I was raised in a home where we went to church every Sunday…my mom and my sisters. My dad never came because he was an alcoholic. He brought drama into the home where there was a lot of fighting and stuff when he’d come home drunk. He was verbally abusive to my mom, so I grew up having an alcoholic father and just the damage that it does.

I was the type of person who pretended everything’s OK and I’m always happy. I tried to hold my family together and make everything OK when I knew things weren’t. I have two other sisters, and I was at home a lot taking care of my little sister and being there for my mom. My dad officially left home when I was twelve, and things really got better after that.

I continued to go to church, but I really didn’t fully grasp what having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ was about. When I was thirteen years old, I was sexually abused by my best friend’s dad, who was also a family friend. I held everything in and was afraid to tell anybody because I was afraid that people wouldn’t believe me. I was scared that my relationship with my best friend would be ruined, and it would break our families apart. It just hurt a lot. It kind of broke my trust with a lot of people and I had a lot of shame and guilt.

It wasn’t until I was sixteen years old when I joined the On Eagle’s Wings team that I really learned what a personal relationship with Christ was. I had never heard the term “personal relationship.” I knew there was a God, but I never knew that it could be a two-way relationship and that God was down here beside me rather than looking down upon me.

I decided that this is what I want, and He is the one I want to live for, so I gave my life to the Lord.  From that point on, I was able to heal and seek forgiveness from my past with the sexual abuse.  God gave me the grace and the freedom from it, and He showed me His love.

God was able to step into my life and take that Father position.  I was finally able to accept His love and that’s all the love I needed.  Since then, I’ve been able to deal with a lot of anger from my past and have truly been free.  I can’t express the joy that you get when you give your life to the Lord and the impact it has.  Words can’t fully describe it.