I am CarissaGrace and forever will be.

(Wrote August 20th, 2010. I posted "Accepting my Challenge" instead)

The name CarissaGrace first started about eight months ago. I didn't have a pen name and Carissa is my first name and I chose Grace because God has put so much in my life.There reason there is no space between the two is because at first it looked like my real name, but now there is no space because you should never put a space between you and God. As I started using that name on everything, I started feeling like God was being more and more a part of my life. In fact he was, I was going to youth group and life seemed to be looking up again. It was great and I stopped thinking about everything bad that was in hidden in my past.One of them being the fact my mother had left the year before for drugs and I was living with my alcoholic father who I didn't get along with. My life had purpose and meaning, I had something to look forward to everyday. I went to church every weekend and every Thursday. On the weekends, I would attend all three services because I volunteered for two and watched one. The church I go to has three services; one Saturday night and two Sunday morning.They all have the same sermon just more choices of times to watch it at.As my walk on the path of God became more of a run, I saw one relationship that was holding me back and it was one I never thought I would lose, my boyfriend. As the weeks past, I grew into a deep thought of wonder of what I wanted. I felt more and more pain with each passing day and before I knew it, a month had past and I was crying at least once a day.Then one Wednesday, I was going to middle school youth group and it was over relationships, mainly Christ centered ones. Before we got started though, Marina (one of my Christ moms) and I were talking about what I should do and she said I should talk to  my youth minister about it and I said no. His wife overheard and said," You should try dating Jesus." I'll never forget that. After that girls and boys split up and heard different things.But what made me realize what I had to do was that a mother was arguing with a couple of people there and to share my story about being in a non-Christ relationship and how I felt. I don't know if it changed a life and I don't know if it was helpful but I do know that it made my walk with Christ so much stronger.This is where mt pen name became who I was. I was baptized two months later and found myself so much happier. I don't ever wonder what my life would be if I didn't have Christ because I am more than happy with the life I'm being lead in and I will never regret making that choice of saying yes to temptation or running in the path of God, where sometimes I trip but my church family helps me back up no matter how hard the fall or how long it was.

   Blessing be to you and may you see God everywhere you look, CarissaGrace