Maximizing Your Potential

my future to His keeping. My life is very different because of Him. Through His love and mercy, and the support and encouragement of many brothers and sisters in Christ, I have finally forgiven myself for the wrongs that brought me here. Today I am free because He freed me, and I bring to you the opportunity to find this freedom and forgiveness. “When I first came here, I hated myself. All my life, my family told me that I would never amount to anything. I believed them. When I landed in jail, I fulfilled their prophecies and my own expectations. I assumed that the rest of my life would continue to follow a similar pattern. I learned, however, that they were wrong, and I was wrong. Through the patience and faithfulness of those who helped me to survive within these walls and to make it on the outside, through my study of the Bible, and through my personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I have discovered that I am capable of far more than my family expected of me. “This is true because God created me for a special purpose and placed within me the potential to fulfill all that He planned for my life before I was born. The unfavorable circumstances that surrounded my birth did not change God’s intentions, nor have the wrong choices, broken relationships, and painful experiences of my past destroyed who I yet can be. The talented, worthwhile person with distinct abilities that I have learned to see in myself was inside me all the time, but I had to discover her and release her from the guilt and self hatred that consumed me throughout the early years of my life. “I have also learned that my experience is not unique. The world is filled with men and women whose experiences parallel my own. Both in my counseling practice and after speaking engagements, I have spent hours listening to and sharing with people whose hearts and lives are as burdened as mine were when I first entered these walls. Jesus Christ has given me compassion for them and for you. He has also gifted me with the ability to express that love and concern in a wide variety of settings. “Therefore, I come to you today as a friend who wants to help you become all that you can be. No matter what others have said about you, and what you have believed about yourself, you are a competent, gifted person. I know you may not feel that way, but your feelings are not accurate. You are the beloved daughter of God, created by Him with meticulous care and endowed by Him with everything you need to bless yourself, your family, and, indeed, the entire world. This potential hibernates within you, buried by the actions, attitudes, and lifestyles that brought you here, but it need not remain hidden. You can recover your potential. “I share my story with you not because I have made it by society’s standards, but because I have a passion to free women like us— women who have been