TT- I am Saved

There are a lot of things I believe that a person can be proud of.

I moved across the world to a new country and have managed to make a successful life (at least in my eyes!).

Hubby Dearest and I have merged to cultures together to form a family and are making it work.

Despite all the doubt and despite all the obstacles, I’m 4 years into a wonderful marriage!

I graduated high school….6 months early!!

I started when I was 12 years old, volunteering at the lowest level in a restaurant, and over the next 10 years worked myself all the way up to management.

I gave birth NATURALLY to two wonderful and beautiful boys! One of which I have successfully breastfed for five months!

All of these things I am super proud of in my life. But…none of these are what I am most proud of.

I have known that one day I would share this information with all of you. But I had to wait until God told me it was the right time!

The thing I am most proud of in my life (with my children and husband following at a very VERY close second!) is my relationship with our Savior Jesus Christ.

There was a time in my life where I had fallen as far away from God as I believe was possible for me.

There was a time in my life in which I lived in a very dark and dangerous place.

I was always a good student, even through the worst time in my life. I managed to keep my grades at a point where I knew I’d be accepted to just about any college minus the Ivy League route. Learning and school had come easy to me, even at my lowest point.

I knew what teachers and parents wanted to hear. I could convince my work of just about anything and used all of this to my advantage to hide my life.

Here is what happened:

When I was 14 my parents decided to divorce. I became another statistic. I do not blame the path I chose on this. The divorce merely led to more freedom which in turn allowed me the opportunity to chose a life that was not good.

I lived with my dad after that but visited my mom constantly. My dad worked long hours and I started hanging out with some kids in school that probably weren’t the best influences.
I’m not going to drag you through the play by play of events but lets just say there were a lot of parties and late nights. It was what I thought was the typical high school experience because all my friends were doing it. Truth is I knew better, but it all just seemed so fun.

No one asked me to take a hit from my first blunt. No one told me how great weed was or how awesome I’d feel. They just smoked in front of me. Eventually, I said let me try it.

It was so simple. It was so easy. It was so….normal. I tried it, we all giggled how I coughed and I tried it again. I liked how I felt afterwards. I liked the freedom. I liked the rebellious side that I’d always kept hidden under my good girl facade.

The next day I went to school like normal. But what happened that night changed my life forever.

Things progressively got worse. When they say that weed is a gateway drug…for me it really was.

I started out just smoking on weekends when we’d go to parties with friends. Then I started dating this boy, who also happened to sell weed and I started smoking it during the week nights after I’d get off work.

After a while, I was smoking right after school too.

Within a matter of a couple of months, I was smoking every.single.day.

Drinking was still limited to the weekends at this point.

Then I turned 16. Yep, I admit, this was all before I was 16. Where were my parents you ask? They were working to keep up with living separate now. They were there. They asked me about my days. They knew my friends and met most of their parents.

What I learnt though, was that they only knew what they were told. As long as my grades were good and I told them where I was going, everything in between was a gray area. A very dark, vast, gray area.

My dad met a wonderful woman who lived about 45 mintues away and had two children younger than me. He started spending a lot of time there since I was ‘capable’ of handling my day to day.

More freedom equaled more choices.

That summer was one of….well….experiences.

A lot of my friends were older…we’re talking reaching into college age. I was driving where I wanted to go and seeing who I wanted to see.

The drinking slowly seeped into the weekdays and the weed started to not be enough. Through my boyfriend I met a lot of people. I started going behind his back to others to get harder drugs. The more I used drugs the more I drank.

At the worst, I was smoking before I got out of bed in the morning, sneaking liquor into my coffee as I went to school and I couldn’t make it to lunch time without needing to leave to get high again.

My world was crumbling beneath me. Friends and I would steal clothes to sell for money and keep what we ourselves wanted to wear. I even skimmed off the tips that we earned at work that were suppose to go into a group amount.

Understand that none of this am I proud of. None of this is viewed as good in my eyes. And I wish that I could have gotten to the final result without going through all of this.

It all came to a head one night. I will share the details another time. The message is what is more important.

I nearly killed myself. I drank more than my body should have ever been able to handle. I had more drugs than what I could possibly afford. And was curled up on my bathroom floor begging out to God to just get me through the night.

Deep inside I knew that I shouldn’t have still been alive.

Part of me no longer wanted to be.

I’d lost my family. I’d lost friends (both literally in life and metaphorically). I’d lost my way.

There was very little left on the inside of me. My day consisted of getting high, working, getting drugs, getting high, drinking, sleep. I’d finished school now and was just hovering there. Frozen in the mess that I’d made. I couldn’t even look my dad in the eye. I no longer knew how to function sober.

But our God is miraculous. He is amazing. He is unconditional love. And he spared me that night.

It wasn’t easy after that. It wasn’t so much that I woke up and my life was changed forever.

It was a long road. One full of me slipping back down the proverbial slope.

It took me eventually moving in with my Granny to get my life on track and that is where God fulfilled a promise and led me to my husband.

I got clean though. Its been years of work. It has meant leaving people behind and cutting ties with certain places and people. It meant an entire lifestyle change. It has meant trusting God with EVERYTHING.

But I’m proud I’ve done it. I have not touched drugs in years. I do not drink excessively (I will admit to enjoying a glass of wine every now and then). I do not even smoke cigarettes.

I’ve given my life to God but that doesn’t mean I’m perfect. I make mistakes. I slip up. I am a sinner just like every single human on earth. But I am saved.

And for that….I am very proud! I am even more thankful!

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This post is written in response to Jenn’s,  from SomethingClever2.0, Theme Thursday topic; something you are proud of.