2012 marked such a big year for me. I graduated with my Masters degree and was about to start “my” life. I got a position as a school counselor and thought everything would be smooth sailing. I thought since Id gotten through a miscarriage, ended what I now know as an emotionally and mentally abusive relationship and finished what is usually a year long internship in 6 months because I believed there was more on the other side, surely I could sail through anything thrown at me. Little did I know, my life and connections closest to me was about to change. I began my position as a school counselor and finished out my first semester. Going into my second semester, I began working on my licensure as a professional counselor. While battling through my own experience of physical trauma, I was also working through my training as a counselor and seeing clients. There were several times I cried after meeting for my supervision for my license. I wanted to give up because I thought I wouldn’t be good enough. Several times I was challenged on a mental level. Several times my development as a counselor was challenged. In the midst of all of this, Jesus blessed me with my first home and not a dollar had to be posted as a down payment. He also asked me to graduate to the next level of obedience and leave my job as a school counselor which is what I went to school for. Two and a half years later, I walked out of my supervisor’s office with 3,000 hours of providing clinical counseling under my belt which would earn me my full license.  Jesus became more and more real to me through all of the pain, leading me to a new job, some friendships and during my own alone time with Him....He met me right where I was broken and He was about to show me exactly what all of this was for. On my third year of my clinical counseling job, I became a little restless. I had my full license but felt God pushing me to do more....after all He didn’t call me to leave my “planned-for” school counseling job that I worked for just to be casual. He was about to bring so much more into my life. He began the work of softening my heart. I always cared for people...it’s the main reason why I chose to be a counselor. But God was about to undue all the things I did to myself and that were done to me. See what I didn’t share before was that years before my miscarriage, I had an abortion. At the time that I did it, I knew about God but had no relationship with him and believed it was the right thing to do because who fathered the child didn’t care about me nor the other woman he was with. I thought I could help and change him. Well, yes, I learned that you can’t change anyone... so that was that. I was naive. I was young. I was 21 years old...The thing that you carry with you after making a decision like that is one that is too hard to carry despite what society tells you. But I thought I was a “G” and could handle it. After all, I went on to graduate and had a career job right out of college. I was naive but I wasn't a quitter. So after that decision came 7 years of dating, fighting and working hard to fulfill my dream as a counselor…then God came in and disrupted my pattern and scrambled all the pieces of my story. Three years after that, three years on my clinical counseling job, He called me to not only counsel those who needed it but to be a Christian counselor. But with that calling, He had me to revisit the over 10 years I’d push through the pain. I healed on some levels from the abortion, miscarriage and physical trauma BUT I had to reconcile not some of but ALL OF IT back to Him. So I went to see a Christian counselor. I worked through the pain on a deeper level than what I had before through mentorship and my own reflection time. Yes counselors should work and continue to work through their own stuff. I knew that before but when you are accustomed to being the strong one and the one that should have it all together, you neglect your own scars. There are scars still present from my past but I am thankful that when God sees my scars He only sees the scars of His son covering it. He sees my now and tomorrow not my yesterday. Forever thankful is an understatement. The biggest part of all of this is that I had to believe and know for myself that I was worth it to Him. Not because of what I did and how I walked through my consequences of choices but because He said I was worth it. God said I was worth coming to rescue. He rescued me at the age of 12 and I decided to let go when I became older, but thank God He comes to see about the One that wandered away. So today, the only reason why I can say I am standing is because of Jesus Christ... My deepest scars became my testimony to let you know that Jesus is real and He is our redemption!