If you have ever heard me speak or have visited "The Body Sculptress" web site, or have shared one-on-one coaching sessions with me, you probably already know about the tragic automobile accident that I was revived from and suffered through. The story goes something like this... in a fatal car accident, revived, told I might never walk again, and am a fitness expert today! That's a great story, but there is more, much more and very few people know the rest of the story. I've decided to share more of the story with you now. Why? Because it's important for my own development as a person and it's important for your development as a person.

We all need to evaluate our life's course from time to time to reflect on how we got to where we are, and this story--my story, which used to shame and embarrass me has transformed in my heart and mind to be one of victory and inspiration. There is too much needless shame and guilt in the world today. I want to help relieve yours. And there just aren't enough real stories of victory and inspiration, so I want to provide one for you. As a health coach, I can't just help people get stronger and leaner physically, I have to help them eliminate the deadly weight of their spirit, too. My hope is that you can take my personal story and at the end of it say, "if she can do it, so can I!"

I grew up poor -- really poor. My mother, a homemaker, and my father, a Naval officer, were divorced when I was very young and my mother was given custody of my sisters and myself.

And although my mother is one of those rare individuals who has a truly loving and genuine spirit, she had to raise us on welfare because she had no education. The amazing thing is that she did it. The hard part is that I knew what welfare was. I heard what other people said about losers and cheaters on welfare and I was embarrassed by my situation.

In addition, once my mother moved us away from my father to another state (to try and keep my father from taking us), he basically abandoned us. I mean if I called or wrote a letter he would respond to me, but he didn't go out of his way to try and have a relationship with us. I don't remember him initiating anything.

So, my mother raised us. She raised 4 of us on her own and if ever there was reason to honor someone, she deserves the utmost honor as, even though she was uneducated and unskilled, she raised us with so much love, respect and compassion that it amazes me to this day. She was the first truly genuine spirit that I encountered on my life's journey. Her love made me feel rich as a little girl and I'll always be thankful for that.

So with a mother who had no choice but to cycle through work and sleep, and an absent father, we were raised without strong role models and pretty much left to ourselves. I had absolutely no idea how professional successful people achieved and maintained that lifestyle, so I had to figure it all out--every single aspect of it, the hard way, on my own.

So how poor were we, really? As an overview, let me just say that I began working to support my family at the age of 12 and have been completely independent since the age of 17.

I remember, for example, being in about 4th grade and going through the lunch line. I had a "free" lunch card because we were so poor we couldn't afford to bring or buy lunches. The school system in Minnesota provided for the poor children and for the most part it was totally confidential, but on this particular day I was hungry and saw another student pick up 2 of something, so I did, too. When I got to the end of the line, where I would present my card to be punched just like everyone else did, the lady at the cash register said very loudly, "You can't get 2 lunches with your FREE card! You'll have to put that back." I wanted to shrink up and die. I was so embarrassed. I had been accused and convicted of being poor right there on the spot in front of everyone and I was ashamed. As far as I can remember, it was only I that noticed. No one else seemed to understand what the meaning of her words was, so I walked on covering up my shame.

In addition, I've always had a sweet spirit and was, therefore, popular in school. My friends had nice houses, would talk about family outings like "The Ice Capades" and shopping trips and family vacations, and looking back no one ever seemed to notice that I never had anything to share in those areas. We never attended such things.

I remember the times that my mother had too many bills to pay and we would survive on boxed mashed potatoes and apples until the next check came in. She did her best to keep milk (often 1/2 and 1/2 made with boxed milk) and apples there for us, and we usually had boxed cereal for breakfast and something from a can for dinner - but not always. Eating with friends, as a result, was always a real treat.

I remember waking up to find bags of groceries on our doorstep, left by some caring "stranger."

I remember being nominated for Homecoming Queen, and scraping up enough coins to buy the least expensive meal at the restaurant that the "court" went to after my friend Amy was crowned. I was the only person at the dinner who didn't order the salad bar as well because I couldn't afford it. They ordered soft drinks. I ordered water.

I remember eating nothing but a bag of carrots that a fellow student left behind when college was let out for the summer. Most people went home. I didn't have a home to go to because I had been independent from the age of 17 and somewhat independent from the age of 12. That big bag of carrots fed me for several days until my first summer pay check arrived.

I remember being offered a kitten as a pet and knowing full well that I wasn't able to feed myself and wouldn't be able, therefore, to care for the kitten.

And I remember my very first real employment at 12 years of age. I became employed as a janitor's assistant in the school system because I had to help my family make ends meet. But I was bright--very bright, and bound and determined to be successful. I didn't want to be poor my whole life and believed that working hard would elevate me to a new level. I mean I made straight "A's" in school. Learning was really easy for me.

As a result, I learned to hide my social embarrassment and developed a "prove-it" mentality.

No one in grade school, at least as far as I know, realized just how poor we were. I was popular, smart, and respected. But they knew I had a job and never went to games and such. I guess they thought that I was just ambitious?

I knew that if I were going to be successful I would have to go to college. No one in my immediate family had ever been, and as far as I knew very few people in my extended family had been. In addition, I didn't know anyone who had gone and so I had no one to talk to about it. I remember sending applications in to many schools and deciding to enroll in "The College of Saint Benedict" because they gave me lots of financial aid and it was an all-female school which would minimize distractions for me (I didn't realize there was a brother school!). I never visited the school prior to moving in because I didn't have a car. Can you imagine that? Anyway I was determined to succeed and made mostly "A's" there, too.

And today, at 38 years of age, I have never shared this complete story with anyone. I have worked very hard to appear and be successful and for the most part people believe I am.

But without knowing how real successful people achieved it, and without being able to see how it was done, I traveled down all of the wrong roads along the way.

For example, in grade school I acted out. I was a tough. No one was going to get the better of me and I was going to have the upper hand. I remember being expelled for showing the principal the wrong finger one time, and for instigating way too much bad behavior in my friends. I don't know if I was angry and resentful and my acting out was a result of that, or if I was trying to keep people distracted from my truth, or I simply fell in with the wrong crowd. In any case, my childhood journey traveled down many wrong roads, roads that kids raised with successful and engaged parents most probably wouldn't travel down.

And college was more of the same. I was in a private school and I was surrounded by "rich" kids -- kids with brand new beautiful cars, kids with beautiful clothes, and kids with parents that came and visited and sent money on a regular basis. None of that was true for me. My family never came -- really. I never received money of any kind from anyone except for the financial aid I earned from being poor, and I worked 2 and 3 jobs at a time to get through it. Like the other kids, however, I partied too much and did things I shouldn't have done, except for the fact that I studied hard in order to make great grades. I was still able to discern that those grades and that education might save me down the line at some point.

Today the path seems more clear, but in my post-collegiate corporate life, I still have many accounts of instances where I lost myself trying to fit in and appear successful, simply because I didn't know the right thing to do. What seems now to be stupid and inappropriate behavior was always because I was trying to do what appeared to be the right thing at the time.

As you can imagine, I was afraid of failure. At any given time homelessness was a real option for me and was always looming as a high probability. Food and the other staples of life were always hard to come by, and because I had to work so hard and was so fearful of failure, I wasn't able to do the social things others did.

There were no trips abroad and no dinners out. There were very few concerts, movies, vacations, shopping trips and other life experiences. And I have almost never had time for friendship since college. When you are working hard to eat and to build a life that will sustain you, it's hard to justify the down time which will enable you to simply talk on the phone with a friend.

In addition, I alienated a lot of people. In my constant drive to ensure my survival, I have always been totally focused on the bottom line. In my corporate existence where my co-workers would participate with each other socially, I almost never did. Remember, I was afraid of being hungry. I always believed that if I worked hard for just a while longer, things would get easier, but they didn't, at least not for a long while.

On top of all of that, or perhaps because of it, I'm not sure, I've had a very large number of success-turned-tragedy experiences.

For example, I remember when I was just 12 years old and very popular in school, my mom took us to a local Baptist church. I loved it. I loved that I found God, I loved learning the Word, and I loved sharing it with my friends and schoolmates. In fact, I shared my experience with so many people (which is still typical of me today) that the tiny church had to buy a real school bus to begin to carry all of the people that became involved in the youth group. But tragedy struck. I was caught smoking at school once and the church found out. I was a member and they had certain policies they used when members were found to be "sinning." I was told to go before the whole church, confess my sin, and ask for forgiveness. I was 12 years old and had to stand in front of the entire congregation at the podium and do this--crying like a baby.

Then it happened again. My family had gone into town on a hot summer's day and I had worn a tube-top--remember them? Well, one of the members saw me and reported it as a sin. I was told again to go through the confession process, only this time I refused. I couldn't bear the thought of it. I just couldn't do it. And do you know what happened? As a 12-year-old child I was ostracized. My membership was removed and the parents of the church were told to keep their children away from me. The kids told me they couldn't talk to me any more. Eventually my mother quit bringing us as a result and I understand that the church fell apart soon afterward due to how I was treated. Can you believe it? It's true--every word of it. As a 12-year-old I was condemned at the house of God I loved because I wore a tube top into town.

Another really sad story is when my family didn't acknowledge my college graduation. I worked so hard to put myself through it and was so proud of myself for my work, my grades, and finishing in 4 years that it was the proudest day of my life. But no one came. No one wrote, no one called, and no one came. I don't think anyone understood what it meant to me, first of all, and secondly, no one could afford to come. My mother and sisters had moved to South Carolina prior to my High School graduation, and they couldn't afford to travel back. It was the proudest day of my life, and the saddest to date. I remember "escaping" while my friends were being photographed and hugged by their families, to my room, closing and locking the door, and crying like a baby--silently so that no one would hear. The parties were right in the next room. The revelers were all over the house and I stayed silently locked in my room. I couldn't bear their questions. I couldn't bear my loneliness. No one knew I was there. I felt completely and utterly alone. And you know, that feeling has been with me for a long, long time. It has always been do or die--literally. It was either me making it happen, or it wasn't happening. It was either find a job, or become homeless. Life has always been hard--really hard.

And then there was my accident just three months later. I got a job selling life insurance right out of college, which was terrific! That meant that I wouldn't be homeless. I had found an income stream and I could relax a little bit, BUT as seemed to be my luck, within 3 months of graduating from college with visions of grandeur I was in a fatal car accident. I was revived, but spent the next 6 months in a wheel chair. I had no insurance! I had no disability! I had no family support, and I couldn't work. I had shattered both ankles, injured tendons and ligaments, had serious gashes, road burn, and bruises all over my body, and had broken off my teeth. It was so bad in fact that friends that came to see me afterward literally ran out of the room covering their mouths to keep the vomit in until they could get to a basin. How is that for encouragement? This was a really bad thing. I was completely disabled with no income and no support. And I was so scared. Fear. Reality. Broken and battered. Survival. Do or die.

I was 23 years old and as a result of this serious accident, I had to file bankruptcy to alleviate the incredible financial burden that resulted. All of the hard work in college fell away. Everything I had done to ensure my success couldn't save me. I had hit bottom regardless. I had to file bankruptcy and it broke my heart. I was ashamed and embarrassed and held this tightly as a secret until just recently. But it was still do or die. I had to survive. So I began to sell insurance from my bed-- telemarketing.

Then the next tragedy struck. I was fired from my job. My commissions weren't enough to justify my draw. How could they be? And I was told that my employer had no choice but to let me go. Blow upon blow upon blow. I somehow managed to get through that on top of everything else, and when I got into two walking casts, I began to sell postage meters and copiers for Pitney Bowes. The pain and agony were nothing compared to the desperation from fear of hunger and homelessness.

Then, if you can believe it, the new job fell apart. I did well, really well as usual, earning a better-than-anyone-ever score on the postal exam and selling my training meters faster than anyone and more, but there were "personality differences" probably associated with my fear-turned-blind-ambition and resulting alienation of those who could help me. So when a financial settlement from my accident came through I quit my job and spent the next two years doing nothing but medicating my injuries in all the wrong ways.

So how did I survive all of this? That's a really good question. I think that one of the really helpful things is that there have always been angels of love and deliverance. There was always my mom. She always said, "honey, you can do anything you set your mind to." Her love was always there and I fault her with nothing. She did the best she could, always wanting to do more, and feeling guilty that she couldn't. Her love was always there for me and I thank God for her. In fact, she saved me after the 2 years of unemployment after Pitney Bowes. She scraped up enough money to come and visit me and her love pulled me out of the hole which my life had become. She convinced me to move to South Carolina where I could reacquaint myself with my family, and I did.

Then there were always teachers who really believed in me and encouraged me to move upward. There were MANY music teachers who I am so grateful to even today, and there was a "brother" (monk) at St. John's University who heard I was surviving on a bag of left-behind carrots who gave me money for groceries. There was an economics professor who described me as "a shining star who would go far."

And there were people who just miraculously appeared and cared for me. Like Cindy. I didn't even know Cindy. I had seen her in college and probably spoke to her once or twice, but when she heard about my accident she came to my home and took it upon herself to care for me. She changed my bedding and washed my clothes and literally picked me up and carried me out to her car and transferred me in and out of my wheelchair so that I could get out and go places. She was a real angel. I don't know why she did what she did. I never will. Our friendship fell apart later, but I'll always be truly grateful for her love and care during that time. She was the only person I had and I don't know what I would have done without her.

There were employers and supervisors, too, who believed in me. The owners of the department store I worked at in high school wanted to adopt me. But at the time, I told them that I had a family, I wasn't an orphan (looking back I truly was), and that that was just really strange. They did really nice things for me like let me have clothes for free and things like that. And there were certain managers throughout my corporate career who pulled me aside and told me I didn't need to work so hard to prove myself--that my work was amazing and that I was headed on a long as prosperous road and that they believed in me. You know, because this sort of thing was an exception rather than a rule, I was always SO INCREDIBLY appreciative when it came, and still am today. They will never know how much their care and words affected my life and pulled me up.

Another angel of love and deliverance has been the "Kenneth Copeland Ministries." I found them on television when I was alone in a little trailer in South Carolina and have kept them close now for 13 years. In fact I just saw them in person yesterday for the very first time at their Greensboro Victory Campaign 2003. Their messages of God's love and financial prosperity reached back then and brought me into a new realization of God's love. I'll share more of that in a moment, but first there's another angel I need to tell you about.

Michael Castronova. My Michael. My soul mate. My treasure. My finance'. Michael is my lifetime angel. Michael's love came to me on the internet as a pen pal at "Matchmaker.com." For 3 months I poured out the heartache of my life to him, a stranger, and we fell in love through our letters--deeply, spiritually, totally in love. Michael has shown me what love is. Like my mom, he has a genuinely open and beautiful spirit that envelops me in sweet, tender, merciful love. I'm learning so much from him and am looking forward to spending the rest of my life with him, yes, just as soon as there is enough extra money to afford the rings and the special ceremony. It's still a financial struggle, for him, too, but there's peace now because of the rest of the story.

I have peace now simply because of God's love and my own learned ability to trust Him.

I found God at the age of 12 in the little Baptist church that eventually ostracized me. God didn't. They did. And sometimes I wonder if it's been Satan all this time working to steal, kill, and destroy me and my life because of what I'm going to do for people, in Christ's name, now and for the rest of my life. I can't imagine anyone can have as much bad luck as I've had (I've just shared a portion with you). So I do tend to believe it's been the battle for my spirit that has been waged against me this whole time, and because of my own ignorance, I have been an unwilling participant.

Through it all, or perhaps because of it, my relationship with God my Father has been strong and growing. Remember that I didn't have much of a family to speak of and didn't have an earthly father to guide me. So when I found out about Him and His love, I adopted Him as my father in a way that most people don't because they don't need to. Do you know what I'm saying? Think of all the things you go to your earthly father for. I went to my heavenly father--for everything. When I was totally alone, He was the only one I had to turn to.

I have heard His voice from the start and have spoken with Him about everything. I remember crying to Him one day about love. I said, "But when is it my turn? Where is my husband? Why don't I have love?" And he said, "Rest child, he's already yours. Just be patient" as I had a vision of a man with black hair and green eyes. It took about 12 years for the vision to manifest itself, but Michael, my angel Michael has black hair and green eyes.

I can remember that conversation clearly, but there have been so many daily conversations, so much heavenly interaction and intervention, so many things to comfort and inspire me over so many years that I can't recall other specifics except for the recent ones that I'll share in a moment.

Let me just say for now that God really is love. He's real, He speaks and He wants to love you, but you have to let Him. You have to call on Him. That's where our free will comes into play. He won't impose Himself, but waits to be invited. And then, like every other relationship, you need to take the time to get to know Him through spending time with Him -- in prayer and in His word, the bible. If you think about the sweetest, most unconditional love you have ever received, His love is millions of times greater than that. It's simply more than I can imagine, but Michael is helping me understand it. God's love is available to you. He wants to give it to you. You just have to decide that you want it and seek it for yourself.

Those of you who know me know that I have my own business now, "The Body Sculptress." God has led me into it. I'm helping others now, and it brings me so much joy. I give and receive love and appreciation all the time now, and have financial reward as never before. The struggle still exists, but the agony is gone. As an example let me close with this story.

I had a record business month in May of 2003. Then in June of 2003, one after another of my clients thanked me for helping them change their lives and let me know they were knowledgeable and strong enough to try to exercise their new lifestyle on their own. My expected income for June fell about 75% in the course of about 5 days. When I was younger I would have had an anxiety attack. Back only 5 years ago I would have felt like I just fell into the abyss, but now I just smile knowingly. I know now, because I can look back and see Him, that God has been with me this whole time. I love the "Footprints" story because it is so true. He carried me back and forth to work when I had on two casts. He wrapped me up in His own arms when I needed love so desperately. One by one He has calmed each and every one of my fears in so many different ways, and I trust Him completely now. In fact, rather than worrying about my lost revenue I got down on my knees and said the following:

"Father, I want to thank you that I have food in the refrigerator. I want to thank you that I have Michael's love and that you provide me with so many people to bless, and I want to thank you for what's to come--for flowers in the house and a constantly full birdfeeder, for a wedding and honeymoon, for consistent income, for bank accounts, and for enough left over to give generously to others. So I rebuke worry and fear, in Jesus' name, as I just sit quietly here at your throne waiting for your voice…."

I get choked up every time I replay that in my mind. He not only told me that there would be flowers and a wedding, but he used the word "WONDERS." What does that mean? And who am I going to meet? And FOOD! I've struggled to keep food in my home for my whole life and he cared enough to include a line about food. And people. I believe that means I'm going to have enough free time to have friends, and am going to amazing places to meet incredible people. Can you see how beautiful and caring He is? Can you see how tender and total His love is? I invite you to sit back and watch, too, as He proves Himself once again in my life. At one point I'll write again and detail how each line has come true.

For now, though, let me just say, that if I can overcome all of this, where ever you are in your life's journey, what ever your circumstance, and whatever you wish to achieve, you can, too. And God is waiting to help you, as am I.

Are you a survivor? Do you have a story that will inspire others? If you do, I invite you to share it. You'll feel absolutely wonderful in telling it and you might just change another person's life for the better. enter The Body Sculptress' Confession and Inspiration Forum.