My JOURNEY! (and its only begun!)
Praise God. I am healed.
Many of you will be shocked by this, but please know that our God is a powerful God who has set me free from this old life.
Comments are welcome.
Here's my story.
I grew up in NJ, and when I was 15 my family moved to NC. I was not used to the number of professing Christians around me. I recall going to youth group for the first time and noticing a different presence, it amazed me how all these people MY AGE were focused so much on one God. I became very involved in church and youth group. I started to lead small groups and just love on the other teens my age and younger.
When i was in 11th grade I started to question who I was. I started to get very anxious about what I did and what I said. Long story and I am not sure exactly what triggered this, but I experimented with cutting. When I grew tired of not knowing how i felt, I decided to stop crying and start cutting. It was a chemical release for me that was working. Though it helped me for maybe a nano second, the shame and guilt that came afterwards was just horrible.
I would have ups and downs… 5 years went by, and I continued to try and quit cutting but situations would always arise where I needed it more and more. This was a shameful struggle for me, and there were nights I just felt hopeless. I would have God moments where I would feel God's peace, but somehow every time afterward something would happen and I would end up cutting once again.
Jan. 2007 came around. I was ready to start fresh a new year, like every other new year, my resolution was not to cut. The longest I had gone in 5 years was 4 months. I was starting out strong, but come around the middle of January things got harder than before. My grandmother got sick and was diagnosed with pneumonia, bronchitis, and Parkinson's all in the same week. Things got worse. It seemed like in just 3 months, both my grandparents almost died, I had to stick around the house to take care of my grandpa, my mom had surgery, my brother was never home to help, my dad had an intense job and took his stress out in unhealthy ways that led me to worry and stress even more, I was taking 15 credit hours in school, leading 3 small groups, and working 20 hours a week… needless to say my body became exhausted and I got very sick. The only way it seemed that I could get any kind of peace was to go back to cutting. It got so bad, there were times I could not stop cutting, the blood would become too intense and I would have to stop before it got on the carpet. (sorry for the graphics there).
One day while talking with my mom she saw some cuts on my foot. She asked if it was time for me to go inpatient. I considered it, after talking with several people and decided that it would be a good idea. I went with my mom and uncle to Access; it is the place you go if you don't go through the emergency room or through a psychiatrist to get into the hospital. We were in the waiting room for hours, and finally I was called into a small room and talked to this lady about how i was feeling. I told her how I felt and she told me that she would call the doctor and ask her what she thought and see whether or not i needed to be inpatient... well so i went into the waiting room again, and waited another hour. the lady called me back into the room. The doctor had decided that I did not need to go inpatient because of the fact that it was an addiction I had for quite some time… when I heard the news, I began to cry... I was so good at acting that i was fine that i fooled the hospital!!!!! After expressing the second time how bad i felt and how much i needed it, she called the doctor again and i was admitted into the hospital.
I was in the hospital for 6 days...6 hard days. I was not allowed to even use a pen without being in the open room with people watching me. I was left alone with my thoughts and junk to try and sort things out on my own. It was very hard for me, but I left the hospital that week feeling refreshed and safer from myself than I had in a very long time. Time went on after I was in the hospital, like always, I slipped up again. The cutting was getting bad again; I was getting beyond frustrated with myself and with God for being stuck in the same rut.
May came, and my small group that I had for 5 years graduated from High school. It seemed like suddenly the reason I was sticking around for so long was leaving. I really began to wonder what the purpose of me being here anymore was. I knew that God had a plan for me, I knew deep down that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, or so I thought but in my mind and in my heart I was hurt so badly that I didn't' want to believe that things would get better. I had been surrounded by people in the hospital that talked about death like it was a simple thing to achieve… It seemed like the easy way out. I started to wonder if that was my answer.
I was given the opportunity to go on a mission trip to Cuba, I was looking forward to this but nervous I wouldn't be able to serve as well as I wanted to because of the way I felt. At the beginning of the year I started going to my moms Friday afternoon Bible studies. It was at a ladies house named Monique. It was really neat to me that this lady opened up her house to us everyweek. One morning, I was flustered and the expression on my face said it all. They group knew that I must have been going through a hard time, and they knew I was going to Cuba. This lady Beth mentioned that she used to be a bar tender and the drink "Cuba Libre" popped into her head. It seemed extremely random to me, but that was a planted seed that maybe something awesome would happen to me in Cuba.
One day I was out to lunch with my family and my mom got a phone call from my aunt, she stepped outside, came back inside with a look of fear and shock on her face… It was my step grandmother. She had taken her own life by jumping out of a 30 story building in New York City. Immediately I was filled with guilt and ashamed that I thought of suicide for myself. God used the situation to scare me away from ending my life.
I learned that suicide ruins your entire life story. People would only remember you by the way that you died and not the way that you lived.
June came around and it was time for Cuba. I met a lady named Sharon on the way to Cuba. haron and I had just met the night before, and we seemed to click immediately. I was able to room with Sharon. It was a normal thing for me to get low on mission trips, or retreats because for 5 years, at night I got VERY low at that time. I did not want to be down this entire trip…I really did not know Sharon at all, but I shared with her about how I was a cutter and how hard things have been and how hard things would be for me on this trip. She told me that the Lord would save me and pull me out of the pit, put me on a solid rock and keep me. She prayed with me, and I felt that it was God that gave me the strength to open up to a complete stranger. The next morning I grabbed my bible and opened to Psalm 30:1-3 "I will exalt you, O LORD, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O LORD, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit." It was a confirmation to me, it shocked me, really.
I learned how cool it is that you can find scripture for everything you need in the Bible in times when you need to hear from God. I learned that I needed to let my anger out and just cry, even though I would rather puke in public than cry, I needed to get it out.
I got home from Cuba, and was home for about a week before I started to get sick of things here again. I gave into cutting once again; a part of me believed that I needed one last bad time just one more bad time so that I can stop... It didn't exactly work that way.
The next day came and the I went to Monique's house for a party. She was having a pastor over to speak about spiritual healing. I looked at the situation with as much negativity as I could. The pastor read right out of scripture so I knew that it was from the word of God and not just him saying he was a spiritual healer. He began to pray for people and I just sat and stared into space. When the time came that he was praying for me, all I could think about was, "get your hand off of me, leave me alone, this is a crock, its not real, God is not going to heal me, he would have already if he wanted to, this isn't going to work so stop even trying." The prayer thing was over and I was going to go home…
I told my mom and Monique the host of the party that I was leaving. Monique walked me out towards my car. In the middle of the driveway, Monique asked me what I thought, she started reassuring me that God was going to take care of me and comfort me when I began to cry. I told her how badly I just wanted to give up and how I didn't want to do it anymore. We went for a short walk and when we got back to her house I was ready to leave, got my keys ready and she said, "You're not leaving like this…" I went inside with her, thinking that she would just let me sit around and hang out for a while till I calmed down I went inside no problem and sat down to watch people clean up. Then, to my surprise Monique said to the ladies in the kitchen, "ladies we need to pray for Kelly." We went into a side room and she told all these ladies that I am a cutter. I was humiliated. My mom was standing next to me and asked if she should leave, I told her I didn't care, it really made me uncomfortable, but I didn't say it. Then a lady next to hear told her that she needed to come with her and talk to someone outside… so mom left and I was a bit more relieved… but not really.
I was acting, I said what they wanted me to say and agreed with what they wanted me to agree with, it was really hard for me to trust and open up. Though I was crying A LOT. I was sitting on the couch repeating a prayer to God, and then the lady next to me told me to stand up. I thought to myself, oh gosh… great here we go… She had me hold my hands out and ask Jesus to help me. I didn't know where to begin, she then told me that even if I just called His name out he would come and help me. So I called out "Jesus"… still doubting that He'd hear. They started to read from Isaiah, Monique would read and then Jerry would stop her and repeat it to me. She was looking me straight in the eye and I couldn't bear to look back at her. This went on for what felt like forever, but at the last verse I got the guts to try and look her in the eyes, something popped inside of me.. I felt like for the first time in 5 years I could breathe. It wasn't over. They had me sit down again, because I was about to fall over… They talked with me about how they could pray for me, and more and more about how I could get through this. They told me that God had forgiven me, but I needed to forgive myself before I could move on. Then one of the ladies held out a mirror and had me look at myself as she said an apology I repeated to myself. That my friends, was the hardest thing I have ever done. My time with the ladies was over, it had taken them a good hour to break down my walls. It was God that broke every chain off of my heart and mind.
I walked out of the room feeling 100 pounds lighter. For the first time in 5 years I could breathe. I got out of the room thinking that the awesomeness of the night was done, gave my mom and hug and was confronted by a man probably in his 30's. He said to me, "don't be ashamed" I was a little confused, and asked him what he was talking about.. he said that he used to be a cutter too. And as he lifted his sleeve to show me, God answered another prayer. I had always known people who were in the struggle, but I had never met ANYONE who has overcome.
Cuba Libre now has such a meaning to me… Cuba was what helped me take off, and After Cuba I became free. I am healed, God has forgiven me, I have forgiven myself and I am redeemed by the blood of Jesus. I can not keep silent, and I will not keep silent. There are many people who struggle with this addiction and I want to prove to them that THERE IS A WAY OUT!!!!!
Here is a video I made, it shows some of the hardships I had, but it also has some of the hope I had. The quotes in the beginning are from me, in 2004 and 2005. God was with me all along. It just shows that God is in control of every situation, no matter how long it may take for Him to answer our prayers.
http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/Kehleigh/?action=view¤t=822db295.flv
If that doesn't work try this link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=a0DZ-zB-Xsw
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