My Story

 Well to start off I guess I'll tell you my story. I've been debating where to start for a while now, but what's a better place to start then at the beginning, my birth. I wasn't really normal from the start, I was born with three knots in my umbilical cord, which seeing how unflexible I am now seems quite impossible. Who knows maybe that's when everything went wrong, but I'd drive myself insane trying to figure it all out. I was brought into this world with a loving strong Christian mom, a protective father, and two teenage siblings, lets just say it was a little chaotic at times. I don't remember much but I've heard some interesting stories. There's a 12 year gap between my sister and I and a 16 year gap between my brother and I.
 I was always a sick baby and when I was 4 months old I was diagnosed with Asthma. My mom was always at the doctors with me. She held my little baby hand through asthma attacks, bad allergic reactions, infections, viruses, and more pretty creepy stuff. It must have been so scary for her, but she trusted God through it all. That's one thing I love about my momma, if there's one thing she taught me it was to trust God even when your circumstances might not be the best. I feel bad for my sister, she had a huge collection of stuffed animals she had to bag up and put away in the attic cause they were hazardous to my health. My family was always there for me. I was a spoiled child, I always got what I wanted and if I didn't I'd cry until I did or I'd just steal it. I had a problem with stealing until middle school and I was quite good at it too, which wasn't a good thing.
  My parents relationship was a little bumpy when I was younger. My dad didn't want to hear anything about God, his heart had grown cold. So some of my earliest memories are of my parents fighting. I had a notebook I use to drawn in when they were arguing, I would draw sad and angry faces, tears, broken hearts and fish(I had a strange obsession with drawing fish, they're on like every page of my little people notebooks). I expressed myself through drawing. 
 My elementary school days were never dull, I made sure of that by always causing trouble. I went to a little baptist private school that pretty much no one knows of. My mom worked full time and my dad is a truck driver so I spent most of my time at school, staying after hours. I remember getting my first pair of glasses when I was in Mrs. Smith's kindergarten class and I hated wearing them. I always forgot to put them on before heading out the door until 4th grade when I was so blind I'd run into things or I couldn't tell a tall black man from a short white guy, so I guess I figured I'd better start remembering to put them on every morning. 
 For as long as I can remember I've had pain throughout my body, joint pain, and other weird things going on. I didn't talk about it much though, cause I thought it was normal and when I did talk about it people didn't listen to me or said kids don't have those problems, well guess what they do! I mean what 5 year old would make up something like burning pain in my chest, pain in my stomach that hurts so bad it makes me sweat and cry out in pain, or my head hurting so bad it's hard to talk and lights bother me!? I just learned to suck it up and keep a lot to myself, I didn't share much with people. I would have to trust you a lot to open up to you even a just little. One time in 2nd grade I missed almost a whole month of school cause I was really sick, and I when I came back everyone was so happy to see me and my class gave me a present. It meant alot, cause people seemed to never really care if I was hurting or not. I poured my heart out into school and if I got anything lower then a 98 I got really upset. I was always top or 2nd to the top in my class, there was one boy I competed with all the time. In 5th grade I started having a hard time with school more regularly than normal. I remember times in the past where I'd sit down to take a test and everything I studied for and knew well the night before just disappeared, but it was happening more often and it frustrated me more then anything, cause I've always pushed myself hard. I thought maybe I was just getting stupid and other people thought I was being a trouble child but that wasn't it at all. Sometimes I would try to read something in class but I wasn't able to concentrate on the words and I would end up sitting there for an hour staring at the same page and getting in trouble for not getting my work done. I had a pretty bad attitude and temper for someone so little. I had always been a midget especially in my family of tall people. I got in trouble for talking back to my teachers all the time, I feel bad about it now and I'm thankful they were always faithful in trying to teach me what's right. 
 My mom started working part time when I was in 6th grade and she started homeschooling me. Which brought on a whole new round of battles. My mom and mine's relationship hadn't always been the best, she was always at work and I never saw her and when I did she was stressed out either cause of my bro who wasn't on the right path, work, or my dad. How she stayed sane through it all I have yet to find out.. Homeschooling was rough from the start, we spent more time together which resulting in more arguments. Lets just say I wasn't the easiest student. I was having more medical issues and I couldn't get anyone to understand or listen. I'd go to doctors and tell them what was going on which was normally a long list of random stuff and they'd just look at me like I was insane and say I was just depressed or something and I started believing them. It took me years to let anyone take my blood and when this one rude nurse from CHKD tried, she missed and dug around my arm. I flipped out, I grabbed her hand and pulled the needle out and walked straight out of that doctors office which postponed the whole finding out what's wrong with me thing awhile  longer. 
 Oh, the dreaded year of 8th grade where most girls make stupid mistakes that scar them forever. I was one of those many girls, unfortunately. I started talking to and meeting with random dudes on Facebook that lived around me. Yes I know stupid.. I started doing stuff with guys who were way to old for me, which makes me sick thinking about it. The fact that a 20 year old would use a 13 or 14 year old is sad really. Everything I did was to get attention. I was looking for my father that didn't really seem to care about me or the brother that drank and abandoned me. I was trying to search for something that could only be filled with God's love which I learned later on. I regret everything I did, but I'm done putting myself down about it. I made some bad choices in friends, people who were only bringing me down and making me feel worse about myself. I started experimenting with drugs and doing more things with guys who were closer to my age at least, but still it only ended in heartache. I pretended I was fine and that it didn't bother me, but it really did, a lot. I became so good at making people believe I was okay I started believing it. The only people who seemed to listen to me when it came to the pain I dealt with on a daily bases were guys who now I know only wanted things from me. God was looking out for me the whole time, calling me, I couldn't see it then, but I can now. By God's amazing grace my dad started going to church around this time and I could see God working in his heart, and I still can to this day.
 9th grade came around and my mom and I were still having mother/daughter issues. I had two best friends, we were a circle of trouble makers that's for sure. All we did was talk bad about each other behind each other's backs to each other. Sounds dumb right? Well it was, and I feel horrible about it. When their moms got involved everything got turned on me, when they were in the same wrong as I. I felt rejected and alone. It hurt to have people I thought were my good friends turn on me like that and pretend they loved each other when they told me some pretty nasty stuff bout each other, but now I know that was part of God's plan. Thankfully were all good friends now and grew through everything that happened. Those two girls are some amazing people now and I don't know where I would be today without them. 
 I was saved(became a Christian) October 13, 2010. I had been torn down so bad by people I had leaned against, that it forced me to cry out to God. I remember sitting at my desk, crying, and this verse came to me 2 Corinthians 5:17  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. .  and  it clicked that I wasn't really a Christian and I wasn't living my life for the Lord. I called well more like screamed out to God telling Him I couldn't take life by myself anymore and that I needed Him. Right after I asked Jesus into my heart I felt an overwhelming peace. It's hard to explain, but if you've ever been saved, you know what I'm talking about. I'm not saying I was changed completely after I became a Christian, some of my old habits still lingered, but by God's grace I'm still growing and working through them. I changed dramatically though, people could tell just by how I talked and walked. My relationships with people in general were much better. I was on fire so to speak the first few months of being saved, I lived, breathed, and ate anything that had to do with Jesus's awesomeness. 
 Eventually the habit of running after guys for attention wore off with the help of God of course and a guy well a boy really who showed me that not all men are horrible human beings. He showed me that maybe one day I'll fall in love with someone who loves me back and through God's mercy our relationship will grow into something amazing. He gave me hope for the future.  
 It was almost the end of summer 2011 and my sophomore year of high school was coming around the corner and my mom and I were torn as to what to do for school. We were both feeling God calling me to go to public high school. I really wanted to cause I wanted a new adventure and I wanted to meet new people and just maybe shine some light into their lives and share God's love with them. So we headed on over to the school, my mom with all her organized home school files in hand and me with the hopes of going to school come fall. Everything went smoother then planned, I was put into all the right classes, and we took that as God saying yess, go, be a light, meet new people, find yourself. 
 Well I'll let you know how this went soon..Hope you've enjoyed having a peek into my life so far. :)