Discovering YOU Magazine August 2018 Issue | Page 40

THE SPIRIT IN YOU

A Divine Purpose

Article by Lama-Leah

I recently came across a quote that made me deeply reflect on my goals and life choices and it went as the following, "God oftentimes uses our deepest as the launching pad of our greatest calling."

If you read the December Issue, you would know that I have overcome a significant amount of trauma within my early childhood. If you did not read that article, here is a brief summary of my life story.

My early years were anything but pleasant. As a young girl, I experienced extreme psychological and verbal abuse from a caregiver. My emotional health was suffering throughout elementary school, and I had an eating disorder before I was 10 years old.

Eventually, God answered my prayers and I was able to leave the abuse. To this day, I am grateful that I was able to leave in the time that I did, because I honestly am not sure if I could have emotionally survived anymore heartaches within that specific season in my life, before reaching the point of a complete mental breakdown.

As I grew older, my addiction to starving myself followed me. I never learned how to cope with my emotions, therefore I did what I could to numb the pain that I had encountered years prior. I

fell into a deep depression that lasted for years. By the time I was 17, I was exhausted from trying to find a purpose to keep living. At the end of January of 2015, my best friend saved my life from suicide and I began a long road of healing and recovery.

From that night on, I was lost. Not because I still had secrets that I was keeping to myself about my past, but because for the first time in my life, I started to slightly realize that I was important. I had potential, and that if I worked hard in therapy, I could have a bright future. As a former abuse victim, this was absolutely mesmerizing to me, because I never thought of the possibility of a bright future. I found an outlet that completely changed my life and formed my ministry. I began blogging and writing