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Being the oldest my mom often treated me like an adult and let me make my own decisions and most of my decisions wasn’t the best ones because I never had anyone guiding me through my troubles, only people helping me get deeper. I’ve always believed in God, but often just felt like he had forgotten about my family and me. I have watched my mom these past couple years working everyday, and yet every Christmas I had to watch my little brother get up to nothing, not even a tree. A lot of things like that made me build up so much anger that if it wasn’t for my brother, I often felt there was nothing else to live for. By the age of 12, I was getting into things that some of you would have had a heart attack if you found out your 18-year-old daughter were doing. At 12 I looked like I was 16, I hung around the wrong crowd that was much older than me. Then by the age of 13 I was in states’ custody and placed at the Elkins Children’s Home for 8 months. Now that I look back at all that, I can see some of God’s plan. My past made me a stronger, more mature, and smarter person. I could never understand why God took me away from my family for such a long time, but now I do because that’s where I met Sam. (That’ll make since later on.) Sam and I dated for about a year. Then on August 9 I found out I was about 4 weeks pregnant. What I thought was love soon became the opposite. By the end of September Sam and I had spilt up. After Sam had left. I was alone, confused, and I hated myself, for what I got into. I knew that there was no way I could parent, and at times I became so selfish that I didn’t even want to give my baby life. I hid my pregnancy from everyone at home and sometimes even convinced myself that I wasn’t pregnant. By the beginning of December I had it in my head that I was no longer going to continue my pregnancy. The day that turned everything around was when I was actually on the phone with an abortion clinic and I felt my son move for the first time. That was God telling me that I needed to stop what I was doing and also my son telling me to give him a chance. In order to give my baby a chance I knew I had to get out of my environment, and take good care of myself, so I went to my Crisis Pregnancy center and they gave me the number to New Beginnings. Which did start a new beginning and a new chapter of my life. To be honest when I first started calling Judy and Terry and settings things up for my stay, I didn’t want to come, I didn’t want to be away from my family, and live with strangers, like I did the year before. But on January 2nd, when Judy picked me up at my house, for the first time in my life I felt safe. Although I was very scared I knew I was in good hands and my baby and I would both get a second chance at life. Staying at New Beginning’s I got to see how family’s are suppose to be, and got to be a part of that family. In the past I always had such a bad view of Christians. As a child we stopped going to some church’s because it seemed like we wasn’t good enough, some looked down at my mother for not being married and some wouldn’t even offer to give us a ride to church because we had no car, but being here was different. I see God through the people at New Beginnings. Terry and Judy Sloane couldn’t do what they do if they didn’t have Christ. To see them sacrifice so much to show God’s love to us helped me on my path to salvation. I made the decision to make an adoption plan for my baby. God already had a family for my son, and the first day I met them I knew that they were it. The last couple months of my pregnancy I got to spend a lot of time with the family, and get to know them. I knew that God had them picked out from the beginning because in August when I found out I was pregnant, was around the same time Michelle (the adoptive mother) had to have her hysterectomy, which had to have been the worst thing that had happened to them. But at the same time God started one of the best things for the both of us. During my pregnancy at New Beginning I always kept the fear of something being wrong with my child, cause all of the things I (had) done in the beginning while I was pregnant. I felt that it wasn’t possible to have a healthy baby. I prayed every night and asked God to bless my child with good health. My son didn’t deserve to live a hard life because of my mistakes. He deserved to live a great life because of the best and hardest decisions I had to make, and that was giving him away. |
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Seeing the miracle in the son that God had provided, I was Saved on April 20th, Easter Sunday. Now the puzzle is being put together. I now see why everything happened the way it did. If God hadn’t put me in the Children’s Home I would have never met Sam, and would have not had my son, and having Him brought me to the Lord. If I would have never felt him move when I was on the phone with the abortion clinic, I would have probably never come to New Beginnings. God is so great, all the hurt isn’t there anymore, and I never feel as scared or alone as much. He gave me a new family, and because of him I don’t have to say good-bye to them or to this church where I feel that I belong. Today I will go back to Keyser and pack my mom and brother up and move them to Morgantown on Saturday. John 1:16 says, “ From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.” That is so true. He has blessed me so much and now I get to share the many blessings with family. I am so excited to see what he has in store for my family and I. He has provided an apartment and loving people that helped make this apartment our new home. Most of all I want to say thank you to Terry and Judy for being there for me. I’ve let you both down at times but you have never gave up on me, and if it wasn’t for you my son wouldn’t be where he is now. Being in your home I have learned more than anyone could learn in a life time and now I have found a new relationship and that’s with Jesus. Since next Sunday is Father’s day and this is the First fathers day that I have a Father to recognize. I would like to close with a poem: |
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Terry |
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