Welcome to my story! Some of you may know the surface Sandra, but there is a past that has made me into the person I am today.
I was raised in a Catholic home. It was very strict, legalistic, religious and traditional. I always felt a calling from God and did pray at times, studied my Catholic book of prayers, and even made it to do my communion in a beautiful white dress, but things didn't seem right. At that time, I did not know about salvation and thought if you believed in God and did good things, you would go to heaven. I did not agree with how another human could take such a Godly position to take confession, etc. Eventually I looked into visiting other churches of no denomination. I felt there was more to God than what I was seeing! I found Northwest Christian church in Acworth, Ga. and finally understood salvation! I got saved and baptized there in 2009. It was during some really hard times with my husband that God used to drive me to Him. The following year my mother Maria passed away which was very hard on my sister and I! She was such a great mom who if it wasn't for her and how persistent she was with us in attending church, bible studies, and youth group I don't believe I would have come to know Christ. I know the Lord used her well.
I'm a survivor of sexual abuse as a child which affected my self esteem and how I viewed men in general for years to come. I was an introverted child growing up, looked to food to fill my sadness and insecurities which caused me to be overweight. Then, that started a cycle of yo yo dieting as I was never satisfied with who I was and how I felt. I attempted to fill the void with the love of others (males in particular), get in shape to be viewed as a better person and for others to accept me. After the birth of my 4th daughter, I was very overweight and went on a mission to finally lose the weight in a healthy manner that involved good nutrition and exercise AKA hard work! After losing 50 pounds, I started looking for the next challenge and set a goal to compete in bodybuilding in the figure category. This went on and off for several years; kept me busy fulfilling a short lived emptiness, but the feeling of being important and beautiful on stage was addictive. I felt REDEEMED from my past low self esteem! In the meanwhile my then marriage was crumbling and falling apart. Christ was definitely not the center of our marriage and it showed. I met him when I was 19 and at age 36 I finally said enough and gave up on our marriage and filed for divorce. I met Jeff my current husband in 2013 who was also in bodybuilding, but we did not meet in that world. We fell in love and felt a deep connection that we haven't felt with anyone else. We dated for awhile, competed together with much success, got married in 2017 and both attainted our IFBB pro cards the following year in 2018 just 60 days apart! We were very obsessed with this hobby and did not give God the attention we were designed to give him. We were totally living in the flesh to say the least! Problems arose during these years and even so bad to say that we were close to ending our marriage with yet another divorce. Then things really started to change around the time Covid-19 hit and we gave bodybuilding up and other fleshy things up. Praise the Lord, we heard his voice and started seeking Him in our lives. Things completely turned around when we surrendered our lives to our Savior as Lord of our lives. He has been changing our hearts and we have never felt so much peace and closeness to God. I looked for joy and happiness in man and the acceptance of others, but the entire time I failed to realize that only JESUS CHRIST can fill our voids and free us from bondage!
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