When I was first approached about sharing my testimony my first reaction was, “Oh! Ok.” The thought of rehashing all those emotions that I forcefully buried, so deeply with no intentions of ever revealing or dealing with them again, was literally nauseating. But then I thought, if my story could help someone then yeah, I’ll do it. With every word I started to write, I felt myself tearing up, and eventually I was full blown sobbing. My story is pretty much like this: my husband of 25 years had become addicted to crack cocaine.  Through his addiction and the behaviors to come along with this problem, I still had to be the mom, the grandmother, and anything else anyone wanted me to be. I was trying to hold it all together. To others and my family, I pretended everything was fine, we will be ok. But on the inside, my life was totally broken and falling apart. My husband had lost his job, (a good job), we lost our house, and pretty much we had nothing left. Eventually, our marriage fell apart and we separated.  In my mind’s eye I thought he would stop using and we would always be together no matter what. But no, God had other plans. I went through a battle of wills between me & God, but God always wins. While going through all this, I felt everything was my fault. I felt shame, betrayal, insecurity, unloved, and you name it, I felt it. Then one Sunday my cousin, who is more like a sister, called me and invited me to church. At first I said no, because I had been up all night crying and I had nothing to wear! My cousin responded, “God takes you as you are”. So somehow, I managed to get out of bed and attend that day and haven’t stopped since. Looking back, to this day there are times I don’t remember driving there the first time, but I know God got me there; his strength got me through when all I wanted to do was curl up and die. Now this transformation was not overnight, I still wanted things my way. Eventually I fell to my knees and surrendered, I knew I couldn’t go on without God. I asked for forgiveness and God saved me. A total, very broken mess like me, and I thank him every day that he was there for me , protecting me from chaos, turmoil, and unhappiness that I didn’t see. My life is so good now. God has a plan for all of us and it may not be what we think it should be, but, if we trust in him, he makes all things new and fixes broken hearts. I know I was there. In God’s love and Peace, Lori.