I grew up in a household without my father, he has been in prison since I was just a year old. My grandparents took on the role of taking me to church, from a very young age. Around 5, I accepted Christ as my Savior and was baptized. At that time, I didn’t fully grasp what it meant to be saved or the deeper implications of sin, sanctification, etc; Church was a regular part of my life until around 19+, when my faith grew lukewarm, and I found myself in different crowds and the ‘club scene’. Between ages 8-10 I began having Pedi maw Seizures & eventually those developed into Grand Mal seizures, which continued to happen on and off throughout growing up. I was diagnosed with Epilepsy and told I’d have to be on medication forever. The last seizure I experienced was in 2019. In my journey through dating, I have often sought to fill an emotional void stemming from a lack of paternal love during my childhood. Despite my efforts, these pursuits have frequently left me feeling unfulfilled. A significant turning point occurred when the man I was engaged to, with whom I had planned a wedding, called off the engagement just six days before the ceremony. This situation was compounded by the fact that I had discovered I was pregnant at the beginning of our engagement and subsequently experienced a miscarriage a few months later. It eventually took a sharp turn, and I ended up in an extremely abusive relationship with someone who ‘tricked’ me into using a certain drug. I thought I was taking one thing, and six months later, after full blown addiction it was revealed to me that I had actually been using—methamphetamine. Addicted and dating the same abusive man who just so happened to be the dealer, and in my mind had ‘all control.’ This led me down a dark path, filled with bad habits, toxic environments, and people who were pulling me further from who I really was. This eventually led to incarceration and I found myself sitting in a jail cell, facing multiple felonies because I had trusted someone I barely knew, along with their belongings, to be in my (possession) car. To this day, I’m still fighting that legal battle, but that moment was a pivotal point in my life.