I write today just shy of a year since coming to The Father's Ranch. My story is similar to many. I started in a pit of sin while I was 13 years old, when an injury put me on the bench for 6 weeks. Wanting to stay "in shape" for my return at mid season, I began to cut back on my food intake. It was a "diet." Soon I not only avoided portions of meals, but all of a meal was restricted. I was choosing a very slippery slope. With my freshman year starting soon I was nervous, and as a way to further numb myself, I began to cut on myself. By my sophomore year, I had learned I could throw up the food I ate. I started purging the food that I did eat, and also abusing laxatives. It only got worse. During the middle of my junior year, I got a job at a local health club and began exercising between 6-7 hours a day. In one way or another, I justified my exercising and hid it from others. During this time, I started attending an Evangelical church. Here I grew in my knowledge of God, but that is all that it was. I thought I had put my trust in Him, and was soon baptized. I had believed and understood, but did not trust Him with everything. My continued life of habitual sin was evidence that I was not saved. After family, friends, and colleagues made numerous attempts to help me, the behaviors didn't change. My first hospital stay was at an eating disorder hospital ward. I was admitted the day before I turned 18. It was here I learned of the damage I was doing to my heart. At one point along the way, I had a registered heart rate of 28, along with awful rhythms. (A normal person's rate is 60-100.) My health had deteriorated. My behavior still wasn't changing, and after a couple more hospital stays, the next step was a residential center in Wisconsin. I didn't respond to the treatment there, and ended up coming back to a different hospital in Illinois. I was put on a feeding tube for 4 months there. Around this time, the Medical and Psych meds that I was on had reached double digits in total. I was released from that hospital, and spent the summer in an outpatient program. Then September came, and my grandmother died. With my house being built on a sandy foundation, it cracked and so did I (Matthew 7:24-27, Luke 6:46-49). I tried to take my life a week later. I spent time in an ICU, and then at another psych ward. It was decided that I was a danger to myself. I couldn't be trusted to live at home, and be safe at the same time. My family and friends were at a complete loss of how they could help or how I could get better. Over the next 9 months, I lived in 2 different nursing homes, and was in and out of 3 more psych wards. In June 2007, I was told to find a residential place that could take me. I had no other options. It was then that I called The Father's Ranch for the first time, and two weeks later I found my self on my way to Tonasket, WA. During my first three weeks here, I was broken and convicted of the sin I was living in. I accepted Christ as LORD and Savior of my life. Since then my life is completely different. I live for His glory instead of mine. He has continually shown me that His Strength is revealed in my weakness. I must rely on Him for strength, instead of my own worldly might. (II Cor. 12:9) He has blessed me with salvation, forgiveness, and the promise of Glory, to enjoy and worship Him forever. I stand today with extremely minimal health problems due to my life of sin. I am completely drug free. He is truly Jehovah Rapha. He has blessed me with my family's forgiveness, and continues to constantly restore our relationship. He has given me a family at TFR, and love that I could have never imagined. I have always enjoyed sports, but now I play for His honor and glory. He is an amazing, gracious, and merciful God. It is a privilege to serve Him. Thank you for supporting the Father's Ranch in so many ways, and giving so many the opportunity to have a life restored by the Almighty Creator. I am completely undeserving, and it has been such a blessing. To God be the Glory!

---Katie