Never Will I Leave You
  June 7th, 1986 – I was born! God did that one for sure!

My dad is a minister, so I’ve grown up in a Christian home, I was born
in Biloxi Mississippi, then moved to Birmingham Alabama and during
kindergarten I moved to Gainesville Georgia and that’s where I live now!

8 Years Old – I accepted Christ into my heart, kneeling at the foot of
my bed, praying with my dad. I was supposed to be baptized on Easter
which was 2 weeks away, but the baptism pool was broken and the water was
dirty, I was baptized about 4 weeks after Easter.

6th Grade – I was not heading in the right direction my first year of
middle school, Christ was defiantly the last thing on my mind, I wanted
to be cool of course like everyone does in middle school. Changing from
Mt. Vernon Elementary School to North Hall Middle school, I had classes
with new people, I was making new friends.
One of my new friends name was Whitney Strickland. She loved to write,
if she messed up she would erase every little speck and do it over
again perfectly. She had the most beautiful handwriting. When she got
tickled, she would laugh her little laugh. It was so funny. She talked in
such a soft, gentle voice. She would always talk about how much she loved
her granddaddy and mamma. She loved softball, cheerleading, reading,
coloring, and shopping. She loved to sing and she talked all the time. I
went ice skating with her for her birthday. I can remember us skating
really fast and sliding across the ice on our stomachs, it was fun until
we got in trouble.
On March 20th a tornado hit North Hall County early in the morning.
Whitney lived right in the tornado’s path. She and her Grandfather were
found dead in a pond close to where her home was. We did not have school
that day, and when I received the phone call that she was gone, I was
devastated. My first new friend, gone. I was so angry and did not
understand. Did I lean on God, no, I leaned on foul language and a bad
attitude.

January 7th, 6th Grade – A Sunday Night, we were on the way home form
church. I was in the car with my dad and one of my friends, Alli Strong.
It was near Christmas so me and Alli were in the back seat of my dad’s
white Chevrolet Celebrity singing to “I want a hippopotamus for
Christmas”. We were driving on a four lane highway at around 7 at night (It
was dark). There was a family crossing the road, hands linked, 2 adults,
some kids. One of the girls 7 years old let go from the chain of hands
and tried to run across the road by herself. She ran right in front of
our car, there was nothing we could do, we hit her.
We skidded up onto the curb. I can remember seeing her face in the
headlight, for a split second, her face full of terror, she looked like an
angel, which she would soon be. She skidded about 20 feet down the
road, after swerving up onto the curb, my dad jumped out of the car and ran
down to her. Alli and I sat in the car shocked, scared, puzzled on what
to do. Amidst the screams of horror, we got out of the car and ran to a
gas station beside the road and had the lady call 911, it took about 10
minutes for the ambulance to arrive although it seemed an eternity. By
this time my youth minister and his wife had driven by the scene and
recognized my dad’s car and stopped. He was doing CPR trying to revive
her, and his wife had come to get Alli and I in the Gas Station. As we
were leaving the scene with my youth minister’s wife, we drove by the
ambulance and saw the girl being lifted into the ambulance on a stretcher,
under a white sheet. I spent the night with at my Youth Minister’s
house and didn’t sleep any, I was so terrified, confused, upset, in
disbelief. I did not go to school the next day, it turned out my dad had a
broken nose, he later had surgery.
God worked through this event in my life. Although I would not realize
it till much, MUCH, later. As I struggled with flashbacks of what had
happened, the pictures in my head, hearing the screams, I rarely turned
to Him for comfort. I was told many times to “give it to God” and I
might have a couple of times, but I would take it right back from him and
not trust him to take care of it for me. I had doubt in my mind, fear
of God, fear of what he would put me through next. I did not trust Him,
I did not have faith. I blamed it on Him, wow that’s a big no no.
Although this time was rough, God provided so many people to comfort me,
people from church to help my family out, bring us food, so many cards and
phone calls. So many times those very people were the people that kept
me going. I thank God for those people, knowing he put them in mine and
my families’ lives.

May, 7th Grade – My mom and I were on our way to one of my softball
games. We were driving down this little bitty road to get to the softball
complex. We were behind a little truck that had a boat trailer on the
back. As another truck was coming up the other side of the road, the
drunk driver came over the line and hit the back wheel of the boat trailer
in front of us, he then started to swerve off the road but got scared
and turned back and slammed into the front of our car. The air bags came
out. The chemicals from the airbags filled the car, I thought our car
was on fire and started yelling for my mom to get out. Her door was all
bent up so she crawled out my door. The truck barley missed my mom’s
door, hitting right in front of it, if it had hit her door she would not
have lived.
Our car was totaled. It broke the axel in half. My mom and I had minor
injuries, I had burns on my arms from the air bags, and a bruised knee.
Mom had whip lash pretty bad and was sick for a couple of days.
Being involved in this wreck made me scared, well, basically of riding
in cars for a while. I would be very scared of the other cars on the
road, sometimes bringing myself to tears pleading with my mom or dad to
slow down, when they really weren’t going fast. Although it took a while
I got over this. I was just thankful to have my life and to have my
mom.
Since the wreck I have been very “anti-alcohol”. I guess cause I know
firsthand what being drunk can do, this wreck was in no way our fault
but we had to suffer because of the man who was drinking. I would never
want to make someone suffer like I did. I will never drink, I’m just
honestly scared of it I guess, I like to wonder what my ideas about
alcohol would be if I would not have been involved in this wreck. I know God
put this in my life. Maybe so I wouldn’t drink, maybe for a reason I
don’t know yet.

7th Grade Summer – I picked up one of my dads old guitars and started
to learn, throughout the summer my passion grew for the guitar, I love
to play and sing praises to God. During my whole 8th grade year I had
the opportunity to play at FCA at school on Thursday mornings.

8th Grade – In the middle of February, my 8th grade year, one of my
friends, Kelly Rebholz got sick and her lungs collapsed, she was in a
comma at the hospital. This was surprising and shocking news to me and my
friends. We spent time thinking of her, praying for her, planning her
return, we knew that she would be better soon. Within 3 weeks of being in
a comma, after many ups and downs in her symptoms, Kelly passed away.
Wow, big shock, I just knew that she would get better, I just knew that
God would pull her through, I just knew that God would give her back to
us, I just knew, because I had prayed, because I just knew. Although I
thought I “knew”, I didn’t. One of the many times God’s plans weren’t
mine. Although this situation was not easy at all, as I look back I know
God was with not only me, but all of my friends feeling pain also. It
was easy for us as a group to turn to God together. We trusted that
Kelly was with him, looking down on us, that she was in a much better
place.
Kelly was in incredible girl, her smile never left her face. She was
crazy about the pop group N’Sync and was going to marry one of the band
members Justin Timberlake. Her favorite color was baby blue, and she
loved the North Carolina Tar Heels (mainly because Justin from N’Sync
did). She would always encourage, never hurt. She was crazy, amazing, she
loved life.
She once wrote a journal entry which she described herself perfectly:
“Who am I really? I am just me! My friends think of me as a funny
person. I know how to make people laugh and am able to laugh at myself, too.
I can be serious when I need to be, but usually I think most everything
is funny. I want to have a good time no matter where I am. I am usually
trustworthy, especially if it’s something serious. People can depend on
me no matter what. I think I’m a good friend and person. I have good
self-esteem because I have such good friends. They like for who I am, and
I am me.”
Kelly passed away on March 1st, her birthday was April 18th, and we
planned a memorial service for her on her birthday. We made a memorial
garden with a granite bench that had her name on it. During this service I
had the opportunity to play a song on my guitar, this was the first
time I had really played in public. After being nervous all day, I got up
to the microphone and sang my heart out, not nervous cause she was
right there with me, it was like a song between me and her and I knew there
was no need to be nervous in front of her.
I sang an Amy Grant song “So much pain and no good reason why, you’ve
cried until your tears run dry. Nothing here can make you understand,
the one thing that you’ve held so dear has slipped from your hands. You
say why, why, why does it go this way. Why, why, why, all I can say is
that somewhere down the road there will be answers to the questions.
Somewhere down the road though you cannot see it now. Somewhere down the
road you will find mighty arms reaching for you, and He will hold the
answers at the end of the road.”
To this very day I miss her like crazy, although I know she is here,
looking down on me laughing at all my stupid mistakes, and I can’t wait
to meet her again in heaven, I know we will have a lot to catch up on.

Summer between 8th and 9th grade – I was a part of a mission trip with
my youth group, we went to Costa Rica. This trip was awesome. God
taught me a lot, a lot about witnessing, we were working with people who
only spoke Spanish so there was definitely a language barrier that only
and interpreter could break. God also taught me a lot about worship, to
witness a room full of people worshiping the same God but in different
languages and from cultures was incredible.
I remember one night when a local church had served my youth group an
authentic dinner, it was just about time to go and I pulled out a
guitar. We were sitting in a group with some people from my church and some
guys from the Costa Rican church. I started playing “Lord I lift Your
name on high”, the guys recognized the tune and starting singing it in
Spanish. We went back in fourth just singing it over and over again, us
in English then them in Spanish, it was such a neat experience.
Although God showed me so much on this trip and I could call it a
“spiritual high” when I returned home, I did not continue to live for God. I
worried about clothes and boys and material things, I did not accept
the love Christ had for me, nor did I make and effort to show it though
my life.

9th grade – 1st year of high school!! It was new exciting, going well,
although I still was not living for God, he was just about the last
thing on my mind.
During 9th grade, God blessed me with new friendships, older people who
were very Godly, seniors Beth Lyday and Lindsey Dunagan. As they
started wanting to hang out with me and get to know me, they showed me God’s
love and God working in their lives. They were gifts from God, like big
sisters, to help me get though my first year of high school.
As a freshman, I made the Varsity Soccer team, this was a big deal to
me, I had played soccer since I was 4. I played on a championship
winning middle school team, soccer had always been a big part of my life, so
this new exciting adventure was something I was ready to dive into.
The season went great, although I did not get much playing time (as
expected for freshman), I learned so much about the game, and I made some
awesome friendships and have some great memories. As the season was
wrapping up, we were about to get into the state playoffs.
One morning about a week before our 1st playoff game, I woke up and my
left arm was numb. I thought nothing of it, I figured I had just slept
wrong on it and that it would go away later in the morning. It didn’t,
it only got worse and the numbness spread up into the left side of my
face and into the left side of the back of my head. The same day in
soccer practice I got really dizzy and fell to the ground. I told my mom
about the numbness and the episode during soccer and we went to a doctor
the next day.
Throughout the next few days I lost use of my left arm, I couldn’t move
it well, I couldn’t pick things up, I tried to pick up a glass of water
and I dropped it and broke it. This was so frustrating, I basically had
to learn to live with one arm. Things as simple as washing my hair or
even getting around at school became extremely difficult.
As I was sent from doctor to doctor they were all puzzled. From day to
day I was in doctor’s offices doing all kinds of test including a cat
scan, MRA, MRI, I did a test where they shocked me (that hurt really
bad) they took a lot of my blood for test. It was crazy. Through all this
time of not getting any answers, I was wanting answers from God,
wanting to know why this was happening, I wanted to know if I would ever get
my arm back. I was stressed out, tired, and just wanted to be normal
again.
Because of the numbness, I had to stop playing soccer. I was still a
part of the team and went to the games, but I could not play. This killed
me, I hated it so much, my team ended up advancing to the sweet 16 of
the state tournament and then loosing.
After about 5 weeks of test and doctors, I was so tired and worn out,
there were so many test where the doctors could not find anything.
Finally, my neurologist diagnosed “migraine variant” saying that the blood
vessels on the left side of my body were restricting blood to my arm
making it numb.
This diagnosis was made basically because they had not found anything
at all, they had ruled any and everything else out, and there was
nothing left but this. It was so hard not knowing what was going on with my
body, why I had all of a sudden become paralyzed. Even after the
diagnosis I felt like the doctors just kind of said “well it’s nothing else so
it has to be this”. I still felt angry and confused as to what was
happening because nothing would show up. Eventually my doctor gave me some
medicine to relax my blood vessels and about 2 weeks later the numbness
was gone and I was back to normal.
When I did get the feeling back, I had some minor challenges, I had to
relearn how to type on a computer and play my guitar. Relearning my
guitar was the hardest, but I didn’t mind because I was just happy I was
going to be able to play again.

Summer between 9th and 10th grade – During this summer I did things
such as a Choir Trip to Florida, a Mission Trip to Alaska, and I got to
spend time with Lindsey and Beth.
Alaska…This is the trip that changed my life.
Being in Alaska was a lot different than Costa Rica, first off there
was no language barrier. So we had to be able to witness without the help
from an interpreter. Secondly, the Alaskan people were not so much as
hungry for the gospel like the Costa Rican people were. Most Alaskan
people had moved to Alaska to get away from the gospel. As we were doing
door-to-door missions we had so many rude comments directed towards us
and so many doors slammed in our faces.
The second day of our trip we had a schedule of how things were going
to happen, what we were going to do, when and where we were going to do
them. NOTHING, I mean nothing worked out. The night after that day I
was so frustrated, I was upset because I just knew my plans would be
perfect, I did not want to accept God’s plans I did not want the day to
change. Little did I know, God was teaching me a very important lesson
that I would use many times later in my life.
When I say that this trip changed my life, I’m not talking about that
I rededicated my life to Christ, or I had an awesome spiritual high or
anything. This trip was hard, so hard, I saw God working though the
hard time. I saw my weaknesses so clearly and I saw what I HAD to do to
start walking in the path God had set for me.
When I think of Mission Trips or Youth Camps I think of the awesome
worship times, prayer times, times when God’s spirit is just so evident
everywhere. Well in Alaska we did not have some huge praise band, our
worship was often with one guitar, and 70 of us sitting in a room
singing. God showed me so much though this, showing me that there doesn’t have
to be some huge blow out performance to feel his spirit moving. God’s
spirit was evident all the time, and so much clearer.
Every night we had what we called a “talkback time”. Where my whole
youth group would just sit every night of the trip, sometimes for an hour
or more and people would share things that God had showed them that
day. Towards the middle of the week, Wednesday I think, after another day
of when God’s plans weren’t mine, we were having talkback time. As I
sat and listened, God spoke to me, plain as day, so clearly, he could
have stood right in front of me and told me and it would not have been as
clear. He showed me that my “God-life” had been fake. Yes, I had been a
hypocrite, for a really, really long time.
I had been a leader in my youth group, a leader at FCA, a worship
leader numerous times and at many places. All of these times I had been
leading and being a witness to others, I was not living out my own
Christian walk. I did not have a daily time with God, if I did a quiet time
it was so I could say that I did one and so I could have the knowledge
of whatever it was talking about to sound good to someone I was talking
too. God was not the center of my life, I depended on earthly things
and people in most everything I did. I had been a hypocrite, and I was
tired of it and God pointed out to me that he was tired of it too. He had
big plans for me and big challenges ahead that I would have to totally
belong to him before I would be able to face them, and God knew that
and he let me know. It was amazing when He showed all of this to me.
In Alaska, the girls from my youth group were staying at a separate
place than the boys and we had to travel by vans to get to the church we
were working with. We had just gotten back to where the girls were
staying and I just went and sat on a bench and sobbed and prayed, it was
incredible. God just hit me like a brick wall, so clearly and precise,
exactly what he wanted from me, he told me. I wanted to follow him, I had
the desire. I knew that it was going to be hard work, work to start up
a daily quite time. I knew it would mean standing up for him even when
I would be persecuted for it. It meant that I would be totally honest
with him all the time, which I had not been in the past. I was ready to
not be a hypocrite, I was ready to experience God, I was ready, ready
and willing to sacrifice all.
The rest of the Alaska trip was great, God continued to show me
things, to surprise me, he knew exactly what he was going to do in my life
with that trip and he did it. Although it was not one of those trips
where just like thousands of people were saved, in fact I think maybe 10
out of all the people we witnessed to accepted Christ. The Alaskan people
are very against religion, they do not feel as if they need to worry
about it. God gave me the opportunity to share my faith with two girls
and they accepted Christ. That just showed me first hand God’s
awesomeness and how he never ceases to amaze me. Most would think that a group
would be discouraged after only maybe 10 people did accept Christ, but we
weren’t. We were confident that we had planted seeds, we had seen God
so clearly during the week, we knew that he had a huge plan for the
people we talked to in Alaska, and that he was going to be doing some major
work even after we left.

10th Grade – As I entered the 10th grade, I was a new person. A new
person in Christ, I could TRULY say that I lived for him, that I wanted
to be his, I wanted to sacrifice and I wanted him to use me in what ever
ways he had planned.
I continued to play the guitar in my youth group praise band. It was
so awesome, every time I get on stage to lead worship, God just moves
through me, whether the people in the audience choose to feel him or not,
it’s amazing how I’ve given that gift that he gave me, back to him and
what he has done with it. God will play through me, at times I don’t
even know what I’m playing or singing or praying aloud. God takes over,
which is good cause I’d probably get really nervous and freak out or
something.
The 1st semester of 10th grade was just an amazing growth period for
my walk with Christ. Of course it was not as easy as it was on the
Alaska Trip, or even during the summer, but I found that spending time in
God’s presence was something that I could not live without. I can say
that I fell in love with God, and that I felt God’s love. I wanted to
stand up for him, I wanted to worship him and grow and talk to him. This
wasn’t stuff that I “had” or “needed” to do anymore, I wanted to.

December 26th, 2001 – the start of a long journey. The day after
Christmas, I was at my Grandmother’s house, when I woke up the vision of my
right eye was messed up. The bottom half of it was very unfocused,
blurry. I was as if I didn’t have my contacts in, but I did. I just
couldn’t see anything, it was very weird. I told my mom about it, and when we
got back to Gainesville, we went to see my eye doctor. He looked for a
torn retina and perhaps an infection from my contacts. He did not find
either, but he sent me to see an ophthalmologist to make sure he didn’t
miss anything.
When I went for my appointment at the ophthalmologist he said that I
might have what is called Optic Neuritis. Optic Neuritis is when some of
the nerves that go from your brain to your eye become inflamed. He was
not totally sure either, so he sent me to Emory hospital in Atlanta to
see a Neuro-Ophthalmologist (Which is like a neurologist and an
ophthalmologist put together, a study of the nerves in the eye). After about 3
hours of the doctor looking in my eye she came in to tell my mom and me
what all she had found.
She said that I did have Optic Neuritis, and after hearing about the
numbness incident in an earlier conversation, she said that I would be
due back for an MRI three weeks later to look for a disease called
Multiple Sclerosis. WHAT?? NO WAY!! A DISEASE??
First off, I had no clue what Multiple Sclerosis was, but the word
disease freaked me out enough. Also I remembered how relieved my mom was
when the doctors ruled out MS with the time when my arm was numb. I can
remember the look on my mom’s face when the doctor told us that they
would be looking for MS, she looked so frightened, which made me scared
too. I didn’t know what to think…was I going to die? Will I become
disabled? Why me O God? Why me?
I was scared, so scared. One of the things I remember that the doctor
said was…”There is no cure for MS but...” But, but? But what? No cure?
If I have this disease I will never be cured? I was so confused, I had
no clue what was being discussed. Should I be scared or is it going to
be ok? This won’t kill me will it? It’s amazing how I went from being a
fine healthy person, to being faced with an incurable disease.
After the initial shock of things, we started to educate ourselves
about the disease. It is a disease when your immune system attacks your
nervous system and there are many kinds of it too. The kind they were
looking for in me was Relapse-Remitting MS. This was the “best” kind you
could have. We realized that the time I went numb was because of MS. We
began to realize that having this disease would be an ok thing. That I
could live a normal life with it. Because of the type I had, I would
rarely experience any symptoms. If I did it would be things such as when
my arm when numb and when I had Optic Neuritis.
Three weeks, three weeks until I would find out. There was still a
possibility that it would not be MS. But there was still a possibility that
it was. Those three weeks were probably some of the most difficult,
most frustrating weeks of my life. I was full of confusion, anxiety,
anger, I did not know what to expect or how to handle it. I was not blaming
anything on God, I knew that whatever was happening was his plan, that
he had his hand on me. But I was confused as to why God would do this
and how this would work in my life, this was a huge test of my faith.
The only way to get through this was to have faith, faith that even
though I didn’t know what God was doing, He did.
One of the things that God taught me during these three weeks was that
it is ok to be weak, and its ok to cry. I was trying to be strong and
act like I wasn’t being effected by any of the news, but I couldn’t. I
cried out to God for strength, I pleaded with him to just take my place,
to take the pain so I would not have to. I didn’t want to be strong
anymore and I though that was wrong, but I realized that God wants to be
out strength in weakness. He wants us to totally rely on him for
everything. So many nights I just cried and just asked God to take over for
me, so that I could sit back and be weak. The Lord did, and through this
the Lord has taught me how to be stronger in him. Without God’s
strength I would have fallen apart.
When my family and I first learned of the possibility of MS, we were
not very educated on the disease, we spent those three weeks educating
ourselves, reading about it on-line, talking to doctors. As we learned
more and more, we learned that the disease would not really affect my
daily life. We learned about very promising treatments to put the disease
in remission, and research that could very well come up with a cure
within as soon as 10 years.
All of this “good” news calmed our minds. At least my parents’ minds I
know. Mine on the other hand, I had a peace that everything would work
out under God’s provision, but the question “why me?”, “why do I have
to struggle though this?” remained in my head. I wanted an easy road, I
did not want to struggle anymore, I did not want to have my faith
tested. But I learned that the testing of my faith was the best way for me
to grow.
After about two weeks into the three week span of not knowing, I
realized that I HAD to give the situation fully to God. God had already
giving me a peace, now I had to give him my faith. There was no way to know
what the MRI was going to say, it could go either way. There was no
favor towards either side. I think the worst thing about these three weeks
was not the accepting that I could have a disease, but it was the not
knowing, the anxiousness in my heart.
Finally the day came, the day for the MRI. It was a Wednesday, although
we would not find the results until the Friday afterwards, I was still
so nervous. My mom and dad and I drove to Emory Hospital and I had my
MRI, it lasted for about an hour and a half. During the middle of it,
the doctors injected this stuff into my blood, which would serve kind of
like ink. If I did have MS, there would be lesions on my brain that
would show up with this ink. The doctor said it would be very clear if I
had it or not, there would be no be doubt. When the MRI was finished, we
went home. We were told that with 1 or 2 days we would find out the
results and the doctor would call us and let us know.
The next weekend I was going on a choir retreat. I really wanted to
find out the results before I left. No call on Thursday, no call on Friday
before I left. I was extremely anxious at this point, I did not know
how much longer I could wait. Finally, in the bus on the way to our
retreat my mom called my cell phone. She said that the doctor had called
said that they did find MS on my MRI. I did not know what to think, tears
streamed down my face. I did have this incurable disease. Why me? All
this time I knew it was a possibility, but did I really think that I
would have MS? No.
After the diagnosis was made, I received love and prayers from so many
people. Once again God placed incredible people in my life to keep me
going. My youth group, people at school, people in my church, my
teachers. People I could talk to, cards, little gifts. The encouragement was
exactly what I needed.
One of the hard things about telling people that I had MS was that they
would think of people with what is called chronic MS. When a patient
has chronic MS, they become paralyzed and get in really bad shape. We had
to educate people about Relapse-Remitting MS and let them know that
everything would be ok.
I went to my neurologist so I could get my treatments started, I was
told that I would have to start taking shots every other day. It would be
a small needle like a diabetic uses, and I would be able to use a
little device that would inject it for me. Even though they made it sound
easy, I’m not too big on shots. I had a nurse sent to my house to teach
me how to do it. The first night while she was watching I did great, no
problems, it was good. The next night I had to do it, when my nurse was
not there, I got scared and could not do it. My mom had to do it for
me.
Doing these shots have been the hardest thing to overcome with my MS. I
will go to do it, then I will get scared and my mom will have to do it.
Then I get angry with myself for not being strong enough to do it and I
get down on myself. “Eventually you’ll get used to it” is what I hear
from just about everyone, but I’m just about ready for eventually to
come. I know God has a plan in all of the struggles with my shots. I’ve
already realized that he’s teaching me how to have patience and trust
that he will take care of it. Faith and strength to get through each
night, or each “every other night.”
One night soon after I was diagnosed with MS, I was doing my quiet time
and God gave me four bible verses. These are what I like to call “my
verses”. These were the verses that I would always have in my head, the
verses that I could reflect on for encouragement and hope during the
hardest times…


“Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”
~Hebrews 13:5
I know God is always with me, that he will never leave me, that his
hand will be with me no matter what I am going though.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do
not see.”
~Hebrews 11:1
I cannot see this disease in my body, but I have to have faith and
trust that God is going to work though this, and use it for his glory.

“Don’t be anxious about anything, but pray about everything. Tell God
your needs and thank him for his answers. And the peace of God will be
with you, a peace that no human mind will ever understand.”
Philippians 4:6
This verse helped me when I felt anxious, I knew instead of spending
time worrying and being anxious, I should spend that time in prayer.
Throughout all of this, God has taught me the power of prayer, when I pray
to him and when people pray for me. Also I had that peace that no one
will ever be able to understand, and I couldn’t understand it, just like
it says! I knew God was with me, through all the hard times, I had a
peace that things would work out like he had planned.

“For I know the plans I have for you” declares the Lord. “Plans to
prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”
~Jeremiah 29:11
God has big plans with all of this. He is not going to harm me, I am
going to prosper. And through the peace that he has given me, I know
this. I can’t wait to see what all he has planned, I’m ready and willing
for him to use me in what ever ways He wants.

Although I am still at the beginning of my journey with MS, God has
been my supreme source of encouragement and strength. God has a way of
working in people’s lives, and this is how he’s chosen to work in mine.
I’ve given my life to God, fully, so that he may do whatever he pleases
with me, so that he can work through my life whenever and however he
wants. So many opportunities to share God’s love have already appeared. I
know for a fact and I can already see that God is going to work though
this and work through my life to reach people for his kingdom. I’m so
excited to see what God has planned, and I’m ready and willing to
follow.
“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but
those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on
wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and
not be faint.”
~Isaiah 40:29-31



The Christian Counter
The Christian Counter