{"id":83,"date":"2020-03-25T16:55:39","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T16:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/desafiojovem.workmove.pt\/en\/?post_type=history&p=83"},"modified":"2020-03-25T16:56:47","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T16:56:47","slug":"83","status":"publish","type":"history","link":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/history\/83\/","title":{"rendered":"Maria Louren\u00e7o"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My\nname is Maria, and I am a happily married mother of three children. I live in\nCascais, Lisbon, and work as a receptionist for a Christian charity. I\ngraduated the Teen Challenge program 16 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwas admitted to the women\u2019s rehab center in 2002 in a terrible condition,\nphysically and emotionally. My body was ruined because of heroin and cocaine\naddiction, besides all the pills I used to take and without which I couldn\u2019t\nsleep. I entered the Teen Challenge rehab because of the stubbornness of a\nhandful of people who wouldn\u2019t give up on me: the street outreach team of the\nsame charity where I currently work, and the Coffee House workers (Teen\nChallenge supports meetings run by a local church in Cascais). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The street team was the first\nto reach out to me. They used to visit the drug trafficking neighborhood where\nI use to buy drugs. They drove a caravan where beside changing our used\nsyringes and giving us something to eat, they spread hope in the midst of all\nthat degradation. Their words were difficult to hear at first, because I didn\u2019t\nbelieve them. They used to say, \u201cThere\u2019s still time to change your life! God\nloves you and He has a purpose for you and your daughter. You weren\u2019t born to\ndie like this!\u201d I just thought, \u201cHow could God possibly love me after all the\nthings I\u2019ve done?!\u201d But their love and persistence planted two thoughts in my\nmind, “What if it is true what\nthey say about God? Am I throwing away my last chance to change my life?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nfact, I didn\u2019t have anything else to lose\u2026everything was ruined already, so I\ndecided to take a chance and went to the Coffee House meetings to start the\nTeen Challenge rehab admission process. At the coffee house I heard God\u2019s Word\nand my hope grew. The old dreams came back: to have a family, to be a good\nmother for my child, to recover the relationship with my family. And new dreams\nalso start popping up: to be healthy and feel happy again, to have good and\ntrue friendships, to be truly loved and to find a purpose in life. The\npossibility of a whole new life made me stand firm and enter the Teen Challenge\nrehab center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nTeen Challenge rehab program was hard. You have to be willing to go to the\nbottom of yourself and deal with all those things you tried your best to hide\nand numb with drugs. Only when you\u2019re willing to face your own fears and wounds\nand deal with the pain, real healing takes place – from inside out! The lack of\nsuch an approach was what made all my previous recovery attempts fail. My body\ngot cleaner, healthier, but not my heart, my soul and my emotions. My old\n\u201cself\u201d stayed the same – I stopped using drugs, but didn\u2019t change priorities,\ndidn\u2019t change bad friends, didn\u2019t change my relationship with my family\u2026 and\ntherefore, sooner or later I would go back into drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

At\nTeen Challenge it was different. I knew people willing to sacrifice and walk\nwith me. Above all, I learned what made them be like that \u2013 they felt loved,\nhad hope, so they had plenty to give to others. While in Teen Challenge I\ndiscovered their secret. They had had an encounter with God – the true love and\nhope that really fill up the void inside men\u2019s souls, can give us the strength\nto keep walking, above and beyond the hurt. In one of the Teen Challenge\nmeetings I gave my heart to this loving God and I felt His unconditional love\nfor me. It blew me away! It changed my heart!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\nI\u2019m a different person. I live a healthy life; I earned the respect of people\nand found my place in society. I have good friends, have earned the respect of\nmy daughter, recovered the relationship with my family, I married and am a\nmother again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor I know the plans I have\nfor you, declares the LORD, plans of welfare and not for evil, to give a future\nand a hope.\u201d<\/em>\n(Jeremiah 29:11 \u2013 The Bible)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\nwords impacted my life 16 years ago and still impact me today, in all times and\nseasons: happiness and sadness, tears or laughter. I\u2019m simply grateful. \n\nGod is\nfaithful! God is good!\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":84,"template":"","class_list":["post-83","history","type-history","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/history\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/history"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/history"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desafiojovem.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}