Eli had a tough life growing up. At a young age, she had already experienced a lot of hurts leading her to be suicidal. But no one is too far from the Lord and this is her testimony of deliverance.
Growing Up Astray
When Eli was just a young girl, she was sexually abused by someone she knew. But instead of putting the abuser behind jail, she blamed herself for what happened to her. By age 9, she started battling with suicidal thoughts.
Eli started cutting and using drugs as a teen. She was also hospitalized several times for anorexia.
“Inside of me was just always screaming and I never had relief. It was constant agony,” Eli shared.
Because of her mental health issues, she was sent to go through counseling. She started having improvements until her mother died all so sudden. Eli had lots of regrets and shame following that. So when she graduated from high school, she moved to L.A. and started living as a drug addict, doing whatever she could to get drugs.
She tried to get help by going to rehab multiple times, but each time she would relapse. That’s when she got herself a gun and kept it in a storage unit, just waiting for the day she would find the courage to shoot herself.
Finding second life
In her decade-long cycle of addiction and suicidal thoughts, Eli also became HIV positive. She felt so hopeless that eventually, in 2012, she finally decided to take her own life. She went to her storage unit to get her loaded gun, and was all set to kill herself until something stopped her.
She suddenly just felt the need to go back and see her family for proper closure. So she went to visit her dad and his girlfriend Debbie, who ended up begging her to go to rehab.
“She was just weeping for me, and it was just profound, so I agreed,” Eli said. Her plan though was to just go for 30 days, and then she would kill herself.
Redemption and Deliverance
Her family took her to a Christian rehab home where she crossed paths with a familiar face, chaplain Judy Bowen, a counselor she met 10 years ago during her first rehab. Judy took the second chance to lead Eli to Jesus, but it wasn’t easy. Eli was so broken and so angry that at any time she could self-destruct, but no one gave up on her though.
Judy and some other counselors brought Eli to a prayer service at the Healing Rooms. That’s when Eli experienced great deliverance from her bondage to darkness. “I’ve never felt so free and loved in my life.” That same day, she accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior and surrendered her life completely to Him.
Eli is now free from drugs and suicidal thoughts, and God also healed her of HIV. Through her testimony, the rest of her family got to know Jesus Christ. She is now married and a mother of two. Truly, nothing is impossible in the Lord.
