A Testimony

I'd like to share my friend's testimony with you all.  Pray for her please. :) 
http://tabbytub.blogspot.com/2013/11/from-madness-to-mercy-and-beyond.html

"I have only shared my testimony twice in my life. Once at Mercy Ministries and once at Celebrate recovery.

There are people who know all or most of my story, and there are some that only know little bits and pieces.

I had a wonderful childhood. I lived in the country, so we played outside all the time.

I grew up in church. I learned about Jesus, and I memorized scriptures and sang hymns. I didn't really know who Jesus was though until I was much older.

When I was 5, I met my biological father. That turned my world upside down, because until that point I knew my step dad as my dad. My parents divorced when I was 8 months old, and my mom remarried when I was almost a year old. The man she married was my daddy, and that is all I had ever known.

I spent the rest of my childhood and teenage years with an on again, off again relationship with my dad. Even though I had a Dad, I grieved the relationship I didn't get to have with my biological father.

 The summer between my 7th and 8th grade year, I went to visit my Dad and (by this time) his 3rd wife in Maine and decided to stay for the school year. It was a great school year in some aspects, but I did not have a good relationship with my step mother. She was not very nice to me, and made me feel like I was not good enough no matter what I did. Sometime during the course of my 8th grade school year, having been depressed for some time and feeling like I didn't belong with this family that I so longed to have a relationship with, I overdosed on ibuprophen.

At the end of my 8th grade year, I went back to Texas for a visit and was told by my dad that I could not come back. I was devastated. This made me feel like he didn't want me, which added to the depression and the feelings of inadequacy I already felt.

Up until 8th grade, I had been over weight my entire life. I was very active in sports that year, and I ended up losing a lot of weight.

In 9th grade, because I was already feeling depressed and because I didn't want to gain the weight back, I started throwing up after meals. It started with one meal a day, and it quickly progressed to binge eating and purging (throwing after meals to avoid gaining weight)several times a day. I did this every day. The binging/purging only fueled the depression and the feelings I had that I was not good enough.

Eventually the depression was too much, and I started cutting myself. At first it was periodically and not very severe. It very quickly became something I did pretty much all day every day. It became an addiction. The cutting caused a sense of euphoria and temporarily relieved the pain caused by the depression.

At the end of 9th grade, I started dating a guy who was a few years older than I was. He always had alcohol, so we drank together. At first I drank with him on the weekends. Shortly after that, I started sneaking alcohol to school in water bottles. I also started taking pills (prescription and over the counter). I was drunk or high every day of high school after that. Somehow I was able to hide this from my teachers and my parents.

Somewhere between 10th and 11th grade, I ended up losing my virginity to this guy I was dating. I felt horrible. I felt like I was worthless. I felt like I was a piece of trash. Obviously, this fueled the depression even more, so the binging/purging, and the pills, and the alcohol, and the cutting just got more frequent and much worse. Eventually I was in a cycle of self destruction that I could not escape from. I was desperate. I wanted to die. I had convinced myself that everyone at school, and my teachers/parents hated me. I felt like I was completely alone in the world with no reason to live.

So on October 30th 2001, I overdosed on Excedrin migraine. I took a handful and hoped it would kill me. I ended up in ICU for 3 days with a tube going from my nose to my stomach administering medicine that I could not swallow to save my liver. After my 3 days in ICU, I was sent to a mental institution. I got out after about 5 days, still the same.

The cycle of self destruction, depression, overdoses, and hospital stays continued through out high school. The day after I graduated high school, I moved away to live with my grandparents hoping that change in address would mean a change in every other way. I was wrong. I will spare you the details, but I continued in my self destructive cycle, in and out of hospitals, praying that I would die but not having the guts to do anything but overdose.

I was going to church, but I still didn't know Jesus. How could I? I was so caught up in my self destructive whirlwind that I couldn't think about anyone but myself.

In August of 2004, I went on a retreat with the college group from my church. It was here that I told the pastor what was going on with me, and that I needed help but didn't know how to get it. He told me about a program called Mercy Ministries (www.mercyministries.org) that helped women like me. It was Christian based, and free of charge. I thought it was too good to be true, but I applied to the program. The application process was extensive. It took several months to complete.

While I was in the process of applying, I continued on my path of self destruction. I had a group of friends from church who came together as a support/accountability team while I was in the process of applying. I could call any of them any time of the day and someone would be there to talk or go have coffee, or whatever I needed. I believe that there are angels on earth at times, and these people were my angels. Once the application process was complete, they told me that I had been accepted, but that I would be placed on a waiting list for 6-8 months. I told the lady in admissions that they could put me on the waiting list, but that I would be dead in 6 months. I knew without a doubt this was true. I hung up the phone feeling defeated. That night, I bought some pills, and took the whole bottle. I thought for sure I was going to die. I even asked God to forgive me. I knew I had messed up.

I woke up the next morning, alive but very sick. Later that day, I got a call from Mercy Ministries saying that I could come in 2 weeks. I don't remember much about that next 2 weeks. I just remember walking through the doors of Mercy Ministries in Nashville on May 5,2005. I stayed at Mercy for 7 months. During my time at Mercy, I met Jesus. I had been in church my whole life, but it wasn't until I was at Mercy Ministries that I really learned who he was and got to know him. When I graduated from Mercy Ministries, I was free. I had peace. The depression and anxiety were gone. I was not interested in doing the destructive behaviors I had been doing. I tasted freedom, and I liked it.

The problem was, Mercy had no transitional program at the time. I was there and then I came home. I did well for about a year, but I didn't have a lot of support and accountability, so pretty soon I relapsed. I was in a full blown relapse where I was back into all of the destructive behaviors I had left behind at Mercy. It was worse this time though, because I knew Jesus, I knew what freedom was like, and I felt like a failure.

During one of the many hospital stays after Mercy, I met a guy who was also a patient in the hospital. We ended up together. Biggest mistake of my life. It turns out this guy was a heroin addict, and would use any drug that was in front of him. We were together for 3 months. I saw things while I was with him that I had never seen before and that I will not soon forget. He busted my windshield. He smoked crack in my car while I was driving through Houston. He was verbally and emotionally abusive, and I was terrified that if I tried to leave, he would kill me. He ended up back in the hospital to detox, and I ran.

I ended up moving back home. A few months later I met the man who is now my husband. We met on Facebook in April of 2009. On July 23, 2009 I drove across Texas to Odessa to meet the man I knew I would marry. Before we were married, I told him about my past and all of the things I had done and had been through. His response was "who is Jesus to you?" I told him he was my Lord and Savior, and he replied "that is all I need to know."

I knew he was the one I was going to married. We have been married for almost 4 years. We have 2 wonderful boys, and life is good. We struggle sometimes with money. Sometimes quite a bit. We fight, as all couples do. I still struggle sometimes too. I am in recovery, but I haven't found freedom again like I did when I left Mercy Ministries. One thing I do know for sure, though, is that God is the same now as he was when I graduated from Mercy. He will never leave me or forsake me. I believe he is waiting for me to completely surrender to him, and that freedom will come when I do. I will get there. I will say this; Freedom is real. It comes from giving your life to Jesus and letting him truly be the Lord of your life. Just because I have slipped a time or two and made mistakes, I know that he is still with me. God is good (ALL THE TIME!)