“I was lost, but now I have hope for the future.”
Victoria had a happy life, a loving fiancé, a home and a beloved daughter who’d grown up to be her friend. Then tragedy struck, tearing her world apart. “My daughter died,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. “It’s so hard when you lose your only child.”
She was overwhelmed with despair, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask God for help. “I blamed Him. I couldn’t even go into a church without crying,” she says. “I didn’t have anywhere to turn.”
Victoria began numbing her grief. It was a coping mechanism she’d used in junior high school when she was coping with terrible family life. “It was the only way I knew to ease my pain,” she says.
But she’d gotten clean at 18 and stayed clean for 29 years… until her daughter’s death. For three years, Victoria struggled with addiction, eventually landing in trouble with the law. It was then a judge referred her to our Gateway Program, where she found shelter, food and the emotional healing she so desperately needed.
“Through grief support groups, I’ve learned to understand and deal with my feelings in healthy ways,” she says. “Before, I couldn’t even think of my daughter without getting hysterical, but now I can talk about her without falling apart. It’s like night and day.”
Through chapel services and Celebrate Recovery, Victoria’s faith is also being restored. “I now know God didn’t give my daughter to me just so He could hurt me by taking her away,” she says.
“I’m growing close to the Lord once again.”
Victoria’s fiancé stuck by her throughout her trial, and after she completes the program, she plans to return home to him and continue grief counseling. “Now I know I’m not alone,” she says.
Thanks to the blessing of your support, Victoria is celebrating Easter with restored faith in Christ. “I was lost, but the Mission gave me the help I needed. Now I have hope for the future.”
To read this issue of A New Dawn, click here.
Help other people like Victoria…
Victoria’s story of hope and healing is inspiring. Our New Life Programs exist to help other men and women in the Coachella Valley find healing. Will you help provide this help to others?
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