“I have hope. I HAVE GOD.”

“In My Cycle of Sobriety and Relapse, God Is the Piece I Was Missing.”

Sharay was alone for much of her childhood. Her single mom worked a lot. Sharay tried to fill her time with extracurricular activities, and she excelled at sports and music. But all she really wanted was to feel loved – and that seemed to be the one thing missing from her life.

“I started looking for love in the wrong places. I never felt accepted by my friends. I never felt good enough. It’s like there was a piece of me that was missing. I didn’t have God in my life,” she says. Sharay turned to drugs to try to fill the void in her heart. By age 14, she was struggling with addiction. Over the following years, there were times when she was doing well – particularly around the births of her children. She wanted to be a good mom for them. But before long, life would throw another disappointment her way, and she’d go back to drugs to cope. 

Sharay knew it would take a long-term program for her life to finally change for good. When her marriage failed and the heartbreak drove Sharay back to drugs yet again, she knew it was the right time. A family member suggested she come to the Reno-Sparks Gospel Mission.“I felt like God was calling me here,” she says.“It was important for me to get close to God and to know Him, because I didn’t have Him in my life before.” 

At the Mission, Sharay found the love and acceptance she’d been searching for all her life. Through mentorship and our recovery program, she healed from her past and gained the tools she needed to move forward as a mother and provider
for her family. “The Mission welcomed me with open arms. They let me come as I was and accepted me,” she says. “I’m just so grateful.”

Sharay is thankful for the way you have answered God’s calling to love your neighbor as yourself – and have helped her learn how to love herself. “I have God, and that’s really all I need. Now I have a lot of hope. I know God loves me.”

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