My name is Abby Smith, and it is an honor to be writing this to you right now. I’m here to fulfill a vision God gave me - a vision in which I use the brokenness of my past to help other women navigate their situations, all to the glory of God. I’m nobody special - I’m not a therapist or a counselor. I’m just someone who has been afflicted heavily (as we all have, in this broken world!), and am determined to use everything the enemy had intended for my demise, for good.

I didn’t grow up in a faith background. In fact, in my late teens/early twenties, I considered myself an atheist. I had parents who loved me and would do anything in the world for me, yet I still yearned for a different type of love. A type of love that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I left home at age 20 in search of that love. I looked for it in men, in alcohol, in drugs, in new age beliefs… and not only did I come up empty every time, but I also found myself spiraling deeper and deeper into a place of utter darkness, becoming only a shell of the Abby I once knew.

I moved back home around age 22, emotionally wounded, and with a shattered identity after leaving the relationship I was in. Despite my abrupt departure two years prior, my parents welcomed me back with loving arms. It still brings tears to my eyes thinking about all that I put them through during those days. All of the sleepless nights they must have had, wondering if I was even alive at times.

Upon moving back home, I was undoubtedly in the early stages of alcohol addiction. People close to me knew I drank, but nobody knew the severity of it, since I had become a master at concealing the evidence. I didn’t want help, so I liked it that way. I brought alcohol to work with me at the donut shop, I drank it at home in my bedroom with the door locked - it went wherever I went. And when I wasn’t at work or at home, I was out partying. I had become obsessed with going out to nightclubs. The attention I received from men, the VIP access, the special treatment… it was all such a “high”. It felt like the love that I’d been searching for, and I believed it was. I remember thinking to myself “this is what my life is supposed to be. I’ve found my purpose.”

What once seemed glamorous quickly turned into a vicious cycle of waking up hungover, recovering, and doing it all over again. Inevitably, that cycle took its toll on me. Maintaining a job and a party lifestyle at the same time was no longer an option - I had to choose one. Still desperate as ever to find the aforementioned love, I chose the party lifestyle.

My unemployed days of lying around the house didn’t last long. My parents always saw great potential in me, and they weren’t about to let me waste my life away. I remember my mom pushing for me to apply to do temp work through the local employment agency, but I was resistant as ever. I’d become comfortable working restaurant jobs, particularly waitressing jobs where the uniforms were “minimal”. The thrill of validation I felt wearing those uniforms was the same validation I felt when I was out at the clubs. Plus, those types of environments were much more conducive to day drinking habit.

My resistance towards my mom’s idea only got me so far. She eventually wore me down and convinced me to put in my application for the employment agency. I ended up getting a call from them the same day I applied, and after interviewing, was brought on as a client. The very first job they sent me on happened to be the very place I met my husband. This is where everything started to change.

My husband and I connected instantly. I’d never felt more comfortable around a person. Being myself felt like enough, like I didn’t have to change anything. This time I knew I’d found the love I’d been searching for, except I still wasn’t quite pinpointing it. It was even deeper than what I was perceiving. It turned out he was a man of God, and the love he had for me was a direct reflection of God‘s love for me.

Now let’s rewind about two months prior to meeting my husband, when I was still working at the donut shop. I was training to become a general manager at the time, and was one day informed that I had to start delivering donuts to the local church every Sunday. Everything in me was resistant to making deliveries to that church. I truly felt like I wasn’t the type of person who should even step foot in a church. After all, I was an alcoholic who wanted nothing to do with Christianity. However, l ultimately didn’t want to miss out on the job promotion, so I agreed.

I will never forget the shock I felt upon interacting with the members of the church. I didn’t feel judged at all. In fact, I felt accepted as if I were one of them. There was one woman in particular  who was always so kind to me. One Sunday, right before Christmas, she asked me with a big smile on her face if I’d be attending their Christmas Eve service. Her question caught me off guard, and I hesitated. My initial reaction was to make up an excuse as to why I couldn’t go, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I said something along the lines of “oh, I don’t know, maybe!”

I didn’t end up going, but I did consider it. I considered it deeply. I didn’t know why, but there was a part of me that wanted to go. It still blows my mind to think about. God placed the desire in my heart to want to know Him. I didn’t choose Him. He chose me.

I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in April of 2018. This was about a month after I started dating my husband, and I was still very much an alcoholic. You might be wondering… what would make a man of God want to pursue a young, alcoholic woman who didn’t know the Lord? Well, you’ll have to ask him to explain that. I still have trouble understanding it myself!

The interesting thing about accepting the Lord while I was still an alcoholic was that things appeared to be getting worse before they were getting better. The magnetic pull to the liquor bottle was stronger than ever. We both nearly died in a car accident days after my acceptance of the Lord. Trips to the emergency room due to drinking too much became a regular thing. Our marriage was rocky. We lived out of a hotel for years. We filed bankruptcy. I could write a whole book about all that happened during the in-between years of accepting the Lord until now. But the main takeaway is that the devil hated that he was losing his grip on me. And even though to the natural eye it appeared that my life had become disastrous, the truth is that God had His hand on my life all along, and He was lifting me up through every trial and tribulation.

He healed me of my alcohol addiction. He made me a mother. He taught me how to be a wife. He turned my entire life around. And I feel that it would be a shame if I didn’t use every ounce of suffering I went through to help someone else. God has purpose in everything He is allowing you to go through, just as He did for me. So let me use the broken pieces of my past to help make your future whole.