FAITH

Time To Fly Foundation
Time to Fly a grassroots faith-based organization shares with us several testimonials of God's healing and restoration in the lives of formerly abused women— Be encouraged, there is hope!

MY TTF TESTIMONY
By Glennda Smith

Where do I begin? I suppose from the beginning would be best.

I grew up attending church and was already a believer and follower of Christ when I heard of the Time to Fly Foundation. I was attending a women’s Christian conference when I browsed the program and found a “class” that was not on the original class list; this only made me wonder what this “Time to Fly” was all about? At lunch one day during this 3 day conference, I sat next to a woman that I became connected with. She later shared with me what Time to Fly was and that it was an excellent program for women who had experienced domestic abuse. She recommended that I check it out. I was still unsure about it but when I perused the hallway of classes I was drawn to attending the workshop anyway. It was during this workshop where I realized that it was the Holy Spirit that led me to it and for good reason.

Let me take you back in time even further. I had been involved in a 10-year abusive relationship with my high school boyfriend. At first it only happened a few times but over the course of the next year it occurred more and more frequently and he became very controlling, to the point that I needed his permission to eat lunch with my friends (I was only 18 at this time, a senior in high school). I became further entangled in the web of lies and deceit and ended up moving in with him, sure that I was in love. The fights became so regular that I remember, at only age 19 or 20, coming home from work one evening feeling so down on life wondering “what are we going to fight about tonight?” My self-esteem had hit an all-time low; I no longer viewed myself as the smart, energetic, fun person my family and friends had known me to be. Heck, I was a cheerleader in high school; what cheerleader isn’t energetic? Instead, I saw myself as stupid, unable to make quality decisions, and dependent on him to carry me through life. I was led to believe that, after all the sexual mistakes I had made in life, that nobody else out there would love a person like me. That nobody would love me like he “loved” me. FULL FEATURE