¶ Finding Redemption and Transforming Lives
in just a minute we're gonna watch one more video and this girl's got about the same story , but I'm gonna make videos about current events and things in biblical context , of how the world is right now and our culture and things like that and how we should be going into their areas and influencing them and not the other way around .
Target , excuse me , but sometimes we just gotta remember . I've been on a series with my treks . Right now I call it Back to the Firsts . Like in Revelation , chapter two , verses four and five . It says to go back to the first , go back and repeat your first works .
And what this does it rekindles that fire in your heart and it reminds you of your first love again . If you've never accepted Jesus Christ , you don't understand this , but if you have and you've grown still in your walk , you need to get back where you were in the beginning .
If you were like me when I first got lit up for Jesus and my life was transformed and changed and he like regenerated me and man . I'm not a tall guy , but when I got up from the altar I felt like I could take on anything and I felt like I was 10 feet tall , like I remember that moment .
I can't tell you the time or date , but I know that when I got up from that altar , I remember that something inside of me was now greater than everything that was outside of me and it was something that transformed me in a way that I can try to explain it to you . But until you experience it , it's like love , love .
You think you have it until you actually experience it for the first time and then you knew you didn't have it the whole time . It's the same way with Jesus . You can hear other people's story , you can listen to all other things from the church and say , oh , that's a good story . You know , I bet your life is better now .
But until you experience and you taste and see , you won't have a clue . You need to get on some Jesus , because your life will never be the same . I'm telling you , all it takes is one honest , vulnerable conversation with Jesus to mess your world up in the best way you've ever felt before . It's amazing . Let's go on with this other video .
All I saw was death . There was no future for me , there was no hope for me . That's the only thing I could see was just death . I didn't think I was going to live past 18 . I was very lively , fun-loving , happy child . I normally say something kind of humorous like I had a checkered past .
Our family just kind of left the church and kind of slowly left God . I just kind of just left him as well .
As a preteen , Mariah was verbally abused by someone she loved .
I didn't realize how powerful words were . That actually was . When I had my first suicide attempt . I started to cut myself , started to throw up my food . That's kind of was my reality . I was put on a lot of psychotropic medications that really , looking back , I can see really messed with me , really messed with my mind .
The best way to describe it was just like this flow dark cloud just came over me .
Mariah began drinking alcohol and smoking weed . Then she moved on to other drugs and by 16 was doing cocaine .
The following year , after I tried cocaine , I was 17 years old and I had an abortion , and after that , I would say I was basically on a mission to die .
¶ From Addiction to Love and Faith
Mariah spent the next few years in a drug induced haze . She ended up in jail for multiple DWIs and stealing money .
When I was in jail . It was a good time for reflection , but again they allow you to be on pharmaceuticals , so again I still had that something to numb me . Sometimes I would even be like drooling because of how much pharmaceuticals they would put me on .
At 18 , Mariah began selling herself to pay for drugs .
After I began prostituting , everything just became black and dark and empty . All during this time I'm running away from home . I'm still going into the psych wards and out of psych wards . So all during this time , from adolescence to before my last rehab , I'm all over the place . After a while people start introducing heroin to you .
I said I'm just going to sniff it , I'm never going to shoot it , I'm not going to turn into one of those junkies .
I didn't even know until right now that you could sniff heroin . That's crazy .
No way . But guess what happened ? I was living in like the side of a garage . This John was coming in to purchase me and at this point I looked . I had track marks everywhere . I just looked disgusting . I was maybe 80 pounds . He just said I'm not paying for this . That was the moment for me . I can't even prostitute anymore .
To feed this habit , my best friend from childhood gave me a . She kept trying to get me to go into this program , a sister program to Teen Challenge . It's called the Walter Hoving Home and it's a woman's Christian home .
Mariah's parents let her move back in and helped her detox . After she got clean she moved into the Walter Hoving Home .
And it took about three months just to kind of stabilize me . Coming off of all those drugs , my body was just like what is happening . I ended up having a migraine for six months and I didn't sleep for nine months and I would tape my eyes shut to try to get a few minutes of sleep because if I didn't my eyes would just open right back up by month .
Six .
Mariah was almost kicked out . She had relapsed and was cutting herself again . Then leaders at the home prayed for her to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit .
It felt like just this liquid love , just like poured into my body , like I literally felt the Holy Spirit like come into my body . The first night of sleep I got after nine months I slept probably eight hours and it was like I just woke up just praising God that I just got sleep , like it was such a gift .
Mariah's faith began to grow . She soon became the one that others would come to for encouragement and prayer .
I was taking the Bible and just applying what it was saying and taking it seriously , taking God at His word , and I was choosing to believe .
When she finished the program . Teen Challenge offered her a job . She led missions , trips and helped with a dance ministry for the Brooklyn Tabernacle . After some time she began to feel like she should pray for her future husband .
It wasn't like a thing that I wanted . I felt more like God was putting this desire in me because I didn't want a husband , I didn't want a man . As I was praying for a husband , my desire for a husband started to become my desire as well .
Mariah met Xander through a family member .
We've been married for five years and now have two gorgeous babies During the first year of marriage .
¶ From Heroin to Heaven
Anyways , no time it was really placed on my heart to compile and publish a book . It's called From Heroin to Heaven .
One of my first podcast episodes ever . I don't have a video of it . I didn't have a video set up at the time , but if you go in the links below to the Spotify or Apple podcast , whatever you listen to I go to the very first one and I'm going to tell my story .
That is very similar to these ladies' story of my personal destruction and regeneration and one of the first episodes . It may have been the very first , I'm not 100% sure , but it was called Meth Head to Minister .
That was published in 2015 . And so that's been amazing to be able to donate that book to rehabs and jails . I used to be on the inmate side of the jail and now I'm on the other side bringing good news , Like only God can do something that dramatic .
How can I not share with people the goodness of God and share with them who Jesus is and what he came to do for us ? I want people to know that God is a God of transformation . That's right . That he can take a prostitute and turn her into a princess . That he can take someone homeless and give them a home , a dwelling place .
That he can take someone who is living in pure turmoil and give them this peace that passes understanding . He is the God of transformation .
God of transformation . That's so cool .