Hope did not die, that night, surprisingly it did not die.  You see I lived, despite the bullet lodged in my spine I lived, and I had a wake up call.  I needed God, as sadistic as I tried to be before, that bullet, that gang bangers bullet, dropped me to the ground litterally, but more than that it lifted me up when I needed to be lifted, because it turned me to the Lord.

I was a bitter fifteen year old girl, at the time, nothing going right, at least in my eyes, my problems were pety typical teenage stuff looking back, but at the time it felt like they were the end of the world.  The day I turned fifteen I shocked my parents and my grandmother by telling them I was an atheist.  My Mom and Dad stared at me in shock, how could I not believe after all the miracles I had seen, but I didn't, or perhaps somewhere deep down I did, and I just wanted to make a statement.  A statement my parents heard loud and clear, they did not press me knowing how fruitless that would be, but every night I could hear them praying, talking, whispering, trying to figure out why suddenly I no longer believed.

I had believed at one time, at ten I had walked up to the altar and given my heart to Christ, but something inside me changed in the next five years, and the truth was I rebelled.  I began experimenting with drugs, and alcohol and made myself seem like a "lose girl" despite the fact I was still a virgin.  The truth was I was playing a dangerous game and I knew it.

I was making my way through enemy gang turf.  I was not in a gang myself, not yet anyway, but I hung out with my friends who were, a bunch of tough girls, who seemed to know nothing but violence, and I stood out like a sore thumb, but somehow I was accepted, until I was shot and then I was ditched.

It does not matter though, because laying in that hospital bed, my life so drastically changed I knew something had to give, and I knew that it was the fact that I had to give my heart to Jesus.  I had left him, but he had never left me and he was waiting with open arms.

It was not my time though far from it, I still had my story to tell and my life to live.  I was going to be living it from a chair now, but yet I felt more free than I did when I had two working legs, because my soul was free.

To Be Continued