I am so very thankful for my life and how it turned out. I am doing great, in a great place, with a great job and surrounded by great people. I have to admit though - as much as I don’t want to acknowledge my past at all, there are still parts of it that hurt me to this day.

I struggle with completely overcoming my past because parts of my past cause me to ride my own emotional roller coaster. It’s an interesting ride through past events that have positively and negatively affected my life. Even though the past cannot be changed on this ride, I can relive those episodes; almost every time it is traumatic for me.

For 19 years I struggled with the concept of God. One supernatural being, able to hold the whole world in his palm, with everything under His control while JJ’s innocence was being stripped from him piece by piece. Don’t Christians call Him a “fair” and “just” God, an “all loving” and “merciful” God who created us and knew us before we were born?

Since then I’ve come to realize that God has a plan and a purpose for my life but that it’s up to me to fulfill it. Now my life is dedicated to helping others in any way I can. At the moment I work for this amazing nonprofit called FosterClub. Now I am using my story to help others, and I can appreciate what God has done in my life.

Now as I use my story for what I consider His will, it hurts me and brings up many things from my past I do not care to address here. I’m still navigating the battlefield logic and emotions that clash between my past and present. My passion causes me pain, my joy causes me sorrow- only sometimes.

I don’t know what my point is, probably because I am still in the midst of the emotional wreckage, and I’m not sure exactly how to clean it up. But God gives me the strength, power, creativity, inspiration & energy to move on, move forward. I can honestly say that I am perfectly content with being broken and restored as needed. It just feels good to be alive.