Everyone matters to Jesus Christ. 

I knew as a child ALL I wanted to do was serve the Lord. I spent playtime... playing church. I was mesmerized by the man, Jesus, I learned about in Sunday School.

 

Watching my dad preach about His love for ALL people and my mom quietly listen to those who were hurting, speaking softly while offering advice with a touch of humor, kept my attention.

 

When I learned to play the piano by ear and finally let everyone know I had secretly been able to sing, I was smitten with using those gifts for the Lord. Why I waited until I was nineteen to accept Christ as my Savior is beyond me. But I did.

 

That day... That decision... That moment His blood pierced my heart... Life began to breathe inside me.

 

We did ministry work, church work, and after I was saved, I couldn't get enough.

 

There was just one problem.

 

I carried a lot of church hurt and trauma from my adult life that I had simply pushed down, convincing myself I had prayed about it and that it was okay. I was fine.

 

At least, that's what I kept telling myself. In 1998, I was diagnosed with asthma, which eventually led to me being placed on a ventilator. Thinking it was just a rare occurrence, life went on until 2003.

 

For fifteen days, I lay in a coma. When I woke up, I was faced with the reality that although I could feel, I couldn't move because of extensive nerve damage. The prognosis was that, at best, I would spend the rest of my life walking with a walker.

 

God worked a miracle. Two weeks later, I was walking—slowly, of course—but without any assistance.

 

However, there were unanswered prayers I was certain He would answer. He didn't. My vocal cords were damaged. My singing voice was gone. Looking back now, I can see that losing my voice wasn't the beginning of my struggle. It simply exposed everything I had spent years trying to bury.

 

In 2003, I walked away from God, convinced I could do things my way.

 

I was hurt. I was mad.

 

Some have asked what I was searching for. I'm not sure. I just knew unresolved trauma, mixed with unanswered prayers and burnout from playing by the religious rules, convinced me I didn't need God.

 

At the start of 2006, I realized too late the consequences of turning away from Him. I lost everything. My health continued to decline, and instead of writing down an address I called "home," even though I was living with my parents, I found myself checking the box marked "homeless."

 

Feeling like a failure doesn't even begin to describe how I felt about myself. My health left me with no other option but to file for disability.

 

To some, I was nothing more than an invalid whose life was over or a "clown" who would never amount to anything.

 

Instead of finding the support I desperately needed, I was often met with stigma, judgment, and the words, "You know better."

 

What I needed most was someone willing to listen. 

 

They didn't see me.

 

But there was One who did.

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No doubt, they underestimated what God could accomplish through a life surrendered to His Son. He was already writing a story I couldn't yet understand. He was already preparing me for a life I never imagined.

 

After five years, He spoke softly. When I finally allowed Him to break through the walls of trauma, shame, guilt, and pride, I rededicated my life to Jesus Christ. I knew instantly my walk with Christ would look different than it did when I first got saved.

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There were things I had never understood that now became clear.

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My passion caught fire.

 

I knew the Advocate. But what about those who did not or were like me and had watched faith, hope, and love disappear like snowflakes falling into a puddle of water?

 

"We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves." — Romans 15:1 (KJV) My prayer became simple: "Lord, let me help the people no one else wants to help."

 

Things moved quickly, and I found myself standing before a group of incarcerated women whom God used to change my life forever. They showed me that while our decisions are our own, we all have one thing in common. We're only one bad decision away.

 

As the transitions continued, in 2017 I found myself leaving everything familiar to move to a city I knew nothing about.

 

Why? Because I believed God had a job for me to do.

 

They said I was crazy. They said I was out of the will of God. They said I had once again turned away from Him.

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I went anyway.

 

God was right. He did have a job for me to do—one that opened door after door and gave me opportunity after opportunity. I continued to heal and learned more about myself—what I enjoyed, the hobbies and interests God had given me, and, more importantly, the woman I had always envisioned becoming for Christ.

 

I was tired.

 

I was tired of hearing the stories of those who had been hurt by the church, who believed they were destined for failure because of the circumstances of their lives, who turned to unhealthy ways of coping because it was all they knew, and who carried the weight of shame, reproach, guilt, unworthiness, and the feeling of being unloved—or of never having experienced love at all.

 

I knew the next transition was on its way. As I sat panicking over how to edit audio, God did what only He could do.

 

He gave me a name.

 

Unedited Faith. Instantly I had peace.

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Life isn't edited. Our stories aren't edited. Our struggles aren't edited.

 

God won't be edited.

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Stop worrying so much about what everyone else sees.

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Let Him see you. The shame. The guilt. The anger. The questions. The disappointment. The parts of your story you've spent years trying to hide.

 

Broken doesn't scare Him.