Universal Magazine November 2018 Universal Magazine November 2018 | Page 8

8
Life Transformation
Challenging
A POWERFUL
BUT
UNDERUSED
FORM OF
ENERGY
a negative past! O
Shanami Brown had a turbulent past. Her father’s absence affected
her tremendously. She longed for love and looked for it in all the wrong
places. The quest to fill this void led her down an unexpected road and
an even bigger unexpected challenge. Read below to find out how she
managed to change her story.
‘M
y dad left us when I was I very
young and coming to terms with
this made me feel really down. As
a consequence, I found myself living to please
people, hoping that would make them love me,
but I was always left rejected and disappointed.
My emptiness led me to many short-term
relationships. Between the ages of 18 and 20,
I was in two abusive relationships. One of the
worst moments was when I was strangled on
my own living room floor, but, despite this, I
still stayed because I thought, “This is the
only love I can get”. But, one day, a friend
introduced me to the Universal. I attended the
meetings regularly because I found something
different there. I decided to apply everything
I was learning – things such as rejecting every
negative thought that came to my mind and
fighting my doubts. My main doubts were about
if I was good enough.
But the meetings I attended helped me to
overcome my past through the power of faith
and the people that I met there were amazing.
It was good to know that I wasn’t alone and
there were people who had gone through
similar things to me and had overcome them.
Not everything was easy. While trying to turn
my life around, I faced many doubts. I
would think things such as: “Is my
life ever going to change?” “Am I
really going to make it?” But then
I was invited to take part in the
Challenge of Faith. Through this
challenge, I was able to find
a strength inside me that I
never knew existed.
That power allowed me to
finally overcome my past
traumas, insecurities and
weak mindset. I no longer
feel the immense void
inside. Today, I’m happy
and I love myself!’
Shanami Brown
‘RETURNING TO
THE UNIVERSAL
was my
best decision’
Winfred Vumba had been attending the
Universal from a young age; however, life’s
circumstances caused her to leave the church
as a teenager. A few years later, seeing what
her life had come to, she decided to come
back. This is her story.
‘I
felt very lonely growing up;
I thought nobody genuinely
cared about me. When I was
16 and in a relationship, I decided to
leave the church. Everything was
going well for me until, one day, I
was physically violent towards my
former boyfriend. It was at this
point that I decided to return to the
church. I was 19, heartbroken, full
of insecurities and angry towards
myself and everyone.
Though the messages I was
hearing were good and I wanted
to take God seriously, I was not
in a good place in my life, so at
first, I wasn’t fully committed
ne of the ways to
measure the progress
of mankind through
the ages is to observe
how it progressively discovered
and learned to make use of
the various forms of energy
available. Starting with its
muscle strength and animals,
then fire, wind, coal, gas, oil,
electricity and many others,
mankind’s progress is directly
connected to the discovery and
use of these energies. Without
them, life, as we know it today,
would not exist.
You pay your bills every
month in order to have some
of these energies in your
house because you need
them. You cannot imagine
yourself without them
and would do anything
to have them. Yet,
unfortunately, there
is a powerful type of
energy, of which only a
few have knowledge and
have learned to use properly,
FAITH.
to my faith. Eventually, things
began to click. I heard that God
was good, that He would forgive
me, regardless of my past,
and the messages then started
appealing to me, as they gave me
hope when I felt my life was in a
complete and utter rut’.
She made the decision to say
goodbye to her past and to bad
company. She thought that by
doing that and starting to attend
the church frequently, her life
would automatically improve;
however, soon she saw that to
find the inner peace she wanted,
she would need to do more.