a few years later, I’m still homeless and my addiction is growing rapidly, at this point I was starting to inject anything that was injectable, and my veins were collapsing on me, making it almost impossible to get these drugs into my system.  One day I suddenly got this allergic reaction, which had never happened to me before, and I had to get rushed to the hospital.  There were quite a few nurses and doctors working on me because they couldn’t get the intravenous in so that they could give me the medicine I needed to stop that reaction, most of my veins had collapsed.  Suddenly, they started drilling into my leg to get to my bone so that they could get that medicine in me.  I remember screaming and begging them to stop and then one of those nurses said to me, “Sheila, if we stop, you’re going to die.”  Crazy and awful how addicted I had become, my veins were not working the way a normal person ‘s veins work and I believe now that that episode was the work of Satan trying to own my soul and the saddest part was, I still didn’t quit, it wasn’t even an option or a thought. 

One evening I ran into a friend, and I went with him to one of his relatives’ places.  I was starting to go through withdrawals, I had no money, but I had just boosted an expensive backpack.  A guy that was there had a point of heroin and he asked to trade for the backpack.  I hadn’t done heroin before, and I’ve never fixed it up.  I did, however, see people in movies fix it up and so I followed that.  I had taken not even a quarter, done it up, injected it and the only thing I remember after that was putting the syringe down and that was it.  Next thing I remember was waking up with paramedics and about seven other people standing around me.  The one man asked me what I had taken, and I told him.  He then told me I had overdosed, that when they arrived, I was dead, my heart had stopped, and they had brought me back to life with C.P.R and naloxone.  He then told me that had they been even 30 seconds later they probably wouldn’t have been able to save me.  This news shook me, the reality that I could have been dead really hit me hard, but even though this awful thing happened to me, I still went back to injecting drugs the very next day and when I was still in the hospital no less.  What people can’t see or what they refuse to see is that once you become enslaved to these drugs and to that life, it’s impossible to quit and the only way anyone can truly overcome it is through the power and the strength of Jesus.  I understand there are people out there that have managed to leave that life but if it isn’t through the power of God then their addiction will only go from that to something else or they’re still struggling with things like depression, anxiety, loneliness, etc.  Jesus and ONLY Jesus is the true way to total freedom and true happiness! 

It’s now 2020.  I had just gotten out of the hospital and was in there for 3 weeks due to a blood infection that I had gotten through my intravenous drug use.  It is against the law for the hospital to release anyone back out to the streets, so they arranged a way for me to get back on welfare and to suitable housing.  One night I was in my new home, sitting in my bedroom, higher than high off a cocktail of meth, down, pills, and marijuana.  I was coloring and had a whole bunch of paper and art supply stuff on my bed.  I didn’t have a light to light my cigarettes, so I lit a candle, put it on aluminum foil and set it down on my bed amongst the mess.  Awhile later I started nodding out, so I crawled into bed.  As I was dozing off, I remembered looking at the time and it was close to 2 AM.  A few hours later, “something” woke me up and I just happened to look to my side towards that candle and the mess and three papers had just caught on fire, I quickly put it out. I know had they totally caught on fire the fire would have started quickly because of the huge mess, and I would have been caught in the middle of it.  I didn’t think much about this incident and just went back to bed.  Looking back now, I know that it was God or one of His angel’s that woke me up and kept me alive and safe and truth is my biggest fear is or was dying in a fire.  Again, thank you, Jesus!!!  

 A few days weeks following this incident I got arrested for the last time, but it wasn’t just for a month this time, I got sentenced to one year.  This news devastated me, but it was a blessing in disguise and as awful as jail is I am so extremely happy I went when I did.  My addiction was getting to be the worst it ever was, I was starting to dabble with fentanyl and after allowing myself, my body and my mind to go through everything it did, I finally was at my rock bottom.  I was back to being homeless, I got kicked out of my place because I never paid my rent, all the money I ever got went right to my addiction and I didn’t even care, for me then, the streets were comfortable and home.  It says in the bible, God has a time and a place for everyone, and this was my time.  Finally, after almost 30 years of battling addiction, suicidal thoughts, self-hatred, emptiness, loneliness, shame, guilt, depression, anxiety, bitterness, unforgiveness, hate, anger, for almost 30 years of my mom interceding for me, for almost 30 years of Satan trying to destroy and kill me, finally, in my cell, I gave it all to God.  I said, please help me, take away this addition and help me really want it in my heart to change.  I had prayed before, but I always knew in my heart I didn’t want to change, I just needed God to get me out of the situation I was in but this time, I was serious.  I was sick and tired of everything my life had become, I knew I wanted more and that if I continued living the way I was living I wouldn’t be alive much longer.  Jesus is so awesomely patient and forgiving; I now know it was Him that put me in jail for one year.  He knew that that was the only way that was going to keep me sober long enough to see what I was really doing to myself and to the ones who loved me, how long it was going to take me to get better and after five months inside I was released to a half-way-house.  They taught me how to transition from the life I was used to living to becoming a successful functioning member of society.  I held on to my faith and when they insisted, I started seeing an addiction counsellor.  I chose one that held on to the same beliefs as I did.  I knew any other would do me no good because I finally knew that by turning to man’s way, (no matter what it was) in dealing with Satan’s tactics and tools of killing and destroying humanity it just wouldn’t do anything for me, this is when I met Jodi Bryant.  She’s awesome, she’s a Christian addictions counsellor, she cares for her clients, and it shows.  She gifted me with a Bible, one that would eventually change my life forever.   

I had finished my entire sentence and got my own place in the city of Saskatoon, far away from the hood, the little hood, or the downtown area, but still, I could feel drugs calling my name everywhere I went and eventually I fell, again, but this time was different.  Like I had mentioned, I was addicted to the rush of the drugs, and this is what God faithfully eliminated from me.  No matter how big of a shot I took, I couldn’t feel that rush any longer and the high was different.  This is when I knew I was done.  I called my mom and dad; they came for me, and I went home.  I began diligently praying and reading my bible and by His grace, Jesus totally and lovingly set me free, just like it says in John 8:36:  So, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  I was free, I was at peace, and I was finally truly happy.  One month after I moved home, I got hired with my band at the Band Office as a receptionist.  They knew my background, they knew everything about me, yet they gave me that one chance to prove myself.  Seven months later, I got promoted.  I now currently work in the Finance Department as a General Ledger Clerk, which is a testimony in itself, I mean, how could someone who spent 18 years of her life injecting drugs, was one year earlier living on the streets and had been in and out of jail now be someone who helps look after the financial aspects of one of the largest First Nations communities in Saskatchewan?  Like where did that understanding, and knowledge come from?  Of course, it’s ONLY God.  ONLY He can do something like that, and I thank Him every day for EVERYTHING He’s done for me and with me.  Jesus broke those chains of addiction that had had me bound for many, many years.   

I used to hate my life.  I used to feel sorry for myself, always having little pity parties.  I used to blame everybody but myself for everything that happened to me.  I used to think, what was the purpose of having a son for one second and having him die on me and then never having another one?  I used to wonder why, out of my siblings and myself did God have to put me through that life.  I used to think that having a family of my own would have prevented me from becoming the person I became, and I use to wonder why God did not allow me to have someone I could love and who loved me?  I was mad at Him for a long time, but it wasn’t until I finally took ownership of the way my life had turned out that things started to make sense.  God is a good God and He loves each and every one of us unconditionally.  He doesn’t do things because He’s mean or because He doesn’t care, there is a purpose for EVERYTHING he does, whether we’re aware of it or not.  Satan is the one who tries to destroy us, he tried everything possible to destroy and kill me, and because I had blinders on my eyes, I just couldn’t see how merciful and gracious God really is.  He really does leave his 99 to go after that one lost sheep, in this case, it was me.  I always remembered a dear friend of mine told me one time, there’s a reason why everyone quits, everyone finds that reason and one day you’re going to find your reason.  I could never find that reason because I always figured most people quit for their kids or their spouses or themselves and I didn’t have any of those so I just couldn’t see my “reason” until Jesus came into my life.  Now I had the best reason there is to finally quit, I have Jesus and I have the truth, and I have the Light.   

Looking back at my life now I know God blessed me with my son, knowing I’d be with him again one day and He allowed me to get pregnant so I could experience it, but I also understand that He had me live that life to teach me things I wouldn’t have learned any other way.  He also allowed me to fall in love, but at the time I was living all this out, I just couldn’t see how awesome He really is.  Jesus took me to the wilderness to test me, to humble me, and to ground me.  He created my inmost being, He knit me together in my mother’s womb, so He had all this planned out way before I was on this earth, and He created me to withstand all the pain and ugliness I experienced.  Honestly, I am glad that I experienced everything I did, the way I did, had I not I probably wouldn’t appreciate and love everything about this life the way I now do, nor would I love Him as much as I do.  I believe He is still working within me – my heart.  He’s walking me phase by phase in helping me to forgive those who’ve hurt me, and to forgive myself for everything I did.  I now know that because I hadn’t allowed myself to heal after traumatic things happened to me, I still carried all of it.  When I got out of jail, during the beginning of my healing journey, I would cry all the time and for no particular reason except that I was finally sober, and I was finally allowing myself to feel everything I had suppressed for so long, which to be honest was a little weird for me because I never allowed myself to feel anything long enough to actually deal with it properly, and it still is weird. 

I’ve been completely off drugs for almost two years.  I am still learning about myself because when I sobered up the hardest questions I got asked were, “what do you like to do/hobbies?” and “who are you as a person?”.  As easy as they were, I couldn’t answer them because I had no idea who I was or what I liked apart from my addiction.  My whole life centered around it, so, now I am finding out who I really am, and the interesting part is the person who I thought I was, I am not that person anymore.  What it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.  The old life is gone; a new life has begun”, is exactly what happened to me.  God’s word is alive, it changed me from the inside and out.  Now, the only thing I want to do is learn more about my Savior, to either listen to evangelists/preachers/pastors on Youtube, to read my bible, go to church and/or bible study, listen to gospel music, or just to spend time in His presence praying, getting to know who God really is and strengthening my relationship with Him is what makes me the happiest.  Being a baby Christian, I still don’t know what God had planned for me but whatever it is, I cannot wait to get there.  I understand everyone’s story is different and although mine is a little intense, I am just so extremely happy Jesus saved me the way He did and is teaching me how to walk in His light, in His truth and in His love.  Now instead of reeling in my own self-centeredness, my ways became His ways, and my desires became His desires.  We overcome by the blood of the lamb and by the word of our testimony.  By our words and our lives, we consistently declare the truth that Jesus is Lord!!!!! 

Jesus is my savior, my deliverer, my redeemer, my father, my best friend.  He’s my constant reminder about everything good in this world, and about what is bad.  He’s who I think about first when I wake up and He’s the last thing I think about before I go to bed.  Jesus is my EVERYTHING and I will not stop proclaiming how merciful, gracious, forgiving, awesome, wonderful, and loving He really is.  He is the Alpha and the Omega.  The Beginning and the End.  He’s who is and who was and who is to come, and I cannot wait for that glorious day when I am standing in His glorious presence, and I get to tell Him face to face how extremely grateful I am for everything He’s done in my life and how much I love Him. 

I now know that walking with Jesus is the most satisfying and beautiful thing we as human beings get to experience.  Jesus is way more than theology and Sunday church services, He’s the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, and by Him all things were created.  

 He came so that we may have life and have it more abundantly and when you walk this journey, death cannot touch you because when we die, we are going to the place where we belong, we are going home and the six words I long to hear are, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”.