I found out as a child that I was unplanned and unwanted which made me feel rejected early on. I did anything to find acceptance which led me to hanging with the “bad kids.” I started stealing and smoking cigarettes at age 9. At age 11, I started smoking weed and at 12, drinking alcohol. It escalated from there, getting in trouble at 15 and sent to rehab. I completed the program to appease the courts and my parents. I continued to get high after I completed rehab, and my parents kicked me out the day I completed high school. Not too long after I graduated high school, I enlisted in the Army and stayed in for 2 years. I eventually got kicked out for selling drugs. I came back to Ohio and continued the same lifestyle, which led me to intravenous drug use, and I would use any substance I could get my hands on. I ended up going to psych wards where they labeled me bipolar, depressed, and anxious while prescribing me handfuls of medication. Because of how I was living, I went to multiple jails, which labeled me as a low-life criminal. By going to secular rehabs, I was labeled as a drug addict for the rest of my life. All of these labels I wore kept me bound and trapped in a vicious cycle that I never thought I could get out of. I felt doomed until death, which was inevitably going to happen sooner than later. In 2014, I had a son we named him Micah. I thought that having him would lead me to live a better life but it did not. It did lead me to more rehabs trying to get my life together because I knew I had someone that depended on me but that thought was never enough to stay on the straight and narrow. I tried a different approach in 2018 when I went to Teen Challenge and graduated in 2019. I worked there but my heart wasn’t in it all the way. I wasn’t ready to fully surrender my life to God. So I walked away from ministry. Over the last 6 years, I went through a bunch of turmoil and turned a blind eye to God’s calling on my life. Until I died last summer due to an overdose. The hospital called my parents and told them they brought me back to life but I was in a coma and if I did pull through I would be brain dead. But Jesus had other plans and saved me that day from death and gave me a sound mind! A few months after that I relapsed again because I still hadn’t fully surrendered to a righteous life. I found out about Family Care Ministries through my son’s mother who went through the program so I left a rehab I was at to come here where I found my family. I am so grateful that God called me here to FCM to get to know Him intimately. The world labeled me mentally defective, drug addict, criminal, and a low life and I believed it. Jesus told me the truth and called me His son and adopted me into His kingdom. His word tells me I am a wonderfully made masterpiece. I am very grateful to Josh, Alyssha and all the other staff for loving me and showing me how to love myself while guiding me to the love of Jesus. Josh baptized me and my son on February 23rd and that is God blessing me because of my willingness and obedience to Him. I will build my life on the solid foundation and with the greatest carpenter that ever lived, our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Hallelujah!!!!