Katelyn's Story
Growing Up
"I grew up in a Christian home, but never took faith seriously. On Sundays, I went to church and played the role of the good church girl, but I didn’t do much with God the rest of the time. I prayed when I needed Him to save me from something and I read my Bible because I was told I should, but nothing really sunk in for me.
I was abused as a child, so I had a lot of anger in me. When I turned 18, I told my parents I was moving out and said things to my dad that were hateful. I moved out three days later. I barely came home to visit, I started drinking and smoking and before long I fell in love with a sinner. I abandoned all of my faith and even mocked God.
Facing Addiction
Within a year I became addicted to pain pills and eventually heroine. The man I fell in love with was a provider for illegal drugs. I began my life of crime–lying, stealing and selling drugs. My addiction became so bad that I was shooting into my arms several times a day.
After about three years of this, in addition to my boyfriend being arrested and jailed multiple times, I decided it was time to move far away and try to sober up. His sisters lived by Minnesota, so that is where I was headed.
The night before my move I wanted to have one last hoorah before I was gone for good, so I rounded up some people and off to the bar we went. One of the people that I went with was someone I had dealt drugs through and things were not great between us. That night, I ended up doing drugs and blacking out.
What seemed like moments later, I woke up in the hospital with my mom crying over me. I had no knowledge of what had happened. My mom said that I had almost faced God and explained how much it took for the doctors to bring me back. The hospital workers told me that I had enough drugs in my system to kill a large man—at the time I was only 87 pounds.
Someone said that God saved me and I needed to figure out why.
Breaking Free
I broke down in tears and admitted everything I had been doing for the last few years. I told my mom I needed help. From that day on I haven’t touched any drugs and I have turned my life around. I am five years sober and finally eager to give God control of my life and have Him fix my heart!
I am now going to college online to become a Christian counselor focusing on addiction and abuse. I feel like God allowed me to go through those things so that I can be a disciple for Him.
I needed to be broken in order to be fixed!"