I am going to journal about my walk with God, about how my Heavenly Father is changing my heart and my thoughts one day at a time. I have always been one of those over achiever people. I will get super excited about one thing and go completely overboard. I will immerse myself entirely into whatever has sparked my interest, I have always been looking to fill that void in my soul that I often didn't even know was there. I guess it started in middle school, I started smoking weed to fit in with the "cool" kids, and discovered this awesome escape that I didn't even know I was searching for. You see I never started doing drugs, or running from my current reality, knowing that I was trying to escape. My life wasn't "bad", plenty of people had it worse than I did. I really didn't have anything to complain about- my parents had finally gotten divorced (since most of the other kid's parents were divorced I thought that this was normal and shouldn't bother me) we had a house and I had the cool clothes, I got straight A's for the most part, I had a family that loved me and didn't hurt me, etc. etc. Yet somehow I completely lost myself over a period of 15 years, spiraling and lying and getting worse and worse without even realizing it. At the end of my using I will admit fear, I was scared, I knew that I was in over my head yet there was no way I could EVER admit it and ask for help- I was stronger than that! When my family showed up to intervene I was actually relieved, lying was so hard, everything was slipping and I knew I was dying. I went to rehab, I struggled when I got out, and I struggled hard, because for the first time I would not turn to drugs but I still had these crazy emotions that I didn't know how to deal with so I started turning to meetings, and people (mostly men), I started replacing my drugs with other people and things, anything to keep myself from dealing with the reality of all that I had done, all of those I had hurt.

      That is where I lost it, I was about 5 months pregnant with my second son and just had this day. You know the one, where everything you see is a reminder of what a failure you are and what kind of person are you to actually think you can be different or bring another child into the world? Yeah, amplify that by pregnancy hormones and I was tormented by the enemy, sobbing on the couch. My boyfriend came home for lunch (I will get to the fact that we were living together later, I am totally convicted of it, our wedding can't come soon enough) and just said "oh honey, you're just pregnant" totally invalidating my feelings and making me feel more hopeless. Luckily my sister told me to listen to our local Christian radio station, she said "you just need some worship" So that is what I did, then a fire got lit inside of me. I looked up The Village Church on iTunes (that is what my father and my second mom listen too) and found a podcast about prayer and listened.
  
     My whole life I believed in God, I honestly can say there was no point I could say I didn't believe until that day. I left rehab and everything was supposed to be different, right? Except nothing was different except me being sober. All of the problems were still there, and I was sober and I felt more alone than I ever had before. I questioned God's existence, I didn't believe the prayers I said with my oldest son every night at bedtime, I never read the bible or went to church because I seriously thought it might all be a big lie... until that day. I listened to that podcast and found out it was ok to call out to God and tell Him I felt like he deserted me, and that is just what I did, in a big heaping pile on my couch I yelled at God. I yelled at Him, asking why He left me, why I couldn't I feel Him anymore? And God, being faithful and good, showed up and FLOODED me with love, and this is where my story will begin...I am only 9 months into my walk with God but He is changing me everyday, He is so so so amazing and trustworthy, and I want to journal it. I want to give the glory to God, because it is His, I have not become who I am on my own, but through Him, I am constantly changing, becoming better, becoming who God created me to be