Getting to Know Me

Starting at the beginning is always really hard, but I don't want to just start giving out advice without you guys know who I am.

My name is Sarai and I live in Tasmania, Australia. I was born into a Christian home and things went pear-shaped from there. I started self-harming when I was 12 and had struggled with issues of belonging from a very young age. I went to a variety of schools, public, private, home school... I struggled with bullying, and had very few (read none) friends. 

I tried a variety of ways to solve the issue, being a good Christian girl who didn't want to kill herself and wanted desperately to do the right thing. So I read the Bible cover to cover. I tried pastors, counsellors, social workers, doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists. I tried meditation, visualisation, alcohol, medication, illicit drugs, and anything else anyone offered. 

Finally, the attempts on my life became more serious and I ended up in a psychiatric facility for a period of three months. I was out of options and low on hope. I was transferred from the hospital to the House of Hope, a group of Christian women running a facility for people like me who had a commitment to getting better. By this stage, I wanted it desperately and felt beyond hopeless. So I said to God that he had one week to bring some hope back into my life or I was done. I didn't want to kill myself but I felt like I was out of options and I couldn't keep going the way I was. Within a week, I'd started changing for the better. God moved in big and exciting ways over the next three months and I found myself twenty years old and a brand new person, scars gone, hope restored, full of love. 

There's so much more to the story, of course, because there always is. But it's just the brief outline.

So fast forward to the present and I'm 24 years old and I live with the two people I love the most in the world, my amazing husband and my beautiful sister. I'm currently studying to be a teacher librarian. I'm not perfect, and I'm not always right, but I figure when God gives you a passion for writing and talking about your faith and young people, you should do something about it.

If you want to talk to me there are two ways to do it:
Tumblr
Email

And I promise next Friday's post will be about issues, not just about me!

God Bless and Rock On!

Sarai.