I Accept You, Jesus... But I am Walking Blindfolded.

When I was 13 my family situation finally changed.

My mom and I were living out on our own again. This time she actually had a boyfriend that I liked! He was a really good guy and seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. We did lots of stuff together, like going to the beach and such. Everyone else seemed to like him too. It looked as if this was going to be a good thing…

Well- I guess it depends on what you think a good thing is. I guess you can say it turned out for the best, just not how we all thought it would turn out…

My mom’s new & loved boyfriend turned out to be an undercover cop. He busted her for using and selling methamphetamine. When my mom went to court the judge sentenced her to a year in jail or six months in a treatment facility. My mom took the six months and went off to treatment.

With my mom getting sent off to rehab, I was sent to go live with my dad. Which could have turned out badly if God had not recently intervened in my dad’s life and changed everything! My dad’s addiction finally got the best of him. Him and his wife were splitting up and my dad ended up homeless, living out of his car. My two half sisters were with their mom, but with her own addiction, she could not care for them so they were staying with their grandparents mostly. With my mom going off to rehab and my sister’s mother not able to take care of them, my dad knew he had to do something. He just did not know what, or how. He was such a mess- how could he raise three girls?

One night after using and drinking heavily, he had an argument with God. He was sleeping out of his car by the river and cried out to God. He asked God to help him and show him the way… instantly my dad was sobered! And since that night he has not touched anything.

My grandparents on my dad’s side helped my dad to get a place for us kids to live in. They helped my dad take his ex-wife to court and get custody of my two half-sisters. My dad began to take us to church regularly; he got involved in NA & AA and went from being the meth addict at work to starting the “Drug Free Club” at his factory. He took parenting classes and sought God to show him how to be a good dad. And he was! I don’t remember my dad going many places without us. We were always going to fairs, church events, parades, plays, camping, biking, etc. I even went with my dad to most of his NA & AA meetings. For the first time I had a functioning family and I was learning about the love of Jesus. 

When my mom’s six months was up she returned home. My dad had only received temporary custody of me while my mom was in treatment. So when my mom returned I was expected to go back and live with her. I told my dad that I did not want to go back. He had a talk with my mom and she agreed to let me live with my dad. Well, that only lasted a week or so and then she decided that she wanted me to live with her. I told my dad that I did not want to stay with my mom and my dad was forced to take my mom to court to get custody of me. Since I was older, it was basically my choice. I met with a mediator and told him why I did not want to live with my mom and the life I had at my dad’s home. My dad was awarded custody.

My mom stopped using meth- but unfortunately she did not stop drinking. She began to replace her drug habit with her alcohol habit and turned into a full blown alcoholic.  She stopped partying but instead became a depressed hermit. When I visited her she drank the whole time and we sat at home doing nothing.

Seeing how my dad changed and my mom could not, I became very bitter towards her. Why could he become a good dad but she could not become a good mom? My visits to her became less and less and for almost four years I rarely saw her at all.

In attending church on a regular basis I learned about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I accepted Jesus into my heart at a Wednesday night youth group and was baptized. While I saw that God had changed my dad’s life, and I knew He could change mine… I hadn’t the faintest idea of how to follow Him. I do not think my dad, or myself, understood the depths to which I was lost. As I said, I kept myself looking very normal on the surface. My initial impression of following God was Actions. I thought that if I read my Bible, went to youth group, church camp and discipleship, that God would make my life perfect. If I just did enough to be perfect for God, He would love me and take care of me.

                 Depression      Shame              Isolation  

Suicidal Thoughts      Rejection       Alone      

           Scared         Hopeless        Trapped                         

                                    Cry      HELP ME

Anyone who has ever followed God in this way knows that it never works. While I tried my hardest to do all of the things I was suppose to do, my mind was still a mess. Shortly after I accepted Christ I began having bouts of depression and isolation. It was not long until I was having suicidal thoughts. All the while I still attended my church events with diligence, hoping God would see how good I was and HELP ME.

I struggled daily as an adolescent with depression and hopelessness. In thinking that God would save me if I did enough right actions; and then still struggling with suicidal thoughts… I began to think that God had rejected me. I already held a strong sense of rejection due to my parent’s decisions growing up. I constantly tried to be a good child for both of them, and they constantly picked drugs over me. So this boiled over into my relationship with God. I felt like He did not love me; that He was rejecting me; that I was not good enough.

All of these thoughts consumed me. My depression increased. I felt ashamed, scared, alone, hopeless and did not know how to change any of it.

My dad worked a lot of overtime to support three girls. He had no financial help from either of our mothers. I would take care of my sisters during the day. When my dad got home I often would retreat to my room to be alone. I spent many evenings by myself, trapped in my own head and dwelling on my thoughts. I cried myself to sleep many nights… Then I would awake, put a smile on my face and repeat the day.

“God… where are You?”

This will be the last of my Backlight posts. You should now have a glimpse into where I come from and how I got to Jesus. This is the point where many think that becuase I have accepted Jesus that things will get easier and better... well they get a lot harder from here. I am spiritually attacked and finding my way to God is like walking through barbed wire, blindfolded. God never says it will be easy, but it is always worth it! So my journey to becoming who Christ wants me to be begins here... with a prayer.

The Grass Was Not Greener On The Other Side...

So, Where was my daddy?

While I lived with my mother for 13 years, my father also had regular visitation of me. While my dad and I now have a great relationship, it was not always the case. My father also had a drug addiction and sold methamphetamine.

I will state that there was a difference between my mother’s drug problem and my father’s drug problem. My mother was addicted to drugs due to her trying to cope (or not cope) with what had happened to her in her childhood. She used drugs and alcohol to numb the pain and dull the memories. My mother’s side occupation of selling drugs was basically to sustain her own addiction. She sold because she used. My father on the other hand used because he sold. My dad did not have any deep underlying family issues or extremely traumatic situations to struggle through. My dad was simply raised as an Army brat who moved frequently and therefore had trouble making and maintaining friendships with others. When he realized that selling drugs made you popular and created easy friendships- he went with it. Now, if you sell drugs, you have to use them also. Otherwise people would think you were a nark, right? So my dad’s usage came from his frequency in the drug world and slowly took hold of his life before he knew it. It was a very slow and gradual decent into his rock bottom.

“My dad was good at selling…we had classic cars, motorcycles and tons of guns!”

My dad, unlike my mother, was good at the business aspect of selling narcotics. He kept himself fairly low key. I never remember crazy parties or random people coming in and out of my dad’s home. He held the same job for 16 years, rarely ever moved homes, never ran with a gang, did not have tattoos and, for the most part, stayed out of jail. If someone ever needed to be “taken care of” (for owing money or such), my dad had guys who did that for him. My dad spent his “side-job” money on extravagant things. He always had classic cars, tons of custom bikes and lots of guns. We kids always had the newest bicycles, latest toys and he even bought me a dog from Europe one time.

Even though my dad was a functioning drug addict, it was not always the lesser evil of the two options. My dad’s home was full of chaos also- because of his bad choice in women.

After my mom and dad divorced my dad started dating my mom’s best friends, little sister. She was younger than my dad and HOT- according to everyone. Her dad was also the corrupt Chief of Police in the city my dad lived in. Which I think kept the law off my dad’s back. She had a son from a previous marriage and within three years they had two girls together. Finally they decided to get married when I was around five. I don’t think I cared much for her because I’m not smiling in any of the wedding pictures.

After they got married, my dad’s wife drug addiction got really heavy. With a constant available supply it was not long before the using consumed her. My dad tried to cut her down… but if you have ever took meth away from a meth head, you know that it is never good. A meth addict who doesn’t have their meth becomes really angry. Therefore, violence started occurring in the house on a regular basis. My dad’s wife would scream, throw things & attack my dad right in front of us kids. I was the oldest and would often grab the other three and take them outside when the fights would start. One time she came after my dad with a butcher knife and when the police showed up they took my dad to jail. While he was locked up, she proceeded to sell all of his items so she could get her drug money. (I think my dad hid his money from her).

The chaos in my dad’s home gradually got worse and worse. I had many traumatic experiences there even though I did not live there on a regular basis. I had a very big imagination as a kid…which is not necessarily a bad thing- as long as your big imagination is not fueled by insecurity, fear, anxiety & contributions from your crazy parents!

                   Fear of Freddy…

 While my dad and his wife did drugs my babysitter was often the TV… which may not have been so bad if Sponge Bob-Square Pants was on. But my dad’s wife had an obsession with the movie Nightmare on

Elm Street,

and therefore I was forced to sit and watch the horror movie by myself while the adults entertained themselves. This caused me to have an Extreme fear of the movie and of the dark. Until about a year ago I could not even say the name of the movie and if I even heard someone speak of it I would have nightmares for several nights. I am still not the best in the dark. If I am alone I have to have a light on to sleep.

                        Paranoia…

As my dad’s addiction got worse there was a lot of paranoia. The two of them would always talk about people following us and tapping into our phone lines. I don’t think they knew this affected me but it did. I became very paranoid myself. Even when I was not with them, I would constantly feel like someone was following me. At school lunch time I would sit and look out the big glass windows at the quiet country street outside. As I ate lunch I would watch the cars and sometimes I would think I saw the same car pass by over and over. I would think “They are trying to find me…” I would watch the cars travel behind the bus to make sure none were following me home and as I walked a mile from my bus stop to my house I constantly looked behind me. I would often switch up my routes home. I had three different routes: The street, which had lots of houses, trees and building to hide behind; The lake, which had a very open sandy area where I could see everything around me; and the levee, which had the river on one side and was higher than the street on the other… so I could look down and make sure no one was around me. Sometimes I would not even get off at my bus stop; I would go with my friend, who was the next stop, get off with her, walk to her house, then make her brother row me across the river in their little boat and then I would walk the levee home from there.

                        An unseen world…

At one point in my dad’s wife’s addiction she began to see and hear things. She heard voices in her head telling her to do things. She began to see terrible things also. Any time she climbed onto a chair or stool she would start screaming, saying she saw HELL beneath her. She would also have nightmares and when she awoke she would see a demon sitting on her stomach looking at her. She would scream and cry and get angry very often. With all of this going on, my own paranoia went from thinking there was someone following me to thinking there was something following me. My fear of the dark got worse. I often thought there were things under my bed or watching me from outside my window. Even during the day I would think things were watching me and following me. At this point I was not that young either- I was about 10 or 11. I ended up meeting a girl in school who felt similar to me. Being very frightened and wanting to get rid of the feelings- her and I started exploring ways we could protect ourselves. We tried an Ouija board, which I do not EVER recommend doing! Eventually we ended up messing around with some magic and studying witchcraft. I also did a lot of studying on demons and angels and on the war of the unseen world. I thought in my research and experimentation maybe I could gain some power over what ever I thought was around me. I can say that none of this helped me to feel more safe or secure. In fact, it made things worse and made me more aware of the spiritual world than I ever needed to be.

            “I was an internal mess!”

With all of the insecurity, fear, madness, sickness and violence at my mothers home, coupled with the anxiety, paranoia & fear at my dad’s home- I was an internal mess as a child. I say internal because most of my suffering could not be seen from the outside. On the outside I seemed to cope with the chaos around me very well. I held good grades, I was a nice kid, I listened well to authorities in my life, I was creative and artistic, I held my emotions well, seemed very mature for my age and had a generally liked and attractive personality. The only way my inner struggles manifested themselves on the surface was that I struggled with severe headaches since I was around six. The stress of maintaining an outside wellness, while hiding my inner sickness, would often create hours of pain in the form of a headache.

All of this would contribute to the struggle I would face in my adult life to control my mind and emotions. The battle in my mind would become the wall that would separate me from my God given purpose for so long. But God was still with me… and would eventually teach me how to have peace and eliminate madness.

MATTHEW BARNETT: OBLITERATE SHAME

MATTHEW BARNETT: OBLITERATE SHAME

This is a great blog by Matthew Barnett on the effects of Shame and how we as the people of God are to treat others. I dealt with shame for many years of my life. Shame is a life sucking virus that leaves no room for the grace of God. We must obliterate shame in order to reach those who are far from the Lord.

Read and enjoy...

I Emerged From The Black Hole That Was My Life

Where I come from does not define who I am-

If you have ever studied psychology, you will learn that people often turn out in the same way they were raised. Being raised by a drug addict increases your chances of becoming an addict yourself. Often, those abused become the abusers and those abused sexually by someone of the same sex, become homosexuals. If you come from a broken home, you are more likely to have a broken home- and so on and so on. If you look at the statistics, this is the norm. There are very few people who escape the generational curses that surround them. The way your are raised, the values you consume and the people you are surrounded with will decide the way you will live your life.

However, there is One who can change you! There is One who can teach you a new way. He can teach you a way that will turn you from all you ever knew and give you a life you never thought you could have.

I feel I must give you a backlight into my life as I have defied the statistics. I have not done everything right and I can not say I have not repeated many of the behaviors I witnessed growing up. But I can say that I have a God who has changed me from the inside out and who has shown me the way to live life. I did not have many examples to follow, but I discovered a God who could guide me and help me to become the person I wanted to be.

So here is my history… this is where I come from.

Part 1: 13 years in the Desert.

            I come from a family plagued with generational curses. Some of them I have broken, some of them I repeated my self. They include divorce, drug & alcohol addiction, poor money management, physical abuse, sexual abuse, incest, homosexuality, mental disorders and suicide – to name a few. From a young age my life was filled with chaos and uncertainty.

            My parents divorced when I was three. I grew up in the central valley of CA, which produced 80% of the United States’ methamphetamine during the late 80’s – early 90’s. Both of my parents used and sold methamphetamine. When my parents split, I went to live with my mother. The constant fights between the two led my grandparents to step in and coordinate any communication between the two families. Since I was three I have only seen my parents speak to each other a hand full of times – I’m 27 now.

            Chaos                        Confusion                   Drugs          

              Sex         Violence                           Isolation

 

My mother was very unstable. She never held a job for long. I remember one fast food place she worked in because she would bring me to work with her. I would sit in the back office with my feet up in a chair as the cockroaches ran around. We moved constantly. Often we lived with my grandmother – but my mom would get a new job so she would want to move out. So we would move out for a while, then something would happen and we would move back to my grandma’s. My mom always had different boyfriends. Two of my favorites being the one who slept with my moms sister and got her pregnant and the one who used to beat my mom in front of me on a regular basis.

“I had to call 911..” I had to call 911 when I was 8 on him because he was pulling my mom up the stairs and was going to throw her out of our two story window. My mom frequently drug me to her parties. I remember many nights sitting awake in some strangers house listening to what was going on in the next rooms (which was never anything good. Drugs, alcohol and promiscuity are things a child should not be exposed to). I also remember many times having to help people carry my mom to a car so someone could drive us home. She often became belligerent when she was drunk and was yelling and screaming… or she was sobbing uncontrollably. She rarely ever was a “fun drunk.” There were many people in and out of my life and my home growing up. As I said, my mom used and sold drugs, so there were always new faces and missing faces.  My mom was obviously not very good at the business aspect of selling- because we were always poor. She was on welfare and food stamps, I got free lunch, wore clothes from yard sales and always had shoes that were too small for me. We often lived in one bedroom homes or apartments where one of our bedrooms was in the living room.

            Abuse        Drugs          Madness            Homosexuality                        Suicide               Jail            AIDS             

                                Rejection              Alone         

           

            My grandmother’s home was slightly more stable. I did have my own room and she had a fairly big modular home with a good sized back yard. When we were living at my grandmother’s, I did not have to go to the parties with my mom. But I hardly ever remember my mom even being at home. My grandma did her best to take care of me but she was sick for many years. From around six years old, I would put myself to bed at 8pm, set my own alarm, get myself ready for school, make my own breakfast, walk a mile to the bus stop to get to school, etc. I pretty much took care of myself all of the time.

“I may have been exempt from parties… but I was exposed to something even worse- MY FAMILY.”  

Also, I may have been exempt from parties while living with my grandmother, but I was exposed to something even worse – my family. My grandma was the glue that held my mothers side of the family together. She not only took in my mom and I when we were homeless, but she had six other kids that were constantly moving in and out. And to put it lightly…my mother’s side of the family is a friggin’ mess! My mom has four older brothers and two younger sisters. I will not name them but will communicate them by the first letter of their names.

Also, I can say there is a very logical reason why every member of the entire family is so messed up, but I am not at liberty to post this information for public display at this time.

The most stable of the seven would have to be my eldest uncle, uncle J. Uncle J was married at one point and had a son- then he discovered he was gay, divorced his wife and has been with men ever since. Before he found his long-term life-partner, he contracted AIDS and has lived several years with the disease. He has actually had the same boyfriend since I was little and it is probably the longest, most stable relationship I have witnessed in my family (even though it is a sinful relationship). Of the other brothers, uncle R is a very angry alcoholic, known to abuse women and also has bouts with cocaine addiction. Uncle R frequently gets clean & relapses. When he is clean & sober he is a pretty awesome person, and when he is using no one wants him around. Uncle D is a bisexual, drug addict with HIV. He is addicted to methamphetamine, has a son (who I believe also has HIV that was contracted at birth) and used to molest my cousin when we were younger. He used to sleep with some 80 year old man when he was in his 30’s who would provide him with a nice place to live in SoCal, nice cars and lots of money. Uncle D sees nothing wrong with his lifestyle or his choices. He is probably the most demented one of them all and I was lucky enough to never be left alone with him when I was younger. Uncle B committed suicide via heroin one month after my grandma died. He had actually been clean for quite some time when he overdosed. I think the death of his father, followed by the death of my grandmother two months later put him over the edge. When I was growing up uncle B was a drug addict who was frequently in and out of jail. He used to transport drugs into the jail/prisons by hiding the product… well I’m sure you can guess where. From what I understand he also had sexual relations with my aunt B for many years- even though he was married. My mother was the eldest of the three girls and often was their protector and savior from a lot of the horrible things that went on when they were growing up. This makes me think she most likely took the brunt of most of the abuse in order to protect them. However, she is over five years older than both of them and moved out early on. Leaving them to try and cope with things they had probably been protected from for years. My aunt C is the next eldest under my mom. Aunt C is a lesbian with bipolar disorder I. She often goes on and off of her medication. When she is not medicated she has delusions where she thinks she is different people or is in different places and or different eras of time. When she is unstable you can find her on a street corner of Modesto, CA selling her body for drugs and incredibly out of her mind. The youngest of them all is aunt B who has been schizophrenic for about 12 years now. Aunt B has two children. One daughter who was born 24 hrs and 22 min after I was (we will call her A) and one son that she does not see. Since A and I were so close in age, the two of us grew up very close. A was molested by my uncle D on a regular basis and therefore had a tendency to turn some of this on me. Luckily, it did not last into my later years as my cousin A had to move away when my aunt B became schizophrenic and could no longer care for her. Aunt B spends most of her time in a permanent mental hospital. Sometimes they can get her stable enough to live on her own, but she usually stops taking her meds and has to be admitted once again. As for cousin A, she is a lesbian with two children that were conceived by her drug dealer. She is frequently in and out of jail as she is a car thief by profession. I have not seen her in years but my dad did see her in a NA meeting a few years ago and said she had a good amount of clean time. So hopefully she straightened her life out.

            I lived with my mother for 13 years of my life.

           This was my family.

These were the people I celebrated birthdays with, Christmas and Thanksgiving with. These were the people I had as “examples” in my life.

            My grandma often tried to distance and protect me from the family. My grandmother, though good to me, was a very judgmental person. So you can imagine how she felt about the path that her children had taken. Many of them often complained about her criticism. However, my grandma was very different towards me. She often spoke words of encouragement and praise to me. She spent time with me as she could, loved me and always believed the best in me.  But it seemed I was an isolated case. She did not even act this way towards my cousin A, who was only hours younger than me. And as far as I know she hardly communicated with any of my other cousins. The difference in treatment between me and my aunts, uncles, and cousins caused a lot of tension between me and my mother’s side of the family. My aunt C voiced her opinions most and directed her resentment towards me often. I was kind of an outcast from the family- though that was probably not a bad thing.

I don’t know how it is He look at me and saw the person I could be- not the person I was likely to become.

I thank God every day that he has provided me the opportunity NOT to live life as I learned it, but to live life as He designed it. Becuase of Him I will experience something that I never thought i could- a life I never thought that I could have. This right is not reserved for me alone. God can change and renew the lives of anyone who wishes to follow Him. I encourage you... if you want something different- something more- something better... give Him a chance! It is worth it!

Turning Point

There comes a point in life when you must make a decision. A decision to keep going the way you are headed or the decision to try another route. Some call this “Rock Bottom”. Some call it “the fork in the road”. I call it my Turning Point. The point where I decided to turn from the life I had become so engulfed in, to the life I wanted to have. 

 "There comes a point in life when you must make a decision."           

I have been in church since I was young. My spiritual life was always full of ups and downs- of bouts where faith prevailed, and bouts of disbelief. Therefore, I always thought I identified with Peter (from the Bible). Peter loved God but constantly struggled with his ups and downs. I always envied those who had a Pauline experience. See Paul, formerly Saul, had a genuine turning point in his life where He experienced God, turned from his old ways and never looked back. With my dad being in recovery ministry, I often heard of these experiences. Experiences where God appeared to people, or saved people in the midst of death, or sobered people in an instant as they cried out to God! I think I longed for this experience for a long time. I had plenty of experiences where I felt God should have “showed up”, should have shown Himself to me, saved me, cured me, and sobered me. But He didn’t – so I thought.

I was mad at God for a long time. I was so mad that there were even several years that I denied His existence. In my heart, I knew He was there – but I was really, really, really pissed off at Him! I never understood the concept of grace. I had grown up trying to earn the love and affection of those around me by acting a certain way, speaking a certain way and looking a certain way. So logically, I applied the same principles to my faith. I went to youth group, church camp, discipleship class, Sunday school, read my Bible, prayed, and talked about God to others. In doing this, I expected God to honor me and make my life better. (FYI- God does not honor us, we are to honor Him) Well, my mutilated fairy tale did not get any better. In fact, it got worse and worse. In response, I became angry and bitter towards God and all that He had afflicted me with. I often found myself saying “Do you even know what you are doing up there?!”

So when did it change? And what exactly changed?

I wish I could pin point the date – but those days were so blurred for me. They all seemed to run together. With the combination of medications, liquor, insomnia and withdraw it’s a wonder I even held down a job during these times in my life. I may not be able to pin point the date (though it was somewhere between June-Sept of 2009) but I can pin point the moment. It was a moment where I had escaped death, again. It was the moment when I knew I could chose life, and if I did not at least try to do something different – I would surely end up where I had longed to be for so long.

                   "Why me?"

I struggled with thoughts of suicide for at least 12 years of my life. The life I grew up in was hard, to say the least. I often looked at the lives of others and wanted what they had. I used to ask God, “Why me?” As I hit my teen years my mind, emotions and actions really got out of control. I wanted my life to be different but had no idea how to change it, or if it would ever change. I often felt hopeless. The feeling of hopelessness led me to yearn to not be in this world anymore. I often cried to God and asked Him to take me. I told Him that there was NO WAY I could go through the rest of my life like this! This went on for years. I prayed for God to send a Holy bus to run me over (literally, this was my prayer). I cursed God that I had survived a horrible car accident when I was 17. My constant desire to die became so indwelled into my consciousness that I even had involuntary visions of myself dying in gruesome ways. And when I say involuntary, I mean involuntary. I could be standing in a crowd of people, not thinking of death at all, and suddenly be overcome with a vision of myself dying. I would be unresponsive to the people around me, turn pale, start sweating, sometimes tears would roll down my face and as I emerged back into reality I would become dizzy and nauseous. Needless to say, some of the people around me thought I was crazy - but so did I and so did the doctors.

One night, after drinking heavily and driving myself home in an intoxicated and sobbing state, my desire took hold of me. My ex-husband found me lying on the floor next to an empty bottle of pills. Obviously, I did not die that night. I can not say that I got my Pauline experience and that God showed Himself to me as I lie unconscious on the floor… but I can say that God let me know that next day that I had a choice to make. God had something planned for me. He had told me this many times in my life already. But I could not see the light that led to that path through all of the mess I had went through and was still going through. God revealed in my heart that I could either decide to live and see what He had in store for me, or I could die.

           "That was my Turning Point"

This was my turning point. I did not see angels or heaven or God himself. I did not in an instant entrust to Him everything or suddenly regain my sanity and my life turned perfect. I simply made a choice to see what God had for me. I made a choice that day to seek Him and asked Him to reveal Himself to me.

Maybe that is all you need to do today. Make the choice to seek Him. I promise that if you do, you will find Him. He will show Himself to you in all of His glory and change your life forever. The road is not easy, and He never said it would be. But it is worth it! Remember, nothing in life that is worth it is ever easy.

I hope in my continuing posts that I can show you how to seek Him. I know I had to have others pour into me and show me the way. I followed my own way for many years and never even got close to where I am now! God puts people in our lives to help us, so let them help you. Don’t try and do it alone!

Make today your Turning Point!

My Mutilated Fairy Tale

Welcome to my blog! Before my first post I would like to share a little about myself and why I decided to start this blog. My name is Melissa Joanne Powell and I live in Knoxville, TN. I have the best husband in the world, John Powell and two super cool step-children, Trey and Brittley. We also have a new one- baby Draven Blaise Powell.

I am originally from Northern CA - a small (for CA) town called Manteca, aka Man-tweeka. I have lived on the East Coast now for 6 years and love it! I miss my friends and family- but will never move back.
Our family is actively involved with a church in West Knoxville called Ignition Church where our mission is to see people far from God filled with life in Christ. We believe that the church is the people of God, on a mission for God, empowered by the spirirt of God. We are not perfect people and therefore do not try and bring people to Jesus by showing them their faults or scaring them into loving God. Nor do we try to change people - that is NOT our job. What is our job is to show people the LOVE of Christ and how that love can change their lives. It is not about receiving a "get into heaven" ticket - it is about living life and how God can make your life matter much more than you ever dreamed!

I have a story. My story is filled with darkness and can sometimes be hard to talk about. However, God has given me a new life! Therefore, I feel I must share my story for the sake of those who need to know that there is HOPE. There is a peace that surpasses all understanding. I did not have peace for a long, long time.
I will strive to be as detailed and honest about my situations as possible. That is why when you enter this site you will receive a notice that it may contain adult material. Many of the things I have to say may be difficult to read, just as it will be difficult for me to write. But I know my words will be inspired by God in order to show the amazing transformation that has been bestowed on me by the Holy One.

Where I have come from to where I am now is truly a testimony to the Power of the living God!

If He can change me and my life, He can change anyone and theirs!

I hope you will join me on this journey. Please pray for me along the way. And please always feel free to comment and share your thoughts.