My Story and How I Survived
You ever ask yourself… Is God real?
I have.
More than once.
And honestly? Sometimes, I still do.
But when I look back at my life…
Everything I’ve been through…
I can’t help but believe He has to be real.
Because how else could I have survived?
How else could I have made it through being abandoned, neglected, and abused… as a child?
Raped as a young adult.
Forced into an abortion clinic later,
Then living with the weight of believing I had taken a life.
How else could I have walked through stage 3 cancer—
While raising my small children?
and then, one day, hearing my husband say the words that shattered me:
“I love another woman.”
Then years later watched him die.
Not just from cancer,
But from the neglect of doctors who didn’t see us as people.
And after all of that…
Being left a widow.
Struggling to make ends meet.
Wondering how to go on.
How could I have survived all that… alone?
I didn’t have parents to lean on.
No safety net.
But as a young girl I had a question.
A quiet, desperate question:
"God, are You are real?… speak to me."
That was my very first prayer.
Pastor Rick Warren's forward in his book, Celebrate Recovery, says, "You've undoubtedly heard that expression, 'Time heals all wounds'. Unfortunately, it isn't true. As a pastor I frequently talk with people who are still carrying hurts from thirty or forty years ago. The truth is, time often makes things worse. Wounds that are left untended fester and spread infection throughout your entire body. Time only extends the pain if the problem isn't dealt with." That was me—my pain only deepened with time, and I couldn’t understand why. But there is hope! You are not alone!
Celina Hynes