Coming Out of the Darkness

I am not here to tell my life story, explain all the mistakes I have made (which have been many), or to drag on and on about everything I have been diagnosed with. I am simply here to tell how I overcame the hurt, the pain, the addiction, and everything else that has, in the past, been put on me by others and put on me by myself. I have been run through the mill by men, friends, drugs, alcohol, and even some of my family, but most of all by ME. I was a product of the decisions (the good and the bad) that I made. Hello, my name is Keli, and I'm an overcomer.

I was raised in church. I always belived in and loved God, and I was saved at the tender age of five years old. I was very young, but I understood the basic concept of what I was doing and why: I opened my heart with the faith of a child and asked Jesus into my heart, admitting and knowing that He died on the cross so I wouldn't go to hell. At that point in my life, that was all there was to it. I drifted far off the straight and narrow path as I got older, and as bad things happened to me and around me, I developed quite the negative attitude. I was always smiling, but at the same time thinking to myself that I was nothing, nobody, and that I never would be, that no one could love me the way I was. What I failed to realize was that the same God who saved my soul at five years old DID love me just the way I was. However, because I didn't love myself, I thought no one else, not even God could love me either.

I was married, at 20 years of age, to a man I'd only known a month. We had a son, stayed together for a little over 3 years, then split. After that it was if I was in a fog constantly, in a darkness unlike any I'd ever experienced. Many bad things happened then. I lost hope, and faith that I'd ever be happy, or even know what that word "happy" meant. I'd lost all contact with the God of my youth, and didn't feel like I could even talk to Him if I wanted to. I kept thinking negatively, and negative things continued to happen.

I met my second husband a little more than a year after I split from my ex. He was everything I'd ever wanted, so I chased him down and couldn't believe it when he actually wanted to be with me for more than just one thing. He showed me love. We married after being together about six months, and I moved in with him and his family, where we still live together. His mother, my dear mother in law, began talking to me about God, and faith, and I began to hope again, feeling it bubble up in me until I couldn't contain it. I began to resume reading my bible, and talking to God, making up for lost time. I still didn't feel quite right though. Negative thoughts clouded my mind, negative things began happening again. I still had my husband, but MY life seemed to be going downhill again. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I had almost everything I wanted, including the love of my life.

We recently began going to church again. The pastor (who is a wonderful woman) took me under her wing and has begun teaching me to think and speak positively. I was very skeptical at first, and I thought there was no way it would help me. But, nevertheless, I have begun to make it a practice to speak positive things, and as the bible says, to "speak that which is not as though it were," meaning, trying to speak good and positive things into existence. The concept is that if words were powerful enough to create the world (God said "Light be" and it was so), then why can't we as humans speak blessed and positive things into our life? Jesus said in the New Testament of the bible that his people would do things as great as He did, so why do we think, as God's children and Jesus' heirs, that we cannot?

I began to notice positive things happening the first day I tried this. I slip up every once in awhile, but I quickly repent and say something that lines up with the word of God. That's the key, what a person says has to line up with the word of God for them to be totally blessed. For example, when you hear someone say, "I love you to death," they should be saying, "I love you to life," instead. Instead of saying, "I have such a bad headache," say, "I praise God that He sent Jesus to die for me, because by His stripes I have been healed." It's a hard concept to grasp. Do not lie and say, "Oh, I am feeling no pain," when you hurt, but say, "Thank you God for I walk in a divine healing," which lines up with God's word because the bible says that by his stripes we WERE healed, not will be healed, or might be healed, but WERE healed. It's already been done, we just have to accept it, believe it, and receive it.

I have been delivered from drugs, alcohol, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety... The list goes on. Nothing can be put on you, that you do not allow. Don't allow people to tell you something like, "You're nobody," or, "You're nothing," because it's a lie. Jesus died for you too. God has a plan for everyone, big or small, and that's another thing that builds my hope and faith, knowing that even though I messed up in the past, I've been forgiven and washed clean, and God can use me to do mighty things, yes even me.

For more information on the topics covered in this article, please feel free to contact me. I am here to help people, to allow God to flow and work through me to touch other people's lives. If anyone has questions or comments, feel free to leave them. Thank you.