Hebrew 11: 1 says,” Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

It’s hard to imagine how much pain I endured in order to be changed into the person I am today.

Four years ago, I was living an unhappy life mostly unknown to the world, unknown to my friends. My health was deteriorating and I decided to seek help and change, I decided no more.

I went to a doctor’s appointment in hopes of starting this change, to be proactive. It was then when I was scheduled for a gastric sleeve. I was determined to change my life. I went under December 06, 2016 and came out with a positive outlook. 2017 was my year for the taking. But I had an unfortunate turn of events, I ran into several complications.

With six surgeries now due to complications, and almost losing my life I’ve learned and grown so much. Honest truth, I regret nothing.

Why?

I was unhappy and wanted to change my image as a way to satisfy myself and after my surgeries and almost dying I realized God allowed this for a reason. I may not fully understand as to why and that’s fine with me, one thing I do know is that I needed to be transformed and changed. This was all part of his plan.

Part of being hospitalized for three months is you start to mentally become frustrated. This is when depression sinks in and faith starts to disappear. It stops by unexpectedly and takes over everything. For the first time in my life, I felt alone. All that surrounded me were 4 walls. I cried every day and every night. I wanted to be better but couldn’t find a way. My mom and I weren’t so close growing up so I didn’t know who to talk to because I felt so weak and embarrassed to ask for help.

After two months of being hospitalized at night, I couldn’t bare the pain and I decided to give up and give all my pain to God. I cried and told God to take it all, no more would I suffer, no more would I carry this frustration on my own. I didn’t want to continue not being able to eat, being fed by an IV. I didn’t want to be sad and depressed. I didn’t want to live.

The next morning….

My mom came in and hugged me. And I felt loved and secure. SHE PRAYED. I was struggling mentally with being prepared to move forward but having my body not react as fast as I wanted. I was frustrated. Mentally I was healing as the days passed but my body wasn’t moving at the same speed. But I remembered one thing my mom said during that specific prayer.

“God, even when she’s weak please allow her to always keep her faith”

And I did just that. I kept my faith and prayed. A month later after being shown so much love and support by friends I was discharged.

I realized, two things:

His timing, not mine.

Always keep your faith.

After this, I was changed.