So many years of my life were spent searching- searching for identity, searching for value, searching for worth, searching for purpose. I went from one job to the next and one relationship to the next trying to find the thing or the person that would make me whole. Yet, I found that as I left one job for the next or one man for the next, I left with far less than what I came with. I eventually reached a place of complete brokenness, emptiness, and utter frustration.

But, isn’t it just like God to do His best work in our biggest messes? He used a broken relationship with my father, an abusive domestic relationship, and a sexual assault as a means to an end- that end being Jesus. My biggest heartbreaks required big healing, but on the other side of that healing was a renewed relationship with Christ, a restored soul, and a reinvigorated purpose.

I did a complete 180 and switched career paths one final time, leaving behind my master’s degree in human resource management and my work in the HR field, but this time it was a God move that led me back to where I started nearly 10 years before- writing. With God’s guidance and the gift He gave me, I began using my writing to tell my story and started watching other women get free from some of the same strongholds that had bound me for so many years.

From that moment on, there was no going back. I once read somewhere, “God never wastes a pain.” I’m not sure any truer words could have been written, even if I had written them myself.

I’m FREED from shame and FREE to use my life to lead others to freedom in Christ.