03/11/2018
Carla Bowyer Edgington
This is a very LONNNGG post but I feel the need to tell this story :
For about 3 years I went to church at a place called Shiloh Bridging the Gap Ministries it was located in downtown Columbus on Long st. The majority of our congregation was homeless people from Faith Mission . One Sunday morning we were gathered for our Sunday morning Sunday school class and I had prepared breakfast as I usually did and there was a lady there this one morning and she spoke up and said she felt led to give her testimony . She told her life story and it really grabbed me in a huge way . God wanted me to hear her story I know .
She said her mother got heavily involved with drugs and alcohol when she was about 12 . She said her mom stayed drunk/ drugged all the time and it was up to her to care for her younger brother and sister . Her mother spent every penny she brought in on feeding her addiction . She said I had to be the adult and figure out how to feed my siblings and I got them up and off to school ect. She said her mother would bring a different man home every few days when ever she would run out of money she worked for her drugs and got them “ other “ ways . She said I HATED my life and I wanted to die .
I began attempting su***de not just once but 4 sometimes 5 times every year . I wasn’t very good at it because obviously I didn’t know how and all I knew was to take my moms drugs . So I would swallow as much of my mamas drugs as I could . Til I would pass out and I would wake up in the hospital cause my mom knew she couldn’t let anything happen to me because then she would end up in prison so she would make up a story and they always believed her . When we would get home I would get in trouble for “ ruining “ their evening . One time when I was about 15 / 16 we got home from one of my attempts . I ran off and found a place to hide . I began to “ BAWL “ hard I was mad at myself for failing and God for making me stay here . I looked up at the sky and I said out loud “ WHY !! God ? If you exist why are you making me stay down here “ ? I told God “ I’m nothing , I’m useless and worthless . I have no purpose , no body cares about me “ . Then she said she asked God “ if there is some purpose for my life for why you are making me stay then I NEED to know what it is “ she said I told God if you exists show me send some one too me .
It was that very week she said she was walking down the street and she met a man . She said she began to talk to the man and he introduced himself as a pastor of a neighborhood church . He invited me and my siblings to come and I started going to church the next Sunday . It wasn’t long after that maybe a few months she said she bowed her head setting in the pastors office and gave her heart to Christ .
If you think your life is awful and you think you have it bad . Remember there’s always some one whose got it worse . That woman’s testimony really spoke to me . I thank God for my Christian upbringing . People be nice Show Gods love to people . You don’t know what another person is going through .
